Space, Planets and eclipses

[JustKelli]

Here is what the solar eclipse from July 2nd in South America looked like from a private flight on an observation plane. This is near midday btw

[JustKelli]

I am intrigued with this one and although pricey I think it would be a bucket list event ...

Virgin Galactic's Space Flights Will Take Off From the New Mexico Desert

And they're aiming for this year.




Virgin Galactic may be sending the first commercial tourists to space from New Mexico by the end of the year.

Richard Branson’s space tourism company announced last week that it will move headquarters from Mojave California to*Spaceport America, New Mexico.

“The first photograph of Earth from space was taken over New Mexico in October of 1946,” George Whitesides, CEO of Virgin Galactic and The Spaceship Company, said in a statement. “How inspiring and appropriate that the state will soon host the first regular commercial spaceflight service, which will enable thousands of people to see Earth from space with their own eyes.”

As part of the move, Virgin Galactic will transplant more than 100 employees and their families, plus the aircraft VMS Eve and spaceship VSS Unity over the summer. Virgin Galactic still must finalize the cabin design for its rocket ships before final test flights begin.

Spaceport America is the first purpose-built commercial spaceport in the world, located in the middle of the New Mexico desert, near the town of Truth or Consequences. The launch would make New Mexico one of the few places in the world to host regular human flights to space.

Virgin Galactic is planning a small number of final test flights in New Mexico but declined to reveal a date when commercial spaceflights will begin. In February, Virgin Galactic completed its*first passenger test flight to suborbital space.

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Exploring Florida is about to get easier.

Virgin Galactic’s missions to space have been widely publicized and hotly anticipated over the past few years, but the launch dates have kept getting delayed.*

Among the first people on board the flights*will be celebrities like Justin Bieber and Leonardo DiCaprio, who have already paid for their $250,000 tickets. Branson himself wants to be on the first commercial flight, which he previously hoped would happen in July, to coincide with the*50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 launch.

“Our future success as a species rests on the planetary perspective,”*Branson told*USA Today. “The perspective that we know comes sharply into focus when that planet is viewed from space.

[rbn]

Here are some shots I took a couple of years ago and posted in another Eclipse thread
http://veterperementour.ru/showpost.php?p=15402573

[JustKelli]

^^^^^^^^^ Interesting images in that post thanks for adding.

This thread is going to steer toward planets more than eclipses if some have patience ... but here is good info for amateur astronomers.

3 Eclipses Are Coming to North America in the Next 5 Years — Here's When and Where to See Them

Tuesday's totality was the first of two in a row in South America, but North America will get solar eclipses in 2021, 2023 and 2024.


Everyone’s going eclipse-crazy. The first total solar eclipse since August 2017’s “Great American Eclipse,”*Tuesday's*dramatic*eclipse in the southern hemisphere*reminded many North Americans of the events of that summer day two years ago. This stunning celestial event is a great excuse to travel, but did you know that North America is now in a “golden age” of solar eclipses?

What is a solar eclipse?

Despite the sun being roughly 400 times larger than the moon, it’s also about 400 times further away from Earth. The moon’s orbit of Earth is tilted slightly from the path the sun takes through our sky, but it does intersect. Just occasionally, a new moon gets exactly between Earth and the sun, and a solar eclipse occurs.

When is the next eclipse in North America?

The next solar eclipse that will*be visible from North America is coming*on June 10, 2021 when a partial solar eclipse will be viewable from the north-eastern U.S. and Canada. The experience will be a little like in 2017, with solar eclipse glasses essential throughout the event, though this one happens at sunrise. Those in New York and Boston will have to be awake at 5:30 a.m. to see a 73-percent eclipsed sun appear on the eastern horizon. Montreal and Ottawa, Canada will see an 80-percent*eclipsed sun. However, the epicenter*is in Ontario, Canada, where the event will be a rather special “Ring of Fire” eclipse, also known as an annular solar eclipse.

What is an annular solar eclipse?

It’s when the moon doesn’t quite cover the sun because it’s at the furthest point from Earth in its slightly elliptical monthly orbit, so it’s smaller in the sky. What observers in*a narrow path across Earth’s surface*see will be a perfect circle of light around the moon, though solar eclipse glasses*must be worn at all times. Unless you can get to the ultra-remote Baffin Bay or Northwestern Passages, the best place to be on June 10, 2021 will be*Polar Bear Provincial Park*in Ontario, Canada, where a perfect Ring of Fire will last for 3 minutes and 33 seconds from 5:57 a.m. with 94 percent*of the sun obscured.

A “Ring of Fire” rehearsal

On Oct. 14, 2023, another annular solar eclipse will occur in North America. This time it will be*much easier to see than in 2021, with another Ring of Fire lasting over four minutes*visible across the western U.S.*from Oregon through Nevada, Utah, Texas, New Mexico, as well as in Mexico, Belize, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama, Columbia and Brazil. Key tourist attractions crossed by this eclipse include Edzná, a Mayan temple in Mexico, and in the U.S., Oregon’s Crater Lake National Park, Capitol Reef National Park in Utah, and Arizona’s Monument Valley.

Los Angeles will see a 70-percent*eclipsed sun at 9:24 a.m. while Las Vegas will see 82 percent, Denver 78 percent, Chicago 42 percent, Washington D.C. 29 percent, and New York 23 percent at 1:22 a.m. However, the epicenter of this event is going to be Texas, which will not only have a good chance of clear weather, but will also be staging a dress rehearsal for a much bigger, more important eclipse coming up just six months later. Austin will see an 88 percent*partial solar eclipse at 11:54 a.m. while San Antonio will see an exact Ring of Fire. Lost Maples State Natural Area in Texas will also see that spectacle… and just six months later, it will see a “proper’” total solar eclipse.

Great North American Eclipse*of 2024

This is the one to get excited about and, if you get yourself beneath a clear sky, it will provide you with that long transcendental totality you always wanted. Called the “Great North American Eclipse” because it also crosses Canada and Mexico, the events of April 8, 2024 could be era-defining unforgettable. At lunchtime*totality will sweep across*Mazatlán, Durango, and Coahuila in Mexico, then Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Missouri, Illinois, Kentucky, Indiana, Ohio, New York, Vermont, and Maine, ending over New Brunswick and Newfoundland in Canada.

Austin and Dallas, Texas, will enjoy totality for over four minutes (twice that of 2017’s “Great American Eclipse”), and only slightly less will be visible from Indianapolis, Niagara Falls, and Montreal. Just like in 2017, anyone standing outside of the 100 miles-wide path of totality will see a partial solar eclipse. New York will see an 89-percent*eclipsed sun, while Los Angeles will see 49 percent, Las Vegas 51 percent, Denver 65 percent, Washington D.C. 87 percent, Columbus, Ohio 99 percent, and San Antonio, Texas a staggeringly close 99.9 percent.*However, these are not the places to remain in… get yourself to the path of totality. Less than 100 percent*might as well be 0 percent

[rbn]

Although a lot of images don't load anymore, this thread is a comprehensive look at the our planets and the universe
http://veterperementour.ru/t39646-thi...verse-erg.html

Your interest in space intrigues me.
I was travelling around New Mexico and many of the residents / business people I spoke with seemed enthusiastic about Virgin conducting these flights. They've had a rocky start but hopefully they will get a solid program down. I didn't see any test launches while I was there. That would have been pretty cool.

[JustKelli]

Originally Posted by rbn

Although a lot of images don't load anymore, this thread is a comprehensive look at the our planets and the universe
http://veterperementour.ru/t39646-thi...verse-erg.html

Your interest in space intrigues me.
I was travelling around New Mexico and many of the residents / business people I spoke with seemed enthusiastic about Virgin conducting these flights. They've had a rocky start but hopefully they will get a solid program down. I didn't see any test launches while I was there. That would have been pretty cool.

They are free to merge this thread at any time, it just annoys me when I have to manually search through a ton of old thread pages to see if I am stepping on toes which is not my intention but the fact the search engine here sucks shit lol for lack of a better phrase I could shut up and go away or continue to get warnings in my inbox until something gives.

Anyway I will look through your link to the thread with anticipation and yes I am truly fascinated with the heavens and more so in the last year as I look for signs from my man ...





NASA Plans to Open the International Space Station to Tourists —*but a Visit Won't Be Cheap


NASA might not be just about research and scientific discovery in the future. Instead, it might be another travel opportunity for the tourists out there.

According to the*BBC, NASA is planning to open the International Space Station for commercial businesses, including ones from the tourism industry, beginning in 2020. In addition, the space agency said in a*statement*that it is partnering with 11 companies to create 14 commercial facilities to aid in research and development projects.

Up until now, NASA has banned commercial flights to the ISS, according to BBC. However, since the station is not owned by one single country, tourists have gone there before, such as Dennis Tito, who paid the Russian government $20 million for a trip in 2001, the BBC reported.

But it comes as no surprise that NASA is easing up on their policies, considering that the Trump administration has proposed canceling three missions in 2020, according to*Space.com.*

NASA’s new plan will allow two private astronauts to the space station per year at a fairly steep price of $35,000 per night, according to*The New York Times. Tourist missions may last up to 30 days, the agency said in a statement.

However, NASA is not using its own equipment or rockets to send tourists to the ISS. Instead, it is partnering with private companies, namely Elon Musk’s*Space X*and*Boeing, to use their own modules to send up tourists, which means private astronauts may also have to pay extra hefty prices for their flights.*No one ever said staying in*space hotels*would be cheap.

This new venture into space tourism could mean some financial security for the agency, which plans to send the first woman and the next man to the moon by 2024 as part of a long-term goal of eventually reaching Mars, according to the statement.

[JustKelli]

Having inherited an investment company I pretty much got the jump on this one last year but if you have a few extra bucks to play with read along ... but be warned, one wrong move or a craft ending up stranded in space or a "bad landing" and the stock will go in the toilet faster than they can close the lid lol!!!



Virgin Galactic Is Entering the Stock Exchange — and That’s Great News for Space Tourists

BY*CAILEY RIZZO

JULY 09, 2019


Virgin Galactic, the space tourism company headed by Sir Richard Branson, is set to become the first publicly-traded company with plans to send people to space. While that may not seem like the most exciting news, it means that Virgin Galactic is more likely than ever to continue on track with its space tourism plans.

The company has agreed to sell*49 percent to a shell company (called*Social Capital Hedosophia) listed on the New York Stock Exchange. That company’s investment should generate about $800 million before Virgin Galactic attempts its first spaceflight with passengers,*according to*Bloomberg. By merging with an existing company, Virgin Galactic’s transition to becoming a publicly-traded company is less risky than going it alone.

“We know that millions of people are deeply inspired by human spaceflight, would love to become more involved and, ultimately experience space for themselves,”*Branson wrote in a statement. “By taking Virgin Galactic public, at this advanced point in its development, we can open space to more investors and in doing so, open space to thousands of new astronauts.”

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Virgin Galactic believes that this public investment would allow the company to operate its spaceflights until a time when they become profitable.

The 90-minute flight experience*includes a few minutes of weightlessness and enough distance to see the curvature of the Earth. Despite its $250,000 price tag, more than 600 people have already signed up for a future space flight,*the company said in a statement. This backlog of customers would single-handedly double the number of humans who have entered space.

Earlier this year, Virgin Galactic announced it was moving operations from California to the New Mexico desert and that*it could send its first tourists to space by the end of the year.

Branson’s company is in competition with Blue Origin (owned by Jeff Bezos) and SpaceX (owned by Elon Musk). Blue Origin aims to send commercial passengers to the moon by 2024 and SpaceX is hoping to get people on the surface of Mars that same year. (But take that date with a bit of salt. In 2017,*Blue Origin said it could be taking people to space by 2018.)

[alexora]

Originally Posted by Smokin'34

Branson’s company is in competition with Blue Origin (owned by Jeff Bezos) and SpaceX (owned by Elon Musk). Blue Origin aims to send commercial passengers to the moon by 2024 and SpaceX is hoping to get people on the surface of Mars that same year. (But take that date with a bit of salt. In 2017,*Blue Origin said it could be taking people to space by 2018.)

Hey, Pan-Am was selling tickets to the Moon back in 1969:



Notice how the number on that card is 1043: did they actually believe, 50 years ago, that they could land that many people on the Lunar Surface...?

Pan-Am wound down way back in 1991.

[JustKelli]

Originally Posted by alexora

Hey, Pan-Am was selling tickets to the Moon back in 1969:



Notice how the number on that card is 1043: did they actually believe, 50 years ago, that they could land that many people on the Lunar Surface...?

Pan-Am wound down way back in 1991.

That is almost creepy as I was just about to get to that nugget lol. Thanks for posting the image and saving me the trouble but here's the article i was going to post as a cautionary tale ...

When Pan Am Promised to Fly Us to the Moon

The extinct airline's moon project never got off the ground, but it can teach us plenty about today's commercial space race.


In 1964, Austrian journalist Gerhard Pistor walked into a Vienna travel agency with a simple proposition. He’d like to fly to the moon, and if possible, he’d like to fly there on Pan Am.

The travel agency, presumably dumbfounded by this request, decided to simply do its job and make the ask: It forwarded the impossible request to the airline, the legend goes, where it attracted the attention of Juan Trippe, the notoriously brash and publicity-thirsty CEO of Pan American World Airways, the world’s most popular airline. Trippe saw a golden opportunity, and the bizarre request gave birth to a brilliant sales ploy that cashed in on the growing international obsession with human spaceflight: Pan Am was going to launch commercially operated passenger flights to the moon. Or, at least, that’s what it was going to tell everyone.

In hindsight, it’s beyond ludicrous. NASA wouldn’t land men on the moon for five more years; the promise of lunar getaways on a jetliner sounds like a marketing scam at worst, and the most preposterous extension of 1960s techno-optimism at best. And yet, in a striking parallel to today’s commercial space race, would-be customers put down their names on a waiting list for their chance to go to space, joining Pan Am’s “First Moon Flights” Club.

If history is a guide, then Virgin Galactic, SpaceX and Blue Origin should be cautious. Pan Am dissolved in 1991 without ever getting close to launching a spacecraft. Even when it promised the moon and the stars, the airline was far closer to financial oblivion than it was to the cosmos.

Anything Is Possible

“I think it has to be seen in the context of the sixties. Everything seemed possible in the sixties, technologically,” says Bob Gandt, a former Pan Am pilot and the*author of*Sky Gods. That’s why he and other pilots picked Pan Am, after all, when they could have flown for any airline. “We chose Pan Am because they had this wonderful promise.”

With its lunar dream, the airline tapped into a collective euphoria sparked by such milestones as NASA’s Saturn V rocket and later Neil Armstrong’s trek across the moon’s surface. The Space Race was in full swing, and the United States was determined to best the Soviet Union in its pursuit of interstellar glory. Science fiction novels depicted a*lunar surface crowded with colonies, while scientific studies waded into*humanity’s inevitable spacefaring future, characterized by lunar crop fields and encounters with aliens.

In other words, everything was in place for Pan Am’s moon mania. Pistor’s initial moon-flight booking spawned a craze that would ultimately see Pan Am field 100,000 moon reservation requests under its First Moon Flights Club, which finally closed in 1971. All members were given cards with a number—an indication of one’s place on the ever-growing queue of layman astronauts.

And then Pan Am got a little boost from Hollywood.

2001: A Space Odyssey

Before the Star Child, before the monolith, before HAL 9000’s rendition of “Daisy,” came a detail you might have missed about Stanley Kubrick’s science-fiction epic,*2001: A Space Odyssey.*It had product placement for Pan Am’s moon ambitions.

In one scene, the fictional Pan Am “Space Clipper”—emblazoned with the carrier’s unmistakable logo—docks inside a gigantic space station miles above Earth. The image delivered a stirring visual of Pan Am’s idea, and also convinced more than a few Americans that the airline’s moonshot was legit.

Jeff Gates, an early member of the First Moon Flights Club, recalled his impression of the scene in an*article for*Smithsonian,*writing that the movie “made that future easy to imagine. With flight attendants preparing food and attending to passengers, everything but the view out the window was something I had already experienced.”

Margaret Weitekamp, curator of the space history department at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, echoes Gates’ assessment. She told Popular Mechanics:

“I think if people were excited about a First Moon Flight Club they also may have been inspired by this vision of Pan Am flying paying passengers up to an orbiting space station that they had just seen so persuasively illustrated in*2001.”

Kubrick’s space masterpiece came out in 1968, just as NASA’s triumphs in the real world added an element of realism to Pan Am’s dream. The moon landing, for one, opened the floodgates for prospective astronauts around the world.

"There was a steady, albeit small, flow of requests for reservations after Mr. Pistor's inaugural booking," Peter McHugh, Pan Am's senior vice president of marketing*told the*Florida Sun Sentinel*in 1989. "The real deluge came after the successful Apollo 8 mission on December 22, 1968, and the lunar landing of the Apollo 11 on July 20, 1969. During those months, the concept of scheduled passenger service to the moon quickly shifted from science fiction to the realm of the possible."

The moon landing wasn’t the only thing getting the public excited. By the late '60s, aviation in general had evolved from a niche and expensive luxury into a massive commercial industry enjoyed by middle class families. The remarkable change from dangerous and flimsy aircraft to the modern airliners we know today came about in just three decades, says Weitekamp. The blinding pace of innovation lent credence to the belief that Pan Am could very well deliver on its futurist promises.

[JustKelli]

If you think you can avoid aging by going to the moon think again lol!

The Moon Is Getting Smaller and Wrinklier — Here's Why

The physical effects of aging on a human body are universal: our skin gets wrinklier, we get smaller. Apparently, the moon is aging the same way.

According to images from NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, the moon is shrinking, which is causing its crust to wrinkle up. The shrinking is also causing moonquakes, which are similar to their earthly equivalents — earthquakes.

Whereas the Earth’s quakes are caused by the shifting of tectonic plates, the moon’s quakes are caused by the body’s cooling. As the inside of the moon cools down, its surface shrivels up. Think of a grape shriveling into a raisin. However, unlike a grape, the moon’s surface is brittle and when these wrinkles form, the surface can break, “resulting in so-called thrust faults, where one section of crust is pushed up over an adjacent section,”*according to AFP.

According to NASA’s images, this process has caused the moon to shrink about 50 meters, or about 164 feet, in diameter from what it was back in 1972.

Researchers believe this process is still active on the moon, meaning it is still changing and still experiencing quakes.

“For me, these findings emphasize that we need to go back to the moon,” Nicholas Schmerr, assistant professor of geology at the University of Maryland an an author of the study, said in a statement. “We learned a lot from the Apollo missions, but they really only scratched the surface. With a larger network of modern seismometers, we could make huge strides in our understanding of the moon's geology. This provides some very promising low-hanging fruit for science on a future mission to the moon.”

We may not have to wait long. NASA announced earlier this year that it hopes to*send astronauts back to the moon in 2024. [This will include female astronauts]

As far as SpaceX goes, Yusaku Maezawa will be their first passenger and he will take a group of artists with him ... newsflash they have these cool things called cameras these says lol.