NASA isn't even trying to get people to Mars anymore

[Salodin]

A few weeks ago my quantum computing professor from grad school died. PhD adviser to 2 of my very best friends. Foremost expert in the world (not joking) in pretty much every single area of quantum computing and optics. He used to play the NSA and China against each other for ridiculous amounts of funding. There was nothing they could do. It's not like you go to "the second best" when it comes to this stuff. Very funny and very weird guy. Very fucking weird.

I fondly remember one time when a "friend" of mine from when I was like 20, who is just some well-meaning but largely dumb normal human being commented something stupid on a facebook post I made about how acupuncture is completely bullshit. Not letting the fact that this girl was just some nobody who didn't know any better and was being pretty benign, John writes a fucking NOVEL in response to her on my post just absolutely demolishing her entire life and sense of self worth. When I asked him why, his response was "I don't remember doing that, I must've been drunk."

Anyway, to the point, SMBC has dedicated a comic to him and you should all read it.

https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/jonathan-dowling

Aw man, what a loss. Sorry dude.

Sent from my SM-G975U using Tapatalk

[archibaldcrane]

Never even heard of Rocket Lab before but they had a satellite launch today, that blew up really far into the launch.

https://twitter.com/RocketLab/status...759091200?s=19

[archibaldcrane]

New Zealand company apparently. Botched their first launch in 2018 but then had 12 straight successful launches before today. They are quite small rockets delivering little cubesats and other small satellites.

[Mythe_Seraph]

https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/jonathan-dowling

This was delightful.

[archibaldcrane]

Size comparison to the regular SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.

[TummieGaruda]

Never even heard of Rocket Lab before but they had a satellite launch today, that blew up really far into the launch.

https://twitter.com/RocketLab/status...759091200?s=19

RocketLab is kind of like SpaceX but they launch lighter and smaller orbital rockets (a little more than 1/4 the size of Falcon 9) and primary have cubesats as their payloads. Their price tag for launches is about $6 Million, so it’s a nice alternative if you need to launch something small into space.

Also I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again...you really don’t know the mammoth size of Falcon 9 until you’ve seen it in person. If anyone is ever in the LA area, seriously cruise down to Hawthorne and visit SpaceX as they have a Falcon9 right outside the building on the corner.

Edit: Archi has a more detailed post on SpaceX vs RocketLab

[6souls]

https://twitter.com/AP/status/1286161540559839232

[archibaldcrane]

UAE launched a mission to Mars last week, to place an orbiter around the planet.

https://www.livescience.com/united-a...-mars-why.html

[6souls]

Tomorrow at 7 AM ET

[archibaldcrane]

Oh hell yes they're sending a helicopter to Mars

https://mars.nasa.gov/technology/helicopter/

[TummieGaruda]

Oh hell yes they're sending a helicopter to Mars

https://mars.nasa.gov/technology/helicopter/

We've come a long way since the Viking program...

[Meresgi]

Oh hell yes they're sending a helicopter to Mars

https://mars.nasa.gov/technology/helicopter/

Nice, met a guy when I was out in CA at Ames who does prototyping for this type of stuff, wonder if he had a hand in it. Showed me a kick ass glider concept for Mars

[archibaldcrane]

Very strange to engineer flying vehicles for the low-gravity, lower atmosphere Mars.

[Meresgi]

Very strange to engineer flying vehicles for the low-gravity, lower atmosphere Mars.

That's why gliders work perfectly apparently. I don't do aerospace engineering but what he explained to me made sense.

https://www.nasa.gov/centers/ames/ne...1/01_58AR.html

[Mertron]

gonna be so embarrassing when we land that rocket on mars and the aliens there are like “mars? that’s what you call our planet?”

[Cantih]

"Let me get this straight, you named your sun Sun, moon Moon, and planet Dirt?"

<great, we've made contact with a stupid species>

[Zeb]

"Hey, you forgot your Matt Damon!"

[6souls]

Vice stream live. Interviews until launch.

[Jaybar]

I'm all in boys. -6:00

[Jaybar]

2021 is the year, folks. We need a victory, but this is the first step. Successful launch by ULA.