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The Next US Moonshot Will Launch From Virginia
As reported by the Washington Post, a U.S. spacecraft headed for the moon (to circle it, though, not to land) is to be launched for the first time from the facility at Virginia's Wallops Island. If you'll be in the D.C. area on the night of September 6 and the weather cooperates enough for a launch, it should be worth staying up for. "The robotic mission is to collect detailed information about the moon's thin atmosphere. Sometimes thought to be nonexistent, the lunar atmosphere has been described as extremely tenuous and fragile, but present. According to the space agency, the launch will record many firsts. One will be the first launch beyond Earth orbit from the Virginia facility. It also will be the first flight for the Minotaur V rocket, NASA said. NASA said the five-stage Air Force rocket is an excess ballistic missile that was transformed into a space-launch vehicle. It will boost the space probe into position for it to reach lunar orbit."
Though the satellite is NASA's, the launch will be controlled by Orbital Sciences.
I thought the physics of this kind of stuff favored being closer to the equator? Why would you move north of Canaveral?
Says who? According to Mirriam-Webster, a moon shot (TWO WORDS) is "a spacecraft mission to the moon". Dictionary.com says the same.
Yeah, Wikipedia says a moon shot is specifically a manned mission, but it says that on a short disambiguation page without any citations. Wikipedia is pretty reliable -- most of the time. Not when the article is without citations and has a short edit history.
[Sir Garlon] is the marvellest knight that is now living, for he destroyeth many good knights, for he goeth invisible.
You have to wonder how much that atmosphere was effected by debris still up there from Deep Impact, Chandrayaan-1's Moon Impact Probe, and the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter's centaur upper stage impacts.
Too bad they didn't do a before-and-after of this particular mission.
A rose by any other name.
That was moonSHINE, not moonshot...
Sig?
I wondered the same thing. further there's a whole cadre of instrumentation that needs to be built up to create a valid launch range, and we already have that, so why spend all that money on something closer to D.C.?
Wallops Flight Facility is already heavily instrumented and has been in operation for over 50 years. There have been 16,000 launches from that facility including orbital launches.
Now as for why they are doing this particular mission at WFF instead of Canaveral, I have no idea. Could be an effort by NASA to cater to a wider swath of congress. Could be military related in some way. Might be that the resources for that particular mission were more conveniently located there. I'm sure there is a reason but it isn't obvious what that reason might be.
Forgive him, he is a product of modern education. He got 66.7% of the correct letters in the right order and that is clearly a pass these days.
I haven't thought of anything clever to put here, but then again most of you haven't either.
I also enjoyed the bit where he singled out that this was an illegal alcoholic drink during Prohibition.
I haven't thought of anything clever to put here, but then again most of you haven't either.
Did they say it was a FIVE-stage rocket? Yes, apparently the Minotaur V has five stages. Makes sense, I guess, if you want to get a 600kg payload the moon, but it's the first time I've heard that phrase, at least not from NASA. Just strikes me as weird.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve your problem, you're not using enough of it. --AC
For those of you on the east coast of the US.
LADEE Launch Visibility
Personally, I would not call it a moonshot unless they landed at least a single chicken on the moon.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
Suits: Hello. We're from the EPA. Afraid your spaceflight launch will need to be cancelled indefinitely. Apparently it will be coming in contact with the moon's atmosphere and our public sources from Slashdot and elsewhere have identified it as being, "extremely tenuous and fragile".
NASA: But it's the moon! It's not earth!
Suits: [smiles] Now. Now. You knew this was going to happen. Just because it's the moon doesn't mean that the regulatory arms of the US government can't reach. If your rockets can reach it - why so can we. And since the atmosphere is fragile and tenuous, it may also harbor a similarly fragile and tenuous ecosystem.
NASA: Ecosystem?
Suits: Yes! Ecosystem. You engineers need to show a little more imagination. Think a little more outside the box. But we're quite certain that with the small number of atmospheric molecules around the moon, the percent pollution from a few rockets would be horrendous! Anything that might possibly be living would be affected. Eventually, it would get Maia upset.
NASA: Who is Maia? Someone in your office?
Suits: Uh, Maia is a half finished idea. We thought it would be nice to have a Gaia for the moon, so we changed the 'G' to an 'M' for the moon, see? Now we have Maia.
NASA: So when can we launch?
Suits: Now you're getting it.
The word is still in use. And it took me only a few minutes to find this 1958 citation where "moon shot" refers to a potential Russian mission to set a small payload to the moon, and this 1959 one where it's used to refer to Lunik II. And this. And this.
I'm sorry, but you're incorrect. Since the 1950s, "moon shot" means shooting a rocket at the moon. Nothing is implied in the term about what's on or inside the rocket.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
le edgy 2k. The EPA is to blame for us not posting from Pluto amirite! It's totally the environmentalists' fault that the space program is in shambles.
Let me guess, you're one of those Global climate change deniers too, eh, mr. Strawman?
Na, your all wrong. A moonshot is what me and my frat buddies did on the front lawn of the Pi-Phi's after a nights drinking........
"TV, a medium as it is neither rare nor well done." Ernie Kovacs
Indeed, he is educationally handicapped with an obvious learning disability, AND SO ARE THE RETARDED MODERATORS! This is the fifth completely wrong comment I've seen that's been modded up (ACs start at Zero, sometimes -1 if you're posting from the wrong IP address). Slashdot, PLEASE bring the old metamoderation back, the new one is NOT working.
It was indeeed moonSHINE (and they still make it and it's still illegal) and the dictionary (Websters) says it was coined in 1957, a quarter century after prohibition ended.
Dude, they've been lighting off the big fireworks from Wallops since 1945.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
Why use a multibillion dollar tried and tested launch facility, like the ones in Florida and Califorinia, when you can build a new one in a poor location?
Wallops Flight Facility has been in operation for over 50 years and has launched over 16,000 rockets including orbital missions. But don't let those actual facts get in the way of your prejudiced rant.
What do you have against married chickens?
rewriting history since 2109
This post is insightful?
that's one argument people use for why Earth should be considered a double planet rather than a planet/satellite system: The moon's path is at all points convex about the sun.
The moon is a satellite rather than a double planet because the center of attraction is inside the Earth. The moon is slowly moving away from the Earth, so some day it will indeed be a double planet.
These "some people" you speak of are not astrophysicists. Look "orbit" up for a better explanation.
At least that's their address...I pass it all the time in Dulles, VA.
http://www.orbital.com/About/Contact/ :)
Yes yes environmentalists are behind all the worlds problems. Its ok. Calm down. You can QQ now.
Indeed, the terms from the time period were generally "bathtub gin" or "hooch".
The preceding comment is my own, and in no way construes an opinon of the Emperor of Mankind.
The Defense of Farmage Act.
The barycenter is still inside Earth's surface, so while there would be some wobble, it's hardly a binary system.
#naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
Shoot the Moon is also a game with two steel rods and a steel ball.
So if they made a Star-Wars themed version, would they call it "Shoot the That's No Moon"?
#naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
Similar to the fact that in various first person shooter games, you will not be credited with a headshot unless there is a live pilot within your bullet.
Is 1563649 a prime number?
That was moonSHINE, not moonshot...
What? The next things you'll say will be that the pale light from that orb we see at knight is called moon rock and that the minerals collected from the Moon are called moonwalks.
Ezekiel 23:20
Says who? According to Mirriam-Webster, a moon shot (TWO WORDS) is "a spacecraft mission to the moon"
Perhaps Merriam-Webster would have been more authoritative? ;-)
Yeah, Wikipedia [wikipedia.org] says a moon shot is specifically a manned mission, but it says that on a short disambiguation page without any citations.
Apparently (as per a quote in the OED), the (failed) Thor-Able launch of a (unmanned) Pioneer probe to the Moon on 1958/8/17 was heralded by Washington Post as "a moon shot" (in the sentence "Yesterday's *moon shot blew up 50,000 feet and 77 seconds after the launching at Cape Canaveral.") So it seems that it had already been established even for unmanned vehicles when the Apollo project finally came to fruition.
Ezekiel 23:20
It's also a move in Euchre where one players attempts all the tricks.
No, you've gone to it and beyond it, which by most common usage would qualify for going to the Moon. Crashing, landing, orbiting, and fly-by all qualify.
So if you got a ride along on a Moon orbit trip, you wouldn't tell people that you'd been to the Moon. That's cool.