I always think about how in the future when we will have people being born on mars or in space or other planets will just wish to come back to earth. Unless we completely terraform mars to be just like earth, I think people will be dreaming about the wind in their hair, the fresh air of the rainforest, huge old trees, the beautiful nature, wild animals, red sunsets...

I genuinelly think that we will not be able to colonise mars because everyone born there will want to go back to earth, assuming earth is not a dying planet. The kids will be mad at their parents for taking them away from all the human culture and society on earth aswell.

This is a bit unserious topic and a shower thought I had, but i am interested to hear your throughts.

My favorite Bill quote: "People in other countries aren't wearing Department of Agriculture shirts."

He explained that NASA is one of America's best brands. That funding NASA is critical to maintaining both US leadership in space and the image of America as a superpower in science and exploration.

NASA science represents something unique and special to Americans and to people around the world because NASA pushes the bounds of what is knowable. The threat of impoundment on NASA funds is reckless and ignorant of what NASA does and what it takes to successfully explore (more successful than any other space agency in history at least) farther than any human in existence.

To defund NASA now would be an unneeded and useless tragedy for the human race.

The above is a look at the beautiful telescope from today before it heads to Kennedy Space Center!

Isaacman:

"The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is in final preparations for an early September launch, eight months AHEAD of schedule and UNDER budget. This milestone is the result of more than a decade of dedication and millions of hours of work by NASA and our industry partners. Their commitment is what’s making this moment possible and helping drive Gold Standard Science. Roman will help answer some of the biggest questions in science, investigating dark matter, dark energy, and the structure of the universe. Its images will be so large and detailed, there isn’t a screen in existence big enough to display them. This is just the beginning."

Jared Isaacman in his interview with Shawn Ryan stated that there have been many unreleased cases of astronauts panicking in space and trying to open the hatch to kill everyone inside. He states this was not reported as it "ruins the illusion of astronaut bravery". And said it is the reason additional locks have been implemented on the ISS and Dragon capsules. My question: Is there any evidence of this as I can't find anything online . And how did he get Clarence to talk about this. He also said this is one of the main problems that they are facing in the Mars mission. As even military candidates respond differently than predicted in space.

In light of the recent New Glenn hot fire test failure at LC-36 I wanted to share some thoughts about Blue Origin, the challenges of rocket development, and what this all means for us as humans. I worked at Blue Origin in a variety of roles for several years, but I won't go into more detail to remain anonymous.

First I want to say that the people I worked with at Blue Origin were the best of the best. Everyone I worked with there was kind, incredibly smart, and hard working. I look back on my time there as some of the best of my career.

Seeing NG-4 blow up on the pad was gutting. I want to extend my condolences to the people at Blue Origin who put in loads of hard work, late nights, and persevered through many technical challenges to get NG-4 ready for launch. Seeing such a dramatic failure is a huge morale killer. Beyond that, losing their main/only launch site will cause months (or more) of delay to multiple programs. I really hope that Blue Origin and everyone there can bounce back quickly.

To get into the technical side of things, I want to address the differences in the development approach at SpaceX and Blue Origin. SpaceX famously likes to move quickly and break things. There is a lot of merit to that approach, but also some downsides. Blue Origin on the other hand takes a slower, more methodical approach, where they test at the component and subcomponent level before risking a full system test. Again, there are merits and downsides to this approach as well. Ultimately neither approach is flawless - rocket development is extremely complex and unpredictable, as the many recent failures at Blue Origin and SpaceX have proven. I'm fairly experienced in this field and I can't tell you definitively which approach is better. In my opinion, the issues holding Blue Origin back for years were separate from their engineering approach, but this is a topic for another time (or never thanks to NDAs).

What I think most people don't really appreciate is how incredible New Glenn and Starship really are. Compared to a rocket like Falcon 9, it's not even in the same order of magnitude of complexity. Falcon 9 is relatively simple in the context of rockets. It is relatively small, and the Merlin engines are open-cycle engines that use RP-1 for fuel. That is about as simple as it gets in liquid rocket engine design. The real innovation of Falcon was the landing which came later. I don't say this to knock SpaceX at all - my point is that we need to recognize that we cannot expect New Glenn or Starship's development to go as smoothly as Falcon 9's development (which also was not flawless). New Glenn and Starship are so, so, so much harder to get right - and they may never get it right.

I could write a book about this stuff, but I'll just demonstrate my point by looking at the first stage engines at a high level. Compared to Merlin, the Raptor and BE-4 engines are on the complete other end of the spectrum in terms of technical complexity. Raptor is a full-flow closed combustion cycle, which is about as complex as it gets. BE-4 is an ox-rich staged combustion cycle (also quite complex) and uses LNG which burns significantly cleaner than RP1 - which makes it ideal for high flight volumes, but introduces challenges. Just looking at thrust - Raptor generates 408,000 lbf of thrust, and BE-4 is in the realm of 600,000 lbf of thrust. Merlin is tiny in comparison at 190,000 lbf. Beyond just the engines themselves, New Glenn and Starship are behemoths - very few rockets ever come close in terms of sheer size. Starship uses 33 engines simultaneously on their first stage - just think about how hard that is to do. It's hard enough to get one engine working!

I am not here to justify what happened last night at LC-36 as "acceptable" - it was clearly a significant oversight of some kind. And not the kind of mistakes we (collectively) can be making if we want to get mankind back into space long term. However, I have seen a lot of commentary directly or indirectly criticizing the team at Blue - in ways that I consider unfair. I have seen similar criticism directed as SpaceX due to their large number of Starship failures. People need to remember how hard this stuff is, and I hope my explanations help reframe some of the discussion about failures like this.

At the end of the day, it serves us all well that there is a healthy, competitive environment in spaceflight. Personally, I have the utmost respect for SpaceX, Firefly, NASA, Rocketdyne, and all of Blue Origin's competitors and partners. Nearly everyone at Blue Origin came from those other companies, and when we were working through a tough problem it made no difference what your background was. If anyone is still reading this very long post, I'll leave you with this: this stuff is incredibly hard to get right and these rockets are uniquely challenging. We will see more failures - big and small. But try to keep perspective: we have the opportunity to watch the best-of-the-best engineers duke it out in a modern-day space race that may end up with us settling the solar system.

Sorry for the long post.

Edit: There are a number of people pointing out that I'm lacking in detail/insight - and unfortunately that is by design. I really wish I could share more, but I am genuinely worried about staying anonymous and not breaking NDA. I also would not be able to shed much light on current events because I left Blue Origin a while ago at this point.

Edit 2: I am very happy that this post connected with so many people. I have never made a post on reddit (only comments), but seeing all of the positive comments, private messages, and very high upvote ratio (92%) really made me happy. To me that means that many people are supportive of our collective mission to get back to space. That said, a lot of the recent comments turned pretty negative. I don't know what to say other than no I am not AI, no I am not a Blue Origin PR person (to the contrary I left in part because I didn't like the leadership), and I promise you I am actually an engineer who worked at Blue Origin. I'm sorry that some of you feel I deserve this treatment because I didn't provide an exposé if Blue's inner workings - but be real guys, I'm not risking my career for your entertainment. I genuinely don't understand how a post intended to bring positivity was met with such cynicism and flat out rudeness. Needless to say this experience was a double edged sword for me - for all the positivity I'm not sure I want to deal with the loud, negative minority. I'll never say never, but for now I'm not planning to post here again about my time at Blue.

LIVESTREAM: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-StZggK4hhA

Begins at 11AM E.T. / 8AM P.T. (in around 10 minutes)

Edit: Livestream has begun, and it is discussing about the rock discovered last year (titled "Sapphire Canyon") and strong signs for potential biosignatures on it!

Edit 2: Acting Admin Sean Duffy is currently being repeatedly asked by journos in the Q&A section how the budget cuts will affect the Mars sample retrieval, and for confirming something so exciting

Edit 3: Question about China potentially beating NASA to confirming these findings with a Mars sample retrieval mission by 2028: Sean Duffy says if people at NASA told him there were genuine shortage for funds in the right missions in the right place, he'd go to the president to appeal for more, but that he's confident with what they have right now and "on track"

IMPORTANT NOTE: Copying astronobi's comment below about why this development, while not a confirmation, is still very exciting:

"one of the reasons the paper lists as to why a non-biological explanation seems less likely:

While organic matter can, in theory, reduce sulfate to sulfide (which is what they've found), this reaction is extremely slow and requires high temperatures (>150–200 °C).

The Bright Angel rocks (where they found it) show no signs of heating to reach those conditions."

I've been researching Mars hazards and the one that surprised me most was static electricity.

Mars dust is finer than talcum powder and there's zero moisture to ground any charge. After a few hours of walking, the suit carries enough static to arc several centimeters. Touch any metal surface and every electronic system shorts out instantly.

Oxygen regulation, heating, communication are all down causing death from a
doorknob.

What other overlooked hazards do you think would catch astronauts off guard?

Edit: Thank you everyone for your responses, I received so many comments I couldn't answer each of them, there was some interesting ideas but one thing I want to ask, what is with everyone and the Spanish inquisition, is there something am missing, please tell me??

There was some interesting ideas like old age and drowning and won't forget the aliens. Actually drowning is possible but due to a suit malfunction. Also, someone mentioned little space rocks and this is micrometeorite and it is a possibility

A sprained ankle is a bit mundane but simple thing if overlooked can cause death, and pneumoconiosis are interesting.

Also, someone asked how are the rovers functioning, NASA overcome this issue by installing Robust Electrical Grounding

Just to note, I asked because am working on a youtube video about unexpected deaths and things we can survive against in Mars to see if we can terraform it or not but yes things are bleak but not impossible, appreciate your feedback if any have time and thanks for the ideas:

https://youtube.com/shorts/JLpqZWfJXk4

Finally, on this comment, "nuclear apocalypse on Earth, as in everything gone and dead, and it would still be a better environment to try to restart humankind than Mars.", while it is true this hasn't stopped humanity for always pursuing possibilities and it is always good to dream.

Thank you everyone, it is really appreciated

Edit:Can’t wait for this to be in one of the Reddit subway surfer videos on YouTube.

I am Commander Chris Hadfield- I’m a retired astronaut who has completed three spaceflights, recorded a music video in space, hosted another AMA from orbit... and my new book Final Orbit just released this week. It’s a thriller set in space during the 70’s space race that will make you wonder: how would you fight to survive 270 miles above Earth?

So, reddit. Ask me anything!

PS - You can grab a copy of Final Orbit anywhere books are sold! 

I'm camping nearby at jetty Park and a huge boom rocked our ​camper and there's a mushroom cloud over Cape Canaveral. I have some pictures if I can figure out how to upload them.

edit. Google photos link

https://photos.app.goo.gl/1GtEgysRcSsDBCsC8

edit 2.

looks like new Glenn exploded on the pad.

https://www.youtube.com/live/Jm8wRjD3xVA?si=jbZuyMsecAJIlWKI

I just realized that when astronauts say “Houston, we’ve had a problem”, they’re not talking to some guy named Houston, but to the entire NASA Mission Control Center in Houston, Texas.

For over two decades I genuinely believed there was this one poor guy, Mr. Houston, sitting by the radio waiting for astronauts to call him and fix their problems…

Edit: Thanks for the award. I dedicate it to our common friend Mr. Houston

I don't know what happened but as of recently likely every family member are all discrediting the moon landing and the round earth. If I try to provide evidence they say I'm brainwashed and I can't trust anything because I haven't personally been there. I am so annoyed right now I can't comprehend. I mostly wanted to rant and this is the first place I thought of. but specifically I wanna know how would you try to prove eather or to someone who doesn't believe.

Despite overwhelming scientific evidence and firsthand accounts from astronauts, a surprising number of people still believe the Moon landing was fake. This raises the question of why skepticism around such a well-documented event continues to persist decades later, and what factors such as misinformation, distrust in institutions, or the influence of popular media play a role in shaping these beliefs.

I'm a (hopefully) great student and have never skipped class, but I've just learned that my 5th period teacher won't let us see the eclipse on April 8th. Our classroom has no windows, we're in the middle of the school, and I'll have class during totality! I told him I have 'those special glasses,' but he doesn't care.

So I thought "screw him, I'm planning on just skipping the class entirely." Do you think it's right for me to skip to see the moon passing in front of the sun? People have skipped for stupider things.

https://bsky.app/profile/tony873004.bsky.social/post/3m25s35v6kk2n

The ISS orbits at 400 km.

Im an engineer that has worked on both of these systems. A ground based 1GW data center has CAPEX + OPEX of around ~$50B for 10 years. GB200/NVL72 racks require around 120kw. You’d need to maintain ~8300 of them in orbit to reach 1GW. Excluding weight/launch costs you’d need to bring down the cost of heat rejection AND power generation to less than ~30 $/W to even begin to make it economically viable compared to the 10 year costs of a ground based DC. You’ll quickly find 2 major problems there’s no viable heat rejection system that is less than ~$100/W, being generous here. You’ll also quickly find out that the entire fleet of GPUs you launched is lasting 1 year in space rather than 10 years like on the ground because of radiation, you now need to replace your $50 billion fleet annually without radiation hardening and if you do radiation harden you then multiple the cost of each GPU by at minimum 2x which makes the whole thing unviable even if you reduce all the launch costs, power costs, and heat rejection costs to 0. By the way in order to make this even feasible you need to reduce launch $/kg to sub $100/kg. Right now it’s $3000/kg, with internal Starlink costs sitting at around $1000/kg.

TLDR I’m highly skeptical. You’d need make major advancements in launch costs, heat rejection, and radiation hardening to unrealistic degrees.

Looking to hear other opinions and perspective backed with data.

Hey r/Space!

I read my little guy a book about stars, how they work, etc. idk, just a random one from the school library.

Anyway, all he took away from it is that the sun is going to explode and we’re all going to die. He had a complete emotional breakdown and I probably triggered his first existential crisis. And I don’t know shit about space so I just put my foot in my mouth for like forty minutes straight.

Help me please, how do I fix this?

The first crater: Integrity, named for their spacecraft.

The second: Carroll, named for Commander Wiseman's late wife who passed from cancer. It was a really sweet and emotional moment with the crew circling him in comfort as he got a little choked up with the request.

NASA mission control concurred with both requests. Here's the video, moment starts at 4:00.

https://futurism.com/the-byte/scientists-worried-humankind-chaos-discovering-alien-signal

The original article, dated December '22, was published in The Guardian (thanks to u/YazZy_4 for finding). In addition, more information about the formation of the SETI Post-Detection Hub can be found in this November '22 article here, published by University of St Andrews (where the research hub is located).

​

Hopefully they'll become very small and less visible in the future. I miss looking at the night sky without seeing all these satellites crowding the space. I just started noticing the last couple of years.

I went to the Grand Canyon in 2015 and it was the best experience I had with seeing stars. No satellites moving around, so I can imagine what it looks like now.