This is STS Atlantis on the pad, just before dawn last week. It is now headed to Hubble, to make the final adjustments to last Hubble another couple of years.
Hubble will then be guided back to Earth - because of it's size, it will not burn up completely and will land in an ocean.
Full archive of NASA Photos of the Day
* Bill Paxton is the only actor to be killed by Alien, a Terminator, and the Predator.
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How big is space/universe?
I was looking at some of the pictures from NASA and when they talk in billions of light years we sort of pale into insignificence.
It is hard to comprehend the distances that the telescopes can see out into space. So how far does it go? Would you fall off the edge or is there even an end to it?
Amazing photos.
Some people need to get their finger out of their arse so that the brain can get some oxygen"
Are you still in Florida bambbbam?
I've been meaning to post up my pics from October.
Wait until Hubbles replacement goes up......
Cheers
enf
The fact that there's a highway to hell and a stairway to heaven says a lot about the anticipated traffic flow.
I hope it works because it fascinates me. I was born way too early.
Some people need to get their finger out of their arse so that the brain can get some oxygen"
No I'm back in WA./. I have lots of photos, just getting time to put them up here. Hopefully this weekend.
I did see Atlantis while there, waiting for this mission. I have the commemorative medal too..
* Bill Paxton is the only actor to be killed by Alien, a Terminator, and the Predator.
Last photo I will post from their archive
Why would clouds appear to be different colors? The reason here is that ice crystals in distant cirrus clouds are acting like little floating prisms. Sometimes known as a fire rainbow for its flame-like appearance, a circumhorizon arc lies parallel to the horizon. For a circumhorizontal arc to be visible, the Sun must be at least 58 degrees high in a sky where cirrus clouds are present. Furthermore, the numerous, flat, hexagonal ice-crystals that compose the cirrus cloud must be aligned horizontally to properly refract sunlight in a collectively similar manner. Therefore, circumhorizontal arcs are quite unusual to see. This circumhorizon display was photographed through a polarized lens above Dublin, Ohio last week.
* Bill Paxton is the only actor to be killed by Alien, a Terminator, and the Predator.
If you have a look towards the top of the photo you will see contrails of a jet. Can you see the dead pixel? Its white…I’m assuming it’s a dead pixel or it could be a UFO seeing it was taken in the States…
If the Universe is still expanding after the BIG BANG, doesnt that imply that all we see is heading away at a rate of knots so that even if there were/are/is intellegent life out 'THERE', its moving away so that what we see/hear today is further away from where it was sent from which means to reply, it has to go further and take longer.
The Hubble has sent us some absolutely dazzling mind blowing pics but so what??
As we exist today in this physical form, we will NEVER ever reach another planet out past our solar system unless somewhere along the track we change to another plane of existance, and I dont mean Aeroflot or QANTAS plane either.
Space, the Final Frontier
Beam me Up, Scotty as I am ready to Fly
Far across the Universe to see another Sky
6 suns, 4 moons, seas of liquid gas,
Is what your walking on, a silicon/phospherous grass?
Imagine being able to say as we pass through the Universe,
along the Milky Way
Its Life Jim, but not as we have come know it !
But look !
theres another one , so different in shape and form.
And to think we have barely traveled a hundred light years
and crossed a celestial malestrom.
Apologies to Capt Kirk, Bones and Scotty.
Don't hog the bong, pass it on !
Ramjet (14-10-09)
Here's a beauty pic
Hubble and Atlantis side by side traversing across the face of the sun.
gordon_s1942 (16-05-09)
Pass it here Trash, after you, thanks
They recon within 100 years there won't be too much organics left in us, we'll be all/mostly machine. Even our brains will be uploaded into an equally powerful computer to drive it all, then, time suddenly becomes insignificant, we'll be able to travel the length and breath of the universe imune to the dangerous place we call space. Now that's what I call the final frontier.
Gimme another hit bro
I can't Ch 10 HD, nobody's uploading my brain to Alpha-centauri !
Could you imagine the horrors of being downloaded by some alien kid in their equivalent of the 1980's, you could end up in a VIC 20 or it's tape drive.
I'm already partly metal ... 20 pieces and counting. I want to get hydraulics installed and be able to crush things with my bare hands like Steve Austin.
Pffffffft.
I reckon we haven't changed much in the last 100y so I would not expect too much for the next...except we might just all get fatter 'n fatter and more 'n more dependant in anti depressant drugs, with only very few who might actually have a clue about the big picture
... although when I start to think...
it could actually coincide with that theory about multiple brains controlling a super computer that we might simply call life.
Today we are already only training specialists in a world where nobody is even allowed to touch a screw or press a button that might be required to be operated by another specialist.
I am only worried when the computer crashes that coordinates all these specialists.
Uploading my brain? Already today no big issue.
It should fit fine on a floppy disk, well perhaps a bit compressed.
No; downloading data is useless. There is no life and consciousness in data.
I would need somebody really smart to find a protective way to send that blob of fat between my ears to an inhabited planet near Alpha Centauri or elsewhere.
Not into that esoteric stuff and I don't believe in God either or his helpers... sorry Trash.
Are those metal pieces just gold in your mouth or titanium repair jobs after unfortunate hang gliding and bike incidents?
Update: A deletion of features that work well and ain't broke but are deemed outdated in order to add things that are up to date and broken.
Compatibility: A word soon to be deleted from our dictionaries as it is outdated.
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They're all from collisions with a planet. :S
The planet in question has gotten in the way while hang gliding, riding various two wheeled vehicles or unassisted. Not all the metal has been from these activities. On several occasions I just fell down and shit broke.
Yes I've had a bone density scan and everything has been normal.
Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy, Definition of flying: throwing yourself at the ground and missing. I haven't missed yet !
I am sure you will eventually get there. Everything comes with enough practice, but try missing the water next time.
Update: A deletion of features that work well and ain't broke but are deemed outdated in order to add things that are up to date and broken.
Compatibility: A word soon to be deleted from our dictionaries as it is outdated.
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It's a bit hard to find a lake that will appear in the right place at the right time
I can't remember if or what you fly nomeat. I think ya'r a punter.
Water landings in Hang Gliders are almost certain death. They have a 10% survival rate. Chances are supposed to be better in power lines, personally I'll take my chances with the water.
Paragliders are supposed to not be much better for water landings. I've not had the chance to do a simulated wet paraglider landing. It's the wing that causes the problem with hang gliders, where paragliders I would think don't have that problem. I'd just undo all my buckles and go for a bum first landing and just float out.
Better still, I'll just not land in the water
On the subject of the first picture, it's quite amusing to watch the space shuttle coming in to land. The approach is very much the same as a hang glider, just it tends to happen a lot faster and the shuttle has a glide ratio similar to a house brick.
That's funny, I actually first thought of a brick when I saw that picture on top. Bricks are commonly used as door stoppers and the Shuttle looks now like a huge door stopper.
There will only be three more Shuttle missions and that's it. They will just stand around like door stoppers with nothing to replace them for AT LEAST 5 years thanks to the Bush administration.
I find it very saddening. An embarrassment for the USA that they now have to depend on Russia to get any crew into space.
But the Shuttle in honour, it does have a glide ratio of 1, which is significantly BETTER than a house brick.
I said you should MISS the water when you fall, NOT attempt to land with a hang glider on it!
Just a joke following the train of thought from Douglas Adams' theory of unassisted flying
I was lucky to have the opportunity to fly gliders(sailplanes) as a late teenager in the 70's but my budget(and that of my parents) restricted me from doing the licence.
In the 80's I went a few times to Stanwell park and watched the blokes jump off a cliff, but some how I could NOT see myself doing this and their comments about not being able to get down before total exhaustion due to updrafts, did not help either, so I chose to become a couch potato and leave all my bones undamaged.
I remember some story about them getting a Cessna to fly under a trapped hang glider to break the up draft but this is probably glider yarn. They said he was too weak to steer out of it.
Update: A deletion of features that work well and ain't broke but are deemed outdated in order to add things that are up to date and broken.
Compatibility: A word soon to be deleted from our dictionaries as it is outdated.
Humans: Entities that are not only outdated but broken... AI-self-learning-update-error...terminate...terminate...
Have you seen the space shuttle trainer ? It's a learjet.
How do you make a learjet perform with the same glide ratio as the space shuttle ? Reverse trust all the way to the ground ! The shuttle pilots say that it's pretty close to the real thing. It would be one hell of a ride.
Sailplanes are reasonably cheap these days and the training doesn't take long.
If you're active in a club, it can almost be done for free.
Hang gliders in the 80's were a little unsafe. It was not unusual to hear of pilots being killed. The types of gliders they flew don't have a problem with coming down, they have a problem with staying up. The first of the safe gliders was a "Moyes Mars". Previous gliders were versions of Rogallo gliders.
The Mars is such a stable wing, they still use them for training pilots and occasionally you may see one being flown. They have a lousy glide ratio, so coming down is waaay to easy
My glider is about two generations later, and on any day I will have no trouble coming down if I want to. Staying up can still be hard work.
Having said that, I have had one occasion at Stanwell Park where It took me three hours of hard core flying to get my arse back on the beach. I was literally rocketed to ~5000ft asl from launch. Lots of spiral dives and weaving, stalls, I was doing everything.
Hang gliding is pretty safe, accidents are not that common.
If you still yearn to fly, then paragliding is the way to do it.
Flying a paraglider is like flying a couch, and they are relatively gentle.
When hang glider pilots get a bit too old, they tend to get a paraglider and realise how gentle they are on their old bones. $1800 and 10 days and you walk away certified.
A bit of a furfy about the cesna. Having any aircraft fly past can be dangerous. I had a piper warrior fly past me at Stanwell.
He came skootin' down the coast and turned straight into the valley and the thing I remember most was carberettas the propeller! I rolled and dived as I did a big wingover, and he got a windscreen of bright sail cloth and bank hard the other way. He was so close I could see the tread on his tyres, and I flipped him the bird as he flew away.
Behind every aircraft is a pair of vortecies off the wingtips. Very similar to wash behind a boat. When one hang glider flys past another, it feels a bit like a speed hump. Nothing much to worry about, but it can scare a novice pilot not expecting it.
Behind a hang glider they're about 200 metres, Behind a light aircraft like a censna they're about 1km long. Flying a hang glider through it is like a taking a canoe through ferry wash. Behind a 747 they're up to 50km long.
To come down is pretty simple. Pull the bar in and the glider will dive. Push the bar out and hold it out, the wing will stall and the glider will then dive.
A much more friendly solution is just to get out of the lift band. Since it's orographic lift, one just has to fly out over the valley where there is no lift and you will come down. It's a very rare occasion that you could not fly in that area and not sink. In such an occasion one just has to fly out over the ocean. There is no lift there. When low enough (not too low) turn and fly to beach.
If you're dopey enough to be flying and a thunderstorm pops off and you find yourself in serious cloud suck (yes clouds do appear to suck you in), then you grab as much basebar as possible and pull it in and try get your balls over the top of it If you're still flying backwards and up, well... stalling spiral dives are pretty much the last resort. The violent spin and crashing is probably preferable to being struck by lightning or becoming a hypoxic ice cube.
Uncle Fester (14-06-09)
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