RE J0317-853

@Stuck4ger Helicopter or fixed wing?

Memorial Day is specially memorable for me because of a crash that occurred in Iraq on Memorial Day 2005, killing a handful of USAF special forces (including the pilot). I was sent there with a small team to do flight test in their aircraft. They had numerous severe deficiencies.

@DJSnM 🫡

Can we get some respect for engine E8 which never gave up, carrying the weight of the entire booster and giving its best right up until the end

@stevecrye Good effort!

@853_re I arrived Sunday night and finally left today well yesterday Friday, at about 1900 CDT. I need to go to bed, I'm in a La Quinta somewhere south of San Antonio. Got a long drive tomorrow! Two nights dirtbag camping in my RAV4 is my limit now that I'm almost 70 😂😜

Scrub. Darn. Hopefully they'll try again tomorrow.

@Stuck4ger So fortunate the canopies weren't obstructed 😬

Ugh, that’s one expensive crash. Very rare for both sets of aircrew to escape a mid-air like that. I hope all involved are ok.

@Erdayastronaut Does Starship HLS really require full fuel load before leaving LEO? I suppose there is TLI, landing and the return to consider but would all that use as much as getting into LEO?

Is Starship HLS really is a viable option for NASA and SpaceX to get humans back onto the surface of the moon for the Artemis Program? We'll go over why it's so tall, why it uses Methalox instead of hypergolic propellants, explain why it requires 15 or more launches for a single lunar landing and we'll even go over alternate options that could maybe simplify or speed up the process. 00:00:00 - INTRO 00:03:20 - OVERVIEW AND NEED-TO-KNOWS 00:16:30 - IS STARSHIP TOO BIG AND TALL? 00:35:40 - IS METHALOX THE WRONG PROPELLANT? 00:43:50 - WHY ORBITAL REFUELING? 01:20:30 - CHANGING TO LOW LUNAR ORBIT 01:35:40 - PROPELLANT SUPPLIES ON EARTH 01:38:25 - SUMMARY

@nateinthewild @Int_Machines Goonhilly is a place name!

@Int_Machines Goon Hilly can’t possibly be the real name of a real company

Customers have been clear that they want a single, integrated, and resilient solution for their communications and PNT needs as mission tempo increases. Our integrated space-to-ground network is built to support operations across LEO, lunar, and cislunar environments through one source for communications, PNT, and data transport. @goonhillyorg & @COMSATteleports strengthens the backbone of this network, expands our ground presence, and brings a strategic core competency to the Intuitive Machines team, helping us innovate faster for customers. Read More: intuitivemachines.com/discover/news/…

@stevecrye @MarcusHouse Is this the first time you're going to watch a Starship? V jealous, hope to get over there one day!

@MarcusHouse I have my tickets for the Raptor Roost, and I just made some cheap motel reservations for the two days before the 15th. I am prepared to camp at the Raptor Roost as long as required to see this baby fly!

This seems almost ridiculous. The power is absolutely staggering. 🤯

@Cmdr_Hadfield Everything then😂👍

@853_re About 100: a dozen helicopters, and single seat gliders up to C-141 and C-5. Life as a test pilot :)

Spitfire and Hornet. Amazing feeling to pilot the classic Spitfire with an F-18 on my wing. They both fly so beautifully; it's as if you've just sprouted wings and now have the freedom of a powerful bird. Lots to think about safely operating single-seaters like these in formation, but mostly it's pure joy. Spitfire Mk IX @VintageWingsCan CF-18A @RCAF_ARC photos: Eric Dumigan RIP

@stevecrye It is interesting how it can affect you even slightly over 10000ft. My only previous experience of hypoxia was in a decompression chamber at RAF North Luffenham. That was a rapid decompression to 25000ft and was quite funny to see how everyone reacted after a few minutes!

13,800 feet above sea level will certainly get your attention if you have to exert yourself. If I'm going to be exerting anywhere above 10,000 ft I like to sleep at at least 9,000 ft a night before. I've had mild oxygen sickness while mountaineering in Colorado and it's no fun, headaches and lung congestion. mhoxygen.com/product-catego… I can usually handle paragliding from a launch around 9000 ft up to 13,000 without oxygen, but if I'm going to launch at 10,000 ft I turn on my oxygen system while I'm getting set up. The insidious thing about exertion at altitude is that it can really drain your strength and mental energy and you might not notice that you're making bad decisions. If I'm going to be flying above 12,000 ft for any lengths of time I use the Mountain High oxygen system with the O2D1 controller combined with the small bottle. The entire setup weighs about 1.2 kg. The pulse delivery system through the nasal cannula will usually give about 4 hours flying time. It detects when you inhale and gives you a pulse of oxygen.

Finally made it to the top of Mauna Kea today and seen the Observatories I've been reading about in articles for years/decades. Truly amazing

@petrovicsrb @NASASolarSystem The cometary nucleus is small (few km) but the coma (the cloud of dust and gas it emits as it warms up) can be of the order of a million km so easily visible

@NASASolarSystem At school we were taught that the earth compared to the size of the sun is one small dot, here we see in the first one that one small dot hits such a big sun, that means the comet is the size of the earth!?

This comet didn’t survive its encounter with the Sun. ☀️☄️☠️ This processed image from NASA’s PUNCH mission shows comet C/2026 A1 (MAPS) on its way to its first and last observed flyby of the Sun, emerging as nothing but a cloud of dust. Watch the disintegration! 👀👇 🧵1/4 Full story: go.nasa.gov/4cuh37s

@stevecrye It was a mega holiday and I absolutely had to go up Mauna Kea having seen it on TV so many times. Incredible. The reduced oxygen is very noticeable - I walked around and observatory a bit too quickly and was seeing stars afterwards (metaphorically, not the real ones😂)

@853_re I've always wanted to go there! You might not realize it from my feed on X, but I'm an avid amateur astronomer. Can you give me an update on what's been happening with the protest against building the new observatory?

@stevecrye I have a Celestron Nexstar Evo 8" HD. Still getting to grips with it - there's a lot of potential

Not bad. Which scope do you have? I currently don't own a telescope (donated my old Odyssey 13 in dobsonian to a friend), but I've got a decent 800 mm focal length equivalent to the photo, and I also have an Oberwerk 70 mm binocular telescope. Taken with the telephoto lens on a Panasonic GH6

Managed to get a clumsy picture of the partial eclipse through my 8" telescope..

@stevecrye @Stuck4ger Haha, yes I would love to meet him too. It's great that such an experienced test pilot posts insights and interacts on here so us mortals can ask questions and learn! Chris Hadfield too. He was doing a tour in the UK a few years back which was brilliant

It's cool that you follow Forger. I met him a few years back when he was working for Virgin Galactic and living in Las Cruces. We became friends and flew our paragliders together many times. Very interesting fellow, has flight time in dozens of different aircraft and spacecraft. I'm hoping to fly with him this spring in California. In addition to all of his fighter and spacecraft qualifications, he also wrote a pretty definitive paragliding training manual back in the '90s.

I know they need to ensure the outside environment is not hazardous but that is a long ass time to bob around in a depowered and closed spaceship while wearing spacesuits. I remember how grouchy John Young got after the first shuttle landing.

@SciGuySpace In the original image there is something else descending in the background on parachute. Do they jettison the heatshield before splashdown? In which case the feature in the above picture might simply be a structure between capsule and heatshield 🤷🏻‍♂️

Not an expert so I can't really comment on this. But hopefully NASA will soon. nasa.gov/image-detail/d…

@Stuck4ger Artemis 2 was Jeremy Hansen's first spaceflight which must have been so exciting but it got me thinking: What would you choose between 6 months on the ISS or 10 days around the moon as a first flight?

NASA astronauts that want another crew assignment learn to grin and bear most anything. That can change when they know it’s their last flight. The always competent and normally affable Wally Shirra, Apollo 7 Commander, comes to mind. This is also true for astronaut wannabes ;)

@Stuck4ger This whole mission has been such a refreshing distraction from other current affairs Really inspiring

Great words from two great humans whom I’m thankful to call friends.

@NASA I guess not, I'm thinking of launches to the ISS. Shame!

@NASA It looks like this trajectory might be visible from the UK - is there an extended map? (If the cloud clears 😐)

Can you see our Moon rocket lift off from your backyard? Skywatchers in Florida and southern Georgia will have a shot. Check out this map to see when you should look up! Artemis II is targeted to launch no earlier than April 1.