And what country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.
Yeah, instead of letting it burn up in the atmosphere around 2030, move it into lunar orbit. Repurpose it using the best parts. Why waste all that tonnage that cost gazillions to originally put in orbit? Even as scrap material its got rather high value getting it up out of earth's deep gravity well. Save it for doing moon based stuff. At the least set up a solar vacuum smelter and use the metals for future purposes.
Two things: for first Anon (2:00 PM) it's nothing fancy as telescopes go. The hard part is getting the timing right with the only "hard part" there being making sure your mount tracks the moon and the ISS transits in front of the moon are predicted properly. Yeah, you can spend a long time preparing for the important few seconds of photography you've ever done. A common trick is use a video camera to film the entire transit so you crop out the few frames that are the prettiest.
For Anon 2:29 PM, this has been in planning really for the entire life of the station. The problem with lifting it is that lifting it costs many times what deorbiting costs and since the station is nearly 40 years old and wasn't designed to last a long time, metal fatigue or spontaneous fractures are a real concern. They've been fighting an air leak for a couple of years now - thought to be from the Russian side.
Do you know the plan is to replace the existing ISS with a new one, and they started that process a couple of years ago, too. More depth at Ars Technica: https://arstechnica.com/space/2025/08/as-the-end-of-the-iss-nears-nasa-shakes-up-program-for-commercial-replacements/
Who is taking the picture?
ReplyDeleteAndrew McCarthy took it from Spaceship Earth using telescopes and amazing timing. He has an X account where he publishes some amazing space photos.
DeleteThe big crater isTycho.
https://www.techeblog.com/astrophotographer-andrew-mccarthy-iss-moon-tycho-crater/
Yeah, instead of letting it burn up in the atmosphere around 2030, move it into lunar orbit. Repurpose it using the best parts. Why waste all that tonnage that cost gazillions to originally put in orbit? Even as scrap material its got rather high value getting it up out of earth's deep gravity well. Save it for doing moon based stuff. At the least set up a solar vacuum smelter and use the metals for future purposes.
ReplyDeleteNASA is shocked at the practicality of your suggestion. Smelling Salts please!
DeleteTwo things: for first Anon (2:00 PM) it's nothing fancy as telescopes go. The hard part is getting the timing right with the only "hard part" there being making sure your mount tracks the moon and the ISS transits in front of the moon are predicted properly. Yeah, you can spend a long time preparing for the important few seconds of photography you've ever done. A common trick is use a video camera to film the entire transit so you crop out the few frames that are the prettiest.
ReplyDeleteFor Anon 2:29 PM, this has been in planning really for the entire life of the station. The problem with lifting it is that lifting it costs many times what deorbiting costs and since the station is nearly 40 years old and wasn't designed to last a long time, metal fatigue or spontaneous fractures are a real concern. They've been fighting an air leak for a couple of years now - thought to be from the Russian side.
Do you know the plan is to replace the existing ISS with a new one, and they started that process a couple of years ago, too. More depth at Ars Technica: https://arstechnica.com/space/2025/08/as-the-end-of-the-iss-nears-nasa-shakes-up-program-for-commercial-replacements/