Nice launch/RTLS landing:

Falcon 9’s first stage booster has landed at Landing Zone 1 pic.twitter.com/9FUwT4YZHp

— SpaceX (@SpaceX) January 18, 2024

Axiom 3 B1080 landing #SpaceX #Ax3 #Axiom3 pic.twitter.com/Sj8Lw03kR9

— Mike Wallace (@mwallace300zx) January 18, 2024

Caught the all important green flash https://t.co/SKZf7JIIDT

— Peter Hague PhD (@peterrhague) January 19, 2024

Boring company does have some progress, and I believe this technology will be key to establishing human colony/transport on Mars etc:

Just now! @boringcompany Prufrock assembly underway at Giga Texas! Snapped a few more images on my way home. More in my video later today! pic.twitter.com/ckS9sbRtMn

— Joe Tegtmeyer 🚀 🤠🛸😎 (@JoeTegtmeyer) January 18, 2024

One-hour timelapse (60x speed) of Central Station during @CES. This is one of five Loop Stations which operated at the awesome 2024 event @LVCVA pic.twitter.com/V0HZkkYkOz

— The Boring Company (@boringcompany) January 17, 2024

12 January 2024 Giga Texas! Winds died down enough for me to fly! Boring company Prufrock mount concrete being poured today & new outbound lot getting another large asphalt pavement section! Phase II of roof solar panels seems to be starting near NW corner of the main factory!… pic.twitter.com/5VNKzIxkPY

— Joe Tegtmeyer 🚀 🤠🛸😎 (@JoeTegtmeyer) January 12, 2024

Tesla contracting @boringcompany to porpoise under State Highway 130: @Tesla may be laying the groundwork to have their cars FSD themselves from the factory directly to its new end-of-line facility/outbound lot. pic.twitter.com/LXptMlwNZE

— ALEX (@ajtourville) January 3, 2024

Automated construction of facilities/logistics will be critical if/when it is built up on Mars.

Japan trying to land on the moon today.

https://www.youtube.com/live/nvXLt3ET9mE?si=zozKBlIw8dy45JSl

Powered descent begins at 0900 CT followed by "20 minutes of terror" to land.

Telemetry showing it gently landed at the correct speed, although the graphic they are showing seems to indicate it rolled over when it landed.

Edit: "We are still checking on status, please wait." They are cutting the feed.

Signal likely lost. It looks like it tumbled over on impact.

Everything looked great until touchdown. It was in control, did it's scheduled hovers at 150m and 50m to look for suitable landing spot. Descended gently, then the graphic showed the craft spinning onto it's side as it was at 0m.

I think the lack of knowledge on landing is not good. Also, there was a lot of X-Axis movement at the end of landing. I think it made it to the surface, but maybe rolled and is not sitting upright.

Based on their faces, probably not a good sign. Doesn't take long to get data. The IMU shows an accurate gravity value, but since they don't indicate a vector it's hard to tell the orientation from their dashboard.

But it probably flipped over too much. That seems like such a risky move to do last minute on a landing.

Still counts!

Actually a lot of movement on every axis. @00:28 all of the thrusters are firing and all axis' are pegged. Pretty sure it tumbled. Landing on the moon is difficult.

ETA: It also loses telemetry for 9 seconds from :19 - :28, and when it comes back the axis' are all pegged and most thrusters are firing at 100%.

ETA2: Also the battery keeps losing power after landing also, which probably means the solar panels are not getting enough light which also means it is not upright.

Telemetry notes SLIM has landed. Waiting for confirmation of a successful landing. https://t.co/vviWzmX4kW pic.twitter.com/K9CXhpimM6

— Chris Bergin - NSF (@NASASpaceflight) January 19, 2024

TxAg82 said:

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All the recent failed moon landings really put into perspective what NASA did in the 60's and 70's. I know we like to criticize modern NASA - and much of it is probably fair criticism. But, putting 12 Americans on the moon and getting them all back safely is still an accomplishment I don't think humankind has matched.

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For sure. It is truly unbelievable what they were able to accomplish in such a short amount of time. Going from a 15 minute jump with Shepherd to landing on the moon in 8 years is just crazy. How long have they been screwing around with Artemis and they have only had one unmanned flight?

TxAg82 said:

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All the recent failed moon landings really put into perspective what NASA did in the 60's and 70's. I know we like to criticize modern NASA - and much of it is probably fair criticism. But, putting 12 Americans on the moon and getting them all back safely is still an accomplishment I don't think humankind has matched.

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If anything, I think landing people is a little easier. You need a bigger craft and more systems, but the act of landing is probably easier. If any if the assumptions or expectations on the landing site or conditions are outside the parameters of the landing program, you're screwed trying to do it remotely, but a human performing the landing can make adjustments and quickly deal with unforseen conditions or events like malfunctions.

nortex97 said:

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. . .
Boring company does have some progress, and I believe this technology will be key to establishing human colony/transport on Mars etc:

Just now! @boringcompany Prufrock assembly underway at Giga Texas! Snapped a few more images on my way home. More in my video later today! pic.twitter.com/ckS9sbRtMn

— Joe Tegtmeyer 🚀 🤠🛸😎 (@JoeTegtmeyer) January 18, 2024

. . .

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Let us go then, you and I, [/T.S. Eliot]

SLIM is communicating and receiving commands. However it seems that the solar cell is not generating electricity. Running on battery.

No response when asked for vehicle orientation. Probably upside down. They know the state. They don't want to say it.

ABATTBQ11 said:

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TxAg82 said:

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All the recent failed moon landings really put into perspective what NASA did in the 60's and 70's. I know we like to criticize modern NASA - and much of it is probably fair criticism. But, putting 12 Americans on the moon and getting them all back safely is still an accomplishment I don't think humankind has matched.

---

If anything, I think landing people is a little easier. You need a bigger craft and more systems, but the act of landing is probably easier. If any if the assumptions or expectations on the landing site or conditions are outside the parameters of the landing program, you're screwed trying to do it remotely, but a human performing the landing can make adjustments and quickly deal with unforseen conditions or events like malfunctions.

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While adding the human definitely helped with landing, what they did in the 60s with computers that were a fraction of what we hold in our hand with all new technology that was unproven is still one the greatest feats in history.

ABATTBQ11 said:

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TxAg82 said:

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All the recent failed moon landings really put into perspective what NASA did in the 60's and 70's. I know we like to criticize modern NASA - and much of it is probably fair criticism. But, putting 12 Americans on the moon and getting them all back safely is still an accomplishment I don't think humankind has matched.

---

If anything, I think landing people is a little easier. You need a bigger craft and more systems, but the act of landing is probably easier. If any if the assumptions or expectations on the landing site or conditions are outside the parameters of the landing program, you're screwed trying to do it remotely, but a human performing the landing can make adjustments and quickly deal with unforseen conditions or events like malfunctions.

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Maybe so, but before we landed people there was this, 58 years ago

LROC photographed that and Apollo 12 etc. in some detail just a few years ago too (2011.).



Take that, moon landing deniers!

Gene Cernan was right about it being as if someone took a decade from the 21st century and stuck it into the 60s. The question is, which decade?

nortex97 said:

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LROC photographed that and Apollo 12 etc. in some detail just a few years ago too (2011.).



Take that, moon landing deniers!

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Pretty amazing what we can accomplish when we all row in the same direction.

There is a whole lot going on, even if we are still several weeks from launch. No idea what they are spending but this has to be a massive cash flow dump for all of these changes/re-work/engineering advancements around the GSE and launch tower etc.

Another humble reminder we have no idea what is really going on in the universe/how it works;

Oldest black hole discovered and it's a monsterhttps://t.co/z3S9GS2b9U

— Jazz Shaw (@JazzShaw) January 22, 2024

The universe is an absolute mind**** and if I think about it too much I start become a nihilist and I dont like that.

nortex97 said:

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Another humble reminder we have no idea what is really going on in the universe/how it works;

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We definitely have some idea of what's going on in the universe and how it works. Look how far we have to look before we see something we don't understand. And we at least know something about black holes already.

Theoretically, isn't it likely that at the center of the universe there is the polar opposite of a black hole, forcing things away from it?

OnlyForNow said:

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Theoretically, isn't it likely that at the center of the universe there is the polar opposite of a black hole, forcing things away from it?

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Since everything came from pretty much one point with the Big Bang, the center of the universe is everywhere. But yes, people have compared the Big Bang to the opposite of a black hole. Like a white hole, or possibly that our universe is the inside of a black hole.

I have no clue. After reading a bunch on the Higgs boson etc. (Particle vs. wave etc) over the past few years, I feel more lost than ever, despite our having better instruments etc. to measure stuff than ever before.

Basically, 'science' can't really explain either very big (by mass), or very small things, is my understanding/mystification. I don't really even know where to go to read up on it from a layman perspective at this point, it's just all very interesting/entertaining…

OnlyForNow said:

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Theoretically, isn't it likely that at the center of the universe there is the polar opposite of a black hole, forcing things away from it?

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There is no center of the universe. It hurts to think about it, but everywhere is the center.

I heard if you go to the other side of the universe, galaxies spin in the opposite direction.

V8Aggie said:

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I heard if you go to the other side of the universe, galaxies spin in the opposite direction.

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I remember an a beginning astro physics class I had in high school where the teacher asked do bicycle wheels turn clockwise or counterclockwise to try to show perspective matters in determining how galaxies rotate. Many in the class struggled with that issue even after looking at the wheel from both sides.

nortex97 said:

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Another humble reminder we have no idea what is really going on in the universe/how it works;

Oldest black hole discovered and it's a monsterhttps://t.co/z3S9GS2b9U

— Jazz Shaw (@JazzShaw) January 22, 2024

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I'm no physicist but I don't get why this is puzzling. Black holes form from large stars. The largest stars can go from birth to death in less than 100 million years. Black holes get bigger by "eating" other matter. Well, 400 million years after the Big Bang the universe would be relatively dense with lots of matter closer together. Seems logical it would be able to consume matter more quickly in that environment.

OnlyForNow said:

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Theoretically, isn't it likely that at the center of the universe there is the polar opposite of a black hole, forcing things away from it?

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So we don't have any physical or theoretical justification for something like that. There's nothing special about where black holes form. It's just where a lot of mass has accumulated. And even harder to grasp is that there's no physical reason for the mass to go anywhere. It's all still in there, just compressed down to a point.

The big bang is still really hard to figure out because the conditions of everything everywhere existing as one tiny point don't really have a reversible action. It's akin to basically knowing so little about the big bang that we have no reason to assume it's possible or impossible.

I almost wonder if the big bang is just the end result of a black hole. Since nothing ever escapes a black hole it could simply just be a big bang inside every one. We'd never know.

You may in fact be right, but it's apparently a lot more complicated. The life cycle of supermassive stars/type 3 stars/super massive black holes are again above my pay/IQ grade.

MaxPower said:

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nortex97 said:

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Another humble reminder we have no idea what is really going on in the universe/how it works;

Oldest black hole discovered and it's a monsterhttps://t.co/z3S9GS2b9U

— Jazz Shaw (@JazzShaw) January 22, 2024

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I'm no physicist but I don't get why this is puzzling. Black holes form from large stars. The largest stars can go from birth to death in less than 100 million years. Black holes get bigger by "eating" other matter. Well, 400 million years after the Big Bang the universe would be relatively dense with lots of matter closer together. Seems logical it would be able to consume matter more quickly in that environment.

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There's more to it than that.

For one, the very early universe was so hot that even atoms took awhile to form. Matter had to cool down to a point where it could actually aggregate into even its smallest parts, so even larger things like stars would have taken an even longer time to form, build up, and die. The larger the mass of whatever you're talking about, the longer it would have taken for the universe to get to a point where it was cool enough for that kind of aggregation to happen. For enough matter to aggregate and form a black hole, it's expected that the universe would have needed to have cooled significantly, and this one see me to have formed before that expected period.

For two, gravitational time dilation. We see this as being 13 billion years old, but how old does it see itself? As it forms and its gravity increases, it dilates time more and more and time passes more and more slowly than outside of its gravity. Think Interstellar. Cooper experiences time dilation on Miller's planet, and time passes differently for him than Romilly in orbit because of the difference in gravity. While that was not technically correct because the difference was too extreme, it is a real phenomenon, and someone in this black hole or its gravity would be experiencing time very differently relative to us outside it. While we see the black hole as being 13 billion years old, it may have only experienced a couple hundred million years of time in its own frame of reference. The question is how it got so big in that little time.

ABATTBQ11 said:

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MaxPower said:

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nortex97 said:

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Another humble reminder we have no idea what is really going on in the universe/how it works;

Oldest black hole discovered and it's a monsterhttps://t.co/z3S9GS2b9U

— Jazz Shaw (@JazzShaw) January 22, 2024

---

I'm no physicist but I don't get why this is puzzling. Black holes form from large stars. The largest stars can go from birth to death in less than 100 million years. Black holes get bigger by "eating" other matter. Well, 400 million years after the Big Bang the universe would be relatively dense with lots of matter closer together. Seems logical it would be able to consume matter more quickly in that environment.

---

There's more to it than that.

For one, the very early universe was so hot that even atoms took awhile to form. Matter had to cool down to a point where it could actually aggregate into even its smallest parts, so even larger things like stars would have taken an even longer time to form, build up, and die. The larger the mass of whatever you're talking about, the longer it would have taken for the universe to get to a point where it was cool enough for that kind of aggregation to happen. For enough matter to aggregate and form a black hole, it's expected that the universe would have needed to have cooled significantly, and this one see me to have formed before that expected period.

For two, gravitational time dilation. We see this as being 13 billion years old, but how old does it see itself? As it forms and its gravity increases, it dilates time more and more and time passes more and more slowly than outside of its gravity. Think Interstellar. Cooper experiences time dilation on Miller's planet, and time passes differently for him than Romilly in orbit because of the difference in gravity. While that was not technically correct because the difference was too extreme, it is a real phenomenon, and someone in this black hole or its gravity would be experiencing time very differently relative to us outside it. While we see the black hole as being 13 billion years old, it may have only experienced a couple hundred million years of time in its own frame of reference. The question is how it got so big in that little time.

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Ok, now let's freak out the non physicists with the whole relative time concept. I get it has been proven but it still is hard to wrap the mind around.

MaxPower said:

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nortex97 said:

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Another humble reminder we have no idea what is really going on in the universe/how it works;

Oldest black hole discovered and it's a monsterhttps://t.co/z3S9GS2b9U

— Jazz Shaw (@JazzShaw) January 22, 2024

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I'm no physicist but I don't get why this is puzzling. Black holes form from large stars. The largest stars can go from birth to death in less than 100 million years. Black holes get bigger by "eating" other matter. Well, 400 million years after the Big Bang the universe would be relatively dense with lots of matter closer together. Seems logical it would be able to consume matter more quickly in that environment.

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Because black holes don't normally encounter several hundred million stars within about 300 million years. (300, not 400 million years because stars didn't start to form until 100 million years after the big bang). Normally black holes gobble up everything around them and then the region is empty. There's nothing left to consume. There might be a few strays that fly by once in a while, but not enough to increase its mass to a few million solar masses.

There have been indications for a while that there must be other ways for super massive black holes to form early in the universe. It could be some hot spot regions full of huge amounts of hydrogen gravitationally collapsed. It could have been so much that it went right past the star forming phase into the black hole forming phase. Or maybe black holes were directly spawned from the big bang itself? Or something else?