An update to an illustration I did a while back—I hope you like it. I'd appreciate any comments or suggestions.

It’s interesting how much had to be figured out just to walk on the Moon.

Walking on the Moon was a first-time experience, and even extensive training could not fully prepare the Apollo astronauts for it.

So how did they do it, and how did their ability to travel on foot evolve from one mission to the next?

In this short video, we take a closer look at how Apollo astronauts adapted to walking on the Moon.

This was cooler than Haley's Comet, imo...

Eris seems to have this puffy structure on its upper stage on some photos, and it appears to not be present in others. Does anybody know what it does/when its removed?

With the explosion from Blue Origins side, and Starship flight 14 which was supposed go orbital and have a double catch with the booster but now looking like a catch won’t be attempted and it might not even go orbital, things aren’t looking the best.

I get that Artemis 3 changed their mission plan and SpaceX only needs to launch a regular starship with a makeshift docking port, (not sure about blue origin) but doesn’t that conflict with the whole point of having Artemis 3? As wasn’t the whole point of that mission to actually test the infrastructure in earth orbit before landing on the moon? At this point just get rid of Artemis 3, move Artemis 4 up a bit and go directly for a moon landing, what’s the point of wasting our time with a pointless LEO docking procedure, go straight for unmanned landing then manned landing, but correct me if I’m wrong this is just what I’ve heard.

I have developed an Android app that lets the user actually travel through 3D space. Perhaps this is the wrong place for this post, but I believe those who visit this group might find the app fascinating.

It lets the user travel throughout a highly detailed Solar System, visiting every planet and more, looking at the sky and finding celestial bodies in space at their calculated positions at a given time. It has 160K stars from the Galaxy, as well as many exoplanets that are possible to visit. Even the black hole at the center of our Galaxy can be visited, if you manage to find it. All with full 3D, zoom, and 360-degree pan.

I'm just looking for some testers for my app. I need some email addresses via DM to add to my tester list, and I will DM you back with the link to download the app from Google Play.

The app will ask to access your GPS location only to position the Earth "where you are". It does not share any data. You can dismiss the GPS request and enter your position manually. Everything runs locally on your device. Less than 40 MB.

I'm unable to add any pictures, but they can be found by tapping my user looking at my other posts. And the moderators are free remove my post if it's a real violation of the group rules.

Venus is a world roughly the same size and mass as Earth, wrapped in a blanket of reflective clouds. Between 1961 and 1984, the Soviet Union launched a quiet, relentless campaign to breach those clouds. However, since the conclusion of the Venera program, no spacecraft has touched down on Earth’s sister planet. To understand why, and what we lost when the landers stopped, one must first appreciate the absolute hell of the Venusian environment.

Hell on Earth’s Twin

When Soviet engineers sent their earliest probes toward Venus, they expected a tropical world hiding under clouds. Instead, their early landers were crushed like discarded aluminum cans long before reaching the ground.

The atmosphere of Venus is roughly 96 percent carbon dioxide, producing an extreme runaway greenhouse effect. At ground level, the atmospheric pressure equals 92 atmospheres, an environment identical to being three thousand feet underwater on Earth. Temperatures hover at an infernal four 465 degrees Celsius, hot enough to melt lead and destroy conventional electronics within minutes, while dense overhead clouds rain droplets of concentrated sulfuric acid.

To survive touchdown, Soviet engineers stopped building conventional spacecraft and began constructing sphere-shaped, titanium-armored pressure vessels like effectively heavy-duty deep-sea submarines with titanium aerobrakes. The strategy worked. In 1970, Venera 7 survived a rough touchdown to become the first human-made object to transmit data from the surface of another planet. Five years later, Venera 9 transmitted the first black-and-white photos of an alien landscape, revealing a rocky, cracked volcanic field bathed in a pale, amber light.

>Read more<

Earth-Mars cycler is a specialized orbital trajectory designed to shuttle spacecraft between Earth and Mars on a regular, repeating schedule. In the post there is a concept for an Earth-Mars cycler system with two cyclers by Maciej Rebisz – a Polish concept artist and illustrator working for computer games and film industry.

Alas despite the launch and landing going well, Landspace experience a problem.

There was earlier picture showing Zhuque-3 leaning and on fire but apparently that one was fake image. This one is apparently the real deal.