The Eagle Has Landed!

[Softball Bat]

Well, it will land. *cough* Allegedly.

Not the Eagle.
It is called -----> Odysseus.
It is said to be landing on the surface of the moon on Thursday. First U.S. craft to land on the moon since 1972.
So they tell the children.

Read all about it right here -----> https://www.reuters.com/technology/spac ... 024-02-21/



Although considered an Intuitive Machines mission, the IM-1 flight is carrying six NASA payloads of instruments
designed to gather data about the lunar environment ahead of NASA's planned first crewed Artemis mission to the
moon later this decade.

carrying instruments to closely survey the lunar landscape, its resources and potential hazards. Odysseus will focus
on space weather interactions with the moon's surface, radio astronomy, precision landing technologies and navigation.



How exciting!

And it will be carrying a camera, which will record the entire flight, from launch to landing on the moon!
Oh boy! Is this... GREAT!
Wait... what?
No. It won't?
Oh, drats!

But it will place a camera on the moon, directed right at earth, so everyone on earth can view a 24 hour live feed of the earth, as seen from the surface of the moon!
Right?
Beautiful! The wonders of science!
Wait... no?
It won't?
Oh drats!

I might not tune in, after all.

[Meat Head]

Well this should resolve that old Flat Earth theory and the Moon in a TV Studio scenario.

[Sudden Sam]

Japan building maple satellites!

https://www.ndtv.com/science/japan-to-s ... it-5101993

[StrawMan]

You can watch the landing scheduled for 23:24 GMT / 18:24 Eastern today.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=21X5lGl ... annel=NASA

[Roach]

Watching NASA on line. Looks like it might have landed a little to hard.

https://www.ksl.com/article/50886528/wa ... ears-today

Comm failure at touchdown. More like the lander is on its side doing the epileptic chicken. But I do hope it is ok.

[Roach]

Well never mind it had a happy landing.

[Diego in Seattle]

Well never mind it had a happy landing.

I thought only the Chinese have happy landings....

[Roach]

On its side, fell over at landing.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nat ... 725631007/

Bummer.

[The Seer]

Well this should resolve that old Flat Earth theory and the Moon in a TV Studio scenario.

'tart? You here?

[Rootbeer]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zz5q1KweqdM

Starting at about 4:30 this guy says, "...and the Chinese are hot on our heels. So we really need to succeed. And hopefully Congress will support NASA. President Biden's doing a great job supporting NASA...the Congress has got to come through with funding. So hopefully that will work." Later, he says the reason we stopped going to the moon in 1972 was because Nixon and the Congress cut funding to NASA. While it's true NASA didn't get as much funding in 1971 as it did in 1964, they still got a whole bunch of money. How much money?

The entire military budget for 1971, with 1.2 million active duty personnel, 600+ military bases, and an active shooting war in Vietnam was $80 Billion. NASA's budget for that year was a whopping $30 billion. Hang on...$30 Billion isn't enough to manufacture equipment already in existence with a proven track record? Sounds fishy.

I got weird vibes from the guy in the above video stumping for more funding with China fear porn. Reminded me of the "We gotta beat the Russians to the moon," sales pitch from the 1960's.

[Rootbeer]

Uh oh. Odysseus is probably tipped over. Looks like there's no method for righting the ship. Bugger. That means no way to recover it back to Earth. Worse yet, part of the payload is smushed against the moon's surface. Trapped underneath the lander are... sculptures? Hang on...what? *checks notes*. Yup. Sculptures.

This craft flew 240,000 miles with a 220lb payload and part of the load was Jeff Koons "art."





This is what exploring and colonizing the moon looks like? This is why NASA needs more than $25Billion/year?

[Softball Bat]

Odysseus is probably tipped over.

[Dr_Phibes]

Does 'tipped over' mean crashed?

[Meat Head]

Well this should resolve that old Flat Earth theory and the Moon in a TV Studio scenario.

'tart? You here?

Well it's about tits up (a few days left) so we will never see the pictures of the earf-sphere and stuff.

[Softball Bat]

Well this should resolve that old Flat Earth theory and the Moon in a TV Studio scenario.

'tart? You here?

Well it's about tits up (a few days left) so we will never see the pictures of the earf-sphere and stuff.

Not to worry.

Japan got it, years ago.








That's real, folks!







#brain_damage

[Rootbeer]

Does 'tipped over' mean crashed?

Pretty sure that's what it means.

A weeble-wobble design should be an option going forward.

[StrawMan]

Does 'tipped over' mean crashed?

Apparently, 'tipped over' is a terrific success!

From Space.com
“Intuitive Machines' Historic Moon Landing Builds Momentum for Artemis”

NASA sees an even brighter future for its human moon-landing program after a private robotic mission safely touched down last week. That mission, known as IM-1, made the first soft U.S. lunar touchdown in 52 years this past Thursday (Feb. 22).

Define 'safely touched down' and 'soft lunar touchdown' for me.

We're going back [to the moon], and we've got some momentum from this that's going to propel us to keep moving with Artemis 2 and 3, and beyond — and all the hard things that we have ahead of us. It's a big deal.

WTF?!? The damn thing is toppled over on its side, for cryin’ out loud, like the Ed209 in Robocop, and just as brain dead. Check out this ‘selfie’ Odysseus sent home. This is what success looks like for today’s NASA?!?



NASA used to be run by engineers, hardcore tech geniuses, and test pilots. You know… rocket scientists. Now, like every other bloated arm of the government, it’s run by layers of bureaucrats and spin doctors.

You know what happens to a manned lander that ends up on its side? They don’t come home. Period. But thank G0d we’ll have the latest Tik Tok videos of the crew dying to look forward to. Excellent.

[Softball Bat]

Everyone gets a trophy.
You really did not know that?

Define 'safely touched down' and 'soft lunar touchdown' for me.

Those sound like they came out of the same playbook that produced, "In the unlikely event of an unscheduled water landing...," which always gives me a happy face.

[StrawMan]

RACK the Bat.

[L45B]

Define soft lunar touchdown for me.

This was the closest I could come up with.

[Screw_Michigan]

Define soft lunar touchdown for me.

This was the closest I could come up with.

Incredible

[Softball Bat]

WTF?!? The damn thing is toppled over on its side, for cryin’ out loud

50+ years ago, when people were playing P0NG and your folks were sitting in front of black-and-white TVs with rabbit ears antennas, NASA sent 6 human missions to the moon (allegedly), took thousands of photos, talked to the president, jumped around, swung golf clubs, rode in a buggy, filmed their take off from the surface of the moon...

Today they can't land a bot on the moon without it *fracturing* -- and producing cr@p photos.


Great work!

[Diego in Seattle]

WTF?!? The damn thing is toppled over on its side, for cryin’ out loud

50+ years ago, when people were playing P0NG and your folks were sitting in front of black-and-white TVs with rabbit ears antennas, NASA sent 6 human missions to the moon (allegedly), took thousands of photos, talked to the president, jumped around, swung golf clubs, rode in a buggy, filmed their take off from the surface of the moon...

Today they can't land a bot on the moon without it *fracturing* -- and producing cr@p photos.


Great work!

That's because private industry always does things much better than the federal govt...

[Mikey]

[Screw_Michigan]

That's because private industry always does things much better than the federal govt...

The US space industrial base is perfectly capable of properly landing a lunar rover, it just didn't do it this time. What makes you think NASA would have not only stuck the landing but also done it for the price it paid the contractor, which was like 10% of what it would have cost NASA to do it?

NASA does not have a lock on the US' best space engineering talent. There's plenty of it in our booming commercial space industry.

Space is super interesting because it defines traditional partisan lines. "Free market conservatives" will be the biggest big government liberals when it comes to NASA spending because they either have NASA facilities or huge prime cost-plus contractors like Boeing in their districts. Big government liberals, on the other hand, will be free market conservatives and insist that NASA offshore a lot of its R&D and investment to industry.

[88BuckeyeGrad]

Nothing quite so entertaining as a dude with a mouth full of Zelenskyy going full Marcus Allen on the relative cost of meaningless space missions.

[Diego in Seattle]

Nothing quite so entertaining as a dude with a mouth full of Zelenskyy going full Marcus Allen on the relative cost of meaningless space missions.

They weren't meaningless.

Have you ever downed a space stick with Tang?

[HighPlainsGrifter]

Nothing quite so entertaining as a dude with a mouth full of Zelenskyy going full Marcus Allen on the relative cost of meaningless space missions.

Devastatingly whored.

[L45B]

That's because private industry always does things much better than the federal govt...

Correct. Well, except for printing paper money that is.

[Carson]

Nothing quite so entertaining as a dude with a mouth full of Zelenskyy going full Marcus Allen on the relative cost of meaningless space missions.

They weren't meaningless.

Have you ever downed a space stick with Tang?

We did get pocket calculators, so there's that.

I preferred chocolate space food sticks over peanut butter.

[Mikey]

Nothing quite so entertaining as a dude with a mouth full of Zelenskyy going full Marcus Allen on the relative cost of meaningless space missions.

They weren't meaningless.

Have you ever downed a space stick with Tang?

We did get pocket calculators, so there's that.

I preferred chocolate space food sticks over peanut butter.

He said space stick, not space dick.

[Screw_Michigan]

Nothing quite so entertaining as a dude with a mouth full of Zelenskyy going full Marcus Allen on the relative cost of meaningless space missions.

Are you saying all space missions are meaningless or just returning to the moon with a lunar rover? Use your 88 brain cells and get back to us.

[Softball Bat]

Many of you are probably aware that there will be a solar eclipse on April 8th, and the eclipse will be visible across a large swath of the United States.

NAZA will evidently be firing three rockets at the eclipse.
lol



Serpent Deity

The space agency’s project, Atmospheric Perturbations Around The Eclipse Path, will investigate how
that drop in sunlight and temperature affects Earth’s upper atmosphere. APEP is named after the serpent
deity from ancient Egyptian mythology, nemesis of the sun deity Ra, according to NASA.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamiecarte ... 74adab3d19




o_O

[Screw_Michigan]

Many of you are probably aware that there will be a solar eclipse on April 8th

[Mikey]

If you mistakenly stare straight into the eclipse and injure your eyes you can fix it with some ivermectin. Or maybe a little Clorox.

[Screw_Michigan]

If you mistakenly stare straight into the eclipse and injure your eyes you can fix it with some ivermectin. Or maybe a little Clorox.

[The Seer]

[StrawMan]

AKA "Jesus Clips". Rootbeer knows why.

[Roach]

Those are outside jesus clips, don't forget inside jesus clips.












Twing. Jesus!

[StrawMan]

More from the NASA brain trust:

NASA's next moon car is starting to take shape.

The agency has selected three private teams — led by the companies Intuitive Machines, Lunar Outpost and Venturi Astrolab, respectively — to develop their versions of the Lunar Terrain Vehicle (LTV), the rover that Artemis astronauts will drive around the moon's southern polar region beginning in 2030.

Yes, you read that right. Intuitive Machines, the same company who "soft landed" their lunar lander on its side.

Can't wait to see "their version" in a "soft" rollover, stranding the unfortunate souls aboard miles from help with their thumbs out.

https://www.space.com/nasa-lunar-terrai ... -contracts