The Next US Moonshot Will Launch From Virginia 92
As reported by the Washington Post, a U.S. spacecraft headed for the moon (to circle it, though, not to land) is to be launched for the first time from the facility at Virginia's Wallops Island. If you'll be in the D.C. area on the night of September 6 and the weather cooperates enough for a launch, it should be worth staying up for. "The robotic mission is to collect detailed information about the moon's thin atmosphere. Sometimes thought to be nonexistent, the lunar atmosphere has been described as extremely tenuous and fragile, but present. According to the space agency, the launch will record many firsts. One will be the first launch beyond Earth orbit from the Virginia facility. It also will be the first flight for the Minotaur V rocket, NASA said. NASA said the five-stage Air Force rocket is an excess ballistic missile that was transformed into a space-launch vehicle. It will boost the space probe into position for it to reach lunar orbit."
Though the satellite is NASA's, the launch will be controlled by Orbital Sciences.
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Re:It's not a moonshot (Score:5, Funny)
Forgive him, he is a product of modern education. He got 66.7% of the correct letters in the right order and that is clearly a pass these days.
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I also enjoyed the bit where he singled out that this was an illegal alcoholic drink during Prohibition.
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Indeed, he is educationally handicapped with an obvious learning disability, AND SO ARE THE RETARDED MODERATORS! This is the fifth completely wrong comment I've seen that's been modded up (ACs start at Zero, sometimes -1 if you're posting from the wrong IP address). Slashdot, PLEASE bring the old metamoderation back, the new one is NOT working.
It was indeeed moonSHINE (and they still make it and it's still illegal) and the dictionary (Websters) says it was coined in 1957, a quarter century after prohibition
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Indeed, the terms from the time period were generally "bathtub gin" or "hooch".
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That was moonSHINE, not moonshot...
What? The next things you'll say will be that the pale light from that orb we see at knight is called moon rock and that the minerals collected from the Moon are called moonwalks.
Re:It's not a moonshot (Score:5, Informative)
Says who? According to Mirriam-Webster, a moon shot (TWO WORDS) is "a spacecraft mission to the moon" [merriam-webster.com]. Dictionary.com [reference.com] says the same.
Yeah, Wikipedia [wikipedia.org] says a moon shot is specifically a manned mission, but it says that on a short disambiguation page without any citations. Wikipedia is pretty reliable -- most of the time. Not when the article is without citations and has a short edit history.
Re:It's not a moonshot (Score:5, Informative)
The word is still in use. And it took me only a few minutes to find this 1958 citation [google.com] where "moon shot" refers to a potential Russian mission to set a small payload to the moon, and this 1959 one where it's used to refer to Lunik II [google.com]. And this [google.com]. And this [google.com].
I'm sorry, but you're incorrect. Since the 1950s, "moon shot" means shooting a rocket at the moon. Nothing is implied in the term about what's on or inside the rocket.
Re:It's not a moonshot (Score:5, Funny)
Na, your all wrong. A moonshot is what me and my frat buddies did on the front lawn of the Pi-Phi's after a nights drinking........
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Shoot the Moon [google.com] is also a game with two steel rods and a steel ball.
So if they made a Star-Wars themed version, would they call it "Shoot the That's No Moon"?
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It's also a move in Euchre where one players attempts all the tricks.
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Says who? According to Mirriam-Webster, a moon shot (TWO WORDS) is "a spacecraft mission to the moon"
Perhaps Merriam-Webster would have been more authoritative? ;-)
Yeah, Wikipedia [wikipedia.org] says a moon shot is specifically a manned mission, but it says that on a short disambiguation page without any citations.
Apparently (as per a quote in the OED), the (failed) Thor-Able launch of a (unmanned) Pioneer probe to the Moon on 1958/8/17 was heralded by Washington Post as "a moon shot" (in the sentence "Yesterday's *moon shot blew up 50,000 feet and 77 seconds after the launching at Cape Canaveral.") So it seems that it had already been established even for unmanned vehicles when the Apollo project finally came to fruition.
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A rose by any other name.
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that's one argument people use for why Earth should be considered a double planet rather than a planet/satellite system: The moon's path is at all points convex about the sun.
The moon is a satellite rather than a double planet because the center of attraction is inside the Earth. The moon is slowly moving away from the Earth, so some day it will indeed be a double planet.
These "some people" you speak of are not astrophysicists. Look "orbit" up for a better explanation.
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Personally, I would not call it a moonshot unless they landed at least a single chicken on the moon.
Re:It's not a moonshot (Score:5, Funny)
What do you have against married chickens?
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No, you've gone to it and beyond it, which by most common usage would qualify for going to the Moon. Crashing, landing, orbiting, and fly-by all qualify.
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So if you got a ride along on a Moon orbit trip, you wouldn't tell people that you'd been to the Moon. That's cool.
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Similar to the fact that in various first person shooter games, you will not be credited with a headshot unless there is a live pilot within your bullet.
Uhm... why? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Uhm... why? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Its hillarious that you got modded +5 for a statement that is, according to all subsequent comments, horribly off base: apparently this facility has long been in use, well before the terms of the current slate of senators.
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Of course they want it close to DC. Because NASA has a problem with management. So we will have it lead by People who got their jobs in a Big Popularity Contest, and their job is dependent on winning the next one. That will lead to good management.
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I wondered the same thing. further there's a whole cadre of instrumentation that needs to be built up to create a valid launch range, and we already have that, so why spend all that money on something closer to D.C.? Is it the country's vision that every state needs its own launch pad?
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Since there have been 16,000 launches since 1945 from the facility, I would imagine they are already pretty well instrumented.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wallops_Flight_Facility
Wallops has been in operations since well before the 60's and is fully equipped and staffed launch facility.
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Wallops Island [nasa.gov] is where the US rocket program started [wikipedia.org].
Why not? (Score:5, Informative)
I wondered the same thing. further there's a whole cadre of instrumentation that needs to be built up to create a valid launch range, and we already have that, so why spend all that money on something closer to D.C.?
Wallops Flight Facility is already heavily instrumented and has been in operation for over 50 years. There have been 16,000 launches from that facility including orbital launches.
Now as for why they are doing this particular mission at WFF instead of Canaveral, I have no idea. Could be an effort by NASA to cater to a wider swath of congress. Could be military related in some way. Might be that the resources for that particular mission were more conveniently located there. I'm sure there is a reason but it isn't obvious what that reason might be.
Re:Why not? (Score:4, Informative)
Cape canaveral air station is rented property owned by the Air Force. Kodiac, Wallops, and White Sands are all owned by NASA, additionally it is located much closer to Orbital's headquarters in Baltimore.
Re:Why not? (Score:4, Insightful)
Orbital Sciences is running the mission--for whatever reason, they've set up shop just outside Wallops and have been spending quite a bit of time and money getting one of the pads at Wallops set up for Minotaur and Antares launches. It could be because it's closer to their manufacturing facilities, because they've been launch at WFF with smaller rockets many years, because the costs of using the pad and facilities at WFF are cheaper than the big pads at KSC, or whatever; but the point is that Orbital is running the mission and almost certainly chose to use WFF themselves. While it's true they might get better performance launching from KSC, it would shock me if WFF wasn't much cheaper to run out of. But even if it weren't, Orbital has invested in their operations at Wallops and is very unlikely move everything down to Florida now. I don't know what the deal is here, but in this case I suspect it's just a business decision by Orbital and nothing more sinister.
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Your last para is for shit and too cute by half.
Vandenberg is not better for a trip to the Moon unless you've got a fuckton extra delta-v in your pocket. It's used for polar launches; the boost phase is all or mostly all over water. Launching equatorial missions over land is a no-no. Doesn't have a fucking thing to do with military or a VA senator. It's mechanics, fuel, and liability (and that's part of not wanting to unnecessarily endanger people under the boost portion of flight path.)
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Why would you move north of Canaveral?
Wild guess: Congressman Scott Rigell (R VA-02) needed to shore up votes in his district, and won the political battle with Bill Posey (R FL-08).
Re:Uhm... why? (Score:5, Informative)
It is all about escape velocity, and for equatorial orbits and trajectories, going with the rotation of the earth does help. A lot. To the point that many of the standard rockets, it'll boost your launchable mass by 20%. That is why the EU launches from French Guiana, Russia rents back its Baikonur Cosmodrome from Kazakhstan, and Boeing et al. have a mobile oil rig looking thing that'll take your rockets down to the equatorial Pacific to launch it (Sea Launch)
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Of course if you already happen to have an extra rocket laying around that might be bigger than what you need, the extra fuel and mass might not be that big of a deal compared with hauling everything down to Florida.
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Yes, moving towards the equator doesn't do much to cut your escape velocity (it does do some, since the Earth bulges at the equator). The big advantage, however, is the Earth's rotational velocity. If you lanch eastwards, you get to add that velocity to your own in trying to make escape velocity. This increases from zero at the pole to 1670 km/h at the equator. 1670 km/h is better than 4% of escape velocity.
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I thought the physics of this kind of stuff favored being closer to the equator? Why would you move north of Canaveral?
Hmm. I thought that translunar injection is more favorable from higher-inclined orbits, since you avoid the worst parts of the radiation belts. The non-need to launch to an orbit close to equatorial then gives you other launch sites as alternatives to Florida.
You have to wonder how much that atmosphere... (Score:3)
You have to wonder how much that atmosphere was effected by debris still up there from Deep Impact, Chandrayaan-1's Moon Impact Probe, and the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter's centaur upper stage impacts.
Too bad they didn't do a before-and-after of this particular mission.
Re:You have to wonder how much that atmosphere... (Score:4, Interesting)
Even though there's a thin atmosphere on the Moon it is constantly hammered by Solar Heating and the Solar Winds. It's really an exosphere rather than an atmosphere. [space.com] I doubt any dust raised by impacts would last there very long at all but also remember that it's constantly pelted by all kinds of cosmic detritus hence all the craters so it would be difficult to discern if any debris co-mingling with the gases was man-made or a natural occurrence. [nasa.gov]
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Or even bobbleheads [bobbleheadinspace.com] laying around..
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Dude, they've been lighting off the big fireworks from Wallops since 1945 [nasa.gov].
What new one? (Score:5, Informative)
Why use a multibillion dollar tried and tested launch facility, like the ones in Florida and Califorinia, when you can build a new one in a poor location?
Wallops Flight Facility has been in operation for over 50 years and has launched over 16,000 rockets including orbital missions. But don't let those actual facts get in the way of your prejudiced rant.
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Dayum! (Score:2)
Did they say it was a FIVE-stage rocket? Yes, apparently the Minotaur V [wikipedia.org] has five stages. Makes sense, I guess, if you want to get a 600kg payload the moon, but it's the first time I've heard that phrase, at least not from NASA. Just strikes me as weird.
Re:Dayum! (Score:5, Informative)
Minotaur V is a very Kerbal design. Jury-rigging multiple solid stages together. Normally this kind of flight would use a high performance liquid upper stage capable of multiple restarts and the design makes very little sense, except when you have some never-needed and phased-out ICBMs hanging around waiting for disposal AND you have a long-running relationship with the company that makes solid rockets (ATK) for ICBMs and for small upper stages.... Then the total cost of doing it like this becomes quite economical and, well, better use the ICBMs like this than to just scrap 'em.
First three stages = LGM-118A Peacekeeper ICBM. And since those three stages won't get you there just yet (Peacekeeper being designed for lobbing nukes to other side of the world rather than orbiting stuff), you need an upper stage on top of the three stages... and because ATK's biggest one can't do the trick, you stack two of them in slightly different sizes... So, bam, 5 stages.
LADEE Launch Visibility (Score:1)
For those of you on the east coast of the US.
LADEE Launch Visibility [nasa.gov]
Knock, Knock! Who's there? (Score:1)
Suits: Hello. We're from the EPA. Afraid your spaceflight launch will need to be cancelled indefinitely. Apparently it will be coming in contact with the moon's atmosphere and our public sources from Slashdot and elsewhere have identified it as being, "extremely tenuous and fragile".
NASA: But it's the moon! It's not earth!
Suits: [smiles] Now. Now. You knew this was going to happen. Just because it's the moon doesn't mean that the regulatory arms of the US government can't reach. If your r
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le edgy 2k. The EPA is to blame for us not posting from Pluto amirite! It's totally the environmentalists' fault that the space program is in shambles.
Let me guess, you're one of those Global climate change deniers too, eh, mr. Strawman?
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Orbital Sciences Warp Drive (Score:2)
At least that's their address...I pass it all the time in Dulles, VA.
http://www.orbital.com/About/Contact/ [orbital.com] :)