CaaC (John)

Musk on holiday on the moon

Don't think I would like to travel in his spacecraft with Musk!! "He also found himself in another controversy after appearing on a podcast while smoking marijuana" Elon Musk renames his BFR spacecraft Starship 20 November 2018 Elon Musk has changed the name of his forthcoming passenger spaceship from Big Falcon Rocket (BFR) to Starship. The entrepreneur would not reveal why he had renamed the craft, which has not yet been built, but added its rocket booster will be called Super Heavy. In September, Mr. Musk's SpaceX company announced that Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa had signed up to be the first passenger to travel on the ship. The mission is planned for 2023 if the spaceship is built by that time. It is the craft's fourth name - it started out as Mars Colonial Transporter (MCT) and then became Interplanetary Transport System (ITS) before becoming BFR. Over the weekend, Mr. Musk tweeted that the spaceship was being redesigned, saying the new version was "very exciting. Delightfully counter-intuitive". Starship is due to replace the Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy vehicles eventually and will cost an estimated $5bn (£3.9bn) to build. Insight: Mission to the heart of Mars The weird and wonderful life of Elon Musk Elon Musk makes another space tourism promise Mr. Musk's plan is for Starship to take people into space on commercial flights around the Moon and Mr. Maezawa would be his first "moon tourist". However, he will not land on the Moon but will travel on what is called a "free return trajectory", which will bring Starship back to Earth after it has gone around the far side of the Moon. Only 24 humans have visited the Moon - all of them Americans; 12 of them landed on the moon. Nasa's Apollo 17 in December 1972 marked the last time humans landed on the Moon or went beyond low-Earth orbit. Mr. Musk's longer-term plans are to take people to Mars and colonize the planet. He did not reveal any details of the new design for the craft but had previously said it would be able to transport up to 100 passengers to Mars. Mr. Musk has had a troubled year. In September, he was ordered to step down as chairman of electric car maker Tesla and pay a $20m fine, in a deal struck with US regulators over tweets he posted about taking the firm private. He also found himself in another controversy after appearing on a podcast while smoking marijuana. Although the drug is legal in California, where the podcast was recorded, shares in Tesla fell more than 9% after his appearance. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-46274158

Awesome, I like Orion picture "First crewed flight 2021" and a crew of 2 to 6, only 3 years away, can't wait.

Only Mother Nature can do this. Huge waterspout hits Italy's south-western city 2 hours ago A huge waterspout has been captured on video moving from the sea and hitting Italy's south-western city of Salerno. Eyewitnesses said the whirling column of air and water lifted containers in the city's port area. There were no reports of any injuries. The rare phenomenon was observed at about 15:00 local time (14:00 GMT), officials say. A waterspout is an intense columnar vortex that occurs over a body of water and quickly dissolves over dry land. Footage of Tuesday's waterspout has been widely shared on social media, with some users describing the vortex as "incredible". https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-46281048

Whoever dug them up must have thought they could sell them like lumps of gold!! Scotland Meteorite hunters dig up 60 million-year-old site in Skye Efforts are to be made to protect part of a 60-million-year-old meteorite impact site in Skye. Geologists believe deposits from the meteorite were dug up and taken away by meteorite hunters earlier this month. Dr Simon Drake, who discovered the impact site with colleague Dr Andy Beard in 2017, said he was appalled by the damage. He said plans were being made to shield the affected area, which is only a few meters across, with reinforced glass. Prehistoric Skye meteorite impact found A tiny amount of rare minerals, measuring less than the diameter of a human hair, have been found at the so-called ejecta deposit site. One of the minerals, a brown crystal called niobium rich osbornite (TiNbVN), had never been recorded until Drake and Beard's discovery last year. The TiNbVN was found together with another mineral, vanadium-rich osbornite (TiVN). TiVN was previously found in a sample of the minerals that were collected as particles in the wake of comet Wild-2 by Nasa's Stardust mission in 2006. Dr Drake said the minerals had been found in such tiny amounts and at microscopic size that anyone taking - or buying - the rock from Skye would have no idea if their sample contained them. Mini digger Dr Drake said local crofters and Scottish government representatives were involved in the plan to protect the site from further damage. The Birkbeck, University of London, a geologist said: "The glass would prevent further samples from being taken from this fragile site, but would still allow students and children on school trips to visit the site and see what is there." A plaque explaining what is under the glass has also been proposed, he said. On the damage caused to the site, Dr Drake said: "Up to a cubic metre of rock has been removed. "The right-hand side of the outcrop has been cut into using a mini digger and picks and shovels. "Four or five hundred fist-sized pieces of loose rock have also been taken." Dr Drake said another part of the meteoric ejecta deposit was on land owned by the John Muir Trust and that the conservation charity was keen to keep this area protected. He appealed to people not to collect samples. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-46262827

Tim Cahill: Australia bid farewell to Cahill in 3-0 win over Lebanon 3 hours ago | Football World Cup 2014: Tim Cahill nets stunning volley for Australia Australia bid farewell to an emotional Tim Cahill as he made his 108th and final appearance in a 3-0 win against Lebanon at ANZ Stadium in Sydney. Cahill, 38, came on in the 82nd minute after two goals from Martin Boyle and a Mathew Leckie strike had all but sealed the win for the hosts. Despite failing to score on the night he finishes his international career as Australia's record goalscorer with 50. "This is the only time you're going to see me cry," he said after the game. "Every time I wore the green and gold, I played with my heart and I never left anything on the pitch. Thank you very much, Australia." It was agreed with manager Graham Arnold that he would appear in the final stages of the friendly: "The first 85 minutes is all about our performance," Arnold told Fox Sports. "The last five minutes can be for Timmy." Cahill's tally of 108 appearances is one behind former goalkeeper Mark Schwarzer's Australia record of 109. The former Everton and Millwall attacking midfielder was the first Australian to score at a World Cup, in their 3-1 opening group game win against Japan in 2006. However, it was his volley against the Netherlands in the 2014 World Cup that many believe was his best ever goal. For Australia, it was their last friendly match at home before they begin their Asian Cup title defence in January 2019. https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/46276878

The first series and episodes of TNG were a bit amateurish but they got better as they went along but I guess everybody has different tastes in shows.

I am a Star Trek fan and the Next Generation with Captain Picard and Data is my favourite but I have watched Star Trek TNG, Voyager and Deep Space Nine and just imagine if we did have a Space Station like that in the future [which we will], the mind boggles and when I pass away I want to be reincarnated to about 200 years from now and grow up and hopefully see all that.

International Space Station: Twenty facts about the ISS as it celebrates its 20th birthday Joe Sommerlad 9 hrs ago © Provided by Independent Digital News & Media Limited The International Space Station (ISS) is celebrating its 20th birthday. Russian space agency Roscosmos kicked off the project to build a successor to the Mir and Skylab stations on 20 November 1998 when it launched its Zarya module from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Two weeks later, Nasa followed suit with its own component, Unity. The pair were joined in low-earth orbit and started a 13-year construction effort that would see a vast artificial satellite produced, serving as an observatory, laboratory and staging post from which mankind could advance its understanding of our own world and those beyond. The ISS was also a landmark act of co-operation between the United States and Russia, the old Cold War foes definitively laying to rest decades of nuclear tensions to share the expertise both sides had accumulated during and after the Space Race of the 1960s to further the common good. To celebrate the 20th anniversary of this extraordinary project, intended to last another 10 years at least, here are 20 facts you might not know about the ISS:

You were right @nudge , they picked Jezero Science & Environment Nasa 2020 robot rover to target Jezero 'lake' crater By Jonathan Amos BBC Science Correspondent 19 November 2018 The American space agency (Nasa) says it will send its 2020 Mars rover to a location known as Jezero Crater. Nasa believes the rocks in this nearly 50km-wide bowl could conceivably hold a record of ancient life on the planet. Satellite images of Jezero point to river water having once cut through its rim and flowed via a delta system into a big lake. It is the kind of environment that might just have supported microbes some 3.5-3.9 billion years ago. This was a period when Mars was much warmer and wetter than it is today. Evidence for the past presence of a lake is obviously a draw, but Ken Farley, the Nasa project scientist on the mission, said the delta traces were also a major attraction. "A delta is extremely good at preserving bio-signatures - any evidence of life that might have existed in the lake water, or at the interface of the sediment and the lake water, or possibly things that lived in the headwaters region that were swept in by the river and deposited in the delta," he told reporters. Jezero's multiple rock types, including clays and carbonates, have high potential to preserve the organic molecules that would hint at life's bygone existence. UK industry to make new 'Hotbirds' Mars robot to be sent to Oxia Planum The jeopardy of landing on Mars

I stuck this in here instead of the likes of the Animal Thread because...well...it's news and he saved an animal's life.

Paul Gascoigne charged with sex assault on Durham train Football legend Paul Gascoigne has been charged with sexually assaulting a woman on a train from York to Durham. The former England midfielder was arrested at Durham station on 20 August. British Transport Police said the 51-year-old has now been charged with one count of sexual assault by touching and will appear at Newton Aycliffe Magistrates' Court on 11 December. Gazza shot to international fame during the 1990 World Cup. After leaving his hometown club Newcastle United in 1988, he enjoyed success at Tottenham Hotspur, Lazio, and Rangers. He has had a well-documented struggle with alcoholism in the past. A spokeswoman for British Transport Police said Mr. Gascoigne, of Leicester, was "charged via postal requisition with one count of sexual assault by touching, contrary to Section 3 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003." "The charge relates to an incident on board a train on 20 August this year," she added. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-tyne-46261574

Strange interstellar object 'Oumuamua is tiny and very reflective Jon Fingas 8 hrs ago After no small amount of mystery, we're starting to understand more about 'Oumuamua, the first known interstellar object to visit the Solar System. A newly published study indicates that the object can't be that large, for one thing. As the Spitzer Space Telescope's infrared detection couldn't catch the cigar-shaped entity, that makes it relatively small. It's likely less than half a mile (2,600 feet) at its longest. It also can't have a diameter larger than 1,440 feet, and that figure could be as small as 320 feet. The research also found something unusual: it's extremely reflective, potentially up to 10 times more than Solar System comets. Just what caused this isn't certain, though. It could be that 'Oumuamua lost a lot of its surface dirt and dust as it passed near the Sun, which (combined with gas from the object itself) left it covered in reflective ice and snow. This happens with local comets, although not necessarily to this degree. There's one major problem with verifying details: it's likely too late. The object is now roughly as far from the Sun as Saturn, and that puts it too far away for study by current space telescopes. Whatever its exact nature, we may have to wait a long while to get more answers -- if we get any at all. https://www.msn.com/en-gb/money/other/strange-interstellar-object-oumuamua-is-tiny-and-very-reflective/ar-BBPRdw4

I would imagine checks nowadays are a lot more rigid than they were years ago...I think? Urgent background checks are ordered on 3,000 doctors after a woman, 56, is found to have used her fake degree to work for the NHS as a psychiatrist for 22 years Liz Hull and Chris Brooke for the Daily Mail 6 hrs ago The backgrounds of 3,000 foreign doctors are being urgently checked after a conwoman with no qualifications was allowed to work as an NHS psychiatrist for 22 years. Zholia Alemi, 56, claimed to have a degree from the University of Auckland in New Zealand when she came to work in the UK in 1992. In reality, the convicted fraudster had flunked her first year and dropped out. But nobody at the General Medical Council, the watchdog responsible for vetting the background of medics, checked whether her documentation was genuine. https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknews/urgent-background-checks-are-ordered-on-3000-doctors-after-woman-56-is-found-to-have-used-her-fake-degree-to-work-for-the-nhs-as-a-psychiatrist-for-22-years/ar-BBPQZUq?li=BBoPWjQ

AC Milan have begun talks about signing Spain midfielder Cesc Fabregas, 31, from Chelsea. (Calciomercato)

This is certainly bringing Women's Football into the limelight https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/46255469

You might like this photo @nudge and anyone else, taken by Opportune in 2010, that was then, imagine the next ones that will be shown tomorrow and onwards, I joined this NASA sight years ago and always try and catch the Astronomy Picture of the Day.

Nor am I but I wish I could sit next to all the NASA experts and say "but.." then they would talk of all the mathematical conclusions and scientific reasons and I would kind of go der and... Them girls & guy scientists have more brains in their little finger than I have in my head!!

^^Depending on the rover as that would be risky with sand dunes, we don't want it landing safely and have a mishap on the sand dunes and break down, I would go for Northeast Syrtis: Subterranean sanctuary VV

This photo from one of the slides above is awesome, Earth > Mars

Next stop, Mars Sarah Kaplan 1 day ago 1/4 SLIDES © NASA/JPL-Caltech/NASA/JPL-Caltech -( See x 4 slides ) This January 10, 2017 artist rendering depicts NASA's Mars 2020 rover, with its robotic arm extended. (NASA/JPL-Caltech) LOS ANGELES —In three years, a new explorer will touch down on the Red Planet. Wheels churning, machinery whirring, the rover will amble across the rusty terrain, looking for rocks to send back to Earth — rocks that could prove there once was life on Mars. It is the first time in history scientists have had a real shot at addressing one of humanity’s deepest questions: Are we alone? But first, they must decide where to look. There are three options: a former hot spring NASA has visited once before, a dried-up river delta that fed into a crater lake, and a network of ancient mesas that may have hidden layers of underground water. In the coming week, after decades of dreaming, years of research and a heated three-day debate at a workshop in Los Angeles last month, NASA’s top science official will choose which spot to explore. The site he selects will set the stage on which generations of scientists probe the mysteries of our existence. This rover, scheduled to launch in 2020, is just the first phase of a multibillion-dollar, four-step sample return process. To put pieces of Mars in the hands of scientists will require a lander to retrieve the samples; a probe to bring them home; and then an ultra-secure storage facility that will keep Earth life from contaminating the Mars rocks — and vice versa. Yet the discovery of fossils in those samples could illuminate the origins of life here on Earth. It could hint at whether someone else is still out there, waiting to be found. “I want to know,” said Matt Golombek, a NASA scientist charged with guiding the search for a landing site. “Don’t you? I want to know what’s there. I want to know how big an accident we are.” That hunger for knowledge is what drew hundreds of people to the recent workshop — veteran space explorers and aspiring PhDs, an 18-year-old college freshman and an 80-year-old retired accountant — to assess which plan was best. For days they debated, fueled by curiosity and weak coffee, conscious that the outcome of their meeting could influence NASA and shape history, acutely aware of what they still didn’t know. So much about Mars remains a mystery. The very notion of alien life is barely more than an educated guess buoyed by wild hope. They are hopeful. A search on a failed planet