Hacker News
- Amateur astronomers tracking the world’s spy satellites https://www.supercluster.com/editorial/meet-the-amateur-astronomers-hunting-for-spy-satellites 27 comments
- The race back to the moon is heating up, and in August India took the lead, becoming the first nation to land a spacecraft near the prized South Pole. Water ice in this area makes it a prime candidate for human presence — but India will soon have competition from China and several private companies. https://www.supercluster.com/editorial/india-takes-the-lead-in-global-race-to-the-moon 62 comments space
- The Pillars of Creation were made famous by a 1995 Hubble photo. Now, JWST has seen far more deeply into this iconic region, discovering "quite active" young stars. Scientists say these stars fire supersonic jets that interact with clouds of dust, creating lava-like conditions within the pillars. https://www.supercluster.com/editorial/webb-and-the-great-cosmic-question-mark 19 comments space
- NASA's massive new rocket, built to return humans to the moon for the first time since 1972, rolled out of the largest single story building in the world last week — at 1 mile per hour. "It took 10-hours and 28 minutes for SLS and Orion to reach the launch pad, four miles away." https://www.supercluster.com/editorial/nasa-unveils-the-space-launch-system 1099 comments space
- Large scale space habitats, popularized by Princeton’s Gerard O’Neill, have been written off as science fiction for decades. But a new study is optimistic that advances in space infrastructure could make them a reality. "It’s certainly what SpaceX are working toward ... this genuinely is possible." https://www.supercluster.com/editorial/reaching-for-the-high-frontier 71 comments space
- The same algorithms used to fix Hubble's famous flaw are now being used to align Webb’s mirror segments. “We adapted for what was done to fix Hubble... We realized when the JWST mirrors aren’t perfectly aligned they represent an aberrated mirror" that is a lot like the original blurry Hubble images. https://www.supercluster.com/editorial/hubbles-flaws-informed-webbs-perfection 58 comments space
- When the Senate approved SLS their requirements were so specific "you’d think they were rocket engineers." They wanted 130 tons of lift with an upper stage, liquid fuel engines, solid rocket motor engines, Shuttle and Ares 1 tech reused. "It was like an aerospace industry wish list—because it was." https://www.supercluster.com/editorial/the-ugly-bargain-behind-nasas-sls-rocket 663 comments space
- The well known "Overview Effect" idea was first inspired by science fiction. "Back in the 1970s I found Gerard K. O’Neill's ideas highly convincing. I had an epiphany: those living in a space community would have an “overview” of Earth. They would see a whole system, interconnected and interrelated" https://www.supercluster.com/editorial/the-overview-effect-and-the-fourth-edition 195 comments space
- A private space industry entrepreneur is launching a biotech company to bring back the woolly mammoth. https://www.supercluster.com/editorial/worlds-leading-geneticists-aim-to-resurrect-woolly-mammoth 268 comments futurology
- Arguably the most disturbing theory to explain our lack of contact from ET was put forth not by an astronomer but by psychologist Jack Baird. Working with NASA on SETI in 1982, he raised the possibility that the reason we haven’t heard from aliens is due to fundamental limits of the human mind. https://www.supercluster.com/editorial/would-we-recognize-an-extraterrestrial-message-if-we-received-one 1378 comments space
- The UK is the only nation in the world to have developed and then halted a capability to launch rockets, after a singular orbital flight of the Black Arrow rocket in 1971. Now it’s hoping to get back in the game, faster than other nations competing in a new European space race. https://www.supercluster.com/editorial/can-great-britain-be-a-gateway-to-space 799 comments space
- “I compare Webb…a mission this size is like building a cathedral,” reflects Klaus Pontoppidan, Project Scientist. “Generational projects, you pay them forward. Lessons learned are applied to the next. "Somebody did this for Webb. Some are still around, some retired, some didn’t live to see it.” https://www.supercluster.com/editorial/webb-the-space-cathedral 278 comments space
- Wall Funk finally got her flight to space. It was a moment of reckoning for an aviation pioneer, who in the 1960s—as part of a group of female aviators—tried to open space travel for women. https://www.supercluster.com/editorial/the-mercury-13-pioneering-women-who-could-have-been-first-to-space 26 comments space
- Earlier this year, A scientist studying Boyajian’s star and SETI astronomers teamed up to pitch NASA on using TESS data to look for megastructures like Dyson Spheres. NASA granted the proposal. For the first time in history, NASA is officially sponsoring a search for alien megastructures. https://www.supercluster.com/editorial/nasa-is-supporting-the-search-for-alien-megastructures 231 comments space
- “Armageddon and Deep Impact don't get the physics right, but they made people aware that this could happen.” The director of NASA’s Spaceguard on the real world positive impact 90s disaster movies had on public funding for asteroid detection. https://www.supercluster.com/editorial/90s-disaster-movies-might-actually-save-the-planet 125 comments space
- Nuclear rocket engines were studied by NASA as part of project NERVA in 1959. The idea was abandoned in the 1970s, but now NASA wants proposals for a flight demonstration as quickly as 2026, as a potential propulsion system for crewed missions to Mars. https://www.supercluster.com/editorial/a-nuclear-energy-company-sets-its-sights-on-deep-space 133 comments space
- In the 60s "Astronaut happiness wasn’t a factor” says historian David Hitt. On Skylab 4, in 1973, the crew was overworked with packed schedules each day. They told NASA they couldn't keep up. This event is misreported as a "mutiny," but it had big effects. Astronauts now work 9-5, with weekends off. https://www.supercluster.com/editorial/weekends-in-space 259 comments space
- John Glenn was the first astronaut to be elected to public office, serving 25 years as a senator. He paved the way for other astronauts turned politicians, but it wasn’t easy: Glenn faced harsh criticism from the public who felt astronauts had a different, non-partisan obligation to their country. https://www.supercluster.com/editorial/from-outer-space-to-congress 519 comments space
- 'Astronaut’ means 'star sailor.' NASA chose it in 1958 over 'cosmonaut,' or 'universe sailor.' But "Why 'astronaut' won out," says a NASA Johnson Space Center historian, "is a mystery." The reason we chose that term for our space travelers "Was never recorded in NASA’s own historical documents." https://www.supercluster.com/editorial/the-history-and-future-of-the-term-astronaut 52 comments space
- When the Senate approved SLS their requirements were so specific you’d think they were rocket engineers. They wanted 130 tons of lift with an upper stage, liquid fuel engines, solid rocket motor engines, Shuttle and Ares 1 tech reused. "It was like an aerospace industry wish list—because it was." https://www.supercluster.com/editorial/the-ugly-bargain-behind-nasas-sls-rocket 26 comments space
- "One of the things I noticed in [the movie] Midnight Sky was the size of the spacecraft. It’s about 500 to 1,000 tons. You’d think that’s extravagant for five people, but it’s about right. We think a vehicle to Mars would be the size of the International Space Station" says NASA Astronaut Alvin Drew https://www.supercluster.com/editorial/david-oyelowo-and-astronaut-alvin-drew-share-their-space-adventures 851 comments space
- “Most observatories won’t let you touch anything, but at Arecibo, you could play around with their telescope," says Dan Werthimer, a SETI researcher, on the loss of Arecibo. "They let you tinker and play and ... If you had a wild and crazy idea, they would help you make it happen.” https://www.supercluster.com/editorial/what-it-means-to-lose-arecibo 341 comments space
- Today marks 20 years of ISS habitation. But the Station could have looked very different. The original concept was a 100-person "Space Base" to stage lunar missions. Next came the "Power Tower," a 400 foot long pendulum, and the "Dual Keel" ISS with docking ports along a giant rectangular scaffold. https://www.supercluster.com/editorial/how-not-to-design-a-space-station 5 comments space
- The world’s largest collection of Space Age artifacts is hidden away, in a secret barn, somewhere in Northern Connecticut. The archive of 10,000 objects and over 8,000 period photographs has been assembled, catalogued and preserved by a single family over the past 4 decades. https://www.supercluster.com/editorial/the-space-age-museum 106 comments space
- The original vision for what became the ISS was a 100-person outpost called Space Base. But NASA quickly realized the cost of flinging stuff to orbit with expendable rockets was more than the station itself. NASA needed something reusable. Before there could be an ISS, we needed a space shuttle. https://www.supercluster.com/editorial/how-not-to-design-a-space-station 6 comments space
- "China’s ascendance in the world of SETI, culminating in the construction of the world's most powerful telescope, has prompted hand-wringing from some commentators in the West, expressing concerns Beijing would keep the discovery of an extraterrestrial signal, and any information learned, a secret." https://www.supercluster.com/editorial/chinas-massive-telescope-is-the-next-great-seti-hope 262 comments space
- India’s first lunar probe, Chandrayaan 1, confirmed the existence of water on the moon. 1 year later, with systems failing, engineers were able to steer the spacecraft based on the sun, keeping the mission alive long enough to photograph a solar eclipse on Earth from lunar orbit for the first time. https://www.supercluster.com/editorial/indias-role-in-the-new-race-to-the-moon 46 comments space
- During the Cold War the US began work on a massive secret telescope. The plan was to use the moon as a reflector, to spy on bounced signals from the USSR. It would have been double the size of the largest steerable telescope ever built to this day. All that remains now is the concrete foundation. https://www.supercluster.com/editorial/the-biggest-telescope-never-built 49 comments space
- China’s giant Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Telescope (FAST) is the world’s most powerful radio telescope. Embedded within towering limestone mountains, it’s also something else: the next great hope for SETI, the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. https://www.supercluster.com/editorial/chinas-massive-telescope-is-the-next-great-seti-hope 29 comments space
- Kerbal Space Program developers say harsh difficulty is what makes the game fun. “The game is tough. It takes some effort to learn how to get into orbit … But when you get there, you feel like you’ve achieved something. This is actually a real-world challenge that you feel you’ve accomplished.” https://www.supercluster.com/editorial/a-computer-game-is-helping-make-space-for-everyone 101 comments space
- The ISS is about to turn 20, and its legacy might be as a priceless proving ground for living off planet. Experiments at the International Space Station have advanced our understanding of zero gravity health effects, growing our own food, and developing new fuels for use on Mars and beyond. https://www.supercluster.com/editorial/learning-to-live-and-work-off-planet 114 comments space
- During the 1975 Apollo-Soyuz mission, to help USA/USSR relations, astronauts and cosmonauts played smuggled audio recordings of glasses clinking, laughter, and many female voices. Houston radioed to ask what’s going on. "Oh nothing,” they said. “We finished work, just having a party up here." https://www.supercluster.com/editorial/the-handshake-in-space 111 comments space
- “Armageddon and Deep Impact don't get the physics right, but they made people aware that this could happen.” The director of NASA’s Spaceguard on the real-world impact scifi disaster movies have had on public awareness and funding for asteroid detection (and potentially deflection.) https://www.supercluster.com/editorial/90s-disaster-movies-might-actually-save-the-planet 33 comments space
- SETI is now searching for signs of intelligent life by studying Cherenkov Radiation. These flashes of blue light occur when gamma rays transfer energy to particles that travel faster than the speed of light through air, but slower than the speed of light in a vacuum, causing an “optical sonic boom” https://www.supercluster.com/editorial/listening-for-aliens-with-laser-light 198 comments space
- In the early 1960s Soviet Russia trained an all-female space squad in absolute secrecy. One of these cosmonauts — Valentina Tereshkova — became the first woman in space. But the story of her crewmates was classified. Moscow shut the program down, and hid its existence for decades. https://www.supercluster.com/editorial/the-first-women-trained-to-conquer-space 172 comments history
- A surprisingly even break down here on the reality of Space Force, when it becomes a reality “it will mostly look like a bunch of smart men and women sitting at desks doing highly technical jobs. That may disappoint people who imagine Space Force means spaceships with laser cannons.” https://www.supercluster.com/editorial/demystifying-space-force 230 comments space
- "Astronomy is not the enemy here... It is no longer really about the telescope, it is about a deep distrust." An astrophysicist and native Hawaiian gives her perspective on protesters fighting The 30M Telescope at Mauna Kea "the best seeing conditions anywhere in the Northern Hemisphere." https://www.supercluster.com/editorial/the-battle-for-mauna-kea 12 comments space
- In less than 2 weeks Falcon Heavy will carry, among other payloads, the remains of 146 humans to space. This is a Celestis mission — one of a number of space memorial startups buying ride shares on commercial launches. https://www.supercluster.com/editorial/when-our-dead-are-blasted-to-space 681 comments space
- There’s a slim chance a rescue mission for the Opportunity Rover could work, but time is running out. The onboard clock will break Y2K style in the year 2038. https://www.supercluster.com/editorial/can-we-rescue-the-opportunity-rover 15 comments space
- Meet the amateur astronomers hunting government spy satellites. Some of these satellites are rumored to be as powerful as Hubble, but they are pointed back here at Earth. https://www.supercluster.com/editorial/meet-the-amateur-astronomers-hunting-for-spy-satellites 14 comments space