The Pod Bay

Undo the Snowman

12:00 AM

@JonEricson Is there still something not quite settled in me? Just curious ;)

Jon Ericson

@UndotheSnowman To be honest, I didn't re-evaluate this time around.

Undo the Snowman

Oh, ok.

Just took the 4th place 'finisher' from PT noms?

Jon Ericson

@UndotheSnowman Well, I was interested in a bit more cross over with Astronomy and I knew @called2voyage would do a great job.

Undo the Snowman

Makes sense.

Jon Ericson

I'm afraid it's more an art than science.

Undo the Snowman

12:09 AM

We really need that.

Absolutely ;)

Undo the Snowman

12:19 AM

Thanks - that cleared up some questions I had.

ManishEarth

5:22 AM

@Scrooge yay! :)

TildalWave

6:15 AM

@called2voyage How are you settling in as a new SEx.SE mod? Any station-keeping yet? :)

Hash

7:29 AM

@called2voyage welcome mod :-) Congrats

TildalWave

7:53 AM

To all, stats seem to show that our voting habits somewhat dropped, and that's even though we have many more members and some new ones fairly enthusiastic regarding voting on stuff, all of it indicative that our regulars vote less than you used to. Please see if you could vote more (up or down, your choice), and if there's some old questions you didn't accept any answers yet and you might as well. This is most important for new users, so they gain rep to remove new user constraints. Thanks!

Hash

8:11 AM

@TildalWave sure ....:-))

TildalWave

9:49 AM

in The DMZ, 8 mins ago, by Rory McCune

►

this is epic

Scrooge

11:55 AM

@ManishEarth already posted a question with a good reply...

@JonEricson good choice

ManishEarth

@Scrooge Ah, nice one :)

Scrooge

I'd never put my hand up to be mod - because I seriously doubt that I would be allowed into that position

ManishEarth

@UndotheSnowman I also sorta recommended c2v in TL

Scrooge

@ManishEarth i am tryin gto think of another good question

i will be teaching chemistry, alongside physics and maths in my new school

ManishEarth

@Scrooge Math? Do you have sufficient armor? :P

Scrooge

11:59 AM

@ManishEarth 14 years experience

ManishEarth

Words may never hurt you, but Ticonderoga pencils and graph paper may. Be careful, and get some physical armor :P

@Scrooge At what level is this?

Scrooge

senior levels

calculus, trig...all the fun ones

ManishEarth

ah. Maybe less armor required.

Scrooge

nothing scares me,for I am a maths teacher

but mind you, the last month has been very trying to say the least

@ManishEarth are reference requests okay on chem.se?

@ManishEarth I am now a member of most of the science sites

Stack Exchange

0

Q: Open Projects for Space Exploration

What do you think about the possibility of open projects for space exploration? I imagine a place where people from different areas and expertise could participate in, for instance, a project colonize the moon. I am thinking in the similar way an open source software project works, where at fir...

discussion

Scrooge

12:24 PM

OI

ManishEarth

12:34 PM

@Scrooge nah

TildalWave

1:53 PM

Are you ready? We are! It's #FREEFLIGHT Tuesday @NASAKennedy - a beautiful day for it! Safety Brief in progress. http://t.co/gdgbaX8lzL

Tweeted by MorpheusLander on December 10, 2013 at 12:44 PM

TildalWave

2:18 PM

so this was an hour ago... check this

Arriving at the pad for #freeflight @NASAKennedy http://t.co/itnNaAc2xG

Tweeted by MorpheusLander on December 10, 2013 at 1:52 PM

so first they were ready, now they're getting ready too :)

TildalWave

2:31 PM

Live stream for the first free-flight of Morpheus Lander is now available on USTREAM and Morpehous Lander pages

Stack Exchange

TildalWave has added an event to this room's schedule.

called2voyage

3:48 PM

Astronomy.SE has Community Promotion Ads up now!

Stack Exchange

NASA Image of the Day: Yellowknife Bay Formation on Mars

posted on December 10, 2013

This mosaic of images from Curiosity's Mast Camera (Mastcam) shows geological members of the Yellowknife Bay formation. The scene has the Sheepbed mudstone in the foreground and rises up through Gillespie Lake member to the Point Lake outcrop. These rocks record superimposed ancient lake and stream deposits that offered past environmental conditions favorable for microbial life. Rocks here were…

Undo the Snowman

5:00 PM

@Tildal In your most recent ad for Astro, those telescope outlines... Can I have them? I have an idea.

called2voyage

@UndotheSnowman Have you seen my new feature request on MSO?

Undo the Snowman

@called2voyage Yes.

Not sure it's really technically possible, but it would be nice.

called2voyage

Yeah, it depends on how they have things configured under the hood.

Undo the Snowman

(in case you haven't noticed, Meta is my evil lair)

called2voyage

I have noticed.

That's why I didn't bother linking you to my post.

lol

Undo the Snowman

5:08 PM

;)

called2voyage

I figured you'd already seen it.

Undo the Snowman

I really like your 'join this stack' idea.

(although it should be join this site)

</nitpick>

called2voyage

possibly

Undo the Snowman

Or even 'create account'

called2voyage

I thought about that

but both of those have some ambiguity to them

Undo the Snowman

5:10 PM

Hmmm...

called2voyage

they seem to imply that you don't already have a Stack Exchange network account to a new user.

Undo the Snowman

'create site account'?

called2voyage

to a new user "site" could mean Stack Exchange

Undo the Snowman

Riiiiight...

called2voyage

maybe "join this topic"?

Undo the Snowman

5:11 PM

Sounds a little too... reditty.

called2voyage

"Stack Exchange is a fast-growing network of 111 question and answer sites on diverse topics..."

Undo the Snowman

I'd agree with you if it said

> Stack Exchange is a fast-growing network of 111 topics

TildalWave

Undo the Snowman

@TildalWave Awesome. Nice and big too. I'll see what I can do ;)

called2voyage

@UndotheSnowman No, I get your point. There's no one clear solution.

Undo the Snowman

5:14 PM

Yeah. I bet there is somewhere, but we would really have to think hard on it.

called2voyage

I'm sure the devs would figure something out if they decide to do it.

Undo the Snowman

That's their job.

called2voyage

right

Undo the Snowman

And the base idea is great.

TildalWave

but you can find many online, just google for "stargazing" set to large and find those that are easy to extract with alpha by luminance

Undo the Snowman

5:15 PM

@called (anything that gets over about 25 upvotes on Meta is known as a hit ;))

@UndotheSnowman lol

Ooops, wrong one.

I was wondering.

or if you use PS then magic wand should do it ;)

Undo the Snowman

The IAU ban came after the 'redefinition of 'planet' to include the IAU president's mom' incident.

^ That's it.

@TildalWave I use GIMP. PS too expensive :(

called2voyage

5:18 PM

@UndotheSnowman Ha, that's pretty good.

Crazy Buddy

BOO!!!

Undo the Snowman

Aaaa!

TildalWave

UPDATE: Now estimating ~1:30pm ET ignition for Bravo vehicle's 1st #FREEFLIGHT @NASAKennedy Tune in http://1.usa.gov/17HpVnq to watch LIVE!

Tweeted by MorpheusLander on December 10, 2013 at 4:32 PM

@UndotheSnowman Pretty useless too if you ask me. It does nothing that others don't for free. OK, it makes you buy 32GB more of memory...

... and a new proc and a graphics card that's supposed to accelerate it. And you learn many new adjectives :)

Undo the Snowman

@TildalWave Wait, GIMP or PS?

prepares smiting stick

TildalWave

ps

Undo the Snowman

5:23 PM

puts away smiting stick

Ok.

TildalWave

lol

Undo the Snowman

Bart let me borrow his smiting stick for a while - it's pretty nifty.

TildalWave

GIMP is good, and since it's free I'm not complaining

if you like PS style graphic editing, then I suggest inkscape which is free too

Crazy Buddy

@UndotheSnowman // beats @Undo with the same stick...

Starting a chat with actions, I miss our Hissatron :D

Undo the Snowman

This is what happens when I don't restart my machine for a while - thank God for multiple desktops:

TildalWave

5:37 PM

@UndotheSnowman amateur :)

Undo the Snowman

Lol

TildalWave

I prolly beat you 2-fold... at least

Undo the Snowman

When I start programming and running servers... then it actually gets messy.

TildalWave

Don't I know it :) And they still call them IDEs ... LOL

Undo the Snowman

^ Rev 1. Watcha think? @called2voyage @TildalWave

Oh. C2V isn't here :(

TildalWave

5:39 PM

@UndotheSnowman it's a bit ... empty

Undo the Snowman

@TildalWave I call that simple ;)

TildalWave

well, then it's a bit simple :P

Undo the Snowman

But yeah, I would want a starry background or something.

TildalWave

cropping doesn't seem right either, there's something sticking up on the right from the ground, and it could show a bit more of the guy, it looks now like someone died on a refractor

Undo the Snowman

@TildalWave LOL

TildalWave

5:41 PM

murder by eyepiece :)

Undo the Snowman

I'll do some thinking on it.

called2voyage

@UndotheSnowman Too monotone.

TildalWave

and flip it, so it looks like he's observing site contents not folk's monitor bezel ;)

Undo the Snowman

Lol

Ok, I'll do some work on it.

called2voyage

I like what you're going for but it is a bit bland.

Let me know when you've done some more work on it.

Undo the Snowman

5:47 PM

We need an initiation for @called2voyage - a project for him to work on for the improvement of the site.

TildalWave

@UndotheSnowman you mean like moderate the site? ;D

Undo the Snowman

@TildalWave Hmm... but he would need something to moderate

TildalWave

@UndotheSnowman which he does, two sites in beta

Undo the Snowman

Yes, but I haven't been flagging stuff.

TildalWave

I'm sure that you can mend that fast enough

TildalWave

6:23 PM

Morpheus is now ready,... about 5 minutes to test

cc @PearsonArtPhoto ^ ustream.tv/channel/nasa-jsc/theater

and it flies :)

TildalWave

6:41 PM

And that's it... I think... it's not like they said anything

anyone see a resemblance?

that's Fregat upper stage

Undo the Snowman

6:58 PM

0

Q: Allow me to flag my own comments as obsolete

note: this is not a dupe of this - that one regards flagging ones comments as offensive because they were in 'a bad mood' when writing them. This request is about flagging my own comments as obsolete. I'm quite active in a public beta site, and it should be enough to say that when a new mod ...

feature-request comments flags comment-flags obsolete-information

called2voyage

8:40 PM

0

Q: How does the star tracker lock on specific star

How does the star tracker (such as one on Voyager) lock on to specific star and how reliable it is? Are there more approaches in more modern trackers used such as pattern recognition or other methods which would enable to track more stars to give more reliable fix and avoid problems if tracker m...

navigation

Is this question as vague as it seems to me?

It seems a little too general.

called2voyage

8:57 PM

Never mind, I talked to the user and updated accordingly

TildalWave

9:16 PM

@called2voyage I've seen, cheers for that! ;)

Undo the Snowman

Sounds ominous.

TildalWave

What does?

Undo the Snowman

I've... talked to the user.

Lol, maybe it's just me.

In related news, I've run out of questions to ask.

In less related news, we're on target to hit around 1020 questions by Dec. 31.

TildalWave

@UndotheSnowman Why do American astronauts wear Russian spacesuit in Soyuz? How does that sound?

Undo the Snowman

Because the Russian spacesuit has the right holes in the right places for breathing air and stuff?

TildalWave

9:25 PM

Not too difficult to answer but it might be interesting for folks

Undo the Snowman

I think I might have something, just a minute...

TildalWave

@UndotheSnowman heh there's more to it, go and ask it

Undo the Snowman

Ok, if you really want me to... runs off skipping gleefully.

I can't find any references ;(

TildalWave

Sokol space suit

The Sokol space suit (, Falcon) is a type of Russian space suit, worn by all who fly on the Soyuz spacecraft. It was introduced in 1973 and is still used . The Sokol is described by its makers as a rescue suit, and it is not capable of being used outside the spacecraft in a spacewalk or extra-vehicular activity. Instead, its purpose is to keep the wearer alive in the event of an accidental depressurisation of the spacecraft. In this respect it is similar to the ACES suit that was worn aboard NASA's Space Shuttle during launch and landing. Description The current version of the suit is...

Undo the Snowman

Oh. Can't beleive I didn't find that.

TildalWave

9:34 PM

Me neither :D

Undo the Snowman

0

Q: What are the advantages and disadvantages of assembling a launch vehicle horizontally?

While reading up on the Soyuz rocket, I noticed this: Soyuz rockets are assembled horizontally in the MIK Building at the launch site. The rocket is then rolled out, and erected on the launch pad. Why is it assembled horizontally, and only righted on the launch pad? What are the advantages ...

rockets launch-site launchpad

^ There's one.

Now the Spacesuit one.

TildalWave

@UndotheSnowman How dare you not link to my questions in it??? I haz pix!!

7

Q: Do any of the developing space programs use horizontal launcher assembly and launchpad loading?

Do any of the developing space programs (i.e. not NASA, ESA or Roscosmos) use horizontal launcher assembly in the launcher integration building and launchpad loading like the Soyuz at the Baikonur Cosmodrome does and it will also be done with future Guiana Space Centre launches of the Soyuz rocke...

developing-space-programs launch-site launchpad launcher-integration

I'll wait with my upvote .... hourglass

Undo the Snowman

frantically incorporates image

working on Sokol question now.

TildalWave

@UndotheSnowman Why not just say "while reading on the Soyuz and related question whether any other space programs use horizontal launch vehicle assembly, I noticed..."

you're ruining my beautiful layout!!

Undo the Snowman

@TildalWave Well, because I didn't notice it while reading the related question. But ok.

TildalWave

9:40 PM

I mean of my question :)

Undo the Snowman

Ok, just a minute. Working on spacesuit question.

TildalWave

@UndotheSnowman Ah you didn't? So it's you that didn't research my questions and provide a fabulous answer to it?

... small font: and upvote it

Undo the Snowman

@TildalWave I actually just pulled up Wikipedia and started searching for spacey things.

1

Q: Do American astronauts wear Sokol space suits when flying on a Soyuz?

The Wikipedia article on the Sokol space suit seems to suggest that all personel traveling on a Soyuz vehicle must wear a Soviet made spacesuit: Each Soyuz crew member is provided with a made-to-measure suit for flight although, from the numbers made, it appears that the suits provided for gr...

spacesuits russia soyuz sokol-spacesuit

0

Q: Why is the Sokol spacesuit deemed inadequate for EVA?

According to the Wikipedia article on the Sokol spacesuit, The Sokol space suit (Russian: Cокол, Falcon) is a type of Russian space suit, worn by all who fly on the Soyuz spacecraft. It was introduced in 1973 and is still used as of 2013. The Sokol is described by its makers as a rescue suit,...

spacesuits eva sokol

This is fun.

TildalWave

10:06 PM

@UndotheSnowman were ... wear

Undo the Snowman

Already fixed.

TildalWave

OK :)

Stack Exchange

11:17 PM

astrobites: The Little Star that Could (Teach us about Stellar Astrophysics)

posted on December 10, 2013 by Ben Montet

Today we take a look back to 1916, when distances were measured in light years and uncertainties weren't to be included in publications. The nearly 100-year old discovery of a small star has large implications for our understanding of stellar astrophysics, even today.

Stack Exchange

11:53 PM

astrobites: Pinpointing Stellar Properties with Bayesian Statistics

posted on December 10, 2013 by Meredith Rawls

Title: Fundamental Stellar Parameters and Metallicities from Bayesian Spectroscopy: Application to Low- and High-Resolution Spectra Authors: Ralph Schönrich and Maria Bergemann First Author’s Institution: The Ohio State University, USA and University of Oxford, United Kingdom The link between a pile of data and a physical explanation is the fun part. Astronomers spend countless hours gath…

Transcript for