Russia seems to have lost contact with its first lunar probe in half a century
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I don't know much about Indian politics, I have lot of Indian colleagues and I suppose I could ask them. But even if it turned out that India is not as democratic as I'd like, I still would want this mission to succeed. Heck, I don't even wish for the failure of Chinese space missions.
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Not turned to plasma. That would be the case from TLI entry I suspect. In LLO, you're only getting the other outcomes.
2 km/s is 2 MJ/kg kinetic energy. The heat of fusion of aluminum is only 321 J/kg and the latent heat of vaporization is 0.7 MJ/kg. Some of the kinetic energy will go into accelerating the regolith. So some of the aluminum won't turn to gas. But essentially all of it will turn to liquid - and hot liquid at that (never mind the propellant). So yeah, hot liquid with a high pressure stagnation point will lead to an expanding pressure wave that will atomize the aluminum.
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Snarky Robot
Ars Legatus Legionis
For all those brilliant minds admonishing folks for rooting against the success of Roscosmos, perhaps it’s worth remembering that they are not merely from the same country as those committing genocide in Ukraine, they are actively supporting that genocide. Anyone having an emotional meltdown over me rooting against those who support genocide is free to feel morally superior because they supported a PR whitewashing “mission” just because it happened in space. They can tell themselves it’s about pure science and supporting space exploration, and that who is doing the exploration is less relevant than the mission.
Me? Gee fucking whiz, I think the genocidal aspirations of Roscosmos makes it okay for me to root against their missions .
Me? Gee fucking whiz, I think the genocidal aspirations of Roscosmos makes it okay for me to root against their missions .
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Its real mission was lithodiving to find the elusive moonshark, ally to the West, but regolith proved wildly uncooperative with the Party.
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This reminds me of that joke where the US and USSR compete in an athletics contest during the Cold War, and the US wins. Pravda reports the next day:
"Our glorious comrades returned with an honorable second place, while the Americans came second to last."
I can see the headlines already: "Daring first strike against the Moon Nazi bases completed successfully!"
"Our glorious comrades returned with an honorable second place, while the Americans came second to last."
I can see the headlines already: "Daring first strike against the Moon Nazi bases completed successfully!"
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After their victory, I am dreaming about a future Ukrainian Moon‑landing mission. Preferably to the very same spot Luna‑25 crashed into, raising a nice 
flag there. Heck, they might get to even name the recent impact crater...
flag there. Heck, they might get to even name the recent impact crater...
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It does look like the Russians still have one tracking ship around. It was overhauled and updated in 2018 so there is a chance it might be still working unless it has since downloaded a murderous sentient electricity or otherwise malfunctioned...
https://navyrecognition.com/index.p...y-tracking-ship-marshal-krylov-completed.html
https://navyrecognition.com/index.p...y-tracking-ship-marshal-krylov-completed.html
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That figure for heat of fusion is too low by more than a factor of 1000.
The heat of vaporization of Al is 293.4 kJ/mol, or 10.8 MJ/kg.
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I'm stealing this to reply to another idiotic comment like that on the Washington post.
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Yeah we have Russian wives and mothers, cry about not the loss of their men, but not getting enough $$$ as compensation.
Russian culture is sick and should be treated like nazi culture.
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It didn't crash... it was helping to excavate for a future Russian moon base! /s
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Degradation of checks and balances against increasing wealth and power for a decreasing few will have a similar result under any system. There is a good argument that these checks and balances can be better protected in a democracy if the people remain well informed enough not to be manipulated, and retain real power to make changes.
An economic system is just a means to an end, trying to balance necessary checks and balances against need for innovation and productivity. A working political system is ususally some hybrid, and can be combined with various combinations of economic systems to try to maintain reasonable equality along with good productivity.
Arguing for either pure unchecked "capitalism" or pure rigid "socialism" is a false binary choice, since neither will produce good results over the long term.
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That isn't right. It was the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics of which the Russian RSFSR and Ukrainian SSR were part. Ukraine was actually a founding member of the UN, and so had a seat in its own right, unlike Russia. They weren't independent, but it is fundamental to understanding how and why the USSR broke up as it did, and why Ukraine is able to claim a continuing identity quite apart from Russia.
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Not really. I mean, yes sort of, but with the right atmospheric conditions, you can bounce VHF off the moon to communicate with the other side of the Earth using HAM legal equipment and power levels. You don't need the DSN to talk to the moon, even with relatively low fain antennas on whatever is on or around the moon. Of course the lower the gain on the lunar end, the higher the gain needed on Earth.
But if you are running a frequency where the ionosphere is transparent, the gain and power levels aren't necessary mind boggling for low modularity communications. Mars is something like 200-1,000x further than the Moon necessitating around 15-20dB higher gain for the same radio power. The moon is about the same 1000x further than low earth orbit. And a handheld 5w radio with a modest antenna can talk to stuff in orbit okay. So you are talking ~20dB higher gain if still using a piddly 5w radio power. Not that hard to do.
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I read too many books and watch far too many YouTube war documentaries so I know you meant trillion, not billion.
BEFORE adjusting for inflation, US expenditures on the Vietnam War were about $170 billion. About $1T today.
I don't know if that number includes the military assistance the US gave to the French before the French left Vietnam. Nor do I know if it includes military assistance to South Vietnam during the interval between the 1956 French departure and the first US ground troops in 1960. It definitely does include military assistance between 1960 and when things really kicked off in 1965 in response to the 1964 Gulf of Tonkin incident.
I'm not sure when CIA shenanigans in Vietnam began and I have absolutely no clue how much they cost.
And Vietnam is the gift that keeps on giving: 50 years after the fall of Saigon taking care of Vietnam vets still costs the US about $22B/year.
For those of you who like war history: a recently watched, disturbing, YouTube video was about "McNamara's Morons".
100,000 Forrest Gumps and not nearly all of them had a Lieutenant Dan to take care of them.
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Besides, who wants novichok all over their balls?
The rooskies have
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Fascism is so concerned with image and corruption it doesn't bother with actual capability. Where there was capability before it remains (even if it begins degrading) but fascists can't build new capability.
In other words fascists are too stupid to govern.
In other words fascists are too stupid to govern.
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I'm waiting for Russian state media to publish that a Ukrainian drone was responsible and that more aggressive "special military operations" are required to exact justice.
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I'm eagerly awaiting the follow-up article with images from the LRO showing the impact site. Honestly, I believe the ability to produce irrefutable evidence of the crash relatively quickly is the only reason Russia immediately fessed up.
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You shuold have seen all the ohter tyops and erorrs I freqeuntly make in my posts. Let's just say I have a
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