Interstellar Boundary Explorer

[OldPokey]

Unlike the last launch from Orbital, this one made it and is doing its thing now. It was the last satellite I worked on before leaving Orbital.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n8Lw1dP9cs0

[Mistress]

Steve Miller's Fly Like and Eagle would be a better song. very cool BTW

[Nate]

I dislike all of the space junk generated by satellites such as this one.

That being said, looks like a cool project
~Nate

[OldPokey]

That thing is in a 8 day elliptical orbit. For comparison, satellites in low earth orbit (100 - 1240 miles up) orbit the Earth once every hour and a half. Geosynchronous satellites (26,199 miles up) orbit the earth once a day. This thing is so high up that there is literally nothing else there - at its apogee (highest point) it flies out almost to the Moon's orbit (80% of the way). There's not much junk out there.

[spamman450]

Cool! is it actually launched via aircraft like in the video? When did they start doing that? Or am i missing something?

[LUVMBDiesels]

Orbital developed that launch platform a few years ago. It is cool isn't it?

OldPokey: I did not know you worked for Orbital! I have owned their stock for years! I am always fascinated by commercial space exploitation/exploration. We won't really be serious about space until we take most of the launches and vehicles out of government control and open it up to private competition.

[cmac2012]

Yes, I for one, can't wait to have poorly funded private space launches come crashing back to earth.

99% of space exploration is over-hyped. Put a hubble type telescope on the moon with a robotic mission and let the rest go.

Oh yeah, we're going to terraform Mars. How about we try to terraform earth, so that our atmosphere doesn't continue to warm up? If we can't do that here on the scene, how in the hell can we expect to have a useful impact on Mars and its no longer magnetic core?

[LUVMBDiesels]

Originally Posted by cmac2012

Yes, I for one, can't wait to have poorly funded private space launches come crashing back to earth.

99% of space exploration is over-hyped. Put a hubble type telescope on the moon with a robotic mission and let the rest go.

Oh yeah, we're going to terraform Mars. How about we try to terraform earth, so that our atmosphere doesn't continue to warm up? If we can't do that here on the scene, how in the hell can we expect to have a useful impact on Mars and its no longer magnetic core?

Oh GEEZ... Can't you be positive about anything?

[cmac2012]

Originally Posted by LUVMBDiesels

Oh GEEZ... Can't you be positive about anything?

Yeah. I'm positively certain, given the current difficulties our economic structure is in, that devoting huge amounts of money and resources to trying to put men on Mars or the moon again is w/o doubt the most boneheaded investment in history.

Mars has no magnetic field. Humanoids would not do well with steady solar radiation, not deflected as it is here on earth. Most of the water and air that were once there have more than likely been driven off by the solar wind since the magnetic field died.

We can't even dive 20 miles deep into our earth's crust in search of diamonds. That's 1/2 of 1% of our earth's radius. But all sorts of bored armchair scientists are convinced that we're going to terraform Mars and send hordes of humans to live there.