I’ve been looking at panoramic views of Mars for the past hour, and going slightly crazy. Yes, it’s another planet. But it just seems so ordinary. It looks like you could go for a hike here.
I think the most-eerie thing about it is the complete absence of any plants. It’s like a snapshot of what Earth might’ve looked like if life never evolved here. Just an empty world, blanketed in a thin, wispy sky.
If you want to take a look, here: https://maps.planet.fu-berlin.de/jezero/360/49. You can actually see the trail that Perseverence has been climbing. The little rover has been winding its way uphill for the past few years ~
My dad has a conspiracy that the astronauts on the Artemis launch are gonna die out there, and then Trump is gonna launch a whole propaganda campaign “space is dangerous we should stop spending money on it” god I HOPE not, but that’s totally something the US government would do to stop science and innovation, making people scared of it for decades to come. Absolutely evil but plausible stuff. Stay safe, NASA
Gene: Jeb, the relay circularization is yours. We’ve got a few minutes clear after this, so go ahead and get that orbit dialed in to the second. We can trim it down to the meter later.
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Jeb: Got it.
Irgan: Coming up on periapsis now. Tell me when to hit the button.
Irgan: Did I get the right timing?
Gene: Looks like it. Get ready to cut the engine in forty-two seconds…
Val: Taking control. I have eight seconds to get this thing turned…
Verming: Turning to burn now…
Ok. All engines off. How are we looking?
Bill: Already getting survey data. That burn was a success.
Bill: First glance makes it look like we need to visit highlands and mountains to get a good ore concentration.
Irgan: Tefurt, why are all these probes still up at the clubhouse? And do you have engines and tanks blocking engines and tanks? How much of a mess did you leave me?
Tefurt: Sorry Irgan, I was in a bit of a hurry leaving. Good news is that our tanker is in a nice orbit.
Gene: So that’s all three then. Good work everykerbal!
(Editor’s note: short post, but I had to hit f5 and f9 so many times for this. Getting the timing for the burns wasn’t too bad. It was adding in the screenshots that got me. But we’re past the minute of doom now.
Oh yeah, relay orbits. I’m doing a pretty standard equatorial triangle setup. It’s actually not that hard to dial in your orbits to be stable for a long time period. The game tells you your orbital period down to the second, and the Minmus orbit I’m using has a two day period. With 12 hour days in game, that means that you need to drift by 120 seconds to be off by a degree. So at worst just getting your orbit accurate to the second puts you in an orbit that will drift by a degree or two per year.
But the game also tells you the dimensions of your orbit down to the meter. And for this particular orbit, a change in semi-major axis of one meter results in a change in period of less than two tenths of a second. If all three satellites have an apoapsis and periapsis that add up to the same number, that’s a set of satellites in orbits that only drift relative to each other by a degree every couple years at worst.
With the way I play, that’s no trouble at all. But I do have to admit that if I were timewarping away decades for every mission it would start to add up. But as you can see, I’m not even 30 days in.)
GJ 887, a red dwarf star 10.7 light-years away, hosts at least four confirmed planets with orbital periods of 4.4, 9.2, 21.8, and 50.8 days. The outermost planet, GJ 887 d, lies within the habitable zone and has a minimum mass exceeding six Earth masses. A possible fifth, sub-Earth-mass planet remains unconfirmed. GJ 887 d is a key target for future atmospheric and habitability studies.
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