[HN Gopher] SpaceX rocket launches Euclid space telescope to map...
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SpaceX rocket launches Euclid space telescope to map the 'dark
universe'
Author : gostsamo
Score : 112 points
Date : 2023-07-01 16:39 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.space.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.space.com)
| nologic01 wrote:
| Fingers crossed, if all goes well, we may have in a few years
| remarkable new insights that we haven't had in fundamental
| physics for quite some time.
|
| Vibes of the old COBE mission [1] that mapped for the first time
| the microwave background radiation and revolutionized cosmology.
|
| https://science.nasa.gov/missions/cobe
| dylan604 wrote:
| I hate when I make the noob mistake of getting the timezone wrong
| and showing up an hour late like what I did today
| placesalt wrote:
| I came across this the other day, it's pretty elegant and
| basically solves the problem. Comes in handy when you have eg a
| call with people in >2 timezones.
|
| https://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/converter.html
| Gehinnn wrote:
| I can also recommend https://www.worldtimebuddy.com/
|
| It's surprising how much ads all these tools show though.
| dylan604 wrote:
| yeah, sorry, i won't be visiting some website just to do
| timezone conversions. i'll just double check my work next
| time. to me, that's like the people that need to use GPS
| navigation to go to the same location they've been to more
| than once.
| oefnak wrote:
| Well, navigation also shows you traffic information which
| is useful to choose the best path and to know at what
| time you will arrive.
| dylan604 wrote:
| you can see the traffic with a quick glance at the map
| app before leaving, but that's a pretty weak excuse
| anyways. you and i both know that there are people that
| need those turn by turn directions for reasons.
| xeromal wrote:
| It feels like you have a bit of superiority complex
| against people who use GPS. What a weird thing to feel
| smart about.
| reaperducer wrote:
| _yeah, sorry, i won 't be visiting some website just to
| do timezone conversions._
|
| I'm surprised to find that units doesn't handle this.
|
| I wonder if there's another CLI tool that does.
| sam_goody wrote:
| I use https://time.is (Choose any location.)
|
| Does other conversions and stuff, but much more elegant and
| simpler than your link.
|
| Also good for setting your clock
| veltas wrote:
| Yep I use this for setting my mechanical watch every
| morning, great website apart from the clock text is
| relative to window width, so I can't zoom out if the window
| is too short, I literally have to resize the window width
| to see the time.
| ben_w wrote:
| I empathise. My parents and I did that once.
|
| Before all the clocks were self-updating, we missed the change
| to summer time, which happened to be the day we'd arranged to
| meet sister and grandmother at a restaurant for Easter lunch...
| magicalhippo wrote:
| Windows clock can show up to 3 timezones (system + two). I set
| one to whatever event I want to track, that way I'm sure I
| don't mess it up due to summer/winter time and whatnot.
| monkpit wrote:
| Did I miss something in this article about time zones?
| dylan604 wrote:
| I missed the launch because when I woke up, I read the launch
| time quickly before being caffeinated, and did not do the
| math correctly. So when I sat down to watch, I realized it
| was an hour earlier. Nothing about the TFA, just sharing my
| misfortune
| tromp wrote:
| What about Euclid makes it more suitable for its task of mapping
| other galaxies than James Webb?
| gostsamo wrote:
| JW observes single stars and similar objects, while this one is
| meant to take a wider view, aiming a big picture of the mass
| distribution in the universe. In the article it is mentioned
| that it is expected to map around a third of the sky in six
| years.
| emadehsan wrote:
| Wish there were opportunities for non-European & non-American
| people to work in these inspiring and endeavoring organizations
| enkid wrote:
| There's plenty of contractors working on space technology that
| would hire someone without citizenship, I'm sure.
| gduplessy wrote:
| Strictly speaking for American contractors, I'm 99% sure that
| is not true. If you have any contract with the government for
| space stuff, all of your workers have to be citizens. I'm not
| even sure they'd let a permanent resident work there because
| of ITAR.
| Sanzig wrote:
| Permanent residents are considered US persons under ITAR,
| so provided the company's activities are limited to
| civilian space projects it isn't an issue. However, if the
| company has defense contracts and requires employees to
| obtain a security clearance, that requires citizenship.
| abc_lisper wrote:
| Lol. Not even. What about Musk. He is not born in US
| georgeg23 wrote:
| Elon supposedly got full U.S. citizenship after he made
| connections with the CIA (Michael D. Griffin) although
| the details aren't really known.
| gostsamo wrote:
| I think that the UN had a program for facilitating smaller
| nations access to space. Currently, I'm finding only the outer
| space office there though.
|
| Alternatively, many of the private space companies don't have
| citizenship requirements.
| xoa wrote:
| > _Alternatively, many of the private space companies don 't
| have citizenship requirements._
|
| In America at least private companies are equally covered by
| ITAR, so they do have citizenship/greencard requirements (or
| need a variance that is nearly never granted in practice).
| SpaceX can't just hire international talent as it wishes. I
| assume there may be similar rules in some other countries,
| though certainly not all. But it's not merely a matter of
| private vs public fwiw.
| the_third_wave wrote:
| There are? Japan (JAXA), India (ISRO), China (CNSA) and Russia
| (Roscosmos) all do science missions.
| placesalt wrote:
| Not generally known, I think, but Canada is technically part of
| ESA. Not a full member, a 'Cooperating State', but there are
| some benefits. Wiki sez "Canadian firms can bid for and receive
| contracts to work on (ESA) programmes."
| TheBigSalad wrote:
| Your odds probably wouldn't be much better if you were an
| American.
| ragebol wrote:
| India has ISRO
|
| Japan has JAXA
|
| The UAE have a space agency that even has a Mars mission
| running currently.
|
| Same for China.
|
| There's more I'm forgetting, but space stuff is not limited to
| Europe and the US.
| darknavi wrote:
| Very true, although I assume that most or all of those listed
| have their own form of ITAR. Space (mostly defense) is
| inherently siloed to country borders.
| SonicScrub wrote:
| I can't speak for the other nations, but Space technology
| in Canada is controlled under the Controlled Goods Program
| (CGP). A CGP clearance is obtainable as a Permanent
| Resident. No citizenship required. Various Canadian
| companies are suppliers/partners for space projects in the
| US. For example the Artemis project is using the Canadian
| company MDA as a key supplier (to manufacture space robotic
| systems, including a newer version of the robotic arm
| currently on the ISS). SpaceX also has a number of Canadian
| suppliers, although their involvement is not advertised
| very much.
| edge17 wrote:
| Isn't that most large capital intensive efforts?
|
| Also to be fair a lot of US defense and aero contractors
| have manufacturing partnerships around the world.
| colechristensen wrote:
| > Isn't that most large capital intensive efforts?
|
| No.
|
| For example in university i was part of a satellite
| design competition. We couldn't let Chinese nationals on
| the team or we'd be breaking the law. There was a list of
| approved countries a team member could have citizenship
| from, if not we'd be guilty of violating export controls.
| emadehsan wrote:
| I'm part of the rest of the 4 billion. The ones you mentioned
| only take their own citizens (probably except UAE).
| starik36 wrote:
| > except UAE
|
| I got bad news for you. Their spacecraft was built by
| University of Colorado at Boulder.
| TX81Z wrote:
| Do we need an article about the trucking company that brought the
| telescope to the launch pad as well? Surely all freight carriers
| are due recognition?
|
| This headline makes it sounds like SpaceX is more that a freight
| carrier here, undoubtedly for clicks.
|
| Being a freight carrier to space is indeed very cool, and
| exciting, but they didn't make the telescope.
| skybrian wrote:
| Why write about launches? We could wait until it starts
| gathering data because that's what really matters, right?
|
| Given that it's a rocket launch, crediting the company that did
| the launch makes some sense.
| the_third_wave wrote:
| Why not write about launches? It is not every day ESA
| launches a telescope to a Lagrange point after all.
| explaininjs wrote:
| Why write about when it starts collecting data? We could wait
| until actual worldview changing research results surface
| because that's what _really_ matters.
|
| The fact of the matter is worldview changing results will
| likely not ever surface, just as they didn't from JWST. So
| instead press departments pretend all the steps along the way
| are important because it helps improve public sentiment for
| the financing of these "moonshots" (which hardly even deserve
| the name, we haven't accomplished anything remotely like
| placing a man on the moon in decades).
| krisoft wrote:
| > The fact of the matter is worldview changing results will
| likely not ever surface, just as they didn't from JWST.
|
| What do you count as worldview changing result? Who
| promised you that the JWST will deliver such things?
|
| You are also quite quick to write off a mission with a 20
| year design lifespan.
| explaininjs wrote:
| The worldview changing result of Hubble was HUDF and the
| revelation that it doesn't matter how deep you look it's
| all the same damn spirals and shit.
|
| I wouldn't know what JWST's result would be, if I knew it
| a priori it wouldn't be much of a result would it? But I
| don't expect much. Happy to be pleasantly surprised.
| krisoft wrote:
| > The worldview changing result of Hubble was HUDF and
| the revelation that it doesn't matter how deep you look
| it's all the same damn spirals and shit.
|
| Interesting. What was your world view before this and how
| did it changed? Did you for example believed earlier that
| only the galaxies we have mapped so far do exist?
|
| > if I knew it a priori it wouldn't be much of a result
| would it?
|
| Yet you are already certain it "did not materialise".
| What was the latency between the photons of HUDF hitting
| Hubble's mirror and your worldview being changed?
| b59831 wrote:
| Wow, some people just can't get over their musk hate.
| mr_mitm wrote:
| This is an important milestone for a science project that has
| been 20 years in the making and might yield a few nobel prices.
| I think it's worthy enough for HN.
| justrealist wrote:
| > This headline makes it sounds like SpaceX is more that a
| freight carrier here, undoubtedly for clicks.
|
| How many commercial freight carriers do you think are options
| right now?
|
| I would love for rocket launches to be as mundane as hiring a
| trucker... but they aren't.
| kitd wrote:
| Here ya go:
|
| https://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration/Space_Science/Euclid...
|
| Here's the lead scientist who originated the idea:
|
| https://researchportal.port.ac.uk/en/persons/adam-amara
| CynicusRex wrote:
| You're just salty because it's related to Elon Muskuito. That's
| okay, I am too.
| darknavi wrote:
| If does have some relevance:
|
| > Incidentally, Euclid was not supposed to launch aboard SpaceX
| at all. As late as February 2022, the mission was manifested
| upon an Arianespace Soyuz (provided by Russia) for a March 2023
| launch in French Guiana. Russia's unsanctioned invasion of
| Ukraine forced a stop to most such space collaborations aside
| from the International Space Station, pushing Euclid's team to
| look for another ride to space.
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(page generated 2023-07-01 23:00 UTC)