It's another starlink launch, but the important part of this is the engines on the satellites.
For the not in the loop, hall effect thrusters are primarily a soviet design, introduced to western spaceflight in 1992 after the collapse of the soviet union. They're low thrust but very high range, and work by ionizing some heavy noble gas (usually xenon or krypton), and blasting it out the back. The most recent batch of starlink satellites now makes Hall effect thrusters the most dominant form of electric engine in operation right now, and they're fascinating because they use argon, a much lighter but much more common noble gas.
Anyway congrats SpaceX because they continue to make the whole fricking world look like chumps, including global superpower backed space programs (looking at you ESA). No matter what Elon does in any other market, SpaceX's heave of this neglected industry back into the spotlight, and the restoration of spaceflight as a point of national pride, completely redeems him.
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But they leave tracers on my heckin observatory pics!!!
The world has yet to figure out property rights over Earth's orbital space!
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Gigar-slur scientists donβt know what filters are
Itβs also good because it will increase demand for space telescopes
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Frick I didn't realize someone else posted this
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It's ok
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No. No, it doesn't.
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Okay so
The samurai were officially abolished as a caste in Japanese society during the Meiji Restoration in 1867
The first ever fax machine, the "printing telegraph", was invented in 1843
And Abraham Lincoln was famously assassinated at Ford's Theatre in 1865
Which means
There was a 22 year window in which a samurai could have sent a fax to Abraham Lincoln
Snapshots:
archive.org
ghostarchive.org
archive.ph (click to archive)
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