Our Vast Universe

I l live in the center of yuge city, all I get to see is the moon. I do get some great city scenes at night, I'll look for some of my pics to up load on the weekend. For celestial observations all I can see is the moon sometimes I miss living in Arizona.

 

Yeah. I live in the Washington DC area. I can see a few of the planets and constellations but not many. I love my vacations to AZ, NM, SD, NV. One of my fondest memories is seeing the Milky Way while standing in Death Valley.

 

Over the years I too have lived in or near large populated areas where - as you said - only the moon is visible. Probably the best star gazing I ever experienced (the only good thing about being there) was when I was stationed in Saudi Arabia and Iraq. I was about 200 miles from any populated area - the universe was out in its full glory.

 

Fun pic:

All humans, except for pilot and camera operator Michael Collins, are located in the frame of this photo:

 

A few days later they... errrm... well... probably... kind of.... unfortunately... ↪lost it..

 

Not really, of course ... half of them are on the other side of the earth.

Very cool photo though!

 

Unfortunately there is so much light pollution here that nowhere on the mainland you can see a really dark sky anymore.

 

Far northwest NJ up past the Delaware Water Gap on moonless nights is good for stargazing. I haven't done it since the boys were in grade school though.

 

Actually really! Is the other side of the earth not located within the frame of that photo? ;-)

 

I work in aerospace and I've seen a lot of slide rules in my career. Guts, not so much.

 

Seems like a good place to give a plug to...

Kerbal Space Program.

 

What I mean by guts... Those astronauts had no idea what was really and truly gonna happen each time they lit the fuse. I went to a high school named for a brave soul named Virgil Grissom. He was killed in a fire on the pad in Florida during the early Apollo days. Every man who set foot on the moon got there partially because guys like Grissom had guts.

 

I won't start playing that. It would take over my life.

 

Its not that bad, it only took me 30 hours to get through the training demos

 

And let's not forget the Russian who got things started, Yuri Gagarin. Not only was he the first to man a rocket, and the first to man an orbiting space capsule, and the first to attempt a reentry but, having survived all that he then had to jump out of the capsule and parachute down before his capsule crashed back to Earth. Amazing.

 

I've read that 439 humans have attempted spaceflight. 22 (18 USA/4USSR) have perished inside a craft as a direct result of the pursuit. ~5% of space travelers lose their life in the process.

Apollo 1 - 3 souls
Soyuz 1 - 1 soul
Soyuz 11 - 3 souls
X-15-3 - 1 soul
Challenger - 7 souls
Columbia - 7 souls