Judge: “I think RFK should get shot. Is that unreviewable?”

DoJ lawyer: “Judge? Did you mean to say that out loud?”

RFK: <squeaky trombone noises>

Even if not, there’s more than a few retroreflectors (fancy mirrors)up there, installed so we can get laser distance measurements.

Mock him for being incurious, stupid and failing google-fu.

Or show him some of these links, your call.

https://www.rmg.co.uk/stories/space-astronomy/moon-landing-conspiracy-theories-debunked

https://starwalk.space/en/news/was-the-moon-landing-fake

https://askanexpert.asu.edu/earthspace/top-question/moon-landing

For the Artemis vs Apollo stuffs:

https://spaceinformer.com/artemis-vs-apollo-comparison/

https://apollo11space.com/apollo-vs-artemis-how-technology-and-goals-have-transformed-lunar-exploration/

And just to see how stupid he is, maybe ask if the earth is flat. If they say yes… just have him go watch this entire channel…

The reason I’m calling him stupid is because he’s either never actually searched or done any kind of research beyond conspiracy theory memes, or has immediately discounted the vast majority of people patiently explaining why he’s wrong.

As for why china didn’t try to go… they didn’t have a space program until recently. As for the soviets? Well. Why go when we happily shared our research with them? One of the main motivations was propaganda. It was a sort of proxy war and we won. Beyond that, there wasn’t much point in duplicating efforts.

Another point of fact that many people don’t address is how impossible it would be to fake the radio transmissions without getting caught.

Something had to go to the moon. Tiny changes in antenna alignment were sufficient to cause a loss of contact with the CSM. (A fun movie about this is called The Dish and is based on a true story.)

The thing is that the CSM wasn’t going straight to the moon, it followed a transfer orbit that intersected both earth and the moons orbit (and at a time when the moon would be there!)

This path meant that you couldn’t just point an antenna at the moon.

It also meant that you had to keep a lock on the CSM’s path or risk losing it forever (The Dish, they almost lost it.)

HAMmies had their own rigs which could listen in, as did virtually every government.

The precision required to catch the signal meant you could track its location in real time.

It also means we have tons of recordings with the appropriate amount of signal lag.

And there would be no way to fake those signals by broadcasting from earth- everyone paying attention would know. if ever the entire world watched something that first landing was it.

So, here’s the thing.

That’s not a great analogy. The MIM-104 Patriot missile system is still providing vital and necessary functionality on a daily basis.

It’s also mobile in the exact same way I’m suggesting the V-150 could (and should,) be.

And finally, the reason they haven’t done that is because there’s plenty of other options like the RIM-174, which we also gave them. (But I’m not so sure it’s as vital. That’s a high bar to cross.)

As for its size, yeah. It’s huge. But you’re comparing that to earth construction. Star Wars always went big. For example the Lucrehulk freighter (which they used for a pilot training academy,)

That thing was large enough that pretty much every they brought to Hoth could fit on it and access with all the same capability as echo base itself. With room to spare. They probably wouldn’t even need to give up the flight academy!

The point being, it’s not unreasonable to suggest they could just literally do that- strap it to an appropriately sized freighter.

Like i mentioned before: they had to get it there somehow, and it’s not the type of thing you’d just build in place. (They stole it and several other cannons, after all.)

Drunk Nazis Spin Doctors, even.

I’d suggest it’d be hilarious if an alligator ate bum, but really, that indigestion would be no joke… and the aftertaste is animal abuse!

Men like boobies?

(You’d think that would mean we want to protect them, but naw.)

At first I thought this was gonna be about something that caused spots.

Pox, maybe?

so, here’s an incredible cross sections scan of the v-150 cannon on hoth:

The cannons are absolute beasts. Don’t get me wrong.

We don’t actually know how big the thing is, at least not directly. We do have a scene with a golan df.9 turret (the stubby tower ones, not the dish turrets,) is next to it. those are 4 meters in height In the screen grab of the ion cannon. guestimating the height behind the snow drift, I make the ball 6 df.9’s in diameter. 8, if I ignore the base and go with whats seen, and ignoring the actual barrel thingies. (that’s another df.9.)

So for surface installation (Ball turret plus the reactor core that’s under the ball,) I’d make it needing something between 48 to 64 meters in over all length, and 24 to 36 meters in cylindrical space.

this wouldn’t be that hard to bolt on to something like a GR-75, which is 90 meters long, and mostly just cargo racks. Keep in mind they had to get all that equipment there in the first place, and these aren’t the kind of things you’re building in place, it might be broken down into some submodules, but you’re not breaking them down into component parts.

if a GR-75 isn’t large enough, (maybe because the reactor core isn’t… a reactor core? and needs “base” power.) Then the Imperial Container Ship certainly is (and incredibly easy to steal.) You can actually build that thing out to something that resembles a mobile operations base, to be honest. (the internals of the cargo stack are all shirt-sleeve habitation, apparently,)

Both ships have an advantage here in that they would be rather easy to modify into hauling something other than containers, and including possibly something outsized like the ion cannon. basically becoming a system defense monitor (slow, big guns, and mobile only the sense that, sure, it technically can shuffle off.)

You could do a few things with it. use it concert in lightling raids- it doesn’t come deep into the envelope, but it hits the biggies from range. Probably after a recon flight pops in and gives targets, it can jump in and start blasting with lighter things coming in to do whatever. fighters, bombers, etc.

alternatively, drop it in orbit and let it hang out where it can cover an escape and shuffle off on it’s own. (bonus points for everything else being space-based and not planet-side.)

War tourism is a new booming industry.

A better question is why were they there in the first, and why Trump only got his peeps out.

a scam. It’s a scam.

a mastodon server mod wouldn’t be able to do anything on lemmy world, anyways.

It absolutely is fantasy

But the physics as far as that goes are still on point compared to, idunno, Star Trek.

The sound in space, the swooping, all of that were story telling tools used to convey a sense of what was happening. Realistic space battles aren’t really all that exciting.

Not even the expanse got that right. They just replaced particle beams with Gatling guns and condescending but inaccurate explanations of why things don’t swoop.

Fun fact, the reason planes and stuff seem to swoop is because they’re under constant accelerations and observed from the perspective outside the plane. One source of that constant acceleration is the atmosphere (drag and lift,) but you can just as easily replace that with fusion maneuvering thrusters or something.

The Texas Supreme Court’s decision to separate votes in Dallas County cast after 7 p.m. Tuesday has raised questions about when, or perhaps even if, those those votes ultimately will be counted.

The Supreme Court’s decision followed widespread confusion among Dallas County voters who apparently showed up a polling locations where they weren’t eligible to vote — and an order by a judge in Dallas County to extend voting hours. County elections officials notified potential voters online that “Democratic Party polling locations…would remain open until 9:00PM” and that Republican locations would close at 7 p.m. “as scheduled.”

That could have been a sentence: “Texas is trying to suppress votes by cutting off votes that happened after the polling queues closed.”

What’s happening is that people are getting into the queue before the polls close, and because Texas is fucked like that, a large number of voters physically hand in their ballets past.

So they’re saying those votes don’t count.

And let’s be clear, the “staffing challenges” or whatever, are intentional.

Oh. I thought this was about the Shamwow guy suing because they didn’t put “shamwow” on the ballet.

Yep. Your read that right, and yes. He’s serious.

“Release the Epstein Files you Rancid shitsack!”

What do you enjoy doing that’s not work and not “adulting”?

Find a hobby. Then find a group that shares that hobby. Clean up a park day, maybe.

Or find a charity or nonprofit that needs volunteers.

The local library probably has things going on, too.

Find a third space whether it’s the magic the gsthering shop and shop tournies or church or a knitting circle ran by the local yarn shop.

Some traitors are more traitor than others.

aural synthesis of sensrionics to enhance situational awareness.

(For a non bullshit answer it was for creating engagement with the audience. The utter silence of 2001 space odyssey kinda bothered a lot of people.)

(Same with the swooping.)

(Though from a certain point of view, swooping happens.)

Turns out you can’t actually indict a ham sandwich.