As much as I hope they wouldn't, depends on congress. There's a very real possibility congress could just cut funding for the project. The American government only really gives a damn about anything if it either puts money into politicians pockets, or has to do with war

Constellations are a human invention, but yes, the Sun would appear in the night sky just like any other star as seen from an exoplanet, provided it's close enough to be seen with the naked eye.

From a planet orbiting one of the stars of Alpha Centauri, the Sun is close to the bright stars of Cassiopeia. From Barnard's Star, the Sun aligns nicely with the belt of Orion.

Here are a few more, including charts! https://skyandtelescope.org/astronomy-blogs/explore-night-bob-king/see-the-sun-from-other-stars/

I was buying a sleeve of vanilla cookies and a coke at the ROTC room before wood shop and remember everyone getting excited for the launch. The broadcast was playing on the TV hanging on the wall. It happened just before the bell rang! So sad!

First fatal American accident. Soviets had fatalities before that (and after)

Hot, young stars in your sky NOW!

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I believe that celestial bodies become rounded by their own gravity, but is there a certain minimum size where that won't happen?

All the comments about stars and sex ads are really funny, but I didn't see anyone bring this up so I will.

I was pretty disappointed to learn most photos of space that show off a c9lorful cosmos are edited or enhanced to allow us to see those colors. They aren't natural because our eyes cannot detect the visible spectrum (I think) on which the things in this photo exist. I might have the exact reason wrong but you get the general idea.

If we were actually out in space, it would be a lot of darkness, grey clouds and masses, with indistinct lumps everywhere.

It would not be a pretty LSD trip like every source of media from the beginning of the space race has taught us to believe.

It's certainly possible. Our sun would be visible to the (human) naked eye out to at least a few dozen light years, so depending on how those alien's eyes worked, they could potentially see our sun as part of a constellation.

I don’t know why exactly, but I read this in Alan Tudyk’s voice.

There's no way that wasn't a fear response

It is. From home it is part of the Spider Crab constellation

I don’t know if it still exists or not, but there was old open-source planetarium software, called Celestia I believe, that let you play around with this. For example, on a planet around Alpha Centauri, the Sun would appear as a sixth bright star in Cassiopeia, making the “W” look more like a zig-zag.

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I like potato-shaped :) because of the potato radius (https://www.technologyreview.com/2010/04/12/27697/potato-radius-to-define-dwarf-planets/). In the CSPICE computational libraries (https://naif.jpl.nasa.gov/naif/aboutspice.html), all bodies are modeled as "potatoes", or, formally, triaxial ellipsoids.

EDIT: the numbers I have say the triaxial diameters are 360.2 km × 266.0 km × 205.4 km

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One of the days reality hit me square in the fucking face

I grew up in PA. I was in 3rd grade and was at home because I was sick. I was laying on the couch in front of the TV. My mother had the the TV on to watch the event. I remember the replay of the explosion and my mother crying.

I went into school the next day. When prayers started for the tragedy, I started crying. I was the only one in my class that saw the explosion because I was sick at home.

As an adult I lived in FL. In the town I lived, a school was named Christa McAuliffe. The memories came flooding back when I heard the name in conversation.

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I had just turned 10 and just figured out how to attend Space Camp during the upcoming summer (it took a lot of phone calls and waiting for stuff in through mail back then). We watched in my school's library, Peter Jennings on ABC News. Most of us (kids and teachers) were too shocked to cry. I wound up going to Space Camp 6 months later, as planned. I still have my Space Camp wings, cap, certificate, and flight suit, as well as the bronze commemorative Challenger coin I bought there, "Reaching for the Stars."

Nope. The crew compartment was separated from the vehicle in the explosion. In the wreckage investigation, it was found that some of their emergency oxygen were used, and the amount of oxygen found missing in those tanks is consistent with the amount of time until the compartment landed.

You can draw your own conclusions from this carefully worded article but it seems pretty clear that at least some of the crew had a bad last couple of minutes.

No.. the conquest of space is worth the risk of life - Gus Grissom

Well they are hot and young, but are they single?