Recent comments in /f/space

daikatana t1_j6ga5w0 wrote

Reply to What if the planet stopped rotating? by bubba_boo_bear

If it stopped all at once then the entire planet would be destroyed (probably). That is a lot of inertia. But the bits of you that still existed for a brief period would be very warm, indeed.

If the Earth completely stopped rotating without any of the inertial consequences, it would have a day of about 1 year. There would be a ~6 month period of burning heat, and a ~6 month period of complete darkness and cold. The heat would be like nothing else experienced on the Earth that we know, a hot summer day that lasts 6 months with no respite. If it doesn't cook us then the droughts and wildfires will finish us off. It'll be too hot and dry to grow any of our crops. The cold side will be frozen solid and in darkness for 6 months, also little chance of survival.

If the Earth becomes tidally locked, which means the same side always faces the sun, there is hope. There will be a ring of twilight where temperatures may remain survivable, but the hot side and cold side will be even less survivable. However, the weather as air of vastly different temperature is exchanged between hot and cold sides would probably make it unlivable even if the temperature in the twilight zone is livable.

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YankeeKuya t1_j6g8r4m wrote

Reply to What if the planet stopped rotating? by bubba_boo_bear

I think the dark side would become a largely lifeless frozen tundra and the light side would become a largely lifeless desert hellscape with the possibility of some life surviving on the fringes where the sun is low in the sky. Humans would not survive the transition.

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Skiringen2468 t1_j6g8o9t wrote

Reply to What if the planet stopped rotating? by bubba_boo_bear

Mercury has very long days and experiences extreme temperatures. One side is freezing and the other would fry you. We would definitely be in an ice age on one side if it always faced away. But during a year it would at least be warm half the time.

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traditional1963 t1_j6g8jwz wrote

Reply to What if the planet stopped rotating? by bubba_boo_bear

Well if it stopped sudden I'd bet the earthquakes would be of huge magnitude, then you would have to deal with the oceans continuing in the motion that they were going, so tsunamis bigger than this civilization has never seen, even the winds by the equator would be a devastating speed, I think this would be a game changer

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The_Solar_Oracle t1_j6g4fpt wrote

Reply to comment by pompanoJ in Number of manned orbital launches by year, 1961-2022 by firefly-metaverse

There are two important things to keep in mind, however.

Firstly, several Soviet missions failed merely because autodocking of Soyuz spacecraft failed. Even when it did work, there were many issues that persisted for years.

Secondly, many Salyut 6 and 7 launches existed for no other sake then to give the incumbent station crews a new spacecraft.

At the time and even now, Soyuz spacecraft only have a limited recommended amount of time they can safely remain fueled and active before they 'retire' and must return. To overcome this, the Soviets launched fresh spacecraft with, "guest" cosmonauts who would swap seat liners and return to Earth with the old spacecraft. The Soviets in turn tended to fill these fresh Soyuz with foreign provided cosmonauts under the Interkosmos program. Rather cynically, they were not expected to do much and given little-to-no training on operating the actual spacecraft; such tasks were left solely to the Soviet cosmonauts who accompanied them.

On a related note, the Soyuz 12 and 13 "free flights" occurred in the wake of Salyut 2's failure, as the Soviets had already prepared the spacecraft for flight and would not have Salyut 3 up in orbit before they reached their sell-by-date.

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