106
votes
Accepted
Which country borders are visible from space?
The border between India and Pakistan is one of the most heavily guarded and well-lit borders in the world, so much so that it can be seen from space at night. It covers an immense distance from the ...
- 4,469
41
votes
Accepted
How do US citizens vote in space?
The relevant law is Texas Administrative Code Rule §81.35 "Voting from Outer Space" and who's going to vote against that? It is a very small modification of Texas early voting law.
(a) A ...
- 7,996
21
votes
How will the UK leaving the EU affect ESA?
The EU and ESA are not related. They have different member states, where neither is a subset of the other. The only potential issue is simply economic. If the British exit from the EU results in a ...
- 58.5k
18
votes
Which country borders are visible from space?
Another border which is visible due to the lack of light is the Haitian border with the Dominican Republic:
The area highlighted on the left is Haiti, of which only Port Au Prince can be seen at ...
- 181
17
votes
Which country borders are visible from space?
Most of the answers were concerning night time pictures. Let me add some nice example of day time pictures, of Israel.
Plenty of grazing animals on the Egyptian side of the border, but none on the ...
- 271
16
votes
How do US citizens vote in space?
As explained in video description of https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Emsf_udovU the voting is done electronically
Most U.S. astronauts live in Houston. Texas law ...
15
votes
Which country borders are visible from space?
You did not specify if you are thinking of any border or only an anthropogenic one.
Anthropogenic (they will likely be visible due to different levels of economic development):
Egypt and Israel (...
- 1,362
15
votes
Which country borders are visible from space?
While LED lighting is taking over (and is likely CW), plenty of outdoor street lights in cities and highways still use high pressure mercury and sodium discharge lamps running on mains AC voltage. ...
- 149k
15
votes
Why do Atlas III and V use Russian RD-180 engines?
I recall a big brouhaha at the time, and there was a fair bit of coverage about why the US should suddenly start switching to a former enemy's engine.
TL;DR:
Sudden availability of technology that was ...
- 9,542
13
votes
Have there been any setbacks due to COVID-19-- like delays or data-loss?
Definitely. There's an article in Spektrum.de on it. It's in German, but it references some English-language articles. A referenced article (English) says that launches at the Guiana Space Center (...
- 4,297
11
votes
Accepted
What Soviet signals (if any) attempted to scramble communication and sabotage Apollo missions?
The Americans did worry about the possibility of Soviet interference. The navigation computer was could be updated from the ground, but this was only done after confirmation via a voice channel:
...
- 126k
11
votes
Accepted
What potential Shuttle partner did this blue-and-white flag indicate?
Most likely ESRO
There is a 1973 document for ESRO detailing
"File: ESRO-728 06/07/1973-27/07/1973
Draft Memorandum of Understanding between NASA and ESRO for a
cooperative ...
10
votes
Accepted
Whats the protocol if two satellites collide?
The main people who oversee this (at least in the US) is the Joint Space Operations Center (JSpOC), From Wikipedia:
The purpose of the JSpOC is to provide a focal point for the operational ...
- 5,271
10
votes
Accepted
Do owners of reentering spacecraft notify the countries' whose airspace they are likely to violate and seek permission?
tl;dr:
Do owners of reentering spacecraft notify the countries' whose airspace they are likely to violate and seek permission?
No, there is no requirement for notification, and in most instances ...
- 4,444
9
votes
How will the UK leaving the EU affect ESA?
The effect should be small, but possibly non-zero. There currently exists growing cooperation between EU and ESA.
Within the EU-ESA membership agreement, one of the noted obstacles is the membership ...
- 11.5k
8
votes
Which country borders are visible from space?
A part of the border between Austria, Switzerland and Germany may be seen from orbit.
For the biggest part of the Lake Constance, the Upper Lake, the location of the borders within the water is not ...
- 48.8k
8
votes
If Country A's rocket hits an incorrectly declared satellite of Country B, which institution can arbitrate the dispute? Under which international law?
I'm going to assume here that both states are parties to the Liability Convention (see page 14 of that pdf) ("Convention"), which is likely since most spacefaring states are currently ...
- 1,428
7
votes
Accepted
How often are space launches substantially delayed by protests physically at the launch site?
I think that in the American program NASA the area around the launch site and the build-up areas are very secured areas and no access is permitted. Any intrusion into these areas is dealt with as ...
- 436
7
votes
How did the USA cooperate with western allies during the Apollo program?
The UK did take some advantage of American components, the engine programme for Blue Streak started with licensed American designs that were progressively replaced with indigenous designs. Black Arrow ...
- 126k
7
votes
Which country borders are visible from space?
The outline of Lesotho can be seen by the distinct mountain texture (80% of the country being above 1800 m) setting it apart from the surrounding South Africa.
6
votes
Which country borders are visible from space?
Belgium, sort of:
Belgium has road lighting on almost all of its roads. The neighboring countries don't. The southern Netherlands, the Ruhrgebiet and the Lille area are densely populated so the ...
- 126k
6
votes
Accepted
How many different countries operate a satellite?
This list shows all the countries which have, to date, launched satellites - a total of 88. Note that some of these countries no longer exist as a single country (eg. Czechoslovakia), have changed (...
- 9,976
6
votes
Have there been any setbacks due to COVID-19-- like delays or data-loss?
Let the bad times roll! :-(
NPR reports that the Russian-European ExoMars mission to Mars has been delayed. While factors other than COVID-19 figured into this decision, there was also this ...
- 8,445
6
votes
Why is there no concerted effort to collect solar energy on a global scale?
The scale needed to address human energy requirements in the near future and the scale of things like Dyson spheres are completely different. Human energy usage at present is about 18TW Assuming 20% ...
- 19.4k
6
votes
Does NASA's Deep Space Network sometimes listen to other space agencies' spacecraft "just for the heck of it" or other non-mission related reasons?
China has done it with NASA
China used signals sent from NASA’s Juno probe orbiting Jupiter to test the capabilities of ground stations vital to its deep space ambitions.
Scientists involved in ...
- 13k
6
votes
Accepted
Could SpaceX deliver the Interim Control Module to the ISS?
The answer to the question "Is the Interim Control Module still the best replacement of Zvezda?" appears to be no. At least as an interim solution, one to three spacecraft may work.
...
5
votes
Which country borders are visible from space?
Looking at this high resolution image of the Earth at night, here are a few borders I could find.
US/ Mexico can be partially seen, particularly in the Western US.
Guatamala and its southern ...
- 121k
5
votes
What is the largest single project (in tonnage) in which an international space cooperative has launched and or constructed in space?
The International Space Station, by far. The mass of the station varies with time, but it's around 420 tons It was constructed over the course of about 13 years, although it is still being tweaked ...
- 121k
5
votes
How much would it cost to build an international commercial moonbase?
Since we don't have any moonbases yet, this is going to be difficult to answer. So the following will guesswork with a few bits of data in between.
The only large-scale construction we've built in ...
- 126k
Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible