/sci/ - Science & Math

wtf is this stupid ass looking buttplug

>>10285935
thot magnet

>>10285932

>>10285939
Top kino

>>10285932
good OP, saving us from "what is Elon doing" threads replacing proper threads

>an exported copy of Heinlein views on from beyond our simulation, shedding a single tear

we're now waiting for more launchpad work right? Can't see much of the internal progress, unless they take the top off again

also friendly reminder that the last Falcon 9 iridium launch is happening soon
>>10285016

>>10285964
The work they've been doing for the past few years was compacting the ground to make it solid enough to support the weight of the infrastructure without subsiding, I still expect a lot more earthwork to take place before long.
Hell, they may even be waiting for final estimates on weight ranges of BFR.

>>10285937

>>10285976
Must be terrible for you to not be able to see that grass behind her.

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1083567087983964160

>>10286151
OH FUCK

>>10286178

>>10286178
Looking good, so we are basically just waiting on the raptors and tanks?

>>10286178

>>10286197
He says it’s done. The tanks are full diameter- 9m

>>10285937
Umm clearly that is Elon, as a trap.

>>10286222
The real thing "should be done around June."

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1083575233423003648

>>10286222
The Raptors aren't done. He said that some parts of the "engines" on there right now are dummy parts.

>>10286230
the real *orbital one. This is the suborbital hopper, which will fly in just weeks!

>>10286231
technically old parts that are still 'raptors', just the previous design. Makes sense for fit checks

New info from Elon:
>"Orbital version is taller, has thicker skins (won’t wrinkle) & a smoothly curving nose section."
>"Should be done with first orbital prototype around June"
>Q: "Is it going to be like the grasshopper where you test it 1 meter, then 2 and so on." - "yes"
>Q: "Will it use autogenous pressurization?" - "yes"
>Q: "Will there be some kind of shock absorbers installed on the feet of the landing legs?" - "yes"

For timelines, Elon says his expectation is that the Crinkleship will fly for the first time in 4 weeks but he admits he's optimistic and it could be in 8 weeks.

Considering how much easier steel is to deal with and how much skill exists for precision steel fabrication in the US, I wouldn't be surprised if other predictions happen at only 1.25-1.5x of what Elon claims in bouts of optimism. Considering again that Elon Time is based on a Martian year and that's 1.88x of one Earth year, that's a big improvement.

I find it funny; when AMD releases a new GPU or whatever the entirety of /g/ is flooded with threads about it. For this American big dick steel mars rocket, there's a handful. I suppose the gradual build up sort of reduces the individual impact of new developments.

>>10286317
to be fair, this isn't really the most active area for PC hardware enthusiasts.

>>10286326
I was just comparing board-relevant big events and the quantity of threads that come out of it. Plus /sci/ has a little under half of the posts per minute compared to /g/

>>10286331
That's fine, but it's a question that has an obvious answer. 3-4 threads of the same topic in the top row in /sci/ is a big fucking deal.

The right parts of plebbit and Nasa Spaceflight forums are going like a Raptor at full thrust though.

>>10285976
post the one with /k/ where it's a foot

>>10286178
I was about to go browse some porn, but I think I can jack off to this.

The Good Ship Crincle is still sexy in its own right. The first spacecraft built like a Ship.

>>10286388
we'll probably see 'shipyards' for starship, that'll be exciting. Gotta get some Champaign to smash on the side before you blast off

>>10286397
Picard vintage, exclusively.
>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QjbUu5MaEEg

>>10286408
Eventually leading to:
>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lw1QvDnsEVE
IRL

>orbital version done in june
wtf? so when are we expecting superheavy to be done?

>>10286317
It's a combination of retards who can't make general threads properly and the fact this is generating huge interest. All the space related discussion places on the net are blowing up over this thing.

>>10286422
also June maybe? he could also mean just the orbital "starship" is done in June, and they do testing on it before sticking it on super heavy at a later date.

>>10286422
To be fair, the engines and tanks which are two of the hardest components have been under development for literally years already and are pretty much done. The decision to scrap the carbon fibre for steel has accelerated it hugely because it's a thousand times easier and quicker along with a massive existing labour pool.

>>10286426
i think he's talking about the starship being done in june. i imagine the rocket itself will take alot longer.

>>10286426
supposedly Starship will be SSTO capable, but not with any payload
so orbital testing might not need to wait for Super Heavy

What are the chances we'll get a test flight on the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11?

>>10286438
July 4th perhaps?

>>10286440
>>10286438
He'll try for it, but he'll intentionally delay by a few months if it's not safe for even a bare-bones unmanned lunar free return.

>>10286443
has Maezawa even picked any artists yet?

>>10285935
>buttplug
Fund it.

hey guys! I think SpaceX is building a water tower. Isn't that cool?

if you asked me in november when i thought spacex would land people on mars, i would've said late 2020s at the earliest, but now im thinking early or mid 2020s.

>>10286466
>one month
holy dicks

>>10286448
You don't need to consult him if it's a cargo flight. Regardless, Maezawa seems to be satisfied with 2023.

>>10286471
t-that's not how it's supposed to be done!
t. nasa

>>10286480
show me on the doll where congress and the space shuttle touched you

>>10286471
OLDSPACE
S E E T H I N G

>>10286481
kek

>>10286481
Right here on my wallet sir, that's where they touched me.

>>10286317
To be fair to /g/. New GPU is 7nm and with the dying Moore's law it could be a while before we get smaller.

>>10286531
I’ll only give a shit when I can get the same improvement boost for the same money compared to my upgrade form a 7860 to a 470 and 6300 to a 5600

>>10286422
Orbital *prototype* done in June. It might not actually go orbital but instead test suborbital hops for reentry heating of the skin stuff. Superheavy might not be needed for prototype.

>>10286531
they're building 5nm and 3nm plants in taiwan right now https://technode.com/2018/12/20/taiwanese-chip-maker-tsmc-to-build-the-worlds-first-3nm-chip-factory/

>>10286230
wait didn't he say April?

We gotta figure out how to weaponize it though. Or maybe the Space Force will build their own ship from the ground up to be launched on the Super Heavy.

>>10286537
I made this chart a while ago since an anon requested it. It’s not long now until a big breakthrough is needed, somewhere. 3D chips or better power utilization or whatever

>>10286544
(nm design process introduction vs year btw)

It sure is a nice log graph
>>10286540
Wasn’t that the original hopper date?

>>10286544
I was reading an article about how we don't have a Moore's law equivalent for spaceflight (http://www.thespacereview.com/article/3632/1).). The article is kind of eh, but it made me wonder if we will see some sort of Moore's law for spaceflight.

>>10286551
rockets are a pretty solved game, there's not much you can advance unless you're willing to go nuclear or ion, which have either serious disadvantages or regulatory hurdles

>>10286230
will the one in june be the 2nd one to the left in this pic? is the one on the far right basically the same rocket but strapped on top of a 1st stage? can't wait to see these things launch...

>>10286560
2nd one from* the left

fuck im so tired i dont even know if im saying it correctly this time either lol.

>>10286560
from left to right:
1. Starship Hopper, the test article they just built
2. a crew Starship, their ultimate goal
3. the Super Heavy booster
4. Falcon 9 with payload fairing and recovery systems
5. crew Starship Super Heavy, the full stack assembled

they're going to build something the same size as number 2, but probably just a cargo hauler instead of the crew thing
building a crew starship and human rating it will come later

>>10286560
elon just said it's taller than the one in texas, but he didnt say if it's full sized or not.

>>10286565
would the crew starship be able to get out of LEO? also i remember elon talking about the possibility of it being used similar to an airliner- taking passengers from city to city. is that still a thing hes wanting? and i assume that would be #2? i dont know whats out of date on the wiki and what im reading.

>>10286560
That's some kino shit if I've ever seen it

>>10286567
the plan for escaping LEO is to refuel it in orbit with special tanker versions of Starship designed only to ferry fuel from Texas to LEO

>tfw Skylab was only 6.6m diameter and Starship will be 9m

>>10286597
the fattest chode we'll have ever put in orbit, if they get it right

>>10286536
>mfw New Shepard is gonna get overtaken by a fucking flying water tower

>>10286560
Alright, so what they expecting to learn with the hopper?

Is a completely different design, with a different assembly and aerodynamics.

>>10286615
Lots of things, but I reckon the main thing will be testing the engines. It will be the first time the Raptor is flown.

>>10286615
apparently just testing the rocket nozzles, how the handle, fine tuning the placement etc. elon said the first test will just go something like 1 meter up, 2nd at 2 meters up and work from there. they did the same with the falcon rockets to fine tune the landing before they test it out on a super expensive real rocket. they put this thing together in a couple months for next to nothing (comparitavely speaking)

>>10285932
Earth is flat

>>10285937
Something thick and tempting has to be a magnet to thots.

>>10286627
Less than one month.

Guys. How would I calculate the energy needed to send a signal between earth and moon surface (images to earth and control information to moon) if I have a relay in orbit around the moon or even without. Would I need a parabolic dish to do it efficiently (somewhere around 5 watts power or at least in that order of magnitude)?
Control information would ideally only be a few bit, enough to give a directional vector, and back would be images from small cameras with ideally around HD quality.

>>10286557
Expendable rockets are a solved game, but reusable ones? Not at all. These are the early times and the tech is still in infancy.

>>10286863
I'm not talking about that
reusable or expendable doesn't make a difference, that's just the economics of it, I'm not talking about that
I'm talking about the laws of rocketry, how fast you can make something go with what you've got. that stuff is solved, there is very little headway to be made, and we know where it is.

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1083575233423003648?s=20

>>10286878
The butthurt and jealousy around the world when starship goes orbital will be astronomical.
I'm willing to bet politicians and nasa will also try to cash in some credit.

>>10286890
It has taken 20 years and 10 billion dollars to build a folding origami James Webb space telescope with a 6.5m mirror. Planned launch in 2020.
Starship will fly this year, with a 9m cargo space.

>>10286890
It will be absolutely glorious. Hopefully it can kickstart an actual space race this time. China will copy Starship instantly and as far as I'm concerned that's a good thing.

Will it be taller than Saturn 5? Asking for a friend.

>>10286933
it depends on the final design, they should be comparable

Will a full reusable starship with booster finally make space affordable?

>>10286936
if it works
pray for the future

>>10286936
~$100 per kg if they can achieve high enough launch rate

affordable for upper middle class in developed world

>>10286541
I can think of a couple ways to get the most military use out of the Starship. One would be to design relatively cheap, basic, spy-sats, to launch in large numbers, getting rid of the coverage gaps that currently exist. To be real clever, they could also have Starlink hardware attached, and be secretly launched alongside regular Starlink satellites. Starlink itself has some interesting military potential, and is getting some Airforce dollars already.

Another use would be creating basic GPS satellites that can be tossed up by the dozen if the regular ones start getting shot down.

And now for the exciting part - Starship lifting ~100 tons to LEO is enough to make the "Rods from God" concept viable. The Air Force estimated that a 9 ton tungsten rod would hit with a force of 11.5 tons; figure 9 rods per flight to leave plenty of mass for extra fuel and guidance equipment, and the Starship can dump more than a 100 tons TNT equivalent on a target. In comparison the venerable B-52 has a payload of 32 tons. This would be perfect for destroying any high-value, stationary targets, like shipyards, powerplants, nuclear enrichment facilities, and so on.

>>10286952
most of the rods from gods thing needs to be propellant
figure 3 rods per 100 ton payload

>>10286954
That's still good, especially if resupplying becomes cheap.

>>10286952
That image reminds me of one very cool book written by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle. Challenger found much better and more heroic end in the story than it did in reality.

>>10286531
Feature size doesn't mean anything nowadays, it's pretty much marketing

>>10286936
Yes. The next century is finally upon us. And Elon is our prophet in this new age. All our hopes and dreams will be fulfilled, all our desires stilled.

>>10286968
If you're doing a "b-but not everything on the chip is 7nm!" that's ALWAYS happened going back decades, it's just the milestones are not at exact parity with features.

Smaller still means lower energy consumption. It often means a smaller die size, although with GPUs there's been a change in design too so that hasn't actually happened.

>>10286952
>Rods from God
No, that is an idiotic concept.

>>10286980
Not if its cheap to launch.

Holy shit it's YUGE
Elon just retweeted some thot's video:
https://twitter.com/JaneidyEve/status/1083417737161048068

>>10286984
Doesn't look that big 2bh

Why does it look like the rocket from a cheap 50s sci fi?

>>10287006
It is what the grasshopper is to Falcon 9, a test version. The crew certified one will be absolutely ginormous.

>>10286964
Yep, the image is an illustration of the Michael from Footfall. Good book, if anyone wants a hard-scifi alien invasion story. Holds up really well, despite being written in the mid 1980's. Swap a couple things, like the "US best troops are in Europe to fend off Soviets" to "US best troops in middle east" and change the Shuttles to Starships, and well Hollywood I just gave you your next blockbuster.

>>10287010
If it ever gets built. Which is a big if.

>>10286466
Joking aside, how has this been done so quickly?

Why is nobody stating the obvious?
this looks very cheap and fake and unless we can see whats beneath this pic really tells you nothing

could be a college project for all I see

>>10286639
Ask a HAM, moon bounces are a thing

>>10287036
sigh...
https://www.businessinsider.com/boeing-may-have-used-firm-to-plant-anti-spacex-oped-2018-10

>>10287039
they hire extremely capable workers like Tom Mueller

>>10287044
>boeing-may-have
SpaceX may have paid someone to write a fluff piece that vaguely blames everything on Boeing.

It's going to be so satisfying when this foil covered meme explodes on the launchpad

>>10287041
Something flying 1m - 5000m up and down doesn't need to be too fancy.

>>10287052
Given that the falcon 9 can do that already I don't see what the point of this is.

>>10287055
To test new Raptor engines

>>10286981
You know you need fuel for deorbit for each 9 ton rod right ???

>>10287055
Look up the “grasshopper”. It was the same sort of thing, but for Falcon 9.
Starship is SpaceX’s next generation rocket. This is the grasshopper for it.

>>10287042
>Homeomorphic Abelian Manifold
>Halfway Assembled Muskproject?
>Heavenly Anus Magic?
Sorry dont know what HAM ia if not either of these. Moon bounce you mean bounce a radiosignal off the lunar surface? Wouldnt that just scatter it and lower the intensity? Itd probably work one way if you want to send something to the rover that he can pick up with a simple antenna, but I think since the control data is so small anyways (or at least I figure it could be kept small) Im more worried about sending data back to earth.

>>10287061
amateur radio operator.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth–Moon–Earth_communication

>>10287066
Ah alright thats not really what I want though. Say I put a rover on the moon, how do I calculate the energy and antenna/ parabolic dish size needed to transmit megabytes of data back to earth possibly via a satellite in lunar orbit or an earth moon lagrange?

What's the cheapest cost/weight right now? Falcon heavy?

>>10287068
read a book nigger.jpg

Seems to me it would be basic stuff that any intro to radio textbook would cover. Alternatively, just ask a HAM. There’s more overlap than you’d think.

>>10287069
Yes; but Proton and GSLV are also pretty cheap

>>10287069
The falcon heavy is pretty much dead now. There's no value to it with starship on the way.

>>10287079
it has plenty of flights for its class (just look at delta IV heavy; like 11 flights in that many years). FH will have two this year.
Plus, I’d imagine it gave the spacex team a lot of experience with rockets that have a lot of engines

>>10287069
funfact: falcon heavy is cheaper than the fully reusable shuttle proposals.

>>10287084
I suppose, but it's definitely not something for the long term.

>>10287088
How cheap is starship then?

>>10287091
Elon agrees; he says they wouldn't do it over again if he had the option.

>>10287092
We don't know yet but it better be cheaper than FH.

>>10287092
If it is as cheap as SX claims cargo to space would be cheaper than if we had an orbital elevator.

>>10287097
It won't be, that sounds like musk bullshit

>>10287104
if his estimation for cost is literally one hundred times off it'll still be cheaper than SLS per launch.

>>10287107
Well yeah, SLS costs whole country GDPs.

>>10287104
A Falcon launch costs 60 million and they throw away a second stage every time. If BFR cuts that cost by half, which is a reasonable assumption in my opinion, that's 300$/kg to LEO (Elon actually thinks he can get it down to 100$/kg). At 10 cent/kWh and 10% overall efficiency a space elevator costs 35$/kg on electricity alone. So yeah, if Starship flies we're really not that far off from orbital megastructue level prices.

>>10287104
>220$/kg - elevator
>40$/kg - starship at 6M per launch

>>10287104
Fuel is cheap. If rapid reusability is achieved, then cost of payload will approach cost of propellant required to launch it, similar to how it is with airplanes. This means ~$ tens of dollars per kilogram. This is lower than some estimates for a space elevator.

>>10287137
150 tons payload is probably dead. They only say 100+ tons nowadays, so 60$/kg. And 6M per launch is a completely unrealistic figure. They have to make the 5B it costs them to develop Starship back somehow.

>>10287159
Of course. But if internal costs are noticeably higher it will fail at replacing F9 and FH. Multiple launch requirement for refueling and all.

It will be very interesting to watch how it turns out.

>>10287163
Also I'm not sure if 150t is off with vacuum raptors. I have the feeling the active cooled SS could turn out lighter than carbon fiber + tiles.

>>10287166
>>10287159
the only metric that matters imo is $/kg. If Starship can carry 80t to LEO, but per kg is cheaper than a theoretical 150t version, who's to complain? We're a long way from single-payload 50t+ probes and space hardware anyways.

>>10287166
>SS
delightfully counter intuitive

If the costs are as low as you all say what does that mean for space? More space stations?

Wait, what's happening?
Are they firing it today?

>>10287183
larger mass budgets for stuff means cheaper costs and greater capabilities.
One of the dirty secrets of space probes is that you have all of these researchers clamoring over who gets the most energy and mass budget for their sensor or instrument. It often boils down to who-knows-who sorts of situations. Sometimes capabilities are kicked off of the probe designs altogether because they just can't be accommodated. Now every researcher in the world will get the data they particularly want.

>>10287188
A couple weeks before that will happen my dude

How high will it be hopping?

They are channeling the spirit of the Sea Dragon. Steel truly is a wonder material.

>>10287196
According to the FAA permit:
>The tests themselves are divided into low‐altitude and higher‐altitude tests. The low‐altitude tests stay below 500 meters in altitude and last approximately 100 seconds. These tests will be run approximately three times per week during the initial portion of the program. The higher‐altitude tests can go as high as 5 km and will occur approximately once per week. These tests last approximately 6 minutes.

>>10287188
>Are they firing it today?
Oh heck no. Even Elon says no less than three weeks, and more likely seven or more.

>>10287200
I like that it has a retro future aesthetic.

>>10287188
nice dubs
they don't even have the final engines down there, the Raptors on the bottom of the thing aren't flight hardware (but they are real engines)

spacex launch happening right now!
>>10285016
>>10285016
>>10285016

Is there anything more based and redpilled than this image?

>>10287274
I love the shininess

>>10287274
yes

>>10287283
I didn't know that Elon was in TF2

>>10287274
this

Holy shit, I'm in love with this big gigantic sausageform piece of human enginering.

>>10287188
No, just an old Falcon 9

https://www.spacex.com/webcast

what's the plan for RCS on Starship again?
is it cold gas methane or will they actually be lighting up

>>10287341
methane

How do they intend to put shit into space if there's no fairings to break apart? Crew doesn't pay bills.

>>10287365
yes no shit, will it be cold gas methane thrusters?

>>10287383
pay who's bills?
with what money?

>>10287387
cold gas, and big ones too

>>10287341
>RCS
>lighting up

>>10287383
There will be a hinged door on the Starship.

>>10287403
I bet you could do it with something like Electron does, electric turbopumps
the hard part is getting fire in there

alright now that the F9 launch is done it's back to watching dirt piles in Texas. Seems like a slow news day; haven't found any new juicy photos.

>meanwhile at BO headquarters...

>>10285932
So whats the bonus situation for getting this done on time

>>10287748
Tell me it involves feet and is not homo.

>>10287748
How is that bizarre? I guess my tastes are really skewed, because that sounds pretty wholesome to me.

>>10288013
It's similar to a sniffing the seat creepy trope. Some people have little to no sense of smell from birth (I think it's like 2-5%) so I guess for them it might seem a little weird.

I love the smell of my partner and it's the most wholesome thing in the world to hold them and breathe them in. I feel a bit bad for Bezos because that seems like a cry for intimacy in a relationship.

apparently that dome thing they were welding on the ground is the launch mount.

>>10286896
If Cargo Starship becomes available before JWST flys, I will never stop laughing ever.

>>10286952
>a 9 ton tungsten rod
>would hit with a force of 11.5 tons
Wow, truly an unspeakable weapon.

>>10287010
>The crew certified one will be absolutely ginormous.
And then they put it on an even higher booster.

>>10288093
I think he means 11.5 tons of TNT, like the "kilotons" measure of nuclear bombs.

>first dragon payload
>a wheel of cheese
>first falcon heavy payload
>Elon’s roadster
>first starship payload
>....?

maybe his old house or something

>>10288147
rhode island

>>10286178
>a fucking cartoon rocket

>>10288147
Tesla semi

>>10287183
Asteroid mining as well as moon and mars colonies might be possible if enough people throw money at it.

>>10286178
Why the fuck does a supposedly space only starship have wings

?

>>10286896
We can dream of a 8.5 meter Hubble replacement.

>>10287409
I still wonder if that's actually practical. The pics look kind of goofy with the open hatch.

>>10288134
Why not just drop 11.5 tons of TNT?
It's just 4.5 tons heavier.

>>10288211
>space only starship
Are you retarded? It needs them for reentry. Just like a certain shuttle from space.

>>10288147
Very large inflatable SLS balloon replica. Visible with binoculars.

>>10286933
Yes, unless the designs change again.

>>10288233
*2.5

>>10288234
wait, this tin can is supposed to come back on earth?
no fucking way.

>>10287183
Even poor third world nations can build a lunar base by chartering a SpaceX flight. Universities can send up entire research satellite if they so choose. Manufacturers can experiment with cheap zero g. Billionaires can build their own space motels. Literally infinite options.

>>10288147
A (killer?) whale and a bowl of petunias.

>>10286952
MOABs do pretty much the same thing as "rods from god" and are cheaper and more flexible in how and when they can be used.

>>10288236
Elon pls this

>>10288245
It's not tin, but stainless steel. And it's gonna be actively cooled by liquid methane, my man.

>>10288245
not this one, it is only for suborbital hops

>>10288236
>>10288257
Why SLS? Why not fully-unfolded blow-up JWST.

>>10288245

>>10286639
You need a bigass motherfucking dish. If you can actually land on the fucking moon, you can use NASA's dishes.
>>10286896
The 20 year dev time wasn't just for origami, it was for the instruments too. Pic related. There's much more to telescopes than just mirrors. And with origami, just think of the size of telescope we could fit into BFR.
>>10288236
I'll bet you could fit in at least 3 full size inflatable SLS balloon models
>>10288251
a killer whale is probably feasible to launch. The largest only weighed 10 metric tons.
>>10288265
Because the JWST is a pretty goddamn good use of NASA's money. The only reason the SLS exists is to make some politicians happy.

>>10288270
>Because the JWST is a pretty goddamn good use of NASA's money
They probably could've done more with less. Could've launched a whole swarm of other telescopes in the meantime if the technology was still this far out.
Although I will agree that it will be a huge boon once it actually does go into space... eventually.

>>10286866
Economics matter a lot though. If we just had "Saturn V but it's 99.8% cheaper" then we'd already have colonized the whole solar system.

>>10288270
>You need a bigass motherfucking dish. If you can actually land on the fucking moon, you can use NASA's dishes.
A bigass dish on earth you mean right? I figured Id be able to use probably more likely esa since im yuro and most cooperation would be with them.
Nah Im more worried about the kind of antenna or dish Id have to put on the rover. Itd be a pretty exotic design with not a lot of space for that sort of stuff.
I study physics so I never had any classes on radio signalling except for a small part in optics, and I want to actually be able to calculate every neessary detail before I pitch it to anyone official, ad basically everything actually robotic I want to physically build beforehand to have better chances of being taken serious.

>>10288233
A missile containing TNT would be vulnerable to being blown up by anti-air missiles/laser; a solid hunk of tungsten coming down would ignore that.
>>10288252
Conventional bombs require conventional bombers, which are subject to interception by existing missiles & aircraft. A BFR throwing some rods onto a sub-orbital path would be vastly more difficult to stop, and useful for fixed, high value targets. Think about those artificial islands the Chinese have been building in the Pacific, and that are loaded with anti-air & ship missile launchers.

>>10286952
That would also immediately prompt China to build their own Starship variant and deploy similar space weapons. An actual space weapons race.

12 cement trucks are at the launchpad area. Austin B is going to post some pics soon

>>10286551
>we don't have a Moore's law equivalent for spaceflight
We did, in the mid 1900's, then we bottomed out, because that's what happens and is what's going to happen to chips soon.

>>10286933
118 meters tall, Saturn was 111m.

The exhaust of the Starhopper and Starship will be immensely beautiful. I can't wait to see them launch.

>>10288443
We didn't bottom out, you can't have competition and rapid development in a field where the government hands out billion dollar cost plus contracts for one specific component to whoever bribed their senators the best.

so how easy is this to copycat

>>10288299
The dish can be on the ground or on the moon. All you need to know is that there's this nice equation where you plug in antenna gain, distance and atmospheric losses, SNR and out pops your bandwidth. Read a book on space mission design, it'll have that equation.
>>10288305
>>vulnerable to anti-air missiles
hypersonic weapons can outrun all current anti-air missiles
>>lasers
aren't powerful enough to kill hypersonic weapons. They can't counter hypersonics at all if the weather is bad.
>>10288403
there's currently a hypersonics weapons arms race. We're behind. Russia and China didn't have good guidance systems, so they decided just to go sanic fast so that the target won't have moved much when they fire. Annnnnd now they've gotten to the point where they don't travel in straight lines. I mean the turning radius is still big, but it ain't on a great circle. Because they're in the atmosphere they can maneuver and dodge missile defenses like ballistic or orbital weapons can't. They can be nuclear first strike weapons.

>>10288266
neat

>>10287391
>>10287387
>>10287365
>>10287341

They are going to be gas-gas methalox thrusters, yes they will be powered via combustion, no they will not be cold gas thrusters. Elon mentioned they are going to provide something like 100 kN of thrust each ('ten tons of thrust' but tons is mass not force).

>>10288464
Chinks will find it pretty easy, they no doubt have several interns there already snapping covert pictures and inserting cheeky USB drives and shit and they don't give a fuck if they have to explode 20 prototypes to get it working. Everyone else is going to find it pretty fucking hard.

>>10288475
>there's currently a hypersonics weapons arms race. We're behind.
I doubt that. You pay the same money as literally everyone else combined + a significant margin. You aren't behind. Your contractors just can never get enough and play on your paranoia.
Wouldn't be the first time someone saw one russian prototype and thought they had a whole fleet of them and also the prototype was totally super awesome at everything please gib 300 billion dollars for a new contract to defend yourself right now or the commies will destroy America right now.
Also what's the difference between detecting missiles that will impact in 2 minutes, launching all your rockets, you die and then they die 20 minutes later versus you die in 2 minutes and then they die in 3.
>inb4 can't launch missiles in time anymore
That's what air craft carriers and sub marines are for.

>>10288431
oboy

>>10287387
The RCS will have gas fed methane oxygen thrusters 10 ton thrust and spark ignition for infinite restarts

>>10288459
You can't improve the efficiency of engines significantly beyond what was achieved with the RL-10 in the 1950's. That's what I meant by effectively bottoming out. From there the only things that improve are our tricky methods of using the already as-good-as-possible base components.

>>10288536
>You pay the same money as literally everyone else combined + a significant margin
Money isn't everything. For example F-35, a brazillion dollar development program for a slight improvement over previous generation fighters.

>>10287044
>https://www.businessinsider.com/boeing-may-have-used-firm-to-plant-anti-spacex-oped-2018-10
desu it looks like oldspace has shills and trolls everywhere, even all over /sci/

>>10288541
this, it's been said multiple times that they are gas-gas combustion thrusters and not cold gas ones like Falcon 9.

>>10286515

>>10286964
Foo
>>10287108
Literally. Once the final version launches it will have costed around the same as the tptal apollo program

>>10285940
lol

>>10288284
>>whole swarm of other telescopes
which wouldn't have done much good. They would be marginally better than the Hubble.
>> technology was still this far out.
If we don't push the boundaries, we stagnate. If we just start mass producing hubble space telescopes, we aren't developing any new technology.

>>10288266
Whats going on with the legs there

>>10288536
Russia demonstrated a ship based hypersonic missile capable of sustained flight, the US has yet to demonstrate a missile that can do the same.
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/12/20/russia-tests-hypersonic-missile-that-could-be-ready-for-war-by-2022.html
>>thought they had a whole fleet
it doesn't matter. The US has not had a successful test flight yet. Nuclear first strike weapons are not something you keep secret, so don't get 'lel black projects' on me.
>>Also what's the difference between detecting missiles that will impact in 2 minutes, launching all your rockets, you die and then they die 20 minutes later versus you die in 2 minutes and then they die in 3.
quite a bit. Because they attacked sooner, you can't launch all your missiles. Because they're able to launch first they can get everyone in command into bunkers long before the missiles hit and ensure continuity of government.

>>10286470
it wont happen befor your dead

>>10286547
>1,982.5

10% of the SpaceX workforce is being let go. Trimming the fat? Money problems? Too many barnacles?

>>10288848
I guess building a fake mega dildo != a rocket
how can you worship this dude after the rogaine interview
what a spergy mc spaz this guy is
all these tech faggots were in the right place at the right time
mr jewy gaypal
not elon
his name is
Jewy
Gaypal

>>10288864
you again?

Chris Bergin says it could be more than 10%

>>10288872
no I'm someone else
someone else who isn't an autismal sperg that worships other people
who the fuck are you

>>10288848
They are cutting the middle management out, Shotwell was talking about how they were losing the startup style and she didn't like that. So yeah, fat trimming exercise, which is great.

>>10288752
The bottom two legs are hinged and double as control surfaces.

>>10288882
that and no more composites people needed, and the dragon 2 design team isn't needed as well. Plus all of the aluminum manufacturing people, and likely a lot of the government requirements management people since they're moving away from govt money.
Also less vandy workers needed now that iridium has wrapped up... I can see all sorts of places that the 10% could come from.

>>10288872
he's not me.
nobody here has been able to explain why a pipe dream needs 15 threads yet.

>>10288891
why should we have to explain to you? you're clearly not interested in this topic. Yet you keep coming into the threads?
I can't see why /vp/ needs its own board. Yet I don't care or complain.

>>10288898
so no reason, other than to suck off elon for flashing a little metal cone.
got it.

>>10288912
it's the prototype hopper... for a reusable mars rocket. Does that not excite you? or do you think it's a fake scam or whatever?
Again, why do you come in these threads if you don't like what's in them?
I never go in the 'ford' general on /o/, because Fords don't interest me. I don't go in the web development general on /g/, because I don't do web development.

Why do you care so much to complain? Honestly? You can just filter or hide the thread. Presto, it's out of you pathetic life.

>>10288921
calm down elon, it's almost like listening to you talk about AI again
which was embarrassing
it was embarrassing to listen to you, what the kids call "cringe worthy" or whatever
I know how you autistic retards are, not able to tell if it's a joke or not

>>10288891
>nobody here has been able to explain why a pipe dream needs 15 threads yet.
if you have't been able to get an answer in that time then it's your problem buddy, not ours.

>>10288921
He is here to fish for (you)s so just stop fucking replying.

>>10288948
sorry, it seemed slightly honest at first.

>>10288950
come on man... do better next time
I'm being honest/not an intentional dick
help yourself

>>10288748
We don't need to break through into new technological territory every time we want to build a new piece of science equipment. If we had ten Hubble telescopes instead of one we'd have been able to accomplish ten times the data gathering up to this point. Same goes for landing multiple identical copies of rovers on other planets.

>>10288973
marginal costs go down and down and down as well, when you have to build more than one of something

>>10289044
P O U R

O

U

R

>>10289044
happening

"The nice border patrol agents at the check point that I just became friends with have just informed me that this upcoming Monday is when their going to take apart the hopper and insert the fuel tanks." from Austin

>>10289074
The thing is already welded together with bulkheads and engine webs and shit though so the tanks must already be in place.

>>10288848
is this one of those things where they cut the bottom 10% of performers out? fuck those kinds of businesses.

>>10289044
i know they want the starship to land on rough ground when landing on other planets/moons, but it seems wiser if they start with a concrete launch pad first. only then should they start testing on rough ground.

>>10286434
Do you really think Elon will deliver on this? I doubt it would be ssto capable.

>SpaceX employee here, we’re all nervous and wishing each other luck. Heads are spinning refreshing emails...
>We had an all hands meeting and were told to go home and wait for an email that basically says we stay or go. I’ve never seen a more quiet work force in my life heading out.
well that's going to demoralize their company for months

>>10286597
Holy shit why did I not know about this earlier. Skylab is way bigger than I thought.
On a side note, imagine the space stations starship will be able to build around Mars. Less atmosphere and lower gravity makes an ssto viable on Mars. Just launch, land, and refuel over and over again.

>>10286900
Hell, that would be an amazing thing. A Chinese fully reusable, super heavy rocket would definitely make a Martian colony more likely to exist in our lifetimes. I would give my left nut to go to mars.

>>10289186
these things happen, and they save companies. mold starts growing from time to time...
Back in 2014 a similar firing event happened at SpaceX.

>>10287047
SpaceX has an army of shills they dont have to pay.

https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/01/spacex-cutting-10-percent-of-its-staff-to-become-a-leaner-company/

>>10287200
Is Sea Dragon bs or what? Seems too good to be true.

>>10288218
What kind of capabilities would a telescope that big have in orbit?

>>10289264
>Is Sea Dragon bs or what? Seems too good to be true.

It was a real, and engineered proposal, but it was never pursued for lack of funds/demand.

>>10289218
>tfw we will live long enough to see the great Sino-American Martian colonial war

>>10289302
>yfw your grandchildren get drafted to remote-pilot hypersonic drones on Mars

>>10289277
It could see things.

>>10289302
We must make Von Braun proud

>>10289202
The main limitations there are propellant production rates, materials production rates, high-tech manufacturing capability, and of course justification. Why divert resources from the Mars settlement into building a large space station when you can instead put those resources into making your ground base much larger and better more quickly?

>>10289264
It probably wouldn't have actually worked (combustion instability becomes a huge problem as you make the combustion chamber larger, and Sea Dragon's engines had combustion chambers you could fit an entire Saturn IV first stage partway into), but if they did actually get it to work it would not have been as massive a leap in capability as people think. Despite potentially achieving ~$300/kg performance, this would still equal a pretty high individual launch cost of hundreds of millions of dollars, and you could only get to LEO at that (going further the bad mass fraction and efficiency rapidly drops payload mass back down to the point that it costs tens of thousands per kilogram of payload again). Even if combustion instability problems were solved completely, the vehicle would still produce incredibly powerful vibrations that would make it impossible to launch humans without killing them, and extremely difficult to launch sensitive payloads. Realistically Sea Dragon would be delegated to launching inert cargo, like sheet metal, beams, water, propellants etc, which was in fact what the creator of the design had in mind. This was back when people thought the obvious thing to do in space was to build huge rotating space habitats, remember, and they'd need to get all that heavy shit up there in something way bigger and less expensive per kg than an Atlas or Thor.

>>10289176
Lots of things are ssto capable with zero payload.

>>10289306
Brainlet detected

>>10289335
These massive space stations around Mars could be rotating, radiation proof ships to ferry the influx of people wanting to go to Mars without having to exercise for hours every day in zero g and still get fucked up.

>>10289356
I think you're right about combustion instability. The F1 engines required baffles on the injector plate to overcome instability, slightly decreasing the thrust of the engine in the process by covering up what would have been injector nozzles

>>10289361
Any examples? I get that its not worth doing on earth but I'm surprised it's never been done before.

>>10289379
falcon 9

>>10289356
>>10289375
Good points, but now that the feasibility of using engine clusters has been proved with Falcon Heavy
>https://youtu.be/wbSwFU6tY1c?t=1317
I think people are more willing to consider vehicles capable of high-mass, high-energy launches that aren't fatal to humans.

>>10288252
MOAB is not all that great against fortified structures. Also you have to drop it out of the back of a cargo plane. A much better comparison would be the massive ordinance perpetrator.

>>10286597
think, every time they bounce off the walls, the entire station's orbit is slightly perturbed

>>10289396
that's not how it works

>>10288266

>>10289400
the orbit of the center of mass stays the same, but like jumping off a boat one direction, newton's third law says the boat goes the other direction, just like the station

>advanced wappons tecnology

>>10289371
A hundred years after the Mars colony is started, at best.

>>10289380
specifically the booster
Also at this point we can just say a Falcon Heavy side booster is an SSTO vehicle.

>>10289551
It would take a long time but not 100 years. 30 at most.

>>10289594
Until Mars has enough industrial capacity to handle its own necessary growth needs plus enough margin to make starting a huge orbital space station project feasible? No way is 30 years enough, that's only 15 launch windows. Even assuming exponential growth 100 years is pretty lean.

>>10288464
the engines are impossible
the design should be pretty easy

>>10289396
Every time they jump off one wall they bump into another and essentially cancel out the first motion.
They might be able to induce a slight roll or tumble, but nothing that the gyros couldn't handle.
To actually change the orbit one of them would need to jump off the station out into space.

>>10288305
The spacecraft dropping the rods would be in a fixed orbit. Any sophisticated enemy would easily know when and where the spacecraft would be and could even detect the rods being launched, which would take at least several minutes to descend. As soon as you launch the rods they're going to launch a missile at your gorillion dollar spacecraft.

>>10289637
true, landing on the other side undoes the change in station momentum, but indeed the station is perturbed.

also, gyros can't compensate for linear motion

>>10289637
damn, can you image what the ISS would be like if we built it using saturn V's?
>>10288973
>> If we had ten Hubble telescopes instead of one we'd have been able to accomplish ten times the data gathering up to this point.
If we make 9 women pregnant, we can get a baby in 1 month instead of nine.

>>10289735
no you can make nine babies in nine months
the hubble has been up there for 29 years

>>10288266
ahh so it turns on it side for as long as possible to slow down as much as possible before reorienting for landing?

>>10288886
Having gimbled legs seems like a bad idea from a landing point of view: If the legs don't return to their default position in time or a hinge malfunction and the landing won't stick, losing you the whole ship. What's wrong with grid fins?

>>10289838
Yes, coming in sideways maximises the surface area and drag during re-entry to reduce atmospheric heating - It's common practice (shuttle re-entry)

>>10289044
NO
THIS IS NOT HOW YOU BUILD COSMODROMES
THIS IS NOT HOW YOU BUILD ROCKETS
WRYYYYYYYYY

>>10289851
Grid fins are super gay and for queers.

>>10288266
same energy

>>10289879
t. Nasa

>>10289356
What about sea landed reusable sea dragon but with clustered engines? We know precision landing unmanned booster on a small pad probably would have been impossible in the 60's, maybe not so in the 90's, but what if the pad was the open sea instead?
We know H-1 engines were soaked in salt water and test fired without much issues. Surely, with some dedication and more care to make them sea-worthy it would have been possible to make functional engine that can take the stress. And if all else fails, use a lake...

I wish SpaceX published some information how the thermal stress and salt water exposure affected the merlins after that recent emergency landing.

>>10288594
>Literally. Once the final version launches it will have costed around the same as the tptal apollo program
How in the fuck is this even possible? They just needed to take some shuttle components and make them larger. Wasn‘t the second stage also a simple adaptation from somewhere? Where the fuck did they waste tens of billions of dollars on?

>>10289735
>damn, can you image what the ISS would be like if we built it using saturn V's?

At an estimated 6 possible launches per year if Shuttle program money would‘ve flowed into continued Saturn V production instead, ISS - at least in terms of mass - could‘ve been launched in three steps withing half a year.

>>10289904
>Good
>Cheap
>Fast
Pick zero.

>>10289904
It is an open secret in the industry that the main purpose of the SLS and Orion is to embezzle taxpayer money. The rocket itself is secondary.

>>10286900
As soon as China goes down this path, US has to launch another proper space race.

>>10289897
>I wish SpaceX published some information how the thermal stress and salt water exposure affected the merlins after that recent emergency landing.

It's interesting watching a private company do things for this reason. If this was NASA building the new site in Texas we would have all sorts of announcements about their progress and plans. Instead, we just have Elon's twitter feed.

Rather than
>here's a public announcement of the plans for our launch site and graphics of how it is going to be built

we get
>boom here's your Mars rocket and we might build the pad whenever we feel like. and we'll make an announcement if the amateur photographers happen to catch it

>>10289904
It's because congress isn't really interested in building the rocket, they are just interested in keeping those jobs in their districts for as long as possible.

>>10289879
REEEEEEEEE YOU CAN'T BUILD ROCKETS WITHOUT SHOVELLING $99999999999999999999999999999 OF TAXPAYER'S MONEY WORTH OF GOLD JEWELLERY INTO A PIT OF LAVA

Is hopperspotting done for now? Pad and eventual engine work probably aren't enough to warrant thread 16

>>10289607
You do not comprehend how long 100 years is at all

>>10290733
perhaps

>>10290220
However it's still faster getting info from Elon because unlike NASA they don't take two decades to build anything.

>>10290762
>thinking the Mars trilogy was a realistic future scenario

Colonization will be a long, slow process, even when it's fast.