/sci/ - Science & Math

Elon, you should consider a pass-by of Venus first.
Closer. Cheaper. Equal media hype.
What's not to love?

>>10454810
Ask the Soviets about landing on Venus...relatively easy to get to, but an inhospitable hellhole unless your in a titanium capsule and requires more return Delta V than Mars, due to it's thick atmosphere and planetary alignment.

>>10454818
No fucking shit.
I didn't say "landing", I said "pass-by". Orbiting another planet with humans, is in itself an accomplishment, and something that would generate huge sensation at a fraction of a cost of a similar orbit of mars.

>>10454818
>>10454810
Sorry I misread, I don't see why Starship couldn't do a Venus flyby, it requires less Delta V than a Mars one but provides arguably better views. Wouldn't be much scientific value gained but cool nonetheless. I believe there's a longer Mars return trajectory that involves a Venus flyby, that would be cool.

>>10454703
old thread

>>10448488

>>10454851
No worries, sorry for getting upset too. Based reply.

>>10454851
God I'd love a Venus flyby, that would be so cool, even cooler if its the first planet humans flyby instead of Mars, imagine how detailed and beautiful the pictures would be fuck.

And you're right it does take less DV to reach too, its closer than Mars too. I think a single crewed flyby and return mission would be something incredible to pull off, before an actual Mars mission too if its doable.

>>10454708
The pad is awfully close to those tanks

>>10454880
Would be a great PR opportunity for SpaceX. Also would solidify its place in the history books for the first humans to orbit or pass another planet.

>>10454708
Is this the new Factorio DLC

t-6 days till raptor install?

>>10454880
These are the best images we have of the planet.

http://www.planetary.org/blogs/guest-blogs/2018/0116-a-new-look-at-venus-with-akatsuki.html

>>10454890
Don't care if its SpaceX or NASA or whoever I just love the idea of the first planet visited by humanity to be Venus, while Mars later is the first to see a landing since we can't land on Venus.

>>10454894
Yep I've seen those, made me fall in love with Venus all over again, I wish it could really look like this too not just with UV filters

>>10454904
Russia supposedly has plans to build a space station there one day. I'd take it with a grain of salt, I doubt these plans are serious but it would be very cool indeed if they came true.

https://www.outerplaces.com/science/item/17253-russia-venus-space-station-probe

>>10454921
Id put a big hot "doubt" on anything space-related from Russia these days, but that would be pretty sweet

>>10454784
That's not a lot of methane looking at that fuckhuge monster in the back there.
Guess it's enough for hopping a bit.

>>10454829
Sending humans on an interplanetary flyby is pointless and retarded.
You are talking about a 1 year+ mission outside of the magnetosphere with all the risk that entails for what? Some PR that would be less than having a Lunar flyby where media can interview the crew 4 days later.

>>10454941
>Sending humans on a trip to mars is pointless and retarded.
>You are talking about a 2 year+ mission outside of the magnetosphere with all the risk that entails for what? Some PR that would be less than having a Lunar flyby where media can interview the crew 4 days later.

Reminder: the NASA FY2020 budget will be released tomorrow, its supposed to have a big focus on lunar exploration.

>>10454921
Would be cool but a bit pointless, unless its to support stations aloft in the Venusian cloud layers, god I love that concept too

>the view would be like on Earth except on a totally different planet
So cool

>>10454945
The difference is you send them to Mars to land and collect data / establish a base. It isn't for nothing.

>>10454946
Reminder NASA is a joke and has squandered hundreds of billions of dollars to date on the ISS instead of doing anything innovative or exploratory.

>>10454956
NASA is extremely inefficient due to the bureaucracy involved but they have done plenty of valid experiments on the ISS that have increased our understanding.

>>10454968
ISS is just a money sink at this point, we LOP-G now.

>>10454829
Yeah but Mars is potentially habitable. Putting an ISS over Venus doesn't add anything new.

>>10454978
>LOP-G
>primary design goal: give SLS somewhere to go
>not a money sink

>>10454985
Hes talking about a flyby, Venus is also potentially habitable see HAVOC

>>10454956
>Says the guy sitting in his parents basement contributing absolutely nothing
Kek, sure government bullshit always bloats budgets, but don't pretend like we don't have a vastly broader knowledge of our universe because of NASA. Don't pretend like the efficient production models you like aren't based upon NASA R&D they spent billions custom building and verifying which they then make available to the public for free.
Even LED lights. You like those right? NASA patents handed out for free. They do that stuff all the time. Teflon, metal tires, even regular rubber tire improvements, those grooves you see on the highway, bionic limb advances, memory foam, water purification, etc etc.
"Thank you NASA for your contributions" is the appropriate response.

Fuckin ungrateful ignorant idiots expecting the world for nothin.. Do you ever fuck yourself? You should. Way more often.

Phobos landing would be neat for the unique view

>>10454950
There is data to be gained from a manned crew orbiting Venus too, as well as observing the crew's health and mental state from such a trip which would invariably be useful for a future trip to mars. It would be a fraction of the cost of a surface trip to mars. Venus is almost always generally closer than mars which allows the window for visiting timely to be much wider. The total duration of the trip could be accomplished in under 200 days, and even quicker if we just used it as a gravitational assist back to earth like the Galileo spacecraft did.

>>10455024
>Even LED lights. You like those right? NASA patents handed out for free.
Nope. Not every awesome invention came from NASA. Not even Tang and the space pen. Just look at the wikipedia page, there's only one mention, of them using them for some astronaut health shit.

>>10455024
Reddit, the post.
NASA has sucked since the ISS became its main priority. The ISS occupies over 90% of its space exploration budget. It is better to save and invest that money than to throw it to sending a few niggers into space every so often. The ISS is a goodwill mission at this point, not a scientific one.

>>10455042
read up on the knockoffs report
There’s a lot of stuff

>>10455049
>It is better to save and invest that money
I have no idea how budgets work, the post.

>nasa doing great things in the past justifies the sunk cost of the ISS
retard, the post
If anything, those are arguments AGAINST funding the ISS even more.

>>10455060
what’s wrong with earth sciences?
you’re not a anti climate change moron are you

Earth sensing is extraordinarily valuable

>>10455056
They didn't even use LEDs in Apollo, they used EL panels for the LEM displays.

>>10455072
Wasn’t saying that

>>10455069
Oh now you've done it. Tying the value of Earth Science to climate change alone, nevermind land and resource surveys, meteorology, and real-time surveying in the event of emergencies. Great job, dipshit.

>>10455076
the pic said “waste” next to that. Usually people think it’s a waste due to climate change beleifs
Or are you not him

>>10455076

>>10455102
I am not him.

>>10455069
>anti climate change moron are you
>pro/anti
>good/bad
>0/1

>>10455129
it’s literally the number one issue humanity is facing
It’s acceptsble to boil it down to pro-anti desu

>>10455107
yeah that's a bad chart
it didn't even highlight SLS/Orion

>>10454890
this picture is real?!!

>>10455129
You can be a smart flat earther and an abusive racist and not be a complete drag on society.

Opinions are like ice cream, they come on all differenr flavors, and none of them are stupid or bad, juust different.

>>10455069
Not their job, you cancerous shit
send earth science to the EPA

>>10455266
why

>>10455132
>my personal beliefs should fall under pro-anti so I can witchhunt easier

>>10454935
but it's compressed tho

>>10454904
>visiting venus first
>landing on mars second
Not gonna happen

>>10455132
>It’s "literally" acceptsble [sic] to turn my beliefs, influenced by heartstrings and subjective importance of it, into a dogmatic assertions that are totally unfalsifiable.
>it's acceptable to throw away the scientific method if it fits my dogmatic beliefs

>>10455340
climatetard spotted

>>10455348
>engaging with him at all
Why though?

>>10455266
Or even NOAA.

>>10454851
>provides arguably better views
pic related, it's fucking nothing

>>10454851
>venus
literally only if its a privately funded pleasure cruise
The government isn't going to pay double digit billion dollars for a mission unless there's some sort of political game being played like in the case of the moon mission

straps

>>10455560
Thicc straps. Steel cable, or wrapped chain?

>>10455562
synthetic
https://slingmax.com/synthetic-slings/

>>10455514
On the contrary, I think a Venus flyby might make for a good shakedown cruise with added scientific and PR value for something like Starship. The shorter trip while still ticking most of the boxes for an expedition to Mars, plus the delivery of a bunch of new satellites to Venus is the kind of thing that makes perfect sense for an agency as cautious as NASA.
I mean, they were considering doing a Venus flyby as part of the Apollo Applications Program. The mission would have been intermediate between Skylab and the early trans-lunar flights, though the biggest hurdle at the time was the 273-day mission duration.

>>10455348
Brainlet spotted

So Bezos Blue Balls thinks a hobby rocket can allow him to build a Saturn 5 sized rocket?

>>10455507
That image is from messenger, which passed it from afar, in transit to mercury, not orbit. That's nothing more than a glorified and reassembled static telescope image.
The planet is nearly as large as earth. Actually orbiting the planet would be spectacular even if it is fairly featureless from afar. The clouds of an alien world with movement distinguishable would be spectacular. HD video cameras recording the whole thing would look amazing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xjs6fnpPWy4

>>10455576
>Venus
Why not just go to mars for a shakedown cruise in that case? Or the moon for that matter
Makes no sense to go to venus because there's less interest in it, you can't even land on it, building unmanned landers to survive longer than a few hours is a massive engineering challenge, not to mention the reduced distance to the sun and increased solar radiation exposure without even a magnetosphere to hide within at venus
It's just a money sink that doesn't even give intangible returns
Overly optimistic apollo era plans ought to be taken with a grain of salt

>>10455619
>Why not just go to mars for a shakedown cruise in that case?
In excess of two years
>Or the moon for that matter
We've already done it.
>Makes no sense to go to venus because there's less interest in it, you can't even land on it, building unmanned landers to survive longer than a few hours is a massive engineering challenge, not to mention the reduced distance to the sun and increased solar radiation exposure without even a magnetosphere to hide within at venus
muh magnetosphere
If you're so worried about the lack of a magnetosphere, you should be even more concerned about the trip to mars which would be twice as long. If it was as hazardous as you seem to imply, this would be a great testing ground.
No one is suggesting to build landing probes either. Future visits to Venus would have upper atmosphere probes rather than surface probes.
>It's just a money sink that doesn't even give intangible returns
Data, amazing images, an opportunity to drop smaller satellites, massive hype for less than half the time it would take to go to mars, and would get everyone excited for the next destination. It's better than anything we've done with space the past 15 years.

>>10455632
Which is why the moon is a more sensible choice
Mars more sensible than venus because it serves as a dress rehearsal, whereas venus is just for muh good views
double digit billion dollar boondoggle

>>10455560
The straps, plus the photos of the methane tanks and Elon's tweet about the (1?) raptor being installed later this week makes me think they might be doing an initial static test with the engine maybe as soon as this week or the next and maybe even a tiny chained down hop.

>>10455641
Except the moon isn't an interplanetary destination. If you want to test out an interplanetary trip with a shorter travel duration than going to Mars, Venus is where you're going.

The PR boost would be much more significant than you're thinking, too. A slingshot mission to Venus would still be the first interplanetary voyage made by humans, and the whole thing would take less than a year.

>>10455641
It wouldn't cost much more than an orbit of the moon aside from the extra fuel expense and cost of supplies to sustain the crew. It certainly wouldn't be in the double digit billions either.

Ugliest rocket ever designed.

>>10455682
t. jeff ballzos

>>10455652
Which is why it's fine if it's some billinaire's money for some pleasure cruise like dearmoon
Private companies aren't going to fund that yet unless they can make money from pasengers via cruise or something be it super rich people like dear moon, or its a golden age and schmucks can afford to swing around venus
Government isn't unless there's some political motivation like another space race or cold war since they can just launch probes there to get what they want instead of sending a bunch of people in addition to the probes which increases the cost of the mission tremendously
There is tremendously more practical reason to go to moon or mars as some sort of practice mission than it is to go to venus since as you stated, it was all about pretty pictures only.
You know what'd be a great PR boost? just landing on mars on the first go, using a much more affordable extended mission on the moon as a testbed for the mars mission
You can do everything you need to test for the mars mission with the moon mission
>extended stay by just not coming back so soon
>testing life support systems in a hostile environment
>testing mission specific shipboard scientific and non scientific instruments
>testing and practicing landing
>testing disembarking and dress rehearsal for it in low gravity environment
>testing ground based scientific equipment to be used by crews on the moon
>testing landing abort procedures in reduced gravity
>small satellite deployment even though this can be tested in earth's orbit
>documenting reduced gravity's effects on the body
>taking pretty pictures
>measuring and documenting radiation exposure
>reduced signal delay in case of emergency
All while being tremendously safer just by way of being able to send people and equipment there or back easily if some sort of small emergency breaks out or mission parameters are adjusted
With venus you're performing something nearly as expensive as mars' mission for none of the tangible nor intangible gains

Give me one good reason why Jeff Bezos shouldn't have all his assets confiscated and redistributed to Elon Musk. It's clear he would make better use of it.

>>10455608
Venus doesn't have distinct clouds like Earth does, it is a featureless white disk in visible light no matter how close you get. Also Starship wont have the delta V to do anything beyond a free-return flyby encounter with Venus, since it can't land and refuel like it will be able to do on Mars.

>>10455690
Half of his assets are already going to his ex wife :^)

>>10455690
Give me one good reason why Elon Musk shouldn't have all his assets confiscated and redistributed to the taxpayers who subsidized Tesla and gave billions in free money to SpaceX all with zero say in the matter.

>>10455700
Not him but because elon musk is a visionary and gets shit done

>>10455702
>elon musk is a visionary and gets shit done
Source?

>>10455702
He wouldn't have gotten anything done without taxpayer money.

>>10455687
stop giving it (You)s

>>10455702
seriously compadre, it's a spammer, no matter what you post, it will be ignored and he will just continue shitting on the floor 24/7

>>10455704
Falcon 9: in service
Falcon Heavy: in service

>>10455696
And he's still the richest man on earth kek

I hope we see atleast one bfb explode. BFR is kinda eh. It's convoluted, but imagine the fireball of an fbf. It might be like a flashier moab

>>10455823
I expect two or three test articles to go up in flames for Starship/Superheavy. And those failures will be G L O R I O U S.

>>10455823
>I hope we see atleast one bfb explode. BFR is kinda eh. It's convoluted, but imagine the fireball of an fbf. It might be like a flashier moab

The Massive Ordnance Penetrator is a 30,000 pound bomb - basically 30 tons TNT equivalent.

The chemical potential energy of the methane in Superheavy is something in the range of 9.025 kilotons TNT equivalent; that thing's packing a small atom bomb's worth of fuel.

>>10455843
thank you for this erection

>>10455843
I don't think so. You wouldn't get full combustion. Even something like RP1/LOX is 20% per mass TNT equivalent at full potential

>>10455861
>incomplete combustion
While you raise a good point, I did specify potential energy, rather than make any guesses about how much fuel would be burned in a catastrophic failure of the launch vehicle. The next question becomes how similar such a failure would be to a BLEVE.

>>10455861
aren't the tanks in one another, so if it blew, they're all spraying into one another

the design might just give it extra boom potential

>>10455706
give $100b to NASA.
>Get science lab in space and metal tires, a couple robots on Mars
give less than $10b to entrepreneur
>Get new space race, on path to reusable rockets and E2E travel anywhere in an hour, likelihood, men living on Mars in our lifetime

I hope we find 100 more like him to give our tax money to

>When that thing starts hopping, will there be a flame trench or something?! How will it not destroy the pad and it’s legs and stuff??? Seems like pointing a raptor at concrete from only 10 feet would be crazy!

>>10455882
go become an investor
there's plenty of those in all the fields that don't get money cause they're shit at getting their name out there

>>10455886
can't wait for the improvised fireworks desu

>>10455895
If it explodes before even lifting off, I will cum in my own mouth and then post a picture here before swallowing.

>>10455889
because everyone has a couple billion laying around. Ive said in the previous thread. a saudi billionaire should just fund the bigelow capsules and launch them into space. but put a couple of them so its a hotel and lease them out to universitys or private science institutions like bayer

>>10455909
Space is haram
no really

>>10455909
>billion
one can begin an investment career with zero dollars if they have great social skills and can sell ideas well

Can't the chinese be baited into another space race if the americans get hard about a moon base. How fun would it be to set up a giant laser on the moon for defensive measures against icbm or as an antisat to just melt em

>>10455921
So, we can go to space and escape Islam forever? Fuck yeah

It seems in a way apparent that a renewed interest in space could be immensely profitable maybe star wars makes a return. Or Idk something else, it just seems apparent that perhaps the moon landing was ahead of it's time. But now something new is happening. No one is going to get pissy if you strip mine the moon and have robots milling around constructing larger than life ships or habitats.

>>10455652
good luck landing on venus. I like venus i think its a better colonization spot other than mars but 300 to 500years in the future. but we just dont have the technology yet to conquer a planet like that. the moon and mars are our lowest hanging fruits with the tech we have now and just barely too.
musk will be remembered like gallileo or newton for getting mankind to mars.
it just sucks we waste so much money on these shitty wars. 5 trillion on afghanistan and iraq.5 fucking trillion wasted on that shithole.
we could have had a martian base right now with 100 to 100ppl with that budget.
that said its america and only america that is putting in the resources to go conquer other planets. so i dont wanna hear shit from euros about how america isnt doing shit for its ppl. If space exploration takes off america will leap frog every countries gdp by a factor of 100 not to mention the tech gains from doing such a program.a Every generation needs its own manhattan project

>>10455682
it is hopefully a version 2 or 3 or a competitors own with be sexier

did they install the raptor already or are they installing it soon?

>>10455946
yeah...wouldnt it be cool to look up at the moon and see artery like city structures due to light. granted it would need to be big but with a telecope you could see a manhatten sized city very easily

>>10455958
1 week

>>10455886
Won’t have flame trenches on mars. Might as well start practicing now

>>10455968
the hopper launch site seems like it could be something that you would see on Mars: a dirt wall and basic launch pad.

>>10455946
>No one is going to get pissy if you strip mine the moon
>strip mine
Isn't that thing responsible for tides and biorhythm cycles in pretty much all life? I don't think we want to change its mass or orbit in non-insignificant quantities.

>>10455983
We'd have to visibly tear the moon open before we had more of an effect on the moon's orbit than what occurs naturally via tides (Moon is extracting rotational energy from the Earth via gravity tides, it boosts its orbit a couple centimeters each year).

We'd have to extract tens if not hundreds gigatons worth of material from the Moon before the effect would even become measurable.

>>10455877
>aren't the tanks in one another
No, they are next to one another and share a bulkhead between them.

>>10456001
>We'd have to extract tens if not hundreds gigatons worth of material from the Moon before the effect would even become measurable.
Yeah, that's what I understand by strip mining something. Once you have the capability to take shit for free and build huge, otherwise expensive space stuff why not do it? Not saying we should forbid it on this grounds or anything but we should count how much we take and take measurements from time to time. Better safe than sorry.

>>10456010
better safe than sorry is the mindset of failures, underachievers, and those too scared of possibility to do anything of note

besides, by the time we extract enough moon for it to be a problem, the whole of humanity will have been living in space for eons, for we'd be strip mining the rest of the solar system too

>>10456015
>better safe than sorry is the mindset of failures, underachievers, and those too scared of possibility to do anything of note
Worked out great for the oil industry.

>>10456015
100 billion metric tons of material is something like 11 orders of magnitude less than the moon's mass, or less than 1 billionth of its mass, if I did my math right (probably didnt). Still, the amount of material we'd be able to conceivably extract on an annual basis is so tiny compared to the Moon's mass that we'd not have any significant effect on its orbit possibly for tens if not hundreds of thousands of years.
By the time we reached that point, we'd likely be pulling the fucker completely apart anyways for building material for a massive equatorial ring around Earth or other megaprojects.

>>10456032
it sure is convenient that something launched that sucker up there for us, huh?

>>10455049
>The ISS is a goodwill mission at this point, not a scientific one.
I know this is hard to understand for /sci/ autists, but science is not the only goal of spaceflight. Or even the most important one. Learning to live in space is the most important one. And ISS maintaining decades of continuous human presence in space is a good step towards that goal. Is it very overpriced? Sure it is. But I can hardly imagine a better use of NASA funding, given that NASA was held down by the Shuttle launch costs in what it can accomplish.

>>10456086
learning to live in space does not equal pissing away billions on maintaining an obsolete decaying rust bucket of a station
we could still learn to live in space after we build a new one with modern hardware
plus, nobody is ever going to live for prolonged periods in zero g, we'll all be living in rotating habitats or tethered spinning modules and thus under gravity

>>10454708
>>10454714
>>10454784

Seeing these images makes me want to weep with joy. Musk truly wants progress.

>>10456105
the man's company is building a flying rocket test stand, anon
I guess that's progress?

>>10456108
The only reason he's making money is to make us a multiplanetary species.

>>10456112
which will make him Prince of Space, yes

>>10456097
But isn't part of the puzzle figuring out how to maintain something that's old out there? You sure are a brainlet.

>>10456115
not really
maintaining 2000s tech really doesn't translate well to modern tech
the leaps are just so extensive

In terms of automation couldn't we quickly create infastructure on the moon. All that lack of gravity has got to be nice for them. There are enough recources up there within reach to build habitats. There is so much we could do if we had an incentive.
If we just had some 40k zealotry to go back to space we'd be in a crazy place within half a century.

>>10455682
Am I the only one concerned about the total lack of crew safety considerations with this vehicle?
I mean, sure, it will be great for cargo, but I'd rather wait for it to be in orbit before sending crew there on safer vehicles.
It's almost as if Musk wants to kill people in batches or 100 or something.

>>10456135
shuttle wasn't much better. Are there better examples for 100 people in one go for example? Maybe a vehicle in orbit with people transfer?

>>10456141
Shuttle only ever failed for two reasons: a chunk of ice hit the wing, which is less likely to happen with the "load and go" stuff SpaceX does and without the side-mount configuration
or they launched in weather that was too cold for the SRBs
building rockets is known, they don't just blow up randomly anymore

>>10456146
It was foam from the external tank you fuck.

>>10456149
anyway, metal doesn't randomly break off and fall on your wings in flight
didn't they break a tile due to ice once too, but it didn't matter because there was a steel structural member there?

>>10456153
That one was from the shitty glue they used to hold the tiles on failing while the shuttle was re-entering.

>>10456156
oh okay

>>10456158
The shuttle has never had icing problems due to the fact the ET was insulated in several tons of foam. The only cold-related incident it had was the one that killed Challenger.

>>10456165
RIP Challenger and her crew

>>10456112
And owning multiple Villas throughout the world and flying around in his privat jet every day.

It's really ridiculous to claim "He is only doing it for the cause" when he is among the most decadent living billionaires out there. Even Mark Zuckerberg is leading a humbler life than him.

>>10456135
If you are talking about in launch abort, the only way to do this is with tiny capsules transporting a handful of people which makes the whole cost cutting venture pointless. Get a fucking clue, if you want space travel for people to be affordable you need to have a big vehicle sending a up a whole bunch in one go.

>>10455691
Not entirely true. Sometimes there are big bright clouds and lightning. Must be visually spectacular to witness.

>>10454784
BRAP

>>10456222
The Japanese probe currently orbiting Venus has not detected any lightning. The atmosphere is too thermally uniform and doesn't really have any convection going on for that kind of activity.

>>10456230
The entire process isn't well understood due the the lack of interest in Venus. It goes a little something like this.

Sulphuric acid rains down onto the ocean of carbon dioxide. This ocean is so hot the acid evaporates in the upper layer of the ocean.

I don't know what it would be like to see a cloud of sulphuric acid forming before it starts to rain down on a superheated ocean of co2 where it flashes into an acid steam.

There is supposed to be volcanic activity as well, which may reach high into the atmosphere and cause the bright clouds which are occasionally seen.

There is weather there it's just infrequent and very different.

>>10455514
The whole point of Starship is that it shouldn‘t cost double digit billions for missions like this.

>>10456256
You'd be right, if some private citizens wanted to pay out of their own pocket with little to no preparation to swing by venus with little to no preparation, and come back at the earliest possible date, bringing nothing with them but food and other essentials

>>10456166
RIP the sanity of that one engineer that yelled at management not to launch in extreme cold conditions the night before.

>>10456270
Who was it and what is he up to now?

>>10456269
>little to no preparation x2
I wrote that twice because i'm a moron sorry

>>10456146
And Falcon 9 once failed during fueling procedures.
Also they don‘t really want to do maintenance on Starship/Super Heavy.
I‘m not in love with the lack of launch escape options either.

>>10456274
starship IS the launch escape

>>10456135
Airliners don't have ejection seats either.

>>10456275
honestly i'm just making that up though. I really have no idea if that's true or if there really is no LES

>>10456275
>>10456279
>using raptor engines to get away from other raptor engines
Don‘t know about that.

>>10456290
kek yeah good point, that wouldn't work even if it was tried
It makes me a little uneasy that it doesn't have an LES but like that other anon said, shuttle only ever failed because of that rubber ring being disregarded, and reentry tile. never exploded on the launch pad which is a concern of >>10456274
But afaik that's been rectified, because it had something to do with a helium tank failing from cryogenic temperature related shit

>>10456290
I've been thinking that as an abort mechanism, Starship's engines could be configured the same as SN-1 was for the "destruction test" (e.g. 310+ chamber pressure, 2600+KN of thrust) for a rapid burst of speed, allowing the ship to separate safely from an exploding booster.

>>10456299
Not him but the thing is, the starship could land, but would it survive a first stage explosion, or remain undamaged enough that it could recover from being thrown into the sky tumbling and spinning whichever way and land itself normally?
Like some of the challenger disaster videos have shown, the cockpit compartment seems to have been thrown from the explosion, but the shuttle itself was disintegrated.
It still kinda horrifies me that people trapped in that metal cage hurled through the air and hit the ground

>>10456301
I think Starship would likely survive a first-stage explosion, Challenger disintegrated because the Space Shuttle was mostly hollow with the only robust area being the cockpit, which un coincidentally was the only part to survive the initial explosion. Starship has a lot more 'meat' than the Shuttle, with the tanks and cargo area separating the living quarters from the booster so I don't think a similar thing could happen. Furthermore, the booster will explode from below instead of parallel to the vehicle like the Shuttle's tank, so hull damage will be much less. This off course ignores all material and construction changes between the two vehicles as we don't know enough about Starship's to draw accurate comparison, but I personally believe Starship would survive a Challenger-style explosion.

>>10454703
Earth is flat

>>10456317
Yeah I thought about the tanks exploding parallel to the vehicle too. BFR won't have that but you never know until it happens whether or not Starship will indeed survive an explosion in flight.
I wonder if that's something they would test

>>10456318
No, your mom is so fat that in comparison even Earth seems flat.

>>10456277
This. Things like a dedicated launch escape system or fuelling shenanigans are a mere stopgap. Ultimately if we want real safety, then we will need to increase launch rate to the point where the vehicle is safe in general. Same as with airplanes, nowadays they are so safe because they fly so much, and so all the corner cases were caught long ago. They still crash from time to time, and so will spaceships, but the accident RATE is miniscule.

>>10456317
That "meat" is highly explosive fuel tanks.

>>10456273
it's okay anon, we're all morons!

Oh hi.
Dont mind me sneaking underneath the hopper.

Raptor in Boca Chica confirmed

>>10456246
>I don't know what it would be like to see a cloud of sulphuric acid forming before it starts to rain down on a superheated ocean of co2 where it flashes into an acid steam.
It is a white haze covering the entire planet, there is no non-uniformity. What you see when you look at a true color image of Venus' atmosphere is the acid layer you're talking about. It's homogeneous and not interesting to look at.
Look dude, you're basically claiming that looking at Venus which is 99.99% of the time a featureless white disk is going to be somehow more breathtaking than looking at the extremely complex and varied surfaces of Earth, Mars and the Moon, to the point that people would rather go to Venus than look at those other places. That's dumb.

>>10456272
Bob Ebeling, and dead.

>>10456299
>Starship's engines could be configured the same as SN-1 was for the "destruction test"
They would then operate for about one second and then fail, leading to no landing capability and not having pulled significantly far away from the booster below.

>>10456768
Venus is the best planet, prove him wrong

>>10456756
It's here, IT'S HERE!

>>10456332
You finna tryna tell me my mother is a 4 dimensional sphere?

>>10456413
>highly explosive fuel tanks.
The tanks aren't explosive unless their contents are mixed with one another. If a failure is going to occur on BFR it isn't going to have anything to do with the reactivity of the two propellants, although they will certainly play a role in the aftermath of the failure.

>>10456756
Oh shit that was fast
Looks like they must have a Raptor factory somewhere starting to pump out engines?

>>10456775
*They would last 6.7 seconds

That seems like enough time to safely clear the booster. Also, you can not ignite the centre engine for the abort burn, so it can be reserved for landing.

>>10456788
elon tweeted video of them being cast in a furnace a few weeks

>>10456779
Venus is the least likely object in the solar system to harbor life, so I'd agree.

>>10456790
>Also, you can not ignite the centre engine for the abort burn, so it can be reserved for landing.
Then you may as well just light every engine at normal 100% throttle because the thrust gains from running at >100% 'destruction' throttle are lost just by keeping a single engine shut down as a reserve for landing later. Also Starship is nominally meant to land on at least two engines for safety and reliability reasons, and in the event of an abort scenario you generally won't want to go ahead and trust a single engine to work perfectly under anomalous conditions.

>*They would last 6.7 seconds
No, the test itself lasted 6.7 seconds but did not have the same throttle setting from startup to shut down, more than likely they were throttling it up from around 50% at ignition to the >100% setting it failed at, without actually burning at that high setting for more than a second or so.

>>10456793
>petition to turn the BFS into a Venus capable blimp

>>10456792
Casting parts yes, but seeing a single part being cast doesn't tell you if they're casting one part per week or one part per hour.

>>10456808
Right but I would assume that's at the raptor factory

>>10456784
>The tanks aren't explosive unless their contents are mixed with one another.

Gladly that won't happen just because the tanks are exploding.

>>10456788
No, when 1st Raptor exploded Elon said Raptor No.2 is almost finished. That was two weeks ago, so almost in that context means two weeks.

>>10456756
Nice
Plumbing is more compact than SN 1. Can squeezes more in

Hippity hoppity happening soon? Then again it still might take the full week as Elon said for the install.

>>10456829
>although they will certainly play a role in the aftermath of the failure
reading comprehension, what is it

>>10456402
I'd highly recommend launching crew to Starship on Dragon 2 capsules, 7 at a time, for the first missions.
They're not gonna send 100 people at a time at first, anyway.
Let the vehicle prove itself before taking such a high risk.

>>10457009
>Let the vehicle prove itself before taking such a high risk.
Sure, just launch it unmanned a dozen times to prove it works. No reason to waste hundreds of millions of dollars launching Dragons to send up astronauts.

>>10456790
That's fucking retarded.
The first stage would have a much higher TWR than Starship fully loaded in boost mode.
It would just ram itself into it.
Also, it's most likely impossible for Starship to land with its tanks almost full.

>>10456097
Theres no rust on the space station

>>10457025
>The first stage would have a much higher TWR than Starship
Not if all the engines instantly shut down when the booster starts to break up, which would happen automatically as soon as the main tanks lost pressure
>Also, it's most likely impossible for Starship to land with its tanks almost full.
Yes, but the Starship would be burning all seven engines at full throttle to use up much of that propellant mass and coudl either land on all engines or shut down engines as it lightened up and eventually land on three like usual.

I don't think Starship will have any abort capability early in a launch but I'm playing devil's advocate here. Besides, Starship is meant to be as reliable as a jet aircraft, which means making the vehicle as reliable as possible without sacrificing practicality (same reason why jets don't have ejection seats).

>>10457064
>Not if all the engines instantly shut down when the booster starts to break up
That might happen, but it most likely won't.
In fact, it's most likely that Starship will just blow up instantly.

And Starship will most likely start at something like 0.3/0.5 TWR, given it's mass. And will need at least 5 minutes of full thrust to reach accept-able acceleration.
Just look at how slow the second stage of F9 accelerates after sep.

>>10456756
IT IS HAPPENING!!

So whats up with BEAM, whats next for Bigelow? Are they gonna discard BEAM or keep using it for stowage?

>>10457267
I believe Bigelow is waiting for an affordable crew vehicle before getting serious about building space hotels. So either Crew Dragon or Starship.

NASA statement on Trump budget

https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-administrator-statement-on-nasa-s-moon-to-mars-plans-fy-2020-budget

>“Beginning with a series of small commercial delivery missions to the Moon as early as this year, we will use new landers, robots and eventually humans by 2028 to conduct science across the entire lunar surface.

>>10457276
>small commercial delivery missions to the Moon as early as this year,
based, the moon is back in our sights

>>10455907
>/sci/ will remember that

>>10457289
Watched a doc about apolo 17 yesterday. No comment but occasional text explaining shit.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vBziplrKt_0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5IJYF9DHNEg
Almost all commentary from capcom and the astronauts themselves.

I just know I would have been glued to my tv screen had I been alive at the time.

>>10456062
It is. If it wasn't there, then we wouldn't be here to notice its absence.

>>10456301
>It still kinda horrifies me that people trapped in that metal cage hurled through the air and hit the ground
Didn't they actually hit the water? Not that it matters much from that height.

>>10457336
They passed out shortly after the vehicle broke up, but they probably died when they hit the water.

>>10457342
https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/atoms/files/fy2020_summary_budget_brief.pdf

>meanwhile in old space
>https://spacenews.com/nasa-reassessing-date-for-first-sls-launch/

>>10457312
>no actual dates other than something being named "MARS 2020"
The absolute state of SLS.

>>10457369
>>10457363

Don't ruin my hype, not like this

Who will fly Orion if not SLS? Can FH do it?

>>10457375
There could have been alternatives but it is too tied politically to SLS so it lives and dies along.

>>10457312
>>10457369
>>10457375
Let me break them right now. We'll be "lucky" if SLS flies more than 1 flight.

>>10457375
The whole 'lunar gateway" plan is designed around giving SLS something to do.
And I thought that name sounded familiar. I've got one of these up in the attic.

>>10457397
Re-release as "Mars 2050" when?

>>10457397
That whole "mars colonisation" plan is designed around giving BFR something to do.

Except SLS is actually happening and BFR isnt.

>>10457352
I'm not sure about that.
Would that be from low pressure?
Did they not have pressured suits going up?
I know for sure they did in early Shuttle.

>>10457414
>SLS is happening
Once, maybe.

>>10457427
>giving it (You)s

>>10457400
I just brought it down. It's from 1998 and it's one of those "go forward/backward 2 squares" track games, with a box full of cards that have two trivia questions each.
>LEVEL 1 - Which planet is known as 'Lord of the Rings?'
>a. Mercury
>b. Saturn
>c. Jupiter
>LEVEL 2 - On May 5, 2000 the five inner planets will line up on the same side of the sun. What effect will this have on Earth's tides?
>a. Almost none.
>b. Increase the tides by 10 percent.
>c. Stop the tides for a day.
Also, fuck rubber bands.

>LOPG modules now going up on comm vehicles
>Europa Clipper now going up on comm vehicles
Wew

>>10456756
This is clearly a mockup nobody can manufacture a new engine so fast.

>>10457312
Anyone else notice how they scaled New Glenn down like 25%?

Imagine what would happen, if NASA didn't spend half its budget on a single shot rocket to nowhere?

>>10457323
>it's another fucking 'Big moon made life possible on Earth' fag

>>10454703

this can't happen. We want and need the food fresh.

>>10457369
hahahahahhahaha

>>10457453
LOPG is shit. Even the ex-nasa chief said its a stupid idea, so if they are even considering alternative vehicles things are looking grim.

>>10457474
The rocket literally has no mission.
It's gonna launch for the sake of keeping businesses alive.

>sauce; https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=46448.msg1920713#msg1920713

>>10457414
>That whole "mars colonisation" plan is designed around giving BFR something to do.
Actually BFR is being designed to be capable of manned flights to the surfaces of Mars and the Moon and back while also serving as a commercial launch vehicle to various Earth orbits but okay.

SLS is too expensive and slow to build to launch more than once a year maximum. Due to its booster-sustainer design with a low thrust high efficiency core stage it is much better suited for throwing light payloads onto very high energy trajectories, and is bad at throwing heavy payloads onto slow trajectories. Therefore SLS needs a mission where it can launch medium payloads onto medium energy trajectories, which is why LOP-G consists of medium mass modules in a halo orbit next to the Moon.

>>10457451
>the five inner planets
que?

>>10457456
You're right, the only company capable of producing engines that fast builds Merlin 1D rockets at a rate of 4 or 5 a week. Who were they again?
>>10457468
they would find a way to spend all of their budget on a single shot rocket to nowhere, obviously.

>>10457022
This, dragon costs more to launch than starship
Potentially two starships

Calling it now, Full BFR stack will fly before SLS.

>>10457505
>who were they again
Some irrelevant startup in the US nobody cares about. Just the average dream sellers. Next thing you know they start selling tickets to the moon and promising ocean liners in space.

>>10457064
They have a thrust to weight above 1, so they can just hover around on nearly full burn, gradually shutting down engines until they're at an acceptable landing weight

>>10457512
Additional bet ; even then the SLS will not be cancelled.

>>10457512
wouldn’t be surprised if SpaceX feels confident enough to start taking 10 mil a pop starship payload orders soon after the first orbital flight
Every engineering college would be able to afford a probe to somewhere

>>10457501
Gonna give them a mulligan on that one. They probably meant "innermost", not "inside the asteroids".

>>10457517
>Additional bet ; even then the SLS will not
...have launched yet.
Because they going to cancel it after it goes up once so they can say "There, we did it, now shut up, okay?"

>>10457521
What about comms? DSN will likely not be available for "irrelevant school projects".

>>10457512
SLS is actually being built already while BFR is a hopper shit show at the mexican border.

>>10457480
Why is it shit

>>10457487
Those fags renders are all shit, don't post them
>>10457529
They're building the orbital one somewhere, supposedly.

>>10457526
They can also emphasize safety levels unachievable by any flying rocket.

>>10457533
Absolutely. The safest rocket is one that never takes off with a crew! (or at all)

>>10457532
>shit
Kinda, but I liked the size contrast.

>>10457531
It's in a terrible orbit that takes a lot of energy to get to from anywhere, it takes forever to rendezvous with, and all it does at all these taxes is introduce another thing to fucking break

>>10457531
tldr;its shit

>>10457532
Same place. Job postings explain that the orbital starship will be assembled in Boca Chica, vertically, in the open, and will be operational faster than “anyone thought possible”

>>10457312
>NG is there
>Vulcan is there
>fucking SLS is there
>FH is not

FH confirmed for fake?

>>10457554
Without a kick stage FH isn’t that good for C3 intensive shit like most probes

>>10457559
It sends around 25 tons to TLI, just few short of the SLS B1.
How is it not enough?

>>10457549
Parts are being manufactured in Hawthorne probably

>>10457554
SpaceX didn't give them their bribes, so no NASA moon missions for them

>>10455060
>Earth Science
>waste

>>10457567
the avionics and engines, yes. Structural elements comes from steel suppliers

I wonder though, how difficult would be be to convert Merlin engines from RP/LOX to Methalox? No significant change to the combustion cycle, just changing the propellant. Even if it's just for Merlin Vac, it might boost efficiency.

>>10457572
Earth science as part of NASA's budget
A different, earth and environment focused agency should do it, so that NASA can focus on space and not have to split funding

>>10457579
lolno
t. just took a thermo cycles and currently in a fluids course

>>10457579
Sort of like running diesel on gas - can do but you need to rebuild it entirely. Had the raptor turned out badly merlin-like gas generator on methane could have been an option. Merlin powered BFR is an interesting alternative too.

>>10457582
What NASA (JPL) does best is science. All the research that goes on to inform further research on the planets is based on Earth Science

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ROT_NL7UQAM&feature=push-lsb&attr_tag=5P-HFEfXWkG1spic%3A6

Live drone view of Hopper at SpaceX Boca Chica launch pad

>>10457615
should tether the drone with a power cable and keep it up there forever lol

>>10457590
>>10457595
Didn't think so.

And a Merlin-powered BFR would have a disgusting number of engines.

>>10457487
It doesn't look like the crewed portion of the starship is big enough to comfortably fit 100 people like they've been saying. It makes me wonder how much will be dedicated to fuel and cargo.

>>10457630
Lol, the BFR (or MCT as it was known back in 2014) was originally going to be powered by a Merlin Variant...

http://www.spaceflight101.net/spacex-launch-vehicle-concepts.html

sniff

>>10457685

SOUP'S ON
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lqX9HXYMXrU

Shit's vaping

>>10457685
>>10457689
sniff is correct, the yellow tubes with the bands are rigid so you can pull a vacuum through them

>No live stream of the pad
This saddens me.

>>10457814
they're this one

>>10457816
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L7zia2HqOOc

>>10455235
>none of them are stupid or bad
Most of them are stupid and bad, informed opinions are the only ones with an validity.

>>10457313
>Part 2 33:00-37:00

>>10456756
that sure is a lot of fire spaghetti

>>10457838
13% of the population commits over 50% of the violent crime

>>10457838
you just activated their trap card

>New NASA budget
>Europa Clipper mission will most likely be given to SpaceX Falcon Heavy instead of SLS and save US tax payers $700M USD
>Lunar Gateway will also be designed to launch from commercial launch vehicles instead of SLS exclusive, saving the US another few hundred millions to billions if it goes well

>>10457924
Does F-H even have the capability of flinging that thing out to Jupiter? Wikipedia says its 6000kg almost on the dot.

>>10457924
isn't it more likely to launch on an Atlas 5?

>>10457924
they'll never allow that
they haven't worked this hard to let some upstart stop them from embezzling that money

>>10456318
>Earth is flat
Not really sure if flat earthers get the point that if the earth was flat we would be able to see Mount Everest through a telescope from almost any point on earth

>>10457931
>>10457946
Most likely does. NASA has been eying/studying Falcon Heavy for years since 2016 or even earlier. Its not just a one off thing that just happened today.

>>10457940
Chances are its between Delta Heavy IV/Falcon Heavy. US is hesitant on the whole Russian engine thing.

>>10457960
They'll probably counter argue that its flat but the surface elevations are different so its not the same flat plane everywhere, you'll never win with logic against a flattard

>>10457940
>>10457924
More likely to launch on a Delta IV Heavy. It has superior BEO performance over Atlas V and Falcon Heavy. Its also likely that Congress will ignore that part of the request altogether.

>>10457931
M-Vac probably doesn't, burning Kerosene
they'd need a kick stage, and they might not have the fairing space for that, but we'll find out eventually

Why don't we just build a huge rocket engine on Mars and push it closer to the sun, would make solar power more feasible in the long run.

>>10457931
It can with a gravity assist, but B*rger keeps going on about them strapping a Star 48 3rd stage on so it can do a direct trajectory.

>>10457940
Nope, this payload is designed for a direct trajectory which can only be done by SLS or a pimped out expendable FH.

>>10457971
Thats if you compare to FH's fully reusable form. If you compare it to partial reusable or full expendable, FH outperforms it.

Delta Heavy costs ~$350 million+.
Falcon Heavy fuly expendable costs ~$150 million+ (maybe $200M max for NASA)

>>10457968
>>10457971
>>10457976
This mission is designed for a direct trajectory, D4 Heavy does not have the capability to do it without multiple gravity assists, it requires either a SLS Block 1 or an expendable Falcon Heavy with a solid-fuel kickstage.

>>10458000
The mission also has a deadline launch time of 2022 for SLS, which the SLS team wont be meeting. So the mission has been handed over to the commercial side of things. It will take a bit longer and deadline has been extended to 2025 or so but will save more money.

>>10458021
2022 was 2017 estimate, in 2018, it was 2023, and now this year, the delay is going to be even longer. At this point in time, the best way to save this is to turn it over to commercial side of things.

>>10458028
the best way to save it is to drag out everyone involved and execute them

>>10458035
nah, just the politicians

>>10454947
Man this would be so cool.

>>10458045
no, the twats in charge too
who do you think siphons those billions of dollars
it's not just going to the contractors, there is backscratching there so the people coordinating it don't become whistleblowers and fuck everything sideways for the corrupt shitters

How cool are those inflatable habitats anyways? Say we had a vehicle to send up how many could you send up?? I mean how expensive of an operation would it be to chain them together. It feels like any new space station might be somewhat affordable as well the consideration for modern tech improvements. Also could they be used on the moon?

Gents...

some nig nog violated airspace with his drone and posted it online
gonna ruin it for the rest of us

>>10458069
They need a big fairing to launch just one, there is an infographic for what sizes go in hat fairings but I can find it. A BFR could launch a serious sized one though, even a FH could get a pretty big one up. I would assume it is as simple as joining them up, they have standard couplings so should be easy. I don't know about using them on the moon, lunar dust is pretty evil shit but also it may not be a problem, no one really knows.

>>10458080
Kinda imposing. In a scary, near phallic way. Imagine that thing shining. I bet it'd make the chinese mad. That's worth it in an of itself.

>>10458089
Woudln't it make sense to at least plan for a lunar station. Ships can enter, dock and offload equipment then you send a lander down to reinforce or something?

new stuff on the ground? Super Heavy components?

>>10458096
No

Priority should be this

1. Lunar Base.
2. Manned Orbit of Venus.
3. Manned Surface mission to Mars.

>>10458111
Fuck off retard

>>10455907
Sure thing, McAfee.

>>10458117
This desu
fuck off with that Venus bullshit

wtf is with the venus people are they some old school blimp lovers that just want a second chance after their transportation system sucked dick

>>10458137
venus blimp trains when

>>10458101
>new stuff on the ground? Super Heavy components?
I don't think so. It looks just like the stuff they brought in for the first sprung-structure tent. It looks like they're expanding the facilities.

>>10456501
The ball should be soyuz.

>>10458137
>>10458132
>>10458117
Venus is only preferable to a mars orbit without landing which would be pointless. If we're going to go all the ways to mars, we had better land on its surface, otherwise, it would be a massive waste of 2-3 years.

>>10458154
Nobody's going to mars and not landing my man

>>10458171
Never underestimate the retardation of people.

>SLS is finally dying
Imagine if we didn't have SpaceX. We'd be stuck with SLS. Two fucking billion dollars per flight and one flight per year.

>>10458084
they wont stop people from taking photos
it's free PR
people will shit on SpaceX if they try to stop people from snapping pictures
the only thing that will happen is that they'll ask people to not fly drones over it, but that all else is fine

>>10458197
they're probably so fucking mad
SpaceX is making them do their fucking jobs
they were happy as clams doing absolutely fucking nothing and embezzling money

>>10458197
God we just need a heavy lift vehicle to make space accessible and slowly an entire market will be built. The market just needs one or two good enough reasons why

>>10458187
Agreed
I hope they do thorough testing via the moon or some shit before sending people off to land on mars

>>10458198
It's a drone dude
What happens when some faggot drops fecal matter on them with a drone?
eg if Jeff Bezos does it

>>10458287
then that person will get dicked be existing laws regarding dropping literal shit on people
RC helicopters are a thing, and were used to fuck with people in the past

>>10458197
>>10458203
>>10458211
SLS is such a joke in light of BFR
By the time SLS is ready to take on missions BFR will be a few years from ready or already able to take on missions, where BFR is a superior, more cost effective launch system anyway

>>10458295
Just take photos from the ground or from far away at elevated positions
I still think drones are a bad idea

>>10454703
i like the gateway project. :3

Did you guys catch Bridenstine talking about SLS today?
>"SLS is not re-usable, but its the biggest rocket ever made!!!!!!!"
lol what a train wreck, said right after he's going on about re-usability for the moon 2 mars program.

>>10458080
that's a beautiful ad, where'd you get it?

I won't lie to you /sci/, I'm a visitor from other boards who just saw this:

https://twitter.com/NASA/status/1105234022651912192

should I be hyp? will NASA let me down yet again?

>>10458612
You shouldn't be hype
That reads like a politician statement. A vague statement that can easily be read into to mean what the reader wants it to mean

>>10458612
You should be hype
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commercial_Lunar_Payload_Services

>>10458612
yes, NASA will let you down, but Blue Origin and SpaceX will come through for us

>>10458689
This
Nasa still bothering with launch systems today is ilke having the government body design a car
fuck that just give safety guidelines and restrictions, test for it, and let the private companies take care of that shit. Focus on the science mission

>>10458000
Falcon Heavy with a kickstage is the current plan if they officially switch away from SLS.
>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_(rocket_stage)#Star_48
>https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/12/will-the-europa-missions-be-iced-after-congressmans-defeat-not-right-now/3/
Bottom of page 3.

>>10458823
Can you guys imagine if we had a moonbase, with manufacturing facilities for F9 there? You could launch a Falcon 9 off a lower gravity moon and go anywhere

>>10458832
the upmass to set up a facility would be enormous. That's a stupid idea anon

>>10458832
I wouldn't be surprised if SpaceX eventually leaves a tanker or cargo Starship on the moon just to be able to take advantage of the lower dV.

>>10458881
Wrong
You don't have to send everything up there, you send a little bit there and build the other facilities there, ya dingus

>>10458881
>moon resources and metals isn't real
1-800-come-on-now

>>10454935

Only 1 raptor has been decanned and will be mounted in the initial phase. Also, all early tests will be static fires only. So you don't need a lot of methane for this. Especially, when the burn time is going to be <3s tops. It's not till a few months down the line, when everything is put together, that they'll add in Raptors 2 and 3. At point which, they'll start doing actual hops, hovers, and hover slams.

>>10457984
Why dont we just build a huge rocket engine on Earth and push us away from the sun to negate global warming?

>>10459184
Wow why didn't anyone think of that!

>>10457369
What a complete shit show.
It still baffles me how you can bungle a simple project like this so fucking hard.
How hard can it be to put engines from the 70s on a new metal tube?
And then they scrap the only new development about this vehicle and just settle for going with old Delta 4 hardware for the second stage instead.
I know the answer to all of this is extreme levels of corruption, incompetentce and lobbying, but it's just such a brazen display, it's hard to believe this is actually happening without anyone even fucking saying anything about it.

>>10457529
Oh no! The completely reusable manned spaceship with never before seen engine and heat shield design and supposedly unparalleled cost per pound that's been in development for a hot fucking year now won't be finished at the arbitrary date set by the completion of a completely different expendable vehicle with all existing component promissing to be in the top 3 of most expensive launch vehicles ever made that's been in production for countless years now.
SpaceX BTFO. How can they ever recover?

>>10459347
>giving it a (You)
come the fuck on mate, you know better

>>10457631
Pretty sure a research outpost with just 50 people will be still pretty bustling.

>>10457631
the 100 man is probably going to be a different, big chungus starship they'll make after this first one is running and getting shekels

>>10458832
>manufacturing facilities for F9 there
Seems hard to get all the weird materials for a falcon 9 up there. Just weld something together from steel behind your moon shed. Weight isn't a factor anymore and the whole thing can be much less sturdy considering it doesn't have to fly through atmospheres at any point. Just has to be air and fuel tight and not break apart under its acceleration.
No Max Q to consider at all.

>>10459370
>Just weld something together from steel behind your moon shed.
Yeah, from all that steel just lying around on the moon.

>>10459184
Still ice available in halley's comet.

10459374

>>10459353
Most people who've made interiors for Starship can usually only comfortably fit about 30-40 people, after that it gets too cramped. My guess is that they're still planning on making the 12m ITS design sometime in the future for a couple reasons besides just cramming 100 people into a big metal cylinder. Eventually, they're going to want to send shit to Mars that the current Starship design just cannot carry. ITS had a payload of 450t to Mars, compared to SS's estimated 150.

>>10458301
I hate this thing so much. Binding Budget for about 1000 years from now on. This thing will TRAP Nasa in the moon earth system forever.

>>10459403
>>10458352
"This" thing

>>10458352
What purpose does it serve though?

>>10459409
It gives SLS something to do

>>10458832
You'd be better off making titanium and steel out of lunar basalt and launching a titanium and stainless steel starship
you'd need to ship the Raptors up and maybe some other stuff but if you can build a Starship in a field you can build it on the moon

>>10459104
the Hopper is the first methalox tankage that SpaceX have had that's big enough to actually run a Raptor for a mission duration test, so that's what they're doing next probably.

>>10459374
Not him but i don't think F9 is steel. Correct me if i'm wrong though. Starship is steel though.
>>10459370
Eh you're right about that. but I wasn't thinking short term. Thinking more like a decade if we start literally today.
Although it seems the moon doesn't have much carbon so I guess anything that requires carbon is bust
I suppose they could have a Falcon 9 design - moon launched version drawn up
Redo the specs with all aluminum / aluminum alloy since the weight restriction is relaxed by virtue of being on the moon
That leaves the issue of fueling it from t he moon which might necessitate a fully hydrogen oxygen version of falcon 9 which would necessitate redesigning the engines, or putting a different set of engines... this sounds kinda fucky to be honest now kek
Anyway my whole thinking was that they could manufacture rockets and scientific probes from the moon so that launching shit to say jupiter, saturn, or otherwise, wouldn't necessitate gravity assists except in the case that the planets aren't in the right positions to have a direct hohmann transfer, since you wouldn't need a fuckton of fuel just to get off earth in the first place

>>10459441
F9 is lithium aluminum
there is aluminum on the moon, but I'm not sure about the concentrations. I know that there's iron everywhere, just heat it up and poof you've got high purity iron

>>10459441
>i don't think F9 is steel
If memory serves the main structure is a lithium/aluminum alloy, with the other bits being various heavier metals where strength is needed, or carbon fiber (interstage and legs).

The biggest issue with a Vacuum-Falcon is that the first stage engines ALL have to be M-Vacs, which leads to a very obvious problem of their engine bells colliding together.

Besides, the lunar gravity is low enough that SSTO is easily viable.

>>10459431
yeah agreed. I wrote down a bit of rethinking here >>10459441
Although with Starship able to in-space refuel, I suppose they could design new bigger boost cores such that they are fueld with just enough fuel to achieve a parking orbit, top up their fuel, then blast off to wherever they are desired, since right now the big limiting factor is that you'd need gargantuan rockets to send tiny probes anywhere, unless you employ gravity assists, which is mostly a cost issue
Also, I haven't done the numbers on that upper scenario to see whether it's even worth it to launch a second stage like that if you already have a functional BFR at one's disposal

>>10459441
it's not that the moon doesn't have carbon
it's that we haven't found any carbon on the moon

>>10459416
They could use SLS to build a spin station in Earth orbit instead. Then we could finally test the effects of Mars gravity on humans.

>>10459448
>>10459451
Yeah refining almost pure materials isn't that difficult these days. It's if exotic alloys are needed. like if something requires... 1% zirconmium or something kek
>engine bells
That's a good point. The fucking thing would have to be redesigned which makes me think this might be a bad idea. Falcon-moon (so not 9 engines) or something. moon based materials, hydrogen oxygen fuel, enough delta-v to go anywhere they want though
Anyway we can obviously do all that if we had a presence on the moon. After that, it's mostly a question of if/when we establish that presence and how quickly it grows, because obviously we aren't going to put rocket manufacturing plants there next year even if we start today

>>10459455
Fair enough
Other anons have pointed out (and i have also reconsidered) that the carbon wouldn't be necessary on moon rockets anyway, since they're mostly used on earth as a weight saving measure, which is obviously much less of a problem when launching from the moon. Hell you could practically launch completely sideways, inclined by like 10 degrees only (making that number up) and only as a necessity to clear any potential topographical features, as far as getting into a parking orbit goes

>>10459464
Zirconium* i meant to say

>>10459454
if your trip is one-way, you can get a better mass fraction with an expendable throw stage, probably hydralox for that extra high-energy shit
if you really need to get spicy, refuel in orbit and put your Starship on a highly elliptical orbit, then drop the third stage at apogee, burn at periapse, and go hyperbolic while Starship aerocaptures
>>10459464
that shit's all fucky
moon manufacturing is going to be pumping out big dumb heavy structures (probably in conveniently sized bits for launching), all the high-tech shit needs to come out from earth
>>10459472
carbon is important for making methane, mostly
that and food.

>>10459448
>there is aluminum on the moon, but I'm not sure about the concentrations. I know that there's iron everywhere, just heat it up and poof you've got high purity iron
I don't know how easy you think it is to make good quality steel, but it's not like you just pop some ore into an Easy-Bake Oven, then you end up with a bunch of nice sheets. A steel mill is a pretty big place, with a lot of big parts.
These guys are making it from scrap, which is easier than having to refine it first:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tlNg4205Tpc

>>10459475
>that shit's all fucky
Agreed. It's the engines that require specialized materials as far as the rocket itself goes, I think
There is silicon on the moon so high purity silicon wouldn't be a problem
After that, you need copper, carbon (for plastic -> circuit board) tin and lead for solder at the very least. Beyond that, it's down to whatever exotic materials are needed by instruments. Like if magnetometer or something, if it needs specialized metals/alloys to be sensitive to magnetic fields to the right degree, and those metals aren't found on the moon. I suppose that sort of shit could be shipped there, but that shit's (in terms of space applications) usually custom made to order, which would make those parts the most expensive part of probes
>methane. also food
kek isn't that the truth. Anyway if there's water there, they could just crack that for hydroLOX fuel, unless you mean as a methane refueling depot for methane engines

>>10459481
Not him, but you don't have to have exotic steels except in the case of the engine, where parts are required to withstand high temperatures and pressures, stresses etc. But I do understand where you're coming from.
Modern steels always have a bit of weird shit like zirconium, molybdenum, vanadium, chromium, etc etc in tiny amounts that gives them all sorts of nice properties, and that's where moon-based steel production would get fucked i think

>>10459493
import that shit from the asteroid belt
reducing and seperating out a single metallic asteroid would produce enough of those rare earth metals to fuel your moon Pittsburgh for a while
>>10459481
none of that is prohibitive on the moon
you might need more ceramics all around due to no convection

>>10459499
>import that shit from the asteroid belt
Hey I'd be all for that but problem with that is i'm wasn't thinking about in 100 years. And if we could do that in the near term, why not just have an asteroid base that churns out shit? Also how would we autonomously mine shit from asteroid and autonomously land them back on the moon? fuel / delta-v, and financial cost of such an endeavour? etc
My whole idea with the moon thing was that it's something that's immediately achievable and would have (potentially) the political will behind it too. Asteroid based stuff might require until after BFR is ready and after we establish a moon presence, possibly gone to mars a few times and a mars presence etc.

>>10459493
Not even talking about exotic shit. Just getting nice flat sheets requires a lot of factory. You also need to control the mix, just the difference between pure iron and steel is significant, a different percentage of carbon alone will make a big difference in strength.

I think the point everyone's missing is that we don't really know what kind of mineral resources the Moon has, or where they can be found.

There's also the fact that since the Moon is pretty much geologically dead and mostly solidified at this point we can dig considerably deeper in search of resources before temperatures become an issue.

>>10459512
Processes are easy and mostly intellectual stuff. designs, software, etc. It's if those processes require special materials, like steel rollers are really tough steel themselves, can we make that steel on the moon or is there a suitable substitute etc.
>Carbon
controlling carbon percentage is again relatively easy. It's getting the carbon that's difficult
That's why it's exotic shit that concerns me

>>10459514
>that we don't really know what kind of mineral resources the Moon has, or where they can be found.
That's a good point too. Geological surveys would need to be done to find the best concentrations etc. It'd be a pretty big undertaking in and of itself, since nobody lives on the moon, so you'd have to send one or many probes there to do it.

>>10459532
Well, if the wikipedia article can be trusted ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geology_of_the_Moon ), most of our mining is likely going to be from and into the Maria. Turns out, the basalt is enriched in various non-rock-forming elements, but carbon is definitely going to be a problem. On the surface, it's apparently trace amounts only. Deeper in there may be more, but we don't know.

I dunno, can carbon-bearing rocks even form on the moon? IIRC Most of our carbon rich shit comes from oil and coal deposits, or requires water to form.

IT'S HAPPENING! We might finally see the end of the SLS!
https://spacenews.com/nasa-budget-proposal-targets-sls/

>>10459556
>A major element of the proposal is to defer work on the Block 1B version of the SLS
Ha! Whenever the low power of the Block 1 design was mentioned, the shills would say "B-b-but the later versions will be so much more powerful!"

someone make a new thread, we page 10 now

New thread >>10459814