/sci/ - Science & Math

Previous thread >>10503687

Muskbois, calm down. It's all ok

Why do people actually think we might colonize other planets and moons?

Mars
>radiated as fuck 24/7, have to live underground
>low gravity disintegrates body over time and prevents reproduction
>toxic soil covering entire world

Mercury
>radiated as fuck 24/7, have to live underground
>low gravity disintegrates body over time and prevents reproduction
>very high dv to reach

Venus
>acid bath pressure cooker atmosphere
>nearly impossible to return from
>toxic soil covering entire world

Moon
>radiated as fuck 24/7, have to live underground
>low gravity disintegrates body over time and prevents reproduction
>toxic soil covering entire world

Ganymede
>radiated as fuck 24/7, have to live underground
>low gravity disintegrates body over time and prevents reproduction

Europa
>radiated as fuck 24/7, have to live under the ice
>low gravity disintegrates body over time and prevents reproduction

Callisto
>>radiated as fuck 24/7, have to live underground
>low gravity disintegrates body over time and prevents reproduction
>toxic soil covering entire world

Io is unironically the best place aside from Earth to live in the entire solar system since it is protected from major radiation, and yet it's still a crazy volcanic wasteland with no atmosphere.

What does /sg/ think about interstellar travel/colonization?
What do you think would be the most realistic way to send people to other systems?
Favorite fictional depiction?
Is it all just a meme?

>>10509258
B-but there must be some way, i-it's not all that dark. Pls anon, hold me.

>>10509258
You seem to have a lot of knowledge about the impact various levels of gravity have on the human body, levels of gravity that humans have never tried to live in.

Cool.

>>10509262
>build robot avatars
>upload your brain to those robot avatars
>build ships for interstellar travel, hopefully at at least 0.1c speed
>store human embryos for future cloning

solved

>>10509267
You seem to have a lot of knowledge about how various levels of gravity have zero impact on the human body, levels of gravity that humans have never tried to live in.

Cool.

>>10509276(You)

>>10509267
>>10509276
Slightly off topic. But is there any studies about the long term effects of different gravity levels on the human body?

>>10509258
redpill me on Ganymede's magnetosphere

>>10509262
For the current realistic method, I'd say SpaceX's Starship may be the revolution if it succeeds. The first few ships could become habitats for humans. Then robots/human colonizers could be launched by the dozens every few years. By the decade after the first few human colonizers, SpaceX may scale their operations to hundreds at a time (if they had willing payers and funds)

>>10509295
starship, despite the name, is not an interstellar vehicle numbnuts

>>10509295
While I have high hopes for SpaceX's Starhsip for interplanetary colonization, I highly doubt that it can be used for anything interstellar. For one the drive on it is just not suited for anything other than super slow journeys which means more time for something to break along the way.

today’s the day

>>10509304
>>10509306
Oh right, I misread it. For Starship, it will be interplanetary. But for Interstellar, the distance is too great for traditional ships, but it maybe possible if we can harvest the power of lasers/nuclears for small scale ships. Now manned interstellar ships might be very difficult and I can't see that happening for atleast hundred more years.

>>10509327
>Oh right, I misread it.
That's fine, reading mistakes happen.

>Now manned interstellar ships might be very difficult and I can't see that happening for atleast hundred more years.
Agreed. Unless we unlock the secrets of FTL travel, then it would be impossible to do an Apollo style mission or even a Mars Direct style mission. The time scale of an interstellar mission (any mission not just manned) is just too large to do anything other than very long term plans with lots of foresight. The spaceflight scene of the present doesn't have that mentality, so we will have to wait until perspectives change.

>fanbois want to cancel this

>>10509348
I don't want it canceled. I want it to fly already. It should've launched 2017 or last year.

>>10509348
50 billion dollar rocket that has NOT flown once yet. Meanwhile the entire Falcon 9/Cargo Dragon/CrewDragon/Falcon Heavy/Starship/SuperHeavy will have come into existence before a single SLS launch and at less than 1/10th of the price for the entire SpaceX capabilities.

>>10509258
we don't know if mars gravity prevents reproduction

>>10509363
>50 billion dollar
source?

>>10509376
https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/02/nasa-nears-50-billion-for-deep-space-plans-yet-human-flights-still-distant/

>>10509376
And that's just before the first flight. It is projected to cost maybe even double that if it drags on for another decade or so.

>>10509385
No source cited in the article.
Post an actual source next time.

>>10509413
Quality """""journalism""""" by Eric Berger.

>>10509413
(((actual source)))

What are some good resources for learning the math and science behind spaceflight and engineering?

>>10509258
you don't have any data points regarding low gravity's affect on the human body
>>10509266
he's full of shit

>>10509285
no, because nobody has lived at those levels of gravity yet
until we get a spin-station in LEO or live on those bodies we won't know

>>10509258
Venus colonization would be in its upper atmosphere. None of those are concerns there.

>>10509515
>you don't have any data points regarding low gravity's affect on the human body
We have innumerable data points on microgravity's effects on the human body.

>>10509525
How do you land a rocket on a random floating platform in the upper atmosphere?

Better yet, why?

>>10509545
and innumerable data points on the effect of 9.8 [math]\mathrm{m/s}^2[/math] but nothing in between, yes

>>10509258
>Mars
>toxic soil covering entire world

Perchlorates are a mere irritant, you would need to eat spoonfuls of Martian dirt every day for it to kill you.

>radiated as fuck 24/7, have to live underground

Martian atmosphere is thin but sufficient to protect against solar radiation, so while you do need to spend most time underground due to galactic cosmic rays, it is not like the dose is very high.

>>10509413
you're a shill though, you'll declare any source against you to be illegitimate, while any source that is on your side to be perfectly valid

>>10509586
Post the source, Eric.

https://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/mission/mars-rover-curiosity-mission-updates/?mu=sol-2361-2362-lots-to-explore-in-glen-torridon

Speaking about martian soil, Curiosity find more pebbles.

>>10509602
those are river rocks
what the fuck

>>10509602
Fake photo

>>10509348
Yeah, SLS is garbage. Literally 1970s technology. Half a century of technological progress was thrown out the window when they designed it.

Side boosters: slightly-upgraded space shuttle SRBs (more fuel, no other advantages)
Main engines: actually, literally salvaged from old space shuttles
Body: modified version of the space shuttle drop tank
Upper stage: borrowed from Delta IV, using the 1960s RL-10 engines

Why is it bad that it's old? It doesn't take advantage of modern production technology, so it's very labor intensive, which makes it both very expensive and makes its reliability highly reliant on the skill of individual workers. What's worse, when these technologies were new, there was a large population of workers with the necessary skills who were eager to become involved in the ambitious, ground-breaking space program. But those skills are now obsolete, and developing them is not attractive to ambitious workers, so you end up with third-rate men doing some sort of experimental archeology project, trying to recreate these obsolete industrial technologies. On top of that, the men who designed these technologies, who also involved themselves in the production, checking and adjusting things to make it work, aren't around anymore. This stuff always barely worked, and needed to be babied along by the people who understood it best, and those people aren't available. In addition, the industrial context this stuff was designed in is gone: things that used to be common, off-the-shelf components and materials now have to be specially made just for this.

This is why it's taking so long, why there have been so many fuck-ups, and why it's probably going to be unreliable if it ever flies at all.

SpaceX kept a continuous team, building from the ground up, using modern technology, and hiring exactly the people they need, generally able to have their pick of the best. Of course they're producing far better results.

>>10509348
Anon, it's a new rocket that uses fucking SRBs. SOLID ROCKET BOOSTERS. IN THE 2010s. SPACEX IS LITERALLY POWERING ITS ROCKETS ON FARTS AND NASA CAN'T GET LITERAL ICBMs OFF ITS ROCKETS. This thing was doomed from the start. Fucking Nixon, we should've never ditched the Saturn.

>>10509637
>more fuel, no other advantages

That's literally the only difference between a big and a small rocket.
Also SpaceX is also just rehashing 50 years old technology, they have developed nothing truely new (like the Venturestar or the Skylon would be).

>>10509646
daily reminder https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_Applications_Program

>>10509649
2/10 troll

>>10509649
>vertical landing
>nothing new
Besides that the Raptor (and BE-4) are the first significant advancement in engine technology since like half a century

>>10509650
>tfw Skylab B is forever confined to a museum

>>10509646
SRBs are a nice way to get some extra thrust to go quickly through the thick parts of the atmosphere. Not everybody believes the reusability fairytale.

>>10509654
They are both staged combustion engines that are around since 50 years. Them using methane instead of RP-1 is a small and irrelevant change.
Inb4 muh full flow, those are also around since 50 years, they have never been used on a rocket because they offer no performance gain but are more complex to build.

>>10509637
Well, SLS had the advantage of reusing old technology that NASA is familiar with. This way a super heavy launcher could be made quickly and easily right after the Shuttle stops flying. The major problem with SLS right now is that it has been delayed so much that there is a legitimate question over the usefulness of SLS when more advanced, cheaper, and capable rockets are coming soon. If the SLS was launched sooner it would've been seen as an archaic but useful rocket that filled a gap in launch capability. Now it's being seen for what it's "real" purpose was, to give contractors a steady source of income.

The SLS is an embarrassment to American spaceflight, but it wasn't doomed from the start. It could've been better.

>>10509258
Living underground could be pretty comfy.
If you're in like a giant underground shopping mall with designated and well decorated condo space and gyms you wouldn't even give a fuck most people don't spend much time outside anyway. Any given week I'm probably outside for less than an hour.

>>10509660
I hope you'll still be saying that after the thing hits 1 billion per launch because of safety concerns.

>>10509602
Signs of water erosion, from giant canyons to small pebbles. What was Mars once like, and what happened to it?

>>10509304
I liked ITS name the best

>>10509660
>we use SRBs and SRBs aren't reusable therefore rockets aren't reusable
good logic

>>10509583
An irritant you definately do not want touching you because it will interfere with your hormones. You don't want to inhale it under any circumstances. Effects are reversible however complications develop in certain individuals like cessation of red blood cell production.

The real damage is done on fetal and youth brain development. This is permanent damage.

It's not nice stuff and it's all over everything. The martian soil contains over half a percent perchlorates.

>>10509669
it was beautiful and Time happened to it

>>10509676
If you dont want to reuse your launch system, using SRBs is absoluetely logical and cost-effective.
You know why Elon isn't taking SpaceX public although he could immediately take in billions and solve all financial issues SpaceX has? Because then he would have to make it public how much exactly refurbishment is costing them.
That's why he is regretting taking Tesla public, he can't lie now, he actually has to publish numbers and everybody can see Elons lies.

>>10509649
>>it's just a little bigger, no other improvements
>That's literally the only difference between a big and slightly bigger rocket.
Moron.

>SpaceX is also just rehashing 50 years old technology
Yeah man, it's just like all of those flyback boosters from 50 years ago.

SpaceX is applying half a century of technological progress appropriately and usefully, not using exotic technology just so it'd be impressive if they somehow made it work. VentureStar and Skylon failed. SpaceX dominates the global launch industry, with everyone else struggling to catch up to where they are, while they make rapid progress on a hundredfold improvement to their current value proposition.

>>10509665
>SLS had the advantage of reusing old technology that NASA is familiar with.
Come on man. You're replying to an explanation of why this wasn't an advantage.

>>10509688
>If you dont want to reuse your launch system, using SRBs is absoluetely logical and cost-effective.
No it isn't. Solid stages cost more to achieve the same effect. The US government encourages their use to keep the skills alive for ICBM production.

>lies, damned lies, and idiocy
Eat glass, bitch.

>>10509680
how durable are they? just pave the surface lol

>>10509689
>Come on man. You're replying to an explanation of why this wasn't an advantage.
Oops, I guess I should've made my point clearer. Yes, the old technology will be detrimental in the long term, but it can still be useful in the short term as a stopgap measure.

>>10509664
At least it's something new. What alse have we got? A slightly cheaper Vulcain engine?

>>10509697
>No it isn't. Solid stages cost more to achieve the same effect. The US government encourages their use to keep the skills alive for ICBM production.

That's not true. SRBs are very cost-effective in terms of $/kg of additional payload. For example, each Atlas 5 SRB costs 10 million and adds 3 tons of payload to LEO. That's around 3000$/kg. That's pretty much the same as Falcon 9 expendable offers. SRBs also mean you can adjust the launch price to the payload, e.g. you cluster as many on as you need, no overkill or underkill.

>>10509705
We almost had the X-33 before congress killed it.

>>10509669
It was too small and cold. The core cooled very rapidly and then it lost its atmosphere and its warmth. Glaciers formed on the surface and a few large final eruptions covered them in salts.

These salts reduced the melting point of the water, which now likely seeps deeper and deeper into cracks in the rock.

>>10509709
The engine was called XRS 2200. And did they ever solve that spike melting problem?

>>10509716
>And did they ever solve that spike melting problem?
I think they did, but it made the engine heavier than planned.

>>10509702
They are in the dust, the water, everywhere on the surface. You would need a washdown cabinet in the airlock and a very good pressure suit.

They act as antifreeze and rocket fuels with powerful oxidising effects. They can be considered economically valuable. I know you can just bake them out of stuff but I don't remember if you can collect them this way.

>>10509703
That's what they said about Ares V. And SLS. And literally every other shuttle-derivative proposed in the past 30 years. Keep in mind that the SLS design is now at LEAST 23 years old and was supposed to start testing almost 10 years ago. The "we can build it quickly" argument clearly doesn't work in practice.

>>10509703
Constellation started in 2005. 14 years later, with expected performance cut in half, and we're still wondering how many more years until they produce a working rocket. Not much of a stopgap.

It would have been a shitty stopgap pork rocket if the complete Constellation system had started flying once a year in 2010. This program they've got now would have been a disappointment and an embarassment if it had already been completed, if the lunar gateway was already fully constructed by now, by SLS/Orion, and not a dollar more spent than has been in the real timeline.

>>10509725
You can't collect them that way, they start to decompose before they vaporize

>>10509258
>Io is unironically the best place aside from Earth to live in the entire solar system since it is protected from major radiation
wut
Io is the most strongly irradiated body in the solar system, it lies within the strongest radiation belt around Jupiter, and at the surface the ionizing radiation is so intense that an un-shielded person would receive a fatal dose in less than an hour.

>>10509716
They solved everything. Skunk works (like always) did amazing work, but oldspace pulled the plug because they didn't want them to succeed, simple as that.

>>10509716
Problem with an aerospike engine is that it's really only effective on an SSTO vehicle and SSTO vehicles are shit.

>>10509757
All these comic book records from the 50s that fanbois seem to love all of a sudden? All of them are SSTOs.

>>10509763
*rockets

>>10509763
>>10509765
yeah and SSTO are still gay in reality
that design is still pretty good for an upper stage tho

>>10509768
SSTOs mean no reassembly of stages which is a big advantage. Their downside is lower payload but as long as they can put 20 tons into LEO it's good enough. If you actually want to make space access really cheap you will need SSTOs as reassembly of stages will always be a major cost factor.

>>10509262
>What do you think would be the most realistic way to send people to other systems?
Find cures for aging and all significant diseases. If the trip is too long, your life is too short.

>>10509753
Lol what a baldfaced lie

X-33 was cancelled because it was an obvious piece of shit, they never solved the heavy as fuck engine or hydrogen fucking the tank issue

>>10509806
It was literally a couple of weeks away from doing a first test flight. You're a clueless idiot.

>>10509706
>each Atlas 5 SRB costs 10 million and adds 3 tons of payload to LEO. That's around 3000$/kg. That's pretty much the same as Falcon 9 expendable offers.
It only looks good because Atlas V is a shitty design to begin with. The first SRB adds 3 tons, but the fifth SRB only adds about 1.4 tons.

The Atlas V core stage is underpowered, so it's very inefficient at lift-off. The Atlas V upper stage is also small and underpowered, so it's very sensitive to small differences in lower-stage performance. Everything about Atlas V screams for more thrust on lift-off, so fixing that provides big benefits, and looks like a good deal even if it's done inefficiently.

The Atlas V upper stage is about 20 tons. The Falcon 9 upper stage is about 80 tons. The Atlas V core has about 4 MN of thrust and each strap-on adds close to 1.7 MN more at lift-off, the Falcon 9 core has about 17 MN of thrust. Want to know how much a Falcon 9 core costs? In the neighborhood of $25 million. That's why an expendable Falcon Heavy only comes in at about $60 million more than an expendable Falcon 9: $25 million each for the side-boosters, plus structural upgrades to the core and a share of the development and facilities costs of Falcon Heavy.

Just for thrust alone, the F9 booster is about a third the cost of solid boosters (they're more like $7 million than $10 million), and it provides a far longer burn.

>>10509810
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Martin_X-33#Cancellation
>Construction of the prototype was some 85% assembled with 96% of the parts and the launch facility 100%[8] complete when the program was canceled by NASA in 2001, after a long series of technical difficulties including flight instability and excess weight.
85% assembled isn't weeks from first flight.

>>10509810
You mean it was slated for a suborbital hop because it's weight meant it couldn't actually reach orbit and then it's tank failed so they cancelled the piece of shit. Stop lying.

>>10509821
FH expendable is 90 million more than the F9 expendable, not 60.

Also, the whole point of the SRB approach is to have a relatively small and cheap core and only use the SRBs when needed. Now you could say they should just beef up the Atlas 5 core stage so it can do everything it can with 5 SRBs without and SRBs. But that would mean that the minimum price has now drastically increased. Also, I doubt they could actually produce a 20 ton to LEO Atlas 5 for only 150 million per launch without SRBs.

>>10509825
>85% assembled
More than SLS.

>>10509348
>Exploration upper stage
*Nasa has cancelled this.
Fixed that for you.

>>10509829
You are ill-informed and yet aggressive, just go fuck yourself you rat.

>>10509840
>Implying this information isn't readily available on Wikipedia

Stop embarrassing yourself moron

>>10509231
>be Apollo 10
>objective to almost land on moon
>NASA purposely short fueled them so they couldnt
>everyone forgets about Apollo 10 and only remembers Neil Armstrong
JUST

>>10509894
I remember Apollo 10. Apollo 8 deserves some recognition too. The first manned mission beyond LEO, so many potential unknowns.

>>10509906
Apollo 8 is for sure memorable, but Apollo 10 was kind of shit

>>10509258
>Mars
Radiation can be protected against, relatively simple technology could generate an artificial magnetosphere many times more powerful than most planets naturally can.
Soil toxins can be filtered out before soil is actually used, and a regime of strenuous workouts, low dosages of steroids, and high calcium diets could at least compensate for any physical degeneration, although of course severe physical issues in low but existent gravity haven't been proven because nobody has lived in a low gravity environment for any time before.
>Mercury and Venus
Mostly agree, Mercury though is useful for it's metals and should be exploited rigorously via autonomous mining robots.
>Moon
MicroG can be compensated for with large rotohabs either in orbit or sunk into the surface and it's the closest celestial body to Earth with very low gravity, it makes sense as a junction between Earth and more distant planets. Should be used as a refueling depot and the first large scale human colony outside of Earth. Also great for telescopy on a super large scale due to low gravity and complete lack of atmosphere.
>Jovian moons
Buried rotohabs are just fine, but powerful electromagnetic generators can at least partially deal with the radiation issue, Jovian ships and habitats will inevitably need thicker than average shielding though.

>>10509646
SRBs are safer than liquid fuels.

>>10509948
do you have a bridge in India you're trying to sell me next?

>>10509948
>SRBs are safer than liquid fuels.
By what metric? Solid propellant grains can go off if there's too much friction on them during assembly. They also can't be actively controlled unlike liquids. Can't be safely shut down. Sure you can stop them by using a det-cord to "un-zip" them, but that just causes them to spill out their burning fuels. This would be disastrous for a crewed rocket, because even though the launch escape system can pull the capsule a safe distance away it would end up falling into a cloud of burning propellant which would burn the chutes.

So no, solids are not safer than liquid engines.

>>10509948
They're also significantly less efficient and most versions lack throtleability and fine controls, as well as being mostly worthless for vacuum operation.

>>10509945
An artificial magnetosphere wouldn't magically protect against radiation you fucking retard. You'd have to live underground no matter what until Mars has an atmosphere like Earth's.

>>10509963
Ah, I misunderstood which radiation hazard you were talking about then. No need to get so bitchy Anon.

>>10509963
It would block a significant amount of alpha and beta particles, the harder EM radiation types such as UV and microwave are trivial to shield against, what you are left with is neutron, X rays and gamma radiation. If you think Earth's atmosphere stops those you are stupid as fuck.

Still, would be easier to live in tunnels yes.

>>10509981
tubes are the future

>>10509831
>FH expendable is 90 million more than the F9 expendable, not 60.
No it isn't. F9 expendable is about $90 million, FH expendable is about $150 million.

>Now you could say they should just beef up the Atlas 5 core stage so it can do everything it can with 5 SRBs without and SRBs. But that would mean that the minimum price has now drastically increased.
...which is why F9 is drastically more expensive than Atlas V, right?

With Atlas V, they were trying to be fancy. They went with a high-Isp hydrogen upper stage, and a high-Isp staged-combustion core stage. SpaceX just went for the most cost-effective engine they could produce, put it on the upper stage as well as the lower stage, and built a bigger rocket. The end result? Falcon Heavy offers about triple the performance of a maxed-out Atlas V, at a lower price.

Five strap-on boosters costs more than a Falcon 9 lower stage, but produce half as much thrust and about a quarter of the impulse while being about half the mass. Clearly the far inferior way to add thrust at lift-off.

Yeah, SpaceX is going staged-combustion now for Starship, but it's for a fully-reusable rocket. They're going to use those expensive engines hundreds of times. It makes sense to push harder for performance.

>>10509832
X-33 was only suborbital. It only would have got up to about half of orbital speed, or a quarter of orbital kinetic energy.

>>10509906
Apollo really only receives recognition within spaceflight fans and historians. It’s too bad nobody made any movies about it like 11 and 13.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=zp_RDqPQ-qg
This is a really good doc on it though.

>>10510117
Apollo 8*

>>10510115
>F9 expendable is about $90 million
source?

>>10510117
thanks for the doc

>>10510228
>thanks ... doc

>>10509945
F L Y I N G S K Y C I T I E S
On venus

>>10509667

>>10509667
Go read The Duplicated Man.

>>10510256
Chandelier cities
On Neptune

>>10510115
F9 exepndable is 62 million, not 90.

F9 itself being a much cheaper rocket doesn't change the fact SRBs are a good way to adjust your price to the payload. In other words, SpaceX could have also gone for a smaller core stage that costs less, and for payloads that need it stick SRBs on. So let's say F9 basic costs 45 million and carries 13 tons to LEO, every SRB costs 10 million and adds 3 tons, so you could still have 20 tons to LEO for approx the same price but you could also offer smaller payloads for only 45 millions instead of 62.

Theyve already been to mars

>>10509709
Good riddance. Hydrogen SSTO spaceplanes do not work.

>>10509775
All you need to reassembly stages is a big crane and a bit of time. There is no reason why it should be expensive, we can reach $100 per kg with TSTO. To go lower we may need SSTOs or things like space elevators, tough.

>>10509981
You are completely clueless. Galactic cosmic rays are the issue.

>>10510689
GCRs are charged nuclei you absolute brainlet and could be deflected by a magnetic field.

>>10510733
GCR are high energy, omnidirectional, heavy charged nuclei and you need huge amounts of of energy to deflect them even in a small space. Whether an artificial magnetosphere can do it efficiently is very much debatable.

Things like neutron, X-rays and gamma rays are not a factor at all.

>>10510775
>charged nuclei

The only part of your post worth noting. Besides I already agreed tunnels are a better option so fuck off.

>>10509231
wonder whats going thru that birds head?

>>10509258
this might be a really stupid thought to those of you who know about this stuff, but about the radiation, could humans take something like iodine maybe that would minimize the bad effects. maybe artificial thyroid glands, etc?

>>10510672
It exchange for not bing able to land the first stage, costing more, never being able to engage in meaningful reuse, and just being another stupid old space company

>>10510869
You can still land and reuse the core stage, nobody stopping you from doing that.

>>10510852
Iodine is to help prevent you from absorbing radioactive iodine isotopes from a fission event, such as Fukushima. It's basically only useful if something bad happened from Uranium fission. "Radiation" isn't just one thing.

>>10510775
The atmosphere won't protect you from GCRs either. They are rare but if you get hit by those, tough luck.

>>10509525
Venus has no magnetic field so you would be radiated as fuck 24/7, have to live underground

>>10510880
thanks, I really had no idea....

>>10510883
I assume you mean solar flares. Atmosphere of Mars is enough to greatly attenuate even strong solar flares. It is still not a good idea to be in a spacesuit outside when one hits, because it will increase cancer risk somewhat.

As for GCRs, they are not rare, they occur all the time from every skyward direction, and the only solution is to be meters underground (artificial magnetospheres are dubious for these). Luckily, their flux is rather low so you can still spend few hours on the surface every day.

>>10510920
Bullshit, Venusian atmosphere is enough to shield all radiation, same as on Earth. Magnetic field is irrelevant.

>>10510952
Also, the radioactive iodine only has a few weeks half-life, but that's still enough to fuck up your thyroid. And a short half-life means it's strongly radioactive.
The really bad stuff is Strontium 90, with a half-life of 29 years, which gets absorbed by your bones in place of calcium.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strontium-90#Biological_effects

>>10511095
No, you fucking idiot, I was talking about earth. Atmosphere does jack shit against GCRs, if you get hit by them tough luck. You can just put up a detector in your backyard and see how usual they are. Protip: They are extremely rare.

Something is happening with Starhopper...

>Spectacular huge flare and the camera goes bonkers. -NSF

> There have been problems. -NSF

>>10511113

>>10511119
Is it just me or is the hopper tilted?

>>10511113
>>10511119

>>10511109
You dont know what you are talking about. Atmosphere of Earth is what shields us from GCRs. It decreases their flux by 2-3 orders of magnitude, courtesy of 10 tons per square meter of mass in an air column. Some do get through, can be detected, and contribute to natural background radiation exposure, but much less so than either in space or on Martian surface.

>>10511120
It is not, here is wider field of view, note the tanks. The photo is just not level.

>>10511129

>>10511119
Looks like the bush caught fire?

>>10509258
>we

>>10509420
where is he at?

>>10510844
a concussion

Chinese launched a thing

No test today due to bad weather

>>10509806
>the heavy as fuck engine or hydrogen fucking the tank issue
Looks at how wrong you are.
When they failed at making the tanks in composites they decided on using tanks out of aluminum while they worked further on the composite ones.
Turned out the overal wieght of the X33 went down because of this.
They were months away from the first test, the vehicle was in its final asembely.
But like the other anon said, old space lobbied hard and US gov pulled the plug.
The army even stepped in and tried to fund the entire project but even then the goverment stepped in again to stop it.

>>10511841
maybe they should have tried making it out of stainless?

>>10512000
only spaceX can pull that meme off.

>>10511119
I love this

>>10512251
>whoops I set texas on fire
they must be having trouble getting a new test stand set up

>>10512251
What did they buy that fire truck for? Where is it?

>>10512309
they built a special area for if they have an oopsie and jizz burning liquid methane out of the flare stack, so they don't need to do anything

>>10512251
Elon been messing around with his flamethrower again

>>10512326
that's delightfully counter-intuitive!

>>10512384
That's how torches are built pretty much everywhere

Aerogel heatshields.

>>10512398
... thoughts?

>>10512517
too fragile

>>10512398
neat curiosity but mechanical strength 404

>>10512551
Against wind loads?

Pajeet launch in 5 hours.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Re-ypw_hZ2s

Hmmmmm
https://twitter.com/d_jaishankar/status/1111228750002163712
fucking China

>>10511119

Looks like the flare was overwhelmed with liquid methane and spewed on to the ground. May have to make the flare bigger or why it got those liquids.

Why did they send something to venus that couldn't withstand the surface pressure and temperature?

And why can't they just send something else that will

>>10512809
Because they didn't know what conditions were on the surface. And they eventually did send Landers that could withstand them (for some time)

>>10512688
If you take other shit into account Russians (well, more Soviets but same thing really) become a major offender too. Like all that leaked NaK coolant from their rorsat fission reactors

when will the fucking hopper fly, goddamn

>>10511841
Wow look at all these sources

>>10512809
they didn't know what the conditions were below the clouds I guess the better question is why did they keep sending probes to venus after they figured out it was fucked up

>>10509894

I spent some time in my hometown's college library the other day while on vacation. That library is better than most of the college libraries in my current city.

Two of the items I found: a three-volume record of a scientific conference held in the months after Apollo 11, focused entirely on geology (selenology) and scientific study of the few samples that were returned. Harrison Schmitt was credited as one of the articles' authors, this before he got his break. I didn't spend any length of time with this one but it was still fun to see.

The other is more immediately relevant to your post: a volume carefully documenting Apollo 10's photography, with the three astronauts as principal authors. It included six COOL AS FUCK long pull-out maps which showed the regions around the near side's center which were photographed on each pass, in increasing detail, focusing in the vicinity of Tranquility.

I would very much like to know the location of Snoopy's jettisoned descent stage (likewise Eagle and Orion's ascent stages, and Snoopy's ascent stage... I think it is not unreasonable to re-visit one of the known ascent stage crash sites with another probe, a la Apollo 12/Surveyor)

>>10512809
>>10512936

I admire the tenacity of the Soviets with respect to Venusian exploration, peculiar to their national (Russian) character. Many probes failed but they just kept on doing it. "Quantiy has a quality all its own". And they squeezed off the photos.

>>10509258
>planets
This is why the future is custom built spin gravity habitats in fancy orbits.

>>10512998
I wish NASA had that attitude, they'd get so much more done.

>>10513090
>Planet Habitation vs. Space Habitation
Has anyone actually done a through study on this?

>>10513098
*done a thorough study

>>10513098
Gerard O'Neill's Space Study summer group report, plus The High Frontier and his other papers on the subject. Heppenheimer's Colonies in Space and John Lewis' work on space mining all begin to analyze the trade space between planets and putative habitats.
Orbital habitats are much, much safer. The environment they operate in is incredibly predictable.
Surfaces have more resources, except access to sunlight.
Destinations matter more than location, this is more Rand Simberg than O'Neill or Heppenheimer.

>>10513131
Thank you very much!

Any of those sources touch up on the agricultural differences between planets and space habitats?

>>10509348
hmm.. I wonder what the latest SLS new is...
>"During a hearing of the Senate Commerce committee to assess America's future in space, committee chairman Sen. Roger Wicker opened by asking Bridenstine about Exploration Mission-1's ongoing delays.
>This mission was originally scheduled for late 2017, but it has slipped multiple times, most recently to June 2020. It has also come to light that this date, too, is no longer tenable."
>"During his testimony, he revealed an unexpected twist. For the first time, Bridenstine said that the agency would consider commercial rockets to get its crew capsule off the ground."
Jesus fucking Christ just take it to the back of the shed and put it out of its misery...

>>10513151
this is the kind of guy who supports SLS lol

>>10513154
>>10513151
hmmm I'm retarded I meant this image

>>10513155
Who is this Ed Kyle fellow?

>>10513160
I dunno some faggot
I was doing some archeology on the sequence of developments of Ariane and the thread started in 2013 discussing then Ariane 6, some sort of monster mostly solid design? don't spoil me btw I don't know if it's real or not

>>10513155
>largest, most advanced, most efficient MONOLITHIC composite case solid motors
Wait, I thought that the Ares/SLS solid boosters had their grains made in segments that were then assembled like on the Shuttle SRBs?

>recycled 70s tech
>advanced
I know that rocket technology actually haven't progressed that much since the 70s, but I thought that line was funny.

The signature is cherry on top. I get having a cool picture or your stats or a meaningful quote , but having your name in the signature makes it look like you're trying too hard to seem professional.

>>10513151
How could the SLS possible take this long? This is fucking criminal at this point.

>>10513168
it's not even a signature, he appends his name to every post he makes
also he's talking about the Ariane 6 design that was being talked about at the time

>>10513174
>How could the SLS possible take this long? This is fucking criminal at this point.
Lots of complicated reasons, some legitimate some not. The simple explanation I've figured out is, gradual need to upgrade old technology along with the desire to maintain jobs over delivering a rocket. There should be a study done on the SLS program so that such mistakes can be avoided.

>>10513176
>it's not even a signature, he appends his name to every post he makes
Is he an old fellow? Because just putting a signature like that seems odd.

>also he's talking about the Ariane 6 design
Oops my bad. I thought that he meant SLS due to the context of your reply.

-Eynoni Moose

Poo in the Loo launching PSLV tonight in 45 min

https://youtu.be/y2cPnyXSXR4

>>10513174
The goal of SLS is to keep the Shuttle workers employed in key Congressional districts. There is no incentive to finish the project under the current politics and NASA workforce.

>>10513174
Money and jobs. If SLS was anywhere near as efficient as venturestar was it would have been abandoned years ago.

The term 'too big to fail' is not a paranoid commentary on the government and corporate collusion it's a tenable fact.

>>10513202
Stop shilling for your dead end spaceplane.

>>10513202
I feel like even if venture star had flow it would have suffered from the same maintenance costs of the space shuttle, at least with the heatsheild.

- Jimmy Chanposter

>>10513211
yeah but you wouldbn't have been throwibing a whole external tank and set of SRBs away efvery flight

>>10513215
What was the combustion cycle of the venture star engine (xrs-2200). Expander cycle?

>>10513225
gas generator, apparently

http://www.astronautix.com/x/xrs-2200.html

>>10513211
Don't get me wrong venturestar was a moneysink that would not even be able to take astronauts (keeping the Russian rocket engineers in secure jobs was as important as American jobs perhaps even more so to make sure they wouldn't run off to Iran or N. Korea) but it's nothing compared to the level of unnecessary labor that SLS is capable of providing..

>>10513235
Yeah I just found that same page. Expander cycle would be cool for an aerospike because it exceeds the thrust limitations of regular expander cycle engines like the rl-10. Dual expander would be even better, using both vaporized oxygen and hydrogen to run the pumps. Seems like it would be the ideal engine for an SSTO.

>>10509258
Yikes, sweety. What is Titan?

>>10512603
against absolutely fucking anything

T-2 minutes to PSLV launch

https://youtu.be/y2cPnyXSXR4

>>10513296
and there it goes
man that thing fucking HAULS doesn't it? you can tell it's a converted ICBM

>>10513136
I figure they'd be exactly the same, given you'd have to do absolutely everything
no microbes in the soil in space nor on planets save earth
One difference I can think of is lighting, Space farms would be able to make use of all the sunlight they want with mirror arrays, while planets will have to add in supplemental lighting if they want more than what the sun gives during the day

>>10513307
That and 4 SRB's will launch you up fast

>>10513310
I guess you have a point, but depending on the environment of the planet a hardier crop can be genetically engineered to survive using less equipment than a comparative space farm.

>India launching 24 satellites to increase telemarketer call capacity

>other boards get likes
>but not /sci/
hmmmm

>>10513421
I want the spooky perk :(

>>10513433
oh, they're live on /sci/ now too
cool

>>10513421
It's probably because they're going through the boards alphabetically.

test

>>10513433
you need ~1000 for spooky apparently
someone has 700 and got the Christmas hat

>>10513446
also test

>>10513451
this is a new level of shitposting

>>10513462
Liked

>>10513462
kind of a wimpy explosion, huh?
wasn't the flare eruption earlier bigger than that?

>>10513468
that explosion is yuge
go look at a picture of the falcon 9 compared to a person, and then look at this video again

>>10513481
go look at a picture of the Starship Hopper compared to a person and then look at this again >>10511134

Rolled 4 (1d6)

If it's a 3 then the hopper explodes tomorrow

>>10509231
can i get a like for the falcon heavy launch hype

Rolled 4 (1d6)

>>10513500
what he did dice?
I don't think Hopper is doing anything until Tuesday?

>>10513503
you have too many

also wtf is up with Elon right now

>>10513504
hopper day is tomorrow<div class="like-perk-cnt">&#x1F603;</div>

>>10509231

>>10513515
you're full of shit<div class="like-perk-cnt">&#x2666;&#xFE0F;</div>

>>10513513
>also wtf is up with Elon right now
What? Is he high again?

>>10513522
Released an autotuned RIP harambe rap track
and his new twitter name is Jung
https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/elon-musk-rap-song-rip-harambe-815813/

>>10513522
Probably

he probably hasen't had a vacation in ages and it's making him go off the deep end again

>>10513530
We live in the WEIRDEST timeline

>>10513530
Yep, drugs.

>>10513569
Wasn't there an SMBC comic about how the human species is naturally self destructive so to live in a universe where humans don't blow themselves up is to live in a progressively weirder universe as it contorts itself to allow the continued existence of mankind?

I don't really get why everyone is so excited for the first "hop", it's not even going to visibly move from a distance and it's not like they haven't test fired the engine before.

Sup bitches.

>>10513606
I ain't tryna go to mars on no dil-do

>>10513606
So shinny, so beautiful.
Papa Jung, pls gib me a ride on your rocket.

>>10513604
Yeah, but it will be the first time the engine is fired assembled into a vehicule
It's not very exciting, but it's kind of symbolic

>>10512809
>couldn't withstand the surface pressure
The probes easily withstood the pressure, it's the equivalent to being like 920 meters underwater on Earth, not even an issue really.

>temperature
Because preventing your semiconductor electronics from cooking at >460 Celsius is fucking hard. You need really good insulation plus a refrigeration system that can operate at hundreds of degrees continuously, plus you need some significant power source that can also operate at those temperatures.

>>10513569
Weird in Japan too, they just announced their new era name and the memes are already taking off
https://youtube.com/watch?v=VeUQk7O-1E4

>>10514048
Pretend that I'm not a weeaboo, what's so meme-worthy about their new era name?

>>10512906
all of this shit is easy to find, don't expect people to spoon feed you.

>>10513131
wtf I love space habs now

>>10509231
Those ruskies have great aesthetic sense, that's one beautiful rocket.

>>10509262
Cell-phone sized robots attached to a big sail, shoot a laser at the sail.

https://www.eso.org/public/announcements/ann19018/?lang

10 April 2019: A press conference to present a groundbreaking result from the Event Horizon Telescope

We are going to get a photo of a fucking black hole soon!

>Military space gets big boost in Pentagon’s $750 billion budget plan

https://spacenews.com/militaryspace-gets-big-boost-in-pentagons-750-billio/

Thank u based Trump

>>10509262
Antimatter propulsed spaceships. It's the only way, at least with the physics we know at the moment.

>This morning StarHopper is missing a section of stainless. -NSF

>>10514482
wow lewd

>>10514482
It looks like some wacky star wars space craft.

>>10509262
1. Invent mind uploading.

2. Send an unmanned receiver to nearby star at a small fraction of speed of light, let it take its sweet time (several centuries)

3. Once it is there, send uploaded people over on a beam of light, subjective travel time is instant.

4. Commence colonization.

5. Rinse and repeat. Entire Galaxy colonized in a few million years.

>>10514501
What about data loss? Why not just upload them first and send them on their way?

>>10514457
are you nuts, ruskie aesthetics are trash, both their space and military

>>10509262
Something stupidly fast like Oort Cloud in 1-2 months and heliopause in 4 months

But interstellar travel would be a bit slower, on the verge of 1 year to Alpha Centauri

>>10514507
>>>/lit/
>>>/x/
>>10514507
the Soviet aesthetics are extremely ugly but they have a charm of their own, I feel

>The bill also authorizes an extension of the International Space Station from 2024 to 2030

she's here to stay

>>10514505
That is what redundancy and checksums in a signal is for. And if the transfer fails, just send it again, no bid deal.

>Why not just upload them first and send them on their way?

Then they will lose centuries of time while they slowly travel. It is possible but not optimal. If you are a mind upload, you may as well travel at the speed of light.

>>10514009
Sure, it's an important test, but I don't get the hype for the streams and stuff. People are sitting around for hours to see a puff of smoke from miles away.

>>10514618
Starship is such an advanced design (fully and rapidly reusable methalox SHLV) that people are more excited about it than your ordinary rocket.

>>10509262

Stellar Lasers or Stellasers: Turn the Sun into a network of giant lasers. The Sun's corona is a natural lasing medium, already excited by the sun's brilliance like a giant lamp. By placing mirrors of very high reflective at a wavelength of interest, such as a green light for iron, far enough apart to pass a beam between them, we can make extremely powerful lasers that could speed up an interstellar spacecraft.

>No Sea Dragon.

>>10514636
>Costs only 18% of SLS per launch
>Over 500% more payload to LEO
>Uses technology so simple that union shipbuilders can make it
>Not choosen because MUH SHUTTLE HERITAGE

>>10514734
wasn't it canned before Apollo?

>>10514741
No. Sea Dragon was explored as a post-Apollo option for NASA. It was dropped for budget cuts before the Shuttle started flying.

>>10514745
It was a concept created pre-Apollo

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_Dragon_(rocket)

>>10514745
I can't find any references to Sea Dragon post-apollo, anon
it died in the early 60s and was not resurrected

>>10514751
I guess I got some years mixed up. Sorry.

EVERYBODY HOLD THE FUCK UP
WHAT IN THE GODDAMN FUCK
https://twitter.com/nextspaceflight/status/1112779928095940610

Anyone watch that NASA town hall? Jim was on fire.

>>10514761
No I didn't have a link and couldn't find one

>>10514760
It wont happen, he said it would only manage a flyby

>>10514774
>>10514761
shit I'm a dumb nigger
https://youtu.be/21X5lGlDOfg
if you go quickly it's only about an hour ago and you can still catch it

>>10514760
I like this Brindenstein guy more and more

>>10514775
And at significant expense reworking the strong back and other infrastructure.

>>10514760
This automatically means no FH for Orion it is a roundabout way to make sure it is impossible by placing difficult to fulfill demands.

ICPS is ULA. It is not compatible with FH, nor its pad. It will require not only pad and rocket modifications, but also cooperation between Boeing-ULA and SpaceX...

By excluding the possibility of stretched FH upper stage, they are essentially setting up the whole thing to fail.

Can Elon do the undoable and become a god of the new age? I want to believe.

Chinese SpaceX copycat Linkspace tests their VTVL hopper

https://twitter.com/Linkspace_China/status/1112776139444047873

>>10514814
You mean Jung Musk

>>10514808
>By excluding the possibility of stretched FH upper stage, they are essentially setting up the whole thing to fail.
Except it won't be a fail, because the ultimate goal of SLS is jerbs, not spaceflight.

Progress MS-11 has been installed on the launch platform, launch is scheduled for April the 4th.<div class="like-perk-cnt">&#x2714;&#xFE0F;</div>

>>10513307
I thought PSLV is a clean design, not ICBM based like some russian, chinese, and us launchers.

PSLV is weird though in having alternating solid fuel and hypergolic fuel stages. Nobody else does that (except for Antares and some optional solid kick stages).

>>10514500
it has nearly the same proportions as R2-D2, now that you mention it.

>>10513296
Why is Indian Space Program so superior to Russian Space Program? You would think Russia is better but Indians have done things in space that Russia can only dream of like sending probes to Mars and the moon.

>>10514760
well we know that block 5 version is going to be a lot more powerful than that version that filed last year.
combine that with a better uperstage and it sounds like a beast

>>10514919
Go troll elsewhere please

>>10514939
seriously, what science missions have the Russians done since the Fall?

Anyone here going to see heavy live?

>>10514947

Does the International Space Station count?

>>10514947

There was the Gecko Mating Experiment.

>>10514960
>>10514947
Kek

>>10514960
to another planetary body

>>10514948
Duno, ask Tim the soiboi

>>10514968
>to another planetary body
They could always just land on your mom.

>>10514976
yeah but they haven't, so you haven't answered the question
I'm busy watching Big Jim do a rant on SLS and commercial options for Orion

>>10514919

They had a significant bulk of their resources pooled to build that new Vostochny Cosmodrome in Far Eastern Russia.

>>10514986

It's already operational, but it won't be finished until mid-2020s.

>>10514947
>what have they done since they entered severe economic turmoils
Shitty question. The Angara is a nice launch system though. They just have no money to launch it

>>10515010
>what have they done since they came into existence
prior to the Fall it was the CCCP, after the Fall it's just the fucking Russians

>>10514470
inb4<div class="like-perk-cnt"><img alt="" width="77" height="13" src="//s.4cdn.org/image/nofile.png"></div>

>>10514947
Phobos Grunt?

>>10514948
No, but I'm going to have a party
by myself
and with lots of food

>tfw none of my friends care about space stuff<div class="like-perk-cnt">&#x1F350;</div>

>>10514986
Vostochny is a waste of money because Russia needs to keep launching from Baikonur to maintain influence in Kazakhstan

screen recorder / webm maker thing at the ready. Any second now..

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

>>10514470
This better not be an April Fool's joke.

>>10514861
>Boring ISS resupply mission
Russian space program is just a glorified pizza delivery service

>>10513136
Yeah, some. O'Neill and Heppenheimer go into the crop maintenance aspects since the assumption was that habitats would grow and export food. Dr. Lewis covers some of the elemental aspects, you still need nitrogen from somewhere.
>complete control of gravity, lighting, moisture and all conditions in a completely known environment minus catastrophic fuckups
Vs.
>whatever weather, dust, marsquakes etc plus catastrophic fuckups in a changing environment.
Just the fact that everything needs to be shipped to site for an orbital habitat gives an element of quality control. Unless you enjoy perchlorates in your lettuce.

>>10513160
>Ed Kyle
Shuttle Forever old school Big Aero trough sucker.

>>10515050
The whole point is that Kazakhstan can in any moment kick them out.
And if it happened russian will pretty much lost access to space, because they can launch crewed missions only from Baikonur.

>>10515138
anon I already answered that man's question in the thread earlier
if you'd read the thread you'd know that my answer was, "some fag"

>>10515134
>Agriculture in space is better than on planet
Well that kinda sucks, I was writing a setting where a planet based colony exports food for neighboring space colonies.

>>10515162
Lots of little green men wants your location...
Kazakhstan is russian clay from ancient times...

>>10514454
>wtf I love space habs now
You should. They are where the vast bulk of the human population will eventually live.
>any climate you want
>any amount of physical space
>any gravity
>any legal system
>ultra high G industry
>low G industry
>infinite solar and fusion power
>access to infinite elements from the gas giants
>forever

>>10514986

Besides politics and a safeguard in the unlikely event of regime change in Kazakhstan, is there any advantage to have two launching sites?

>>10515175
I don't think even Putin can pull out the same trick twice.

>>10515191
Yes, you can 1. launch simultaneously 2. reach different orbits more efficiently from different launch sites.

>>10515191
A second launch site provides some redundancy of course. Other than that no real advantages. Theoretically Vostochny could help in the development of Russia's far east. The problem is they located it way out in the middle of nowhere so it's not going to attract a lot of space industry.

>>10515027
Soviets didn't launch any successful missions to outer planets.
They never had Apollo program or Space Shuttle equivalents and so on.

>>10515163
Just expanding on the point. These are the people inside the space community working against getting to space.
>>10515174
Nothing says vibrant farms on the Moon, Mars or anywhere aren't possible. Plenty of technical, financial and political decisions have to be made for any of it to happen. Then something changes and you end up with prime Ceres fungus burgers and exported Martian coffee. But just following the logic of an optimal path to developing space would lead to agriculture in solar orbit.

>>10515196

Likely it won't be even necessary. The Eurasian Union was Kazakhstan's idea in the first place and the EU/US has limited reach there.

>>10515212
>Soviets didn't launch any successful missions to outer planets.
That's true but the Soviets accomplished many things in space like lunar orbiters, lunar landers and rovers, lunar sample return, venus orbiters and landers, mars orbiters and flybys (but no successful landings). Russian solar system exploration is absolutely feeble in comparison.

SHIT'S POPPING OFF

>>10515216
>Nothing says vibrant farms on the Moon, Mars or anywhere aren't possible...
Thanks. My orginal idea was that it would be easier to make massive farms on planets than in space stations. My logic was that for a planet based farm, to make it bigger would just require building more green houses on the available land. While in a space station (rotating cylinder) more space station would have to be built while maintaining rotation, and I thought that would be more difficult than just adding more greenhouses on a planet (and more costly resource-wise).

Then again, this setting takes place in a fictional star system so I can probably think of a way to make it so that planet farming is preferred.

Thank you for talking with me on this.

>>10515212
Voyager and Mariner and such didn't launch on Saturn
>>10515241
planets have more resources, which means it's easier to expand
space stations are incredibly limited and that guy's a station fetishist, he's always around and is always full of shit

>>10515249

Space stations are incredible easy to build once you have your industry in space.

>>10515252
>industry in space
moving material from point to point in heliocentric orbit is almost as expensive as shipping shit up from the bottom of a gravity well

Economically, does it make sense for Russia to mothball Vostochny once it's finished and only activate it if they lose access to Baikonur? Having to maintain two duplicate launch sites will be a heavy strain on the poor Russian economy, not to mention the shortage of space talent which has to be allocated across two sites instead of one. Space workforce from Baikonur may not even want to move to Vostochny.

>>10515057
Is this an April fool's joke? Why did he put air trafic control on the audio-?

>>10515249
>that guy's a station fetishist, he's always around and is always full of shit
This is the first time I've ever posted about space stations on /sci/.
>>10515241
Planetary farms make a lot of sense, ranching or agroforestry even more so. Greenhouses might not be needed with genetic engineering. For both planetary and space, think about what is easiest at that scale.
Is it to feed the locals? Export? Interplanetary?
Can they start a living process and harvest from it?
What kind of processing is needed at what scale?

>>10515252
It might be easy to build or an expand a space station (I doubt it, it seems challenging to add to an object that's rapidly rotating), but it seems like construction of space stations would be slow even with a strong industry in space. Building materials will take a while to move if the station isn't near an asteroid or planet or moon. The station would have to be proofed against cosmic radiation (especially if the station orbits around or near a planet with a strong magnetic field). Much more energy would have to be used to move and organize materials due to quirks of zero-g compared to building in a gravity field.

This slow pace might make it difficult for a space society to grow since the population grown may easily outpace living space growth. Since living space would desperately be needed, it may be harder for a space government to justify building more agricultural space, since it would make more mouths to feed and agricultural space could be used to house more people so they'll live more comfortably. A lower priority on agriculture would mean an even slower growth too.

Or at least, that's what my knowledge and intuition says.

>>10515270
There's a few other livestreams on his channel

>>10514948
I am. Hopefully gonna be my first launch in person.

>>10515280
Following Metzger's calculations, a fully developed space industry can approximately double in capability once automation arrives in space. His plan started just with robots making primitive solar cells on the Moon and bootstraps from there.

>>10515280
I doubt you would be able to easily expand a space station. The interior would be pressurized and rotating, seems like the best design would be a really big torus. Maybe you could grow crops in zero G? Is that possible?

>>10514820
They are learning reusability before they can into space and monetize... not sure if good business model.

>>10515360
>Maybe you could grow crops in zero G? Is that possible?
I'm not a botanist, but it does seem possible. I mean, there are plants that grow underwater and that's the next closest thing to zero-g. IIRC plants that grow in zero-g tend to be smaller and weaker than plants that grow in 1g (or any g I guess) because they notice that they don't have to fight gravity and only grow as long as needed which results in the plant not bearing much fruits and being unhealthy.

>>10515134
>whatever weather, dust, marsquakes etc plus catastrophic fuckups in a changing environment.
what weather? it's Mars. You get dust storms that don't do anything because all your stuff is nuclear powered.
what dust? You're living in a sealed habitat, only a negligible amount of dust from outside is going to be brought inside as it clings to suits and machinery.
what marsquakes? We've literally never detected any seismic activity on Mars to date, the most geologically stable places on Earth are dozens of times more active than the most active areas on Mars.

>>10515183
>>access to infinite elements from the gas giants
you have to be able to actually acquire those materials you know, even Uranus has an escape velocity and thus a minimum orbital velocity much higher than Earth's which will make it very hard to accelerate any bit of its mass up to orbit.

>>10509894
They were THE dress rehearsal for the landing. People generally don't remember anything beyond Neil anyway. No one can forget Snoopy spazzing out and Gene Cernan saying "son of a bitch" because it's on tape.

https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/04/nasa-chief-says-a-falcon-heavy-rocket-could-fly-humans-to-the-moon/

>>10515453
links?

>>10515460
yeah that's old news, fag

>>10509689
>Skylon failed

https://newatlas.com/boeing-rolls-royce-rel-investment/54181/

???

>>10515482
Read the article fag its updated

>>10515489
no you nigger everybody who cares just watched the Town Hall which was on NASA TV so we already know everything that could possibly be in that shitty article from fucking arstechnica goddamn

>>10515495
You're post is

>>10515511
WHAT THE FUCK WHEN DID MY SCORE GET RESET


REEEEEEE

>>10515513
your score gets reset if the moderation team takes any action against you or your IP is reset somehow

>>10515480
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E-57A7vV1fk
go to 23:44

>>10515528
thanks, I love moon footage

Only one launch scheduled from Vostochny this year. Looks like Russia is barely going to use their new spaceport as long as they have access to Baikonur.

>>10515483
>literally "fuck Skylon but we'll buy the engine technology for faster planes"

>>10515483
>Bond, along with engineers John Scott-Scott and Richard Varvill, formed REL, which has concentrated for the past 29 years on developing variants of the Synergetic Air-Breathing Rocket Engine (SABRE) engine.

29 years? You cant make this shit up.

HOP WHEN

>>10515568
tech takes time

>>10515542
They are using liquid hydrogen as their precooler, this means they are expending what I would assume is a rather substantial amount of fuel to cool what should be free oxidiser. I would guess this blows out the mass budget. Also

>Running liquid Hydrogen through tiny coolant fins

Lul that precooler will get fucking shrekt between hydrogen embrittlement, huge pressures and massive temperature differentials. If you though a regular rocket engine was hard to make reusable, this shit is next level.

>>10515618
The precooler uses a helium loop, the helium flows through two heat exchangers, one in the engine nacelle and the other in the hydrogen fuel tank. Regardless they don't waste hydrogen to liquefy air, the job of the precooler is just to remove the vast majority of the compression heating you get when you try to take in mach 5+ atmosphere. The relatively small amount of hydrogen that is boiled by the warm helium in the return loop is what actually powers the engine in air breathing mode. The engine only burns liquid hydrogen directly once it switches to closed cycle mode, and it burns that liquid hydrogen with an on board supply of liquid oxygen. \

Regardless of all this SSTO is still a shitty technology and Skylon will never happen.

>>10514745
>It was dropped for budget cuts before the Shuttle started flying.
If true, that's amusingly ironic

>>10515633
It was the NASA future projects branch

>>10515633
Remember that one Sea Dragon costs $2.5B in 2019USD. The entire SLS project costs $14B.

>>10515633
>If true
big
Sea Dragon was a contemporary competitor design to Saturn V, it was not meant to replace it or Shuttle and it wasn't designed after those rockets. It was designed by a guy who had no idea about combustion instability in large rocket engines, and the biggest reason no one has even attempted to revisit the technology (and why wouldn't you if it would be so easy to build and so well performing) is because rocket engines of that scale are literally impossible due to flow dynamics.

>>10515653
At least find a way to deal with the combustion instabilities (either by finding the right injector plate like on the F-1, or using multiple engines instead of one) would justify the 14 year gap from the Shuttle. Unlike the SLS which is taking that time pretending how to figure out how to re-bolt old parts while paying congressmen.

>>10515668
*least finding a way

>>10515653
Truax's various research organizations continued to sea launch rockets. The technology is well-developed, just generally unused. As you point out, there are some serious issues with such massive, pressure-fed engines, maybe more under a few atmospheres of pressure.
Still a great idea and workable if launched out of a large Spar structure instead of raw ocean. The truly Big Dumb Rocket could still happen.

what do we think of all the additional funding for national security space?

>>10515685
lockheed and such make some really spooky shit when they get their top tier guys working on it

Pence: America will Return Astronauts to the Moon within five years
NASA video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PxvFsqevSdw

Big Jim: We evaluated a total bullshit LEGO rocket and it might work but we ain't doing that bullshit, but here's a half an hour rant on it anyway
https://youtu.be/o2gz2E-Wrws

as if life doesn't find a way.

>>10509680
but until you teraform mars you will be living in a manmade environment, your suit, or the habitat you retire to, so who the fuck cares what the soil is made out of? you're in a space suit.
you're using complex equipment to make the rocket fuel for you to go home. you're using complex equipment to keep you alive in general. you might as well be living in herpes city. but you're not fuking any one right? no harm done

>>10509447
Kerbal Space Program

HOP WHEN

>>10509550
How do you land a rocket on a random floating platform in the ocean?

Better yet, why did I like your post?

>>10509447
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Am7EwmxBAW8

>>10515778
>>10515785
>5 years

>>10516153
It would be easily possible to do, were it not for the unending corruption and embezzlement

>>10516153
I think the biggest problem will be the lander. SLS and Orion can easily be ready within 5 years but work on a lander hasn't even started.

>>10516176
Starship is a lander, and comes with it's own launcher too

the only thing NASA needs is the men and equipment

>>10516178
Yea but it's also using completely new and unproven hardware.
I hope I'm proven wrong but I think it's pretty unlikely that it will be ready by 2024.

New thread
>>10516182
>>10516182
>>10516182<div class="like-perk-cnt"><div style="text-align:right"><img alt="" width="32" height="32" src="//s.4cdn.org/image/temp/verified.png"></div></div>