/sci/ - Science & Math

>>10555610
Big boi

>>10555610
This is clearly fake, do people really believe this shit?

>>10555610
Use this next time
Or just make a new one since you forgot the "/sg/ - " in the title

>>10555717
apologies, I knew I forgot something. Was my first ever thread that I baked.

Just realized that the weird Minotaur I launch for NROL scheduled for the end of the year is probably compensation from Northrop Grumman for the Zuma fuckup last year..

>>10555755
What a cute little rocket.

>"NASA is committed to SLS"
>Goddard already looking to ship their future concepts on Starship
Embarrassing.

>>10555808
Remember that NASA isn't a hivemind organization. It has different groups that have their own goals and wants. Goddard is like the brain-chad anons on /sci/ whom talk about the nature of the universe while SLS is that "why can't I build muscle" guy.

>>10555808
So. many. moving parts.

>>10555902
And I thought JWST was bad kek.

>>10555902
It's a gorgeous machine, but odds are good that lift capacity and lunar or orbital manufacturing capabilities will make this sort of design obsolete compared to just using monolithic mirrors.
>>10555808
What's more LUVOIR is supposed to fly in 2039, so by then odds are better than not that if SpaceX is still kicking they will have already long since had a first-flight of something the size of the old ITS concept. And that says nothing of potential competitor craft like New Armstrong or whatever succeeds it from Blue Origin.

Hey guys, I'm designing a pressure fed two-stage-to-orbit rocket. I'm having issues with large amounts of dry mass from the propellant tanks.

Any design tricks, materials, ideas to cut down on the dry mass weight? Thank you.

>>10555934
Target LEO payload mass?

>>10555941
16 kg at the smallest. Ideally 100+ kg.

>>10555934
Nice try, Kim.

>>10555917
Original ITS design still gives me the big boner.

>>10555953

>>10555955
I think the whole thing is big enough you could fit one of the decks with a centrifuge. It would take away from the total payload capacity, but having crew "quarters" in artificial gravity would mitigate a lot of issues. 8 hours of sleep at between 0.25g and 0.5g would probably avert a lot of health issues, even if the rest of their time was spent in microgravity.

>>10555955
Honestly I would expect the design after BFR to be even bigger than ITS, since they are swapping to SS and don't need to fuck around with bullshit carbon fibre tooling it could be made arbitrarily large. Imagine a 30m radius rocket.

>>10555969
That's a good point, and it looks like private nuclear rockets aren't beyond the realm of possibility. The extra efficiency on at least the second stage/spacecraft portion would dramatically increase the potential top-end mass and payload capacity of that vehicle.

>>10555934
Make the relative dry mass smaller by increasing overall size.
By my calculations if you scale up to a rocket 150 meters tall and 23 meters wide you should start to break even.

>>10555934
Pressure fed engines require pressurized tanks that are too heavy. I’m not aware of any orbital rockets that use pressure fed engines. I think it’s possible on the very large scale with something like Sea Dragon but that’s really pushing it.

>>10556071
Memeing aside, I actually tried that. The payload mass of the just the first stage went negative. Either Truax did something smart with the tanks, he fudged his calculations, or I messed up somewhere.

>>10556075
I'm aware of this, but I wanted to give it a try just to see how it plays out. (and maybe build it if I ever have the time, cash, and resources)

>>10555975
>It looks like private nuclear rockets aren't beyond the realm of possibility.
Besides the BWXT rocket intended specifically for NASA, what other private nuclear rockets are you thinking of? It would be great but so far as I know no private company is even talking about using a nuclear rocket, and what really fucking pisses me off about the BWXT is that they're sacrificing their rocket's longevity for NASA's retarded LH2 fetish even though of all things an NTPR should not be the kind of equipment you use once and then fucking ruin with hydrogen brittleness, both because nuclear fuel isn't something that's easy to just trash, and because an NTPR will inevitably be quite a lot more expensive than a conventional combustion rocket, and on top of that they're only planning on generating around 25,000lbf, only a fraction more than 1/4th the power of the weakest Timberwind rocket. Also all of BWXT's rocket designs show a rocket using the older method of cryogenic fuel circulation in a wrapping pipe around the nozzle which is both heavier and less efficient at cooling compared to newer designs. I think unfortunately even if it's actually made it will be a decidedly last-generation NTPR.

>>10556080
>he fudged his calculations
bingo bongo
He also ignored/didn't know about combustion instabilities that occur and only get worse as rocket engines scale up.

>>10556080
I guess we need to think outside the box here. What if the tanks were made of some super strong elastic material that would stretch out when you filled them up and then squirt out the fuel? Maybe some kind of thick rubber? I can’t think of any other way that doesn’t require a pump or lighter yet strong tanks.

>>10556105
Well that's sort of disappointing. I could try to reformat my rocket for turbo-machinery, but I have been in a project where we tried to design a turbo-pump and we ended up nowhere. Seriously, pumps are very complicated. The reference book we had used was four inches thick at least, no joke.

>>10556116
>What if the tanks were made of some super strong elastic material that would stretch out when you filled them up and then squirt out the fuel? Maybe some kind of thick rubber?
Interesting idea. So you're talking about balloon tanks? Something like the older Atlas rockets could be used.

I've also considered composite over-wrapped pressure vessels, but those are hard to model. However, they can severely cut down the dry mass in theory.

>>10556119
What book was that? Just curious

>>10556116
Your pressure feeding tank needs to hold it's pressurizing gas at a greater pressure than that of the combustion chamber pressure of the engine it's feeding. To know what kind of material we'd want Anon will first have to tell us the chamber pressure of his rocket engine. Then we can work out the lightest material that can still hold a gas at pressures higher than it.

>>10556124
(1/2)
This thing.

>>10556143
(2/2)
I was wrong. It's not four inches, but damn it was a pretty big book. My back felt like it has aged 5 years from having to carry that thing in my backpack.

>>10556147
In awe at the size of this lad, that's even thiccer than my copy of "History of Liquid Propellant Rocket Engines" by a full inch.

>>10555755
I'm willing to bet the Zuma launch went just fine and the gubmint just wants nobody to think that whatever it is is actually in space

>>10556123
Not exactly balloon tanks as those are tanks that get their structural rigidity from being pressurized. My crazy idea that I just made up now would be an elastic tank but I doubt that would even be possible. As for composite tanks, I believe the best available are carbon fiber with no metal liner at all. I believe the big spacex prototype was this type of composite tank. So you could have a composite tank with a common bulkhead as the main body of the rocket with a separate spherical helium tank to pressurize. I think that would get you the best performance.

>>10556143
>>10556147
That thing is fucking majestically thicc. Half of that shit has to be pre-calculated charts.

>>10556151
I'll be honest with you. It was pretty damn satisfying to start the meeting by dropping that thing onto the table. Definitely wake people up.

>>10556154
>My crazy idea that I just made up now would be an elastic tank but I doubt that would even be possible.
I think the issue would be that the additional structuring necessary to keep the rocket rigid would negate the weight advantages of elastic tanks. But interesting idea nonetheless, I'll look into it.

>As for composite tanks, I believe the best available are carbon fiber with no metal liner at all.
I would not be comfortable with that, especially with liquid oxygen. I'm definitely leaning towards COPV's though, I just need a good way to model it simply.

>So you could have a composite tank with a common bulkhead as the main body of the rocket with a separate spherical helium tank to pressurize. I think that would get you the best performance.
I'll look into it. Thank you!

>>10556162
>elastic tank: bigger problem is the thermal range. Materials that are elastic tend to not be so when they're very cold.

>>10556156
>Half of that shit has to be pre-calculated charts.
Half of it was explaining how to use the pre-calculated charts. Which then it all boiled down to "Just take a pre-made pump design that's close to what you want and just modify it until you get what you want. By the way, most of this stuff was empirically derived so it might not even apply to your design. Good luck!"

>>10556163
not just the stretchy type of elasticity

>>10556164
All I just read was "find the first one that is close, and then start looking up alternate versions close to the desired safety factor. If you can't find something, toss some coins/roll dice and split the difference. The finance guys probably don't understand the realities of it anyway."

>>10556168
Metals are frequently more brittle when deeply chilled too, though we usually focus on toughness with those materials.

>>10556153
100%

>Hehehehe yeah that payload didnt detach and it's fucked, nothing to see here

>>10556163
What if you used room temp hypergolics? Do you think it would be possible to get an appreciable amount of pressure from a stretchy bladder filled with fuel?

>>10556154
You could so long as the propellant you're pressurizing isn't cryogenic that would be fine. If I'm not mistaken the problem with the CF tanks was that cryogenic propellant embrittles them which invites failure under high stress. If you aren't already though you could be using CF for the body of your rocket to significantly reduce it's weight, stuff is pricey but other private rockets have used it, seems to work for Electron and their payload is 50-125kg heavier. They use electrically powered pumps though not pressure feeds, and while making your own pumps will probably be a nightmare, a pressure feeding tank might not give you sufficient performance in exchange for it's simplicity.

>>10556186
>You could so long as the propellant you're pressurizing isn't cryogenic that would be fine.
I'm using kerolox so that's out of the picture, although I've considered propane and nitrous oxide.

> If I'm not mistaken the problem with the CF tanks was that cryogenic propellant embrittles them which invites failure under high stress.
Is this still a problem with COPVs where there's a metal liner? Unfortunately I'm not very knowledgeable with composites.

>while making your own pumps will probably be a nightmare, a pressure feeding tank might not give you sufficient performance in exchange for it's simplicity.
I may have to, although I don't want to go look for that monster of a book again.

ahem

>>10556284
O shit waddup?

Any estimations on when the next hop will be?

>>10556284
We nosecone Nao

Legit can't believe this backyard special is going to be testing re entry heat shields, fucking amazing if it's really as simple as welding together some SS sheets in a field.

>>10556294
I think we are waiting for one more raptor, other than that,

S O O N

O

O

N

>>10556299
Soon soon? Or Elon soon?

>>10556301
Actually soon desu. Once they weld that shit up with bulkheads in place it's pretty much a matter of sticking the raptors up its ass and whatever heat shield they decide to do. I would expect a few months tops, very likely sooner. Elon said June for orbital tests I think which seems about right.

>>10556301
>>10556299
>>10556294
this is for the orbital prototype. The suborbital hopper won’t get a new nose cone.

As for the next hop, no one knows. The NOTAMs haven’t been correlating to actual hops that well; but perhaps with the ice issue behind them the next NOTAM swill actually line up with a hop

Stacky stacky

>>10556305
>>10556294
>next hop
There already was a hop?

>>10556382
Barely, it was tethered and very hard to see but yeah looked like it hopped maybe a metre or so.

So, what's the deal with this fucking thing?
https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-us-canada-47924204/plane-with-the-largest-wingspan-in-the-world-takes-flight

>>10556597
Spruce Goose tier joke

>>10556597
Now that Paul is dead it's going to be sold for scrap.

The project is to be canceled in a few months regard less of the results.

>>10556597
A future museum piece

>>10556313
Finna HOPP

>>10556597
They didn‘t design a rocket for it. Others didn‘t design a rocket for it. Now all they can launch with it is an outdated rocket that‘s as expansive as a falcon 9 but has no payload AND can be started from already available aircraft anyway.
Sure, you can launch three of those too-expensive and too-small rockets at once, but for what possible reason?
It‘s sadly a failed project despite the plane itself working just fine.

>>10557258
>an outdated rocket that‘s as expansive as a falcon 9 but has no payload
*virtually no payload

>>10556597
>>10557258
How much delta-v would it even save, and how far up can it go?
It seems like a really convoluted way of launching a rocket.

>>10557258
I'd like to see NASA use it for various research purposes so it doesn't become a complete failed vaporware

>>10556597
Maybe they can repurpose is to transport heavy shit like the Antonov 224.

>>10557373
*AN-225

>>10557274
IIRC it doesn't save that much DeltaV. But what it does offer is the ability to use engines where optimized for the upper atmosphere for all stages on the rocket, thus allowing a more efficient rocket. On top of that, it also increases launch flexibility. Bad weather at the original launch spot? Just fly the plane somewhere else.

>>10557426
>use engines where optimized
*use engines THAT ARE optimized
I literally just woke up, sorry.

>>10556119
>turbo-machinery
Agreed, very complex and hard to test. Depending on how big you want your rocket, you could go the Rocket Lab route and go with high performance electric pumps. That is what our amateur group is doing for a liquid fueled sounding rocket.

>>10556382
yep. Since then they’ve removed the raptor for inspections or something

>>10557672
What a coincidence! That's what my group has agreed to as well. Pump design is still complicated though.

>>10555610
Please, can you change the name of this general ?

This is not " space flight general " but " USA USA USA NASA SpaceX only because, apparently, USA is the only country in the world with a space programme General "

>>10557780
Well, I think most of the people on /sci/ are American, so it makes sense for /sg/ to be American spaceflight focused.

However, interesting spaceflight is nation agnostic, so if you have some cool news to share about non-American stuff then please share.

>>10557771
Welcome to suffering Anon, enjoy your stay.
>>10557780
Perhaps instead of being such an intensely passive-aggressive bitch maybe you could change the nature of /sg/ by posting the space accomplishments, rocket designs, and important figures in non-American rocketry thus enriching the thread, rather than filling it up with your worthless whining.

>tfw considering studying rocketry and buying machinery to diy simple small liquid rocket motors on alcohol and shit like that
Rural middle of nowhere fag anyway nobody's going to hear or care when I explode myself to steaks.

>>10557780
Great idea Faggot

>>10557823
Just dig a trench a few feet deep and stack some cinder blocks in front of it and make sure that your hick ass is in the trench before you shoot the rocket. Then if it does experience a rapid unplanned disassembly you'll only wish you were dead (due to all of the lost time and money) instead of actually being dead (due to the objects obtained with time and money striking your body at high speeds).

>>10557823
Please keep us posted on that. This could be interesting.

>>10557836
Naturally. I already had experience with exploding ball mills.

I want to fuck a Delta IV!

>>10557373
That's their best bet but with the founder dead it's probably kill.

>>10557844
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHbI_B2sPA0
Best of luck to you then, and document as much as you can so if you do somehow manage to assplode yourself the rest of us will know how not to do it.

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1117510080386093056


Hmmm

Going to shamelessly jerk off more American space companies, here's Relativity Space's 3D metal deposition printed engine, made up of a whole whopping 3 components (the entirety of the thing is only 100 components) generating 15,000lbf at sea level and 19,500 in vacuum. All of their work up until January 17 of this year has been privately funded, their first government contract is to rebuild and operate Launch Complex 16, they're planning to perform their first launch next year and start commercial service in 2021. I'm not all that blown away by their rocket design (a very small low payload MethaLOX two stage system) but the process by which they plan to design engines and the dramatic reduction in engine complexity (and thus likely significant chance of improvement in durability, reliability, and TWR) is very promising. They also manufacture their engines in a single month compared to the average of six months for more complicated designs involving lots of conventional machining and human tuning. I'm also finding interesting how organic the solutions of AI are to mechanical stress issues and I imagine rockets of the future will have a variety of biomechanical looking components optimized by computers to deal with various stresses.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Adl1Sn86ojs

>>10556597
It's dead in the water now, but the Air Force was interested in using it as a high endurance missile bus. 1600 AMRAAMS, or 1400 Hellfires, or 160 cruise missiles could be mounted onto it, plus it's got a lot of space already to devoted to sensors. They say they could keep it up for a week straight if you can supply it with inflight fueling

>>10558005
Thank you for showing me this, I have almost forgotten about these guys.

Are there places that have more technical details about their Aeon engine other than their website?

>>10558021

>>10558034
>a plane flying 300 km/h
>good for military use
also
>the biggest plane ever built
>kept in the air by air to air refueling
Wew lad. Imagine the neverending train of smaller tanker air planes.

>>10555913
JWST has that multi-layer clusterfuck of a sunshield thats likely going to fail in some way during deployment.

>>10558030
I can't find any so far, although the engine is obviously not vacuum or even sea-level optimized yet, there's no nozzle at all yet just the combustion chamber and bell. I imagine the AI designed solutions will come in real handy with the nozzle design because it can take advantage of 3D printing to design a nozzle that can optimize the flow of cryogenic propellant through itself to reduce weight to the bare minimum necessary, and they won't have to go through the complicated procedure of manually welding in each coolant vein, the nozzle can be made entirely of one homogeneous alloy and can be one homogeneous piece, and if their "Stargate" printer system comes to full fruition I could imagine the nozzle, bell, and combustion chamber pieces all being made as one single solid part, assuming that the additive printing process can ensure strong enough welds between each component. I'd imagine the nozzle will have a very interesting vein-like pattern of coolant circulation channels running through it and perhaps even an organic surface texture for maximizing it's ability to discard waste heat.

>>10558054
Imagine though, something on the ground just needs to die and this thing shows up and unloads hundreds if not thousands of missiles in one go.

>>10555917
>LUVOIR is supposed to fly in 2039

Christ I hate how slow all this shit is.

>>10558071
>>10558034
Huh.
Strap some drones to the plane and you get an arsenal bird.

>>10558034
Better than being a hangar queen or sitting in Arizona waiting to be scrapped.

>>10558075
>2039
Why do they even consider Starship for this? By that time either Starship/SpaceX will have failed OR Starship will have been delegated to row boat status by the literal cruise ship with rocket engines they will have built by that point.

>>10558075
Things will speed up. China is right now doing grasshopper tests, landings should happen around 2021 and then Congress will release $$$ because muh space gap.

>>10558115
>when you asked spacex avionics software but your spies got ksp SAS instead

>>10558124
That was half a year ago, got another gif where it flies from one platform to another while teethered, but that's 10 megabytes.

Also, KSP SAS is cheat mode.

>>10558142
>That was half a year ago, got another gif where it flies from one platform to another while teethered, but that's 10 megabytes.
Is there a YouTube video of this?

>Also, KSP SAS is cheat mode.
The SAS in that game is pretty strong, I agree. I would change it, but I generally don't like mods.

>>10558030
Oh and one other thing I learned is that it will be autogenously pressurized like SpaceX plans to do with BFRship, which makes sense because the Relativity guys are all ex-SpaceX and Blue Origin employees so I imagine anything that Elon or Bezos has come up with to improve over older aerospace designs is something these guys could modify to improve the operation of their own system and improve by having it be deposition printed.

>>10558149
Search for Linkspace, you should find enough. ... Seriously, what is it with Chinese new-space companies all having nearly the same name?

Here's the fuck huge gif.
https://static.gbtimes.com/uploads/files/2018-01/31/linkspace-VTVL-january2018.gif

>>10558115
More like a flop than a hop, but they were smart to have it tethered so it couldn't do that flop into the buildings in the background and explode. I honestly do hope the Chinese really ramp up their government-assisted civilian and military space programs to give the rest of the world a clear competitor to butt heads with. Humans always seem to innovate best when they're competing with other humans so the more people in space the better as far as I'm concerned.

>>10558071
They say it can carry something like 60 Daisy cutters

>>10558156
>Seriously, what is it with Chinese new-space companies all having nearly the same name?
Either they all had a shared start (probably something to do with their government), or even Chinese companies aren't immune to bootleg copies.

>>10558163
>government-assisted civilian and military space programs

They gave some of the new-space companies SRBMs which went over the shelf life to play with. There's a good reason why militaries reject rockets after their life time runs out - they all failed.

>>10558187
As long as they live through the failures it should be a good learning experience.

>>10558211
Sucks for the satellite owners though, they thought they got a bargain launch but it all went *poof*.

I have been thinking about the next generation of space stations and how different they will be with all these upcoming heavy lift vehicle.
And also the fact that all the ISS partners probably will go their own way and build their own station instead of one big one.
The falcon heavy could put the mass of the ISS up in leo in only 7 flights, now think about the bigelow modules and you can end up with a massive station where people could run around like in skylab.
And what would be the more logical next step, a new space station in leo or one at the moon where they use it for moon exploration.

But in the end i think we should not give up on human presence on space at all times.

>>10558297
They will be orders of magnitude cheaper and large enough to need a high passenger launch vehicle like starship

>>10558304
Yeah, probably.
But i'm also wondering what the purpose of these stations will be, ISS has already covered a lot of microgravity research.
Tourism will probably be a big thing in the future.
And orbital building+refueling stations will also be needed.

>>10558021
Sounds like Belkan tech

>>10558322
Spin them up, decades of microgravity research has basically told us one thing

>0g bad

Great, how about we get some fractional g experiments so we can determine if other planets are even liveable or if space habs are the only option.

>>10558359
>Spin them up
That would be the best next step, but i also wonder what will be the final design, for now i think the most "easy" option is to create gravity by hooking up a station to a counterweight with a tether and spin it up.

>>10558359
>Great, how about we get some fractional g experiments so we can determine if other planets are even liveable or if space habs are the only option.

And i also want to see how they are going to mine&process astroids in zero G.
Like how are you going to make steel in zero g? how are you going to cast it.

>>10558375
Probably the easiest way to do it is to create some curved joints and then take a bunch of expando-habs and lock them together with the joints to create a ring, then clamp some RCS packs to the outer edge and fire them up, have one of those joints be a T connector that extends a tunnel to a docking clamp that sits at the center of that ring so it will be spinning the slowest, allowing any ship with an RCS to easily spin itself up to the necessary speed to safely clamp on.

>>10558386
So pretty much the station form 2001: A Space Odyssey?

>>10558395
Yeah but even simpler, no complex scaffolding and just a normal clamping airlock instead of an entire ship-sized hangar bay. If a simple rotohab station like that turns out to work well than you could move on to larger and larger designs until you reach something so large and complex it actually has to be held together by support spars and demands novel professions like space welders.

How much would a manned mission to mars and back cost at the bear minimum?

>>10558432
well at some point things get so big that when you start spinning it up it collapses under its own weight.

>>10558439
I'd imagine you could have a flyby for 20 billion $ if that's the actual goal instead of keeping useless engineering jobs in Alabama. Multiple Falcon Heavy launches to put together a Lego-spacecraft in LEO, no frills, mostly off the shelf parts, just a few m3 for a single astronaut and loads of food and air.

>>10558455
>flyby

pretty sure that the first manned expedition to mars will also involve boots on the ground.
Because whats the point of a flyby of mars? what can the human do that a satelite cant in a flyby scenario?

hmm

>>10558494
The point of a flyby would be to demonstrate important stuff like the longevity of life support systems, heat rejection systems, power supplies, etc in a human habitable ship. I'd probably want to do a shot with a fully pressurized ship carrying a simulated weight of food and other hard supplies and a full load of water and oxygen just to prove that a ship could perform the whole shot while retaining a habitable environment. With (good) heavy lifters promising much lower launch and operation costs I think it would be worth it to do an unmanned test.

>>10558494
One of the problems with manned spaceflight missions is that they take a long time to develop and execute. By the time a full frills and whistles Martian manned mission is ready, the public may loose interest ("ugh another Mars mission? How long until they cancel this one?"). A Martian flyby on the other hand will be much quicker to develop and perform while still being able to establish technologies that will be useful for a Martian base.

Is it possible to land 4 boosters at once

>>10558624
As many as you like as long as you have a place for them to land.

>>10558624
If there are pads to land them at sure, shame you can't just nig rig four boosters onto a falcon core stage but apparently the structural stresses would tear the core apart so there can be no Falcon Really Heavy.

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1117581094415503360

>>10558674
He's trolling.

>>10558676
?

>>10558676
Dragon wings would make sense on their Commercial Crew Capsule, not Starship.

>>10558494
>>10558571
Remember, before the Eagle landed, we had two missions around the moon without stopping. We probably won't do that many with Mars because it takes two years between windows.

>>10557780

Then post some non-US space stuff you whiny faggot.

This is only kinda tangentially related to /sg/ because of one of it's applications, but here's another realm where 3D printing and non-conventional mechanisms might benefit spaceflight, compliant machines, basically articulatable structures where bearings, joints, and pins are replaced with flexible plastic or metal, much of which is composed of oddly shaped single homogeneous parts which are often 3D printed. One of the applications stated is for a light weight highly durable thruster mounting which would allow things like RCS thrusters significantly more range of motion, allowing for the use of fewer total RCS engines and thus allowing for substantial reductions in weight. Advantages seem to be in the realm of weight, structural simplicity, and component longevity.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=97t7Xj_iBv0

>>10558021
>1600 AMRAAMs
Jesus fucking Christ, I can -hear- Dale Brown's erection from here.

>>10558809
Interesting concept but I doubt that it'll be used for anything beyond highly specialized utilities such as small thruster assemblies or tiny switches. Nice video though.

>>10558297
>And also the fact that all the ISS partners probably will go their own way and build their own station instead of one big one.
IIRC Russia, Canada, and Japan are all on board for Lunar Gateway already so it's going to be Team America versus Team Chinkypants again.

>>10558679
he's just trying to make GOT jokes

>>10558882
Gatewat is useless for anything but being a tent for SLS to stick its nose under.

>>10555755
https://spaceflightnow.com/2017/01/12/minotaur-rocket-launch-for-nro-expected-at-wallops-by-end-of-2018/
The flight was planned before Zuma. Plus, wasn't there only a month or two notice for that?

>>10558257
USA USA USA

/sg/, what are your thoughts on LOP-G?

I personally don't like the concept nor do I really understand it. It's far enough from the Moon to not make landing on the lunar surface easier than going there directly. It'll just be a further out ISS, which whatever can be learned there could also be learned on the surface or even in a low lunar orbit. The only purpose I see in it is that it was the easiest "lunar mission" that could be done at the time. In my opinion, NASA should just either go for the lunar surface or have a station much closer to the Moon to assist with future surface missions.

What do you think?

>>10558917
My understanding is that "deep space gateway" is the more important part of its location, and that the plan is to mine He-3 or water ice from the moon. In conjunction with research and resource extraction bases on the lunar surface, the station basically becomes a refueling spaceport for flights to Mars and points outwards.

>>10558917
it’s literally pork bucks

>>10558439

A few hundred million for the Starship hardware units with Starship dev costs off the books by charging them to the other usages Starship will be used for like Starlink and tourism.

Under a hundred million if the ships themselves are reused from other non Mars missions like tourism.

Make that double for the two vehicle plan.

Then some figure for Mars exclusive mission prep dev work by SpaceX. Let's call it a billion.

>>10558933
>the plan is to mine He-3 or water ice from the moon
Cool idea, but I think He-3 mining is too far into the future for the current state of manned spaceflight. I mean, the US is struggling to redo a mission it did over fifty years ago, Apollo 8.

>>10558939

Didn't factor in the cargo ship cycle, but you get the jist.

>>10558933
>He-3

>>10558944
The reasons for that struggle are /pol/ rather than /sci/ related, really. A good 2/3 of NASA should be fired ASAP, and the SLS is a Congressional porkmonster, designed to reuse Shuttle tech that was itself sub optimal due to overly political sourcing.

>>10558917
A good idea that has now fallen short of what it was originally designed to do due to budget cuts.

It should be built though in the hopes that future funding and private expansion can build it beyond what the ISS can deliver and it can be used as an emergency measure if something goes wrong during a lunar mission.

>>10558955
You have a point (and I agree with your sentiment in general), but my original point still stands. If politics is making Apollo 8 II Pork-barrel Boogaloo incredibly difficult, then He-3 mining will be impossible.

>>10558958
>It should be built though in the hopes that future funding and private expansion can build it beyond what the ISS can deliver and it can be used as an emergency measure if something goes wrong during a lunar mission.
Agreed, but LOP-G seems too far away from the Moon for easy expansion for future lunar missions. Maybe it can be later moved closer?

>>10558970
It's planned to have solar electric propulsion so maneuvering is possible.

>>10558876
Assuming that the level of strength can be maintained I'd assume it will still work for larger rocket assemblies and perhaps certain joints and unfolding mechanisms. You could combine this with some kind of soft robot system where pressurized nitrogen "muscle" and a compliant mechanism joint are expanded to unfurl solar films or a thin foil objective for some enormous telescope. Smaller electrical motors could actuate rockets instead of heavier hydraulics, and yes while electrical motors do need battery power, a ship with longevity in mind will have solar panels or small nuclear power supplies to keep them charged or they'll be short duration ground-to-LEO type rockets which don't require much endurance beyond the couple of minutes they'll actually spend flying. Even if these kinds of systems don't reduce weight they can absolutely reduce component complexity which is important because you want articulation systems in rockets to be as reliable as possible.

>>10558933
>Lunar he-3

When will this Reddit meme die

>>10558970
>then He-3 mining will be impossible.
It's not the mining that's impossible, it's the using it that is impossible. We won't be able to burn 3He until we've been doing fusion for at least 10 years, and it's at least 10 years away.

3He is a meme, unless you want to corner the world supply of party balloons.

Antares Cygnus launch wednesday 4:46 PM EST my dudes!
>>10555917
>>monolithic mirrors
nice meme. Even telescopes on earth no longer user monolithic mirrors because they're just so hard to move. Pic related can be scaled to kilometer apertures. It's possible with space assembly robots.

>>10559173
It's the negligible amount of he-3 contained in gorillions of tons of regolith and how the fuck to process that out. He-3 is actually much easier to fuse then D-T.

horizontal assembly facility? (the new dirt rectangle)

>>10559173
>3He is a meme
I know that He3 fusion isn't possible now, but what I meant was that even if it was possible technically, it would be impossible to do politically.

If the United States somehow found out tomorrow that the Moon regolith cured male pattern baldness, it would take them over a decade and billions of dollars before a proposal were developed to the prototype stage. And even then, it would still risk cancellation by the next president because the president who started the "To the Moon, and back with hair" mission happened to be in the opposing party, and it's impossible for an opposing party to be associated with something cool.

>>10559201
Hm seems unlikely, they look pretty set on vertical assembly, not sure what that rectangular bit would be for then. By the way are they assembling two orbital prototypes there? Looks like it.

>>10559220
one is SS one is SH

>>10559241
Oh shit son

>>10559244
Well that’s the assumption
Elon has only said directly that they are currently building the mk1 orbital starship

>>10558269
>>10558261
>>10558264
everything certainly is strapped down, isn't it?

>>10559314
And I think those container boxes have been placed more to block wind than to block camera views. It's almost as if they've had problems with wind before.

>>10559314
I'd assume that a large vertical building thing will be going up soon. VAB of sorts.

>>10558034
>1600 AMRAAMs

pssst...

>>10559364
Shhh
He is looking at you.

Any news on that gay seisometer they sent to mars in december or something?

>>10559399
hit a rock

>>10559399
Still no gays Found on mars

>>10559413
Kek did it actually?

>>10559364
Elon get out of there, People are trying to work here.
Go play on twitter.

>>10559424
>This week, the German Aerospace Center (DLR) is busy wrapping up tests at a facility in Bremen, Germany, to better understand the properties of Martian soil. There are many questions about how the soil around InSight compacts or shifts during hammering. In addition to investigating whether the probe has struck a rock or a layer of gravel, scientists are exploring whether this sand isn't providing enough friction for the probe, also known as "the mole," to dig down.

https://mars.nasa.gov/news/8419/more-testing-for-mars-insights-mole/?site=insight

>>10556284
Why are they being so sloppy

>>10559455
OHNONONONONONONONONONONO

>>10559467
you’ve fallen for the memes perpetrated by oldspace. aerospace grade is a shit, you only need some stainless steel panels and a Texas field

>>10559486
Another guy seemed to think that the stainless steel was going to be pressure capsules / tanks

I just don't see how that could be possible with sloppy assembly

>>10559490
they’ve already demonstrated the hop-worthiness of a much more crudely constructed vehicle, the hopper. These orbital sections are the 2nd generation stainless steel welded rockets.

>>10559490
You can see the bulkhead welds among a circumference in some of the photos. They drop the tank tops and bottoms in and attach them directly to the ‘skin’

>>10559495
>>10559493
Do you think the Mars one will be this primitive

thing on the right looks like WTC

>>10559498
nah they’ll get some bigass spiral/orbital welding machine to do most of it.

>>10559455
Can they retract the drill and chose another spot?

>>10559513
not really. It has no way of moving around, the drop point for the probe is like a 70° arc or something from where they landed

>>10559511
Elon said on Twitter that wont work because the panels will be thicker at the bottom of the rocket than at the top.

>>10559518
>thicker
She's a thicc girl

>>10558674
while this sounds like a cool idea I don't think it's as easily scaleable as transpiration cooling, and I'm not convinced the mass-durability tradeoff will work out in its favor.

>>10559653
It's obviously a troll my dude

What do you guys think about putting "billboards" into space? Is this just a publicity stunt or actually achievable in the near future

http://astronomy.com/news/2019/01/billboards-in-space

https://startrocket.me/

>>10559666
he's obviously memeing because it's such a stupid idea but he's putting it out there in a serious enough fashion that I see no reason not to take him seriously about it.
Also it IS hilarious and I wish to continue to engage with the idea

>>10559669
it's a Russian scam company and the technology to unfold each cubesat's cards doesn't real
also they'll never get permission to fly at the 400km height they want because that's where the ISS is

>>10559669
Should be punishable by death
>try to make ground based observations
>can't see objects of interest because of giant billboards
Fuck
That
Shit

>>10559669
Kill every person who attempts to implement it and their family down to the last child. Gigantic glowing neon advertisements in my beautiful clean rural night skies over my dead fucking body.

>>10559677
this, they'll get assassinated by the international astronomer's association
they'll come for Musk as well if he ever puts Starship orbital

>>10559675
>>10559677
>>10559679
Once the technology is viable it will come. Don't be delusional, there's a lot of money to make with advertisement.

>>10559684
Cute dreams ancap retard

>>10559684
I swear to god I will Kessler us all

>>10559684
Will be outlawed because it wil have a huge impact on nocturnal animals.

there doesn't seem a way to make mars colonization profitable outside of goverement intervention. I obviously want it to happen but it's not happening currently because of economic incentives it's just Elon decided it's the right way to go, literally the one guy who set himself in that position.

So I am curious is there a way to market mars? I mean I can imagine goverement funding military bases, or maybe research instutions, or maybe universities could pull funds to send scientists there on rotation. DESU tourism might be possible, but I really have a hard time to put together a relevant frame work.
It's very hard to justify a recourse drain on earth...
I expect answers by next morn

>>10559715
We have been through this quite a lot, for a start the starship trips will be paid for by people who pay for tickets. There are loads of things you can ship back from Mars

>3 Billion year old pure Martian aquifer water
>Martian stone tile, pavers, schist, benchtops etc
>Martian meteor fragments

Richfag will pay through the nose for this kind of shit.

>>10559715
Dilithium for warp drive.
Pls Elon

>>10559669
I'm surprised I've never read or seen a dystopian future setting where this ultimate nightmare was implemented. It seems so simple.

>>10559724
I thought Mars rock was poison.

>>10559715
This if there's no money to be made in something nobody is going to do it.

Spacex fans are delusional.

>>10559905
Radioactive, toxic, and might contain deadly microbes.

It's going to make a killing on the market lel.

>>10559486

>>10559511
A LITERAL TOILET PAPER TUBE TO SPACE

>>10555644
This is obviously a marketing render. They don't have time to photograph the rocket on the pad as it is being filled with dangerous cryogenic rocketfuel

>>10559694
lol, who gives a fuck about nocturnal animals.

Some esa survey about what you want them to do
https://esa.sciwise.org/

>>10560107
Kek, are those guys bored or something?

Send elons memeship to Mars, establish breeding unit and see how low gravity affects growth.

>>10558917
Incredibly useful. Before you can land on the moon you need space stations along the way.

>>10560107
Kek
I am telling them on you posting btw

>>10560107
I discovered recently that ESA has about half the budget of NASA.
And Nasa 's budget is not all Space exploration.
And those cucks never sent a human to orbit.
What the fuck are they doing with the money?

>>10560107
What I want them (and NASA) to do is study the effects of Martian and Lunar gravity on the human body. We need an artificial gravity station before we go colonizing other places. A rotating space station isn’t feasible with today’s launch costs but hopefully the BFR will change with. Say what you want about Starship but I think you would be hard pressed to think of a better design to reduce launch costs. Only thing that worries me is the heat shield.

Why no Uranus and Neptune probes?

>>10560363
Probably because the majority of scientists are satisfied with the data they got from Voyager.

>>10559905
only a little bit, but the poison is all water soluble so you just need to get hosed off when you bring any equipment inside
a simple enough decontamination procedure

>>10560363
I'll probe ur anus, if you know what I mean.

>>10560363
Because they're tired of all the Uranus jokes.

>>10560353
>half the budget of NASA
>when over half the budget of NASA is consumed by SLS and Orion
where does the money go?

>>10560401
>listofSLScontractors.webm

>>10560401
>>half the budget of NASA
>>when over half the budget of NASA is consumed by SLS and Orion

>Total NASA Annual budget: $21B
>SLS Annual Budget: $2B
>Orion Annual Budget: $1.35B

Don't get me wrong, I think SLS and Orion are wasteful trash projects.

>>10560406
eh I was only off by one order of magnitude

>>10560363
They're pretty far out and so travel time is obnoxious, and they're probably still going through all of the data that's already been taken, you'd be amazed how much a roomfull of autists can wring out of what a few low power probes were able to take.

>>10560406
>>10560401
http://www.planetary.org/blogs/jason-davis/2017/20170523-nasa-full-2018-budget-request.html
It's even worse than I thought.
NASA's space Budget must be about $10B according to this page.
Half it's budget is just other stuff.
So ESA at $6.6B is specifically a space agency and is doing absolutely nothing with the money.

>>10560363
Because both Voyager spacecraft benefited from planet alignments that won't be seen again for a long while.
Aka, it would take way more time/deltaV to get there than back then.

If there's one thing I want to see from this era of spaceflight, its various types of telescope on the moon. Lower gravity means the telescopes can be built significantly larger, and no atmosphere means bullshit like adaptive optics aren't needed.

>>10560449
Telescopes on the dark side should have some incredible shots available.

>>10560107
>rate everything we currently do on a scale of 0 to 100
Kinda boring survey, desu.

>>10560449
Why bother putting them on the moon? Why not in orbit? Why would the low gravity mean you can build bigger mirrors?

>>10560504
Why are you on /sci/ at all. Why would your lack of knowledge prevent you from being a bigger faggot?

>>10560504
Because then it doesn't require a zero G EVA to fix.

>>10560509
Exactly. It now requires a near-zero-g EVA that has to content with environmental factors like moon dust. Also requires a much more sophisticated space craft to visit.

>>10560508
>Why go on /sci/ if your just going to ask inquisitive questions?
Imagine being this dumb

>>10560504
the big thing about the far side of the moon is that it was in nearly complete radio silence, before China ruined it with their relay satellite
there's no way to get that without being behind something big, and you can't stay behind the moon in space unless you're in an earth-moon lagrange point

>>10559190
>its possible with non-existent, untested, machines.

>>10560520
Com on, dude, you have to know the answer.
If you don't, you know absolutely nothing about astronomy.
I myself barely used a telescope 20 years ago, and I know why you'd want telescopes on the Moon.

>>10560522
the folding mirror part is the easy part of JWST, they're fucking up with the sun shield

>>10560504
Radio telescopes would benefit from being on the far side of the moon. Several thousand kilometers of rock makes for an excellent radio shield from Earth's emissions. Near infrared telescopes dont need active cooling during the night-cycle. Opticals can use bigger mirrors or arrays of smaller telescopes linked together. UV, Xray, and Gamma-ray telescopes can be built much larger.

Once built on the moon, none of them will have to worry about things like gyroscope failures, lack of fuel, ridiculously complicated sunshields, and the inherent risk of a rocket launch to get the completed machine up in the first place. Once built a lunar telescope of any type could remain active for decades.

>>10560519

>>10560526
Here, this anon gave you half the answer.

>>10560528
Wouldn't you still need sun shields for the period of the moon's orbit that placed it between the sun and Earth?

>>10559694
topkek

>>10560536
It's easy, anon, think about it.
Can you see the stars during the day?

>>10560540
Oh, so the sun shield is about field of view and not preventing thermal damage. Got it.

>>10560543
Also, let's be honest, a goddamn mirror can just reflect heat away in a vacuum.

>>10560528
interesting.

Though there's nothing simple about building a big telescope on the moon either. The only reason the sun shields are so complex is because they are all completely pre-build on earth. Imagine trying to build a moon telescope that could land and assemble itself on the ground and not run into any issues?

I see the benefits, and it's cool. But i wouldn't exactly be so fast to shit on orbital telescopes.

>>10560549
which is what the orbital telescopes have to do anyways.

>>10560550
There's that.
Also, we could do 14 days straight exposure with no parasite light, nor atmospheric distortion with a tracking scope.
And we could be doing that on 99% of the sky.
Hubble and Earth bound telescopes just find themselves with Earth blocking the view or satellites passing in the field of view.

Why isn't this shit done with LRO images?

>>10560564
Orbital telescopes don;t need to be in LEO. They can be at Lagrange points (like the james webb), or anywhere in the solar system really.

>>10560550
the hype shit would be putting big telescopes at Earth-Moon Lagrange points 2,3,4 and 5 for an interferometer telescope

>>10560573
Well, for, now, they're just orbital.
And being anywhere else means they need a complex cooling/penumbra system that doesn't seem to want to work.

>>10560578
They need all that in LEO too, and they also need it on the moon.

>>10560574
This guy gets it. I want my photos a AYY LMAOS hanging out getting sun tans on their home planets.

>>10560574
think about that >>10560564 for a second.
You wouldn't even need to process the data, as it would be pure.

>>10560574
having a big telescope at 1 would help too
having big telescopes in hubble style orbits would also help
more big telescopes in general always helps

>>10560580
What do you think the big thing that's supposed to deploy under the telescope is?
Yep, that's the 'moon'.
But let me tell you that's what needs cooling, because it's thin.
It would just radiate everywhere if it wasn't actively cooled, hence why JWST will be on the clock to do its mission.
Cooling issues on the moon are the opposite and are about the 14 days the telescopes spends in sunlight.
Just aiming the telescope slightly away from the sun will do the trick.

>>10560578
True but the further you get from the sun the less you have to deal with heat rejection so LEO is ok but L2 is better especially because you can also put the Earth between your 'scope and the Sun, eliminating the greatest source of thermal input by staying in Earth's shadow.

>>10560611
L2 was never about eternal shadow.
I don't see permanent Moon eclipses over here.

>>10560615
Disregard that it seem like it actually is.
Well, yeah, L2 or the moon.
What's cool about the moon, though is that it's 100% shielded from Earth garbage.

>>10560604
>Just aiming the telescope slightly away from the sun will do the trick.
Or have someone cover it with a tarp. There's your excuse for a manned lunar mission.

>>10560627
Well, that would be totally unnecessary.

>>10560615
The big benefit of astronomy on the far side of the moon is that there's no reflected or emitted light from the Earth to worry about.

>>10560629
Well, yeah, hence my idea of 14 days exposure, which is most likely not my idea.
But when anon said L2, I was thinking Earth-Moon L2, when he was saying Sun-Erf L2.
I don't really know where it is. Is it close enough that it's always in an Earth eclipse?

>>10560628
Having someone there means that the telescope doesn't have to be 100% reliable. If something goes wrong, then the crew can fix it or at the very least set it up so it won't get further damaged until repairs can come.

>>10560633

>>10560640
I know, but there are different L2s.
That being said, I'm starting to thing Sun-Erf L2 doesn't help at all because sunlight is most likely barely blocked by Earth at this point.

>>10560637
It’s a lot easier to visit an orbital telescope. Landing people on the moon is not trivial.

>>10560652
Yeah, sorry, but it would be easier to service a telescope on the Moon than where JWST is going.

>>10560652
it's easier to service a lunar telescope than visit a lagrange point and come back

>>10560657
Uh.. why do you think that?

>>10560660
Why is that?

>>10560652
Not really, the Moon is a huge target compared to an orbital platform.
t. KSP-pro

>>10560677
Lol. Small targets aren’t hard.

>>10560669
Well, for once, it's much further away than the Moon. At the limits of Earth's gravity well.
Transfer time to the Moon is like half a week.
To L2 is same as reaching escape velocity pointing the right way, and I'm oversimplifying.
But you can't just brute force your way there, and have to hohman transfer there. It's gonna be weeks if no months before you get there.

>>10560674
I don't actually know where I got the idea that EML points were hard to get to

>>10560689
>But you can't just brute force your way there.
Why?

>>10560691
It's not hard, per say.
It's just that you might as well design a Mars mission.

>>10560695
Well, you can, but then it's that much delta-v you have to burn off on arrival, which means a bigger rocket.

>>10560700
>which means a bigger rocket
If only we had a super heavy rocket that can be easily put together using preexisting parts and launched quickly for a relatively small development cost...

Let's put it another way.
A L2 rescue would be barely possible if you launched a Saturn V without a LEM, and a single person on board, and I'm not even sure.
Yeah we don't have the balls nor the hardware for that.

>>10560691
I didn’t say that did I?

The hard parts are landing while trying not to sandblast your telescope with moondust. Having the right hardware to support a landing. EVAing while contending with moon dust. Taking off again, while contending with lunar gravity loses. Ideally have the same ship that could land on the moon also reenter earths atmosphere without ditching hardware.

Best of luck.

>>10560700
How terrible.

>>10560711
why not rendezvous with your re-entry heatshield in LEO?

>>10560705
And I meant a bigger rocket than Saturn-V/SLS/Starship.

>>10560680
That's not the issue. The Moon has enough gravity to "catch" an object. Orbital objects require finesse to rendezvous, especially on time critical missions. Meanwhile the moon has a 24/7 launch window. Basically I'm saying the Moon has a larger margin of error.

>>10560724
Because that sounds comically unsafe? I don’t think I could even make that work i kerbal.

But even it is was possible, it’s adding a lot of complexity and cost to the mission.

>>10560730
>24/7 launch window
plus 3.5 days to get there, and we're talking having a heavy lift rocket be ready just in case.

>>10560730
>Orbital objects require finesse to rendezvous
So does landing at a specific spot on the fucking moon. Your destination is a telescope on the moon, not just low lunar orbit. The moon particularly has variations in gravity making navigation difficult. This nearly caused Apollo 11 to lose the mission.

>>10560727
I figured, but I wanted to take a potshot at SLS.

>>10560733
okay well it was fun to think about anyway

>>10560748
Yeah, SLS is one of those project that will explode only once.
I'll take a day off if I must, but I will watch it.

Here's another idea for servicing L2 telescopes.
We send a crew there, they do their jobs, we all celebrate, and then they die.
That's what we're able to do right now.

I wonder if anyone warned Elon that he was being a dumbass and that Falcon Heavy was going to be a completely different, incompatible, complex rocket

I'm glad he was able to move on from it so quickly

>>10560765
Well, looks like customers talked him out of cancelling it.
Which is why we have proposals like pic related and why SLS is looking a lot less sexy.

>>10560763
it just needs to be refueled to probably last 25 more years

now if the whole fairy dust 5 layer sunshades don't work correctly, I think the solution to that is to just fire a bunch of engineers for not being realistic

I don't see why repairs need to be human - in fact humans lack a lot of precision

>>10560763
Any serviceable space based telescopes besides hubble?

>>10560769
Story I heard many times is Elon tried to cancel it in a meeting and Gwynne Shotwell had to run in to remind him he couldn’t cancel it because they already had customers signed up for it.

>>10560778
Not really. Most were one pump and done type deals.

>>10560765
While the Falcon Heavy wasn't as good as was hoped, it was the first real blow against the SLS and it was developed for less than what NASA had predicted.

>>10560770
Yeah, So two super-heavy launches at that.

>>10560778
Realistically, no.

>>10560782
I'm glad she did, because now I can laugh harder at SLS. (sometimes I cry too)

>>10560786
Starship will probably launch before SLS at this rate.

If they weren't retarded, they would do the whole deployment procedure before heading out to L2.
That way we can service it when it's still in LEO.

>>10560791
I know, I keep telling myself it won't be delayed anymore but it's been almost 2 years of absolutely nothing, now.

>>10560795
How can we service it in LEO?

>>10560805
Good question. Depends on the problem, I guess.
I'll just tell you it's 100% more feasible right now that servicing in L2.

>>10560748
Avionics software will ground it for years even if the hardware is ready. They had problems with duct taping the various legacy pieces together already, and plenty of people quitting the job.

>>10560812
True. But 100% more feasible than completely unfeasible is still completely unfeasible.

>>10560816
Wat?
Why are those pork job workers quitting?

>>10560805
Expedite human rating of Dragon and Orion, put together some tether suits and little broomstick maneuvering systems and lob them up there with Falcon Heavy launches.

>>10560821
I guess a soyuz or Dragon2 spacecraft could do it.
I'd veer more toward soyuz, because the have vaccum suits unlike SpaceX.
But they don't have externally accessible hardware in a trunk of some sort.
Mission will be exponentially more sifficult from Hubble rescue because no grabbing arm.
So best shot is Dragon2 with some sort of real space suits. And a lot of balls.

>>10560823
you have two job offers
one pays okay, and expects you to fill space while not rocking the boat, and trying to do meaningful work is either impossible or will get you fired, with no route to meaningful skills progression or self-improvement
the other pays great, but expects you to accomplish great things. You'll learn a lot quickly, can put meaningful work on your resume, but they expect you to work hard and care about your work.

Which would you chose?

>>10560791
Doubt it. Boeing will get some serious criticism from the US government if that happens.

>>10560816
>They had problems with duct taping the various legacy pieces together already
Source on that? The only hardware problems I've heard of were with the tank, mainly due to it being built in a new way.

>>10560840
I'd choose the guaranteed payroll?
I might feel sad, but moneys.

>>10560838
doesn't Dream Chaser have room for a robot arm? You could also shove an arm into the Dragon trunk. Not having an airlock or EVA suits is an issue, but a tethered Gemini style walk might be possible with the SpaceX suits, depending on their design

>>10560847
you're choosing to get payed less because you don't want to work, and your entire job hinges on some fat congressman from Alabama continuing to feed you pork
if he ever dies and the program gets cancelled, you'll be left with nothing to put on your resume that won't get you laughed out of the room

>>10560852
Well, I was talking about current possibilities.
But I wouldn't know, as Dream chaser doesn't look even remotely real to me. Even SLS looks more real.
>>10560859
Yeah, I would.
People quitting the SLS only shows there's a limit to that.
Now, they'll just go to spaceX and feel alive again.
And I'd happily replace them, If my country had a pork heavy lift vehicle program.

>>10560871
you would surrender your soul to the government in exchange for filling a job where your continued employment hinges on something you can't control?

>>10560823
>>10560841
I couldn't find the exact insider source, it was a link to external site from some nsf thread discussing it, probably already archived and related to the sls. External searches yield nothing and the sites' search function needs registration. It had various pieces of small bits of info like that. This particular related article is all I could scrape because I remembered reading it:
>https://arstechnica.com/science/2016/03/nasas-glue-ware-for-computer-launch-systems-over-budget-behind-schedule/

Old, but speaks exactly of the issues I remember reading about - software problems related to gluing legacy crap because its "easier". They might or might not have solved them by now. Anyone willing to bet?

>>10560874
I wonder why so many people happened to do so in the last few decades.
Don't be an asshole. If all you could see was workhours vs pay, and nobody held you accountable for anything, then that's a dream job.
Congratulation, Anon, you were present in the workplace at working hours. Let us give you what you need to feed your family. Worked for a few decades.
Old fox can feel the breeze switching sides, though.
It's gonna make SLS even less likely to launch at all.

>>10560886
are you from Eastern Europe?
Were you born in the ComBlock?

>>10560887
Nah, I'm French.
Recently, I've been questioning why ESA can't a human into space when they have half the budget of NASA's exploration branch.

>>10560823
>>10560841
>>10560884
Found it, but not the specific thread I originally found it being discussed. Probably can backtrack it now using the link but no need.
>http://nasawatch.com/archives/2018/02/sls-software-pr.html

And it's a lot fresher than the arse article.

>Sources report that Andy Gamble has been allowed to retire and George Mitchell has been reassigned from NASA MSFC QD34 to Engineering. The SLS software team at MSFC is having great difficulty in hiring people to replace those who have quit. There is a lot of internal concern as a result of issues already raised with regard to SLS software safety to date that MSFC will literally have to go back to square one on software so as to verify it for use on human missions.

>>10560895
Oh, I remember, but that was a year ago.
Not sure what to make out of it.
Was software so trash, developers just quit?
Or doesn't this happen equally in other branches?

>>10560902
he probably got tired of not working

>>10560895
Thank you.

Christ, SLS is such a shitshow.

>>10558882
>The first Cosmonauts on the moon will be brought there by Americans
How times have changed.

>>10558882
>inb4 chinks swallow it and buy starship rides + landing just to beat the japs

>>10558115
>"I'd like to point out that that test pilot survived."

>>10559684
I would rather we shoot them all out of the sky with anti-sats and cause Kessler syndrome than have to deal with flying Coca Cola ads when I'm trying to watch the stars at night.

>>10560950
I dont want to be locked in on a planet with third worlders.
I want my grandchildren to flip of earth while it burns and leave for the stars.

>>10560965
Nobody is leaving deserters will be shot.

>>10560895
So management had the great fucking idea to use legacy motherfucking software components (probably inspired by the great performance of Ariane rockets, I'd like to imagine).
And then to the surprise of no one outside of management, it turned out that that shit didn't work at fucking all and working on that ungodly mass of legacy code was a living nightmare.
And only AFTER all their programmers quit in frustration, management realizes that they probably should've just made a proper system from scratch.
And now they have zero programmers left to do it for them and deadline is yesterday.

Yeah, that's certainly one way to run your billion dollar software project into the ground.

Rumor abounds that the FH center core fell off the barge due to heavy seas on the way back.

>>10561131
https://www.theverge.com/2019/4/15/18311945/spacex-falcon-heavy-center-core-drone-ship-rough-ocean

confirmed from spacex

>>10561138
hmmm I don't understand why FH isn't compatible with Octagrabber

Starship as orbital firetrucks when?

>>10561142
Lower booster mounts probably get in the way

>>10561138
Lol, that fuckin blows

>>10561154
the curse of the FH center core

>>10560895
>>10560902
I just read through this.
Basically, NASA programmers want to be thorough and for everything they build they want to build in a warning sign. This is so that when pieces of the code change, they get a warning when functions suddenly output different stuff than they previously did/than was expected.
It's a basic safety measure in programming for projects where multiple people work on multiple, interconnected pieces of code.

Well apparently middle management is telling these programmers to just stop implementing this stuff to save time. And they're telling them to actively ignore instances where the existing tests are complete shit (checking whether a calculator exists vs. checking whether the calculator can actually calcualte math problems).

So NASA programmers are protesting that this is an unsafe/irresponsible way to produce software but middle management is afraid to lose their jobs if they don't show as much progress as possible. So programmers eventually resigned in protest and now there's no progress anymore at all.

>>10561138
Poor core-chan.

>>10561176
Working on the SLS must be pretty close to engineering purgatory.

>>10561138
!

Imagine developing payloads so heavy they can ONLY be launched by the SLS program and you have all your eggs sitting in that basket, at the mercy of the American Congress

>>10561176
>middle management is afraid to lose their jobs if they don't show as much progress as possible
So...they're the only managers on SLS who worry about making progress?

>>10561189
Agreed.

>>10561198
>People are quitting instead of trying to fight the system, or in some cases, they leave after having been forced out for speaking up about their concerns. As Samouha notes:
>"These people have been for a long time (and still are) continuously ignoring or not properly addressing FSW Safety related observations and findings and unethically do not disclose issues to the upper management in order to show a virtual progress in order to keep their jobs. Anyone with years of experience and integrity to Safety can see through these imposters just like I did."
This is not the way to accelerate development. Cutting corners on testing of your legacy software integration is how you get Ariane V maiden flight.

>>10561210
As if I already dislike the SLS enough. It's as if it dug a hole of disdain until it hit bedrock, and then it pulls out a jackhammer.

>>10561222
i always laugh at the "old space" meme, but stuff like the SLS really makes it hard to ignore it sometimes.

>>10561210
Holy shit the only part of SLS that will ever reach orbit is the fireball.

>Former astronaut and long-duration spaceflight pioneer Owen Garriott, 88, died today, April 15, at his home in Huntsville, Alabama. Garriott flew aboard the Skylab space station during the Skylab 3 mission and on the Space Shuttle Columbia for the STS-9/Spacelab-1 mission. He spent a total of 70 days in space.

>>10561599
RIP

>>10561599
RIP Skylab bro
I was just watching a series of videos by him on space shit

>>10561599
"On September 10, 1973, controllers in Houston were startled to hear a woman's voice beaming down from Skylab. Using a sexy tone of voice and calling startled capsule communicator (CAPCOM) Bob Crippen by name, the woman explained: "The boys haven't had a home-cooked meal in so long I thought I'd bring one up." After several minutes in which she described forest fires seen from space and the beautiful sunrise, the woman said: "Oh oh. I have to cut off now. I think the boys are floating up here toward the command module and I'm not supposed to be talking to you." As the Skylab astronauts later revealed, Garriott had recorded his wife Helen during a private radio transmission the night before."

That's pretty cool. You'll be missed, Owen.

>>10561138

>>10561138
The ocean really doesn't seem to be very conducive to retrieving boosters, the landings are getting better but the part where you actually have to get them all the way back to shore seems to be a bit of a problem. The Octagrabber's obvious issue would be that it's providing it's support way too far down when the most common issue with the SpaceX's barge landings appears to be tipping which means the support should be much higher up on the rocket.

>>10561929
I always thought SpaceX should add a arm-mounted ring similar to what Soyuz uses to hold the rocket during launch. On touchdown, the arms would extend over the center of the barge, form a large ring above it around the booster, then inflate airbags so that if the booster does start swinging about it doesn't bash the shit out of itself on the support ring.

When is the next SpaceX's launch?

>>10559192
>He-3 is actually much easier to fuse then D-T.
Wrong, He-3 requires temperatures about 3x higher than D-T and twice as high as D-D fusion, at the same plasma density. He-3 fusion is much harder to accomplish. Also, by the time we're able to fuse He-3 at all, we'll obviously be able to fuse deuterium and tritium, and deuterium-deuterium, which means we'll already have a fusion economy using the huge reserve of deuterium in sea water on Earth, and therefore would gain nothing from the huge effort of extracting lunar He-3.

>>10559413
That's the thermal probe, the seismometer just sits on the ground under a little tent.

>>10560353
>What the fuck are they doing with the money?
Subsidizing Ariane rockets so they can compete with SpaceX

>>10560363
Not enough money allocated to flagship class missions.
>>10560441
Voyager 2 was able to hit all the outer planets up because of the coincidental alignment, which won't happen again for a long time, but the only important gravity assist we'd need to reach Uranus or Neptune is just Jupiter, which means there's a new opportunity for a mission to either of the ice giants every 16 years or so. That's if you actually need a gravity assist, if you are using a giant rocket like Starship then you probably don't, although doing the assist anyway would let you build a heavier/better probe.

>>10560578
>complex cooling/penumbra system
Then dispense with the need to make everything ultralight and just make one that's robust enough to actually work but weighs more, and launch it on Starship where you have >100 tons of capacity, so you can throw in an extra 20 tons of maneuvering propellant to extend the telescope's lifetime while you're at it.

>>10560708
On the other hand it'd be piss easy to refuel a Starship in orbit and send it to L2 with a crew of a dozen people to fix the satellite's shit and come back, 6 months round trip if necessary.

>>10560833
>Expedite human rating of Dragon and Orion
Dragon will have launched with astronauts several times before JWST goes up.

>>10562037
Excellent, in that case if something were to go wrong with JWST in the hypothetical situation where it's deployed in LEO before being moved to it's final position then it would just need modification enough to carry astronauts with relatively low-cost tether suits so they could perform maintenance on it.

Elon says the core stage engines are probably fine

>>10561972
https://spaceflightnow.com/launch-schedule/

>>10558676
He is a uneducated drug addict what do you expect?
I do not understand the cult following this guy is a joke.

>>10560785
Nobody knows what the real development costs were.
I highly doubt that it only did cost 500 million.
Musk is known for lying and cross subsidizing failing conpanies with others where the scam is still active and strong.

>>10561630
>prank radio calls
>outright mutiny
What was it with skylab?