/sci/ - Science & Math

untethered hops soon

We should do a passby of Venus. Going back to the moon without building a base is stupid.

>>10594906
>"Are untethered tests going to start with 1 Raptor or 3?"

>"1"

>>10594903
ya ever feel like a lil spaceship on the internet

also, I can't be the only one that misses the "worm" NASA logo, right? it's so kino

If I could ever do an alt universe thing with NASA, I'd do a timeline where the shuttle was actually treated like an experimental vehicle and the Shuttle-C did most of the stuff the IRL shuttle did in regards to hauling the ISS into orbit and lifting sats.

You could pretty easily butterfly away the Challenger accident if NASA management wasn't obsessed with launch frequency, and Shuttle-Centaur could've still been a thing if they had an unmanned variant in the Shuttle-C.

Some variant of Columbia wouldn't be precluded though. That could still happen.

HOP WHEN

>>10594934
S O O N

O

O

N

>>10594923
Fuck NASA for wasting hundreds of billions to date on the ISS. That heap of space junk prevented us from going to mars.

>>10594945
>implying that studying the long-term effects of microgravity on the human body isn't a neccessary step for mars colonization
Did you even read what you were replying to? Shuttle-C could've done the ISS in a few launches - way cheaper than the crewed shuttle.

a team of anime girls on space ships

Good reading for the history of how we went from Shuttle-C to DIRECT to SLS
>>10594508
>>10594549
>>10594576

>>10594969
Kinda sorta already been done with Rocket Girls.

>>10594972
Want to compile it into a single image?

Activities are in high gear at Boca Chica. Concrete has been poured for the new base, massive earth moving operations, new prefab slabs delivered to the launch site. Some internal work being done on hopper. Panel refinement and lowering of hardware into orbital starship has taken place. More job openings available. New construction jig frame is under way.

Meanwhile, the first batch of Starlink sats has arrived at the cape. FH center core has completed testing. next F9 CRS mission delayed to the 1st

>>10594963
We literally know nothing about the effects of 0.1-1g which is the most important fucking thing to know for any planetary colonisation. Decades of research to say

>0g bad

Is a fucking joke, we already knew that. Yet they continue muh 0g experiments rather than sending up small centrifuges to test various gravity levels on various animals because

>Muh microgravity tests

Fucking die

>>10594977
Any idea how many sats are in that batch? And it's going up in May sometime right?

>>10594973
Done.

Basically: All the shuttle-derived crap was meant to reduce turnaround and get rid of the gap in-between. Shuttle would've probably been the best, and was planned to fly WITH the shuttle, but never happened. Jupiter was well-intentioned, but probably wouldn't have worked out too much better than the SLS, and the SLS is a lot-less related to shuttle than most think: basically the RS-25s are the only part that hasn't been radically changed in the transition.

A lot of people don't know the role the DIRECTfags had in the SLS's creation. Understandable, since they're some of its loudest critics. But if we're honest, their plan wasn't THAT different, and probably would've run into similar problems.

>>10594985
Knowing HOW bad 0g is just as important as knowing it's bad. Until ISS all we knew was that it wasn't good. We didn't know how long we could keep people in that state, nor how serious the health consequences would be. We only knew they existed.

Also, stop being an ass and ignoring my god-damned point: with a fucking Shuttle-C it wouldn't have taken a dozen fucking launches to put it together and a hundred billion dollars. It would've taken like five, and we'd be on our merry way after that.

>>10594996
>>10594985
It's a shitty situation now because the ISS is too close to deorbiting for a partial gravity experiement module to make sense, and there's no real replacement plans currently. It could be decades before we get good partial g research.

>>10594963
Doesn't justify the expense. We should have built the Von Braun station.

>>10594996
All shuttles were garbage pieces of shit. So glad the spaceplane meme is finally fucking dead.

>>10594911
This
>>10595029
This too

computerized

>>10594996
Main point of the ISS was to send third worlders and special interest groups into space for "muh first _______" in space. A PR campaign and a bad one at that.

Interesting snippet about the DM-1 investigation from L2:

The engine people involved in the investigation have apparently gone home early, this suggests the root cause of the failure lies in the plumbing and not the SDs themselves.

>>10595029
o hai

>>10595029
ded u say?

>>10595051
Pretty sure thats a given, they've tested the damn things both uninstalled and installed and they've never exploded.

My guess is salt-water got into something it shouldnt have, damaged some pipes, and when they prepped for the superdraco test, one of the pipes ruptured and essentially tore out the entire fuel system on that side of the craft.

>>10595055
Yet to have an orbital flight, although it'll be pretty neat when it does. Pity it doesn't have a manned option yet.

>>10595029
Shuttle-C was a shuttle minus the actual shuttle. The reason it was called a shuttle was because it reused the shuttle infrastructure and just dumped the orbiter

It's clear you're just skimming what everyone else is saying, because this is literally a project that addressed your exact complaint.

>>10595076
>>10595029
Seriously Anon, it's literally the thread image. If you weren't too braindead to actually listen to what people said, maybe you'd stop saying stupid shit

>>10595021
Yeah, I wish we had done centripetal experiments. All I'm trying to say is that it coulda been done way cheaper by just slapping a payload bay instead of an orbiter to a shuttle stack.

Some Anon's pissed off because he saw the phrase "use shuttle-c" and thinks it's the same goddamn thing as the manned orbiters. It's not.

>>10595107
Shuttle-C is expendable or what?

>>10595225
Depends on the incarnation.

The 1990 proposal: no. The SRBs would be recovered as normal, but the SSME boattail would be destroyed upon reentry. This is, IMO, the best way to go about it if you want it fast and easy. If you go for re-usability, you no longer can just take the end of an orbiter and lop the engine section off (in-design) because...

The alternative design had a reusable avionics capsule (on the cone) and a reusable boattail (the SSMEs would detach from the payload bay and parachute down into the sea, where they would be recovered).

Either way, both Shuttle-C would start out fully expendable, more capable, and cheaper than the manned orbiter (which was only needed for ISS crew missions at best).

>>10595260
So basically not reusable at all. Lel what a piece of shit.

>>10594945
There is nothing to do on mars. Human spaceflight is a waste of money. Wh not send probes?

>>10595029
yeah what about the fucking SpaceX meme steel dildo lifting body will never exist hype?

>>10595483
it amazes me that after the falcon9 + falcon 9 heavy story people are still calling what spaceX is doing a meme.

>its a meme
>its not going to work
>LEGS? BWAHAHAHAHAHA
>SLS will fly first
>reusability is not feasible
>elon should stop playing kerbal

And now all these ney sayers who were so vocal before are doing just the same thing with the BFR.
SpaceX is going to make that giant steel dildo and the haters will look stupid, again.

>>10595329
Newsflash egghead: science is not the only goal of spaceflight. Or even the most important. Developing manned spaceflight technology with the aim of establishing space colonies is.

>>10594945
ISS is as shitty and overpriced as it is due to Shuttle. If the best you can do is send tiny 20 ton tin cans to low orbit at more than $ billion a pop, ISS is what you inevitably end up with.

>>10595314
Shuttle "reusability" was worse than the alternative.

An expendable shuttle would've been a straight upgrade from a cost perspective, that's how bad it was.

>>10595604
>>SLS will fly first
This is actually true tho

What's wrong with this picture?

It's not some shitty alternate timeline thing, even though it might look like it. This was a real photo.

>>10595995
>Enterprise
It never flew. And IIRC, it was never meant for flight, but as a test article for air transport and aerodynamic study.

>>10595055
Looking more and more like that little wedge shuttle from Interstellar.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-q7ZVXOU3kM
I bumped into this video on YouTube, and it pretty resent, from 2016.
But wasn't Buran destroyed by hangar collapse? Why there is two orbiters? They saying it never went to space, but I pretty sure it did.
What did I missing?

>>10596054
The real one that went to space was destroyed. The test article survived.

>>10596138
>>10596141

I honestly feel like i could do a better weld then half the welds in these pictures.

>>10596142
Apply to SpaceX then.

>>10596142
https://boards.greenhouse.io/spacex/jobs/4265210002?gh_jid=4265210002

Did nasa finally drop the six godzillion element lunar lander concept thing?

>>10594923
I'd drop the shuttle altogether. ISS would've been delivered by an alternative version of Atlas V with F1-B engines. Manned low orbital flights and light ISS restocking missions would've been performed by the Dynawing. Saturn VI would be repurposed as a heavy lifter coming up on retirement.

>>10596156
>>10596159
not gone give up my job here in europe to go weld starships for chumpchange in the us.

>>10596164
Not sure, but there is this from yesterday:

https://www.fbo.gov/index.php?s=opportunity&mode=form&id=5dcac498e0b7b8def42dea1068b1eab7&tab=core&tabmode=list&=

>This amendment to pre-solicitation notice NNH19ZCQ001K_APP-H replaces the original version that was posted April 8, 2019, and broadens the scope from the Human Landing System's (HLS) Ascent Element to a complete integrated lander that incorporates multiple elements such as a Descent Element, Ascent Element, and Transfer Vehicle.

>>10596202
Sounds cool. But isn't something that heavy neccessarily tied to SLS?

>Rich cousin goes to RIT for Carbon Fiber manufacturing studies
>Gets hired by SpaceX in 2014
>Now SpaceX is converting all to stainless steel

haha fuck u little shit

http://tass.com/science/1055908

>Russian space firm develops one-orbit scheme for spacecraft to reach orbital outpost
>In April, a Progress MS-11 resupply ship set a record by the time of its flight to the ISS. It took the cargo spacecraft 3 hours and 21 minutes to reach the orbital outpost. The resupply ship made two rotations around Earth.

Soon, time to reach the ISS will be cut down to 2 hour trips instead of 3 hours and 40 minutes. Its a further refinement in reaching the ISS faster and faster. Previously it took 48 hours and then 6 hours and now the standard is 3:40 hours.

>>10596203
No. Part of the reason NASA's asking for a three-part lander (instead of a two-part) is because a three-part design allows commercial rockets to carry at least 2/3rds of it.

Since SLS Block IB won't be online any more than a year before the 2024 deadline, they're trying to minimize schedule slip by throwing what they can onto heavy-lifter commerical.

For example: An expendable FH can't toss a capsule into NRHO with enough dV to make the round-trip back to Earth. It CAN, however, toss a station or lander part there, since it's one-way. So for the architecture right now, SLS is primarily being used as a crew transfer vehicle. It's only in Block IB that it can start bringing cargo with that crew to TLI as well.

>>10596262
They still have some carbon fibres at least on their falcons for the moment.

>>10596174
The concept behind shuttle was good. The primary issues as I see them are:
1) Bad choice of TPS
2) Side-mounting the orbiter
3) Lack of abort system
4) Too long to refurbish after flight

IMO, this all stems from NASA's belief that it could get a reusable rocket done right and reliable on the first try. They couldn't, and when they denied that and tried to pretend like they did, Challenger happened.

If they'd made two initial orbiters, tried out the design and treated them like experimental vehicles instead of space-trucks, the problems would've been a lot clearer, and then they could move onto a "Shuttle 2" to fix them.

Instead they stuck with that initial flawed design for over 30 years. First because they were in denial, then because they were scared of what would happen to the agency if they switched from it. Then in 2010 they had to switch from it.

Hindsight is 20/20, but it's clear that NASA under-estimated just how difficult of a task making a reliable, safe, and cheap shuttle would be, and the whole program suffered for it.

>>10596274
Russian space program is glorified pizza delivery service.

>>10596303
I admire the Russians for sticking with one rocket design for so long that they've damn-near perfected it. It's like the opposite of the shuttle situation. NASA went with a bold and revolutionary concept that never quite worked out. Russia stuck with what it knew and made it as efficient as possible.

I only wish Roscosmos was not suffering from rampant corruption that's slowly killing it and sapping its budget. Then they could get a lot more done.

>>10596300
IIRC NASA went all-in on the Shuttle because equipment for other rockets (like the Saturn IB) were being stripped out due to budget cuts. NASA didn't just stick to the Shuttle to pretend to have a reusable spacecraft, they stuck with it because that was all they had.

>>10596311
Basically: Blame Nixon.
>tfw you're not in the timeline where NASA stuck with the Saturns and refined them to perfection like the Russians did with Soyuz

>>10596300

Even then, I dont think it would be more cost efficinent than a capsule for manned flights and fairing for unmanned cargo flights, with a simple expendable second stage.

>>10596303
Be grateful that the russians bothered taking you yanks along while delivering those pizzas to the ISS.
For almost a decade now the russains could claim the ISS as its own, planting a russian flag on it and the us can nothing about it outside of shooting it out of the sky.
Think about that.

>>10596328
they were already half there, vonbraun made the saturn with mars in mind.

>>10596309
It not like they really have a choice. They have no money, no industry no r&d capabilities, nothing.
They just have almost 60 years old rocket design that works.
After NASA will dump Soyuz they basically dead.

How low could you push cost per kg to LEO of a modernized Sea Dragon launch system design, built using modern manufacturing techniques?

>>10596328
If the stupid n1 actually worked saturn production would have been restarted faster than you can say communist takeover.

>>10596348
What's the proposed kg/$ to leo of it, and how does it compare to today's launchers?

>>10596175
>Shit talking a prototype made outdoors

You must like oldspace

>>10596353

>The rocket would have been able to carry a payload of up to 550 tonnes (540 long tons; 610 short tons) or 550,000 kg (1,210,000 lb) into LEO. Payload costs were estimated to be between $59 to $600 per kg.

>>10596175

Extremely bluepilled.

>>10596348
We have been over this many times in these threads.
The biggest problem with the sea dragon is the rocket nozzle.
There is a reason why most rockets gave a bunch of small nozzle's instead of one big one.
Scaling it up doesn't work.

>>10595995
It was from when they were planning to launch from vanderberg with the shuttle. If the challenger didn't explode, they were gonna launch from there later that year.

>>10596365

So how about Sea Dragon with multiple nozzles, like RD-170?

>>10596365
>There is a reason why most rockets gave a bunch of small nozzle's instead of one big one.
Not quite, Anon.

One nozzle is dumb for a first stage, but you're doing something wrong if your number of engines per stage breaks double-digits. You want reliability without complexity. A few redundant engines, but not 30 or so.

The only reason the Russians used like 20 small engines for Soyuz and N1 instead of four or five big ones is because they didn't have the money to test big new rocket designs like the Americans did. If they had the option, they would've switched.

>>10596370
sure, but it would probably have to be scaled down.

>>10596375

B-But BFR...

>>10596375
sure, but whats the better situation when losing a rocket nozzle during launch.
Having 4 big ones or a bunch of smaller ones.
What if you lose two.

>>10596365

I wonder if modern computational methods optimizing the shape and injector configuration could allow design of very big nozzles without the instability issues.

>>10596278
It's really too bad Crew Dragon went full JUST.
>put lander in lunar orbit with FH
>put lunar-LEO transit vehicle in LEO with FH
>put crew into vehicle with F9 and Crew Dragon
Could have gone to the moon next year for less than a billion total.

>>10596392
I think the cost of making a nozzle that big is also a big factor here.

>>10596394

Couldnt you use Crew Dragon as lander?

>>10596386
Depends. Nowdays, you might be able to use computers to balance the thrust, depending on which engines failed. If you can't do that, you abort.

Having too many nozzles massively increases the chance of engine failure because it makes plumbing and control much more complicated. More complexity = More points of failure

It's not good for reusability either, because such a complicated setup would be a maintenance nightmare.

There's a sweet-spot, and it seems to be somewhere between 4-9 engines for ascent stages, with 1-4 for upper stages*

*These are not precise numbers, just what I've generally observed

>>10596394
No way can you stick crew in Dragon for that long without a radical overhaul of its life support systems. They're not meant for long-term occupation.

>>10596404
I don't think it has enough fuel to do that, much less take off again. Scott Manley did a rough simulation of a lunar lander that uses Super Dracos and the lander was 60t.

>>10596411
no your right, the saturn had 5 fuckhuge rocket nozzle's and it worked just fine.
That setup with modern ways to distribute trust if one fails would be a interesting thing.

If SpaceX knew NASA wouldn't let them test propulsive landing on their contract, do you think they still would've gone with a "pusher" LES?

Seems like there's no advantage over a "tower" LES without that capability. You're just making your safety certification more painful, since you have to deal with rocket fuels only separated from the crew by thin walls.

>>10596375

>One nozzle is dumb for a first stage, but you're doing something wrong if your number of engines per stage breaks double-digits.

Super Heavy is going to have 31 Raptors.

>>10596422
My guess is that SpaceX hopes that NASA will change their stance. Just like how NASA didn't want previously flown boosters on their ISS resupply missions, but then later changed that.

Having a propulsively landed capsule means that it can land on dry land. This avoids the corrosive sea water and makes reusing the capsule much easier. Since NASA encourages reusing the capsules, this is a good goal.

>>10596359
>Elon Musk was able to build this in a field... with a pile of scrap!

>>10596348
LOX/RP1 or MethaLOX first stage firing ten 3D manufactured bleed cycle expander rockets each developing 35-40MN of thrust, MethaLOX second stage with two vacuum optimized versions of the same engine (assuming MethaLOX is used in both stages) developing between 50 and 60MN total. Ideally these enormous engines will be operating with chamber pressures close to 100 bar and ISPs of close to 300 at sea level and 320-330 in vacuum. This rocket would be a BSB (big smart booster) instead of a BDB, more expensive up front but with more efficient engines and greater ease of reuse. Additive manufacture and AI driven evolutionary iterative design will greatly reduce the manufacturing cost and complexity of the engines and probably many other working components of the rocket lighter and cheaper magnesium alloys can be used in lieu of aluminum wherever temperature allows to further reduce weight, and I'm fairly certain that the issues will eventually be ironed out of large sized COPV tanks which will further add to weight reduction.

>>10596432
I think if they could build an engine with the power of say ten Raptors to reduce the number of individual rockets to ten or eleven they would. As is it's probably a sub-optimal design decided upon because it will be easier to manage a lot of small rockets than it would be to manufacture an entirely new class of engine.

>>10596432
Which is dumb and will probably get changed once they realize how difficult plumbing all that would be.

>>10596411
>>10596386
>>10596375

These are baseless claims. Quite the opposite, large number of small engines is beneficial because it leads to multiple engine-out capability even during landing burns. Small engine exploding will not necessarily take out the whole rocket.

It also has other minor advantages such as being lighter (propulsion system mass scales with rocket bottom area instead of volume when you have so many small engines), having better coverage of the rocket ass end by nozzles, quickly ramping up thousands of individual engine burns leading to great reliability, mass producing many small engines is cheaper than few big ones...

>>10596436
NASA wasn't against SpaceX developing propulsive landing, they just didn't want them using the downmass capacity they were PAYING for as a guinea pig.

SpaceX decided that testing it separately from NASA wasn't worth, and shelved the capability.

>>10596452

>LOX/RP1 or MethaLOX

One advantage of H2/O2 specific to Sea Dragon is that you can manufacture the propellant from sea water in situ. This is why its designed with hydrogen engines.

>>10596487
You can manufacture methane in situ as well.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power-to-gas#Power_to_methane

>>10596470
>These are baseless claims
They are not. The N1 is a perfect example why relying on huge clusters is a development nightmare that should be avoided.
>Quite the opposite, large number of small engines is beneficial because it leads to multiple engine-out capability even during landing burns.
It also increases plumbing complexity and increases the chance of individual engine failures
>Small engine exploding will not necessarily take out the whole rocket.
No-one's saying that.
>It also has other minor advantages such as being lighter (propulsion system mass scales with rocket bottom area instead of volume when you have so many small engines)
That's really doubtful. Are you factoring in the weight of the extra nozzles, turbopumps, control machinery, and plumbing? It adds up.
>having better coverage of the rocket ass end by nozzles
Coverage? What advantage does coverage give you?
>quickly ramping up thousands of individual engine burns leading to great reliability
That doesn't follow, and I'm honestly not sure what you're trying to say with this.
>mass producing many small engines is cheaper than few big ones...
Again: doubtful. The engines themselves might be cheaper, but any cost advantage is going to get devoured in developing and testing the fuel lines, control systems, and whatnot.

I'm not saying it's impossible to develop a rocket with 20 engines on the first stage or whatever, I'm saying it's not wise. There are more disadvantages to advantages.

Notice how the Russians move away from clusters with their new rocket designs. The Soyuz has got like 20 nozzles, but its proposed replacement has 3-5.

>>10596487
Yeah but HydroLOX ruins pressure vessels and plumbing with embrittlement and thus you'll be manufacturing new giant engines and giant propellant tanks each flight. I'd rather spend a bit more on the project overall to get some MethaLOX barges to ferry the fuel from a depot on the shore which can accompany the completed rocket to it's staging position and fuel it there. Also HydroLOX demands heavier insulation and bigger tanks, larger and more powerful turbopumps, more robust and thus expensive cryocooling equipment, and isn't suited for a first stage which isn't also equipped with boosters (I do defer to an Anon in the last thread in their well thought out specific justification for SLS having a hydroLOX first stage). For a reusable superheavy lifter I'd consider the relatively small impositions of MethaLOX worth the benefits it has over H2/LOX at sea level and as a propellant in reusable launchers.

>>10596499

You need a source of carbon then.

>>10596413
That isn't what I said. You build a dedicated lander,and launch it by itself to lunar orbit. You build a vehicle that can transfer between LEO and lunar orbit, and put it by itself into LEO, and then you use Crew Dragon just to get into LEO, transfer to the vehicle, undock, do a TLI, rendezvous with the lander in lunar orbit, leave the vehicle in lunar orbit while you go to the surface, and then do the opposite order to get back.

>>10596505

Sea Dragon is not designed to be reusable, hydrogen embrittlement is a non-issue.

>>10596509
Ah, okay. Sorry Anon, I misunderstood you.

I still don't think you could get that architecture ready before 2024, much less by next year, but it IS a feasible idea.

>>10596500
>They are not. The N1 is a perfect example why relying on huge clusters is a development nightmare that should be avoided.
The N1 is a perfect example of a development nightmare period. Not applicable to a modern iterative and gradual development program.

>No-one's saying that.
If the engine does not take out the whole rocket, then engine failure is of no real consequence. A rocket with many engines can still fullfil the mission and land.

>That's really doubtful. Are you factoring in the weight of the extra nozzles, turbopumps, control machinery, and plumbing? It adds up.

Yes, all of these elements scale with the size of the individual engine. Many small engines means you have area scaling instead of volume, for the whole propulsion system.

>Coverage? What advantage does coverage give you?

Higher thrust. It is not a major factor but can mean few % thrust increase.

>That doesn't follow, and I'm honestly not sure what you're trying to say with this.

That every time you fire a stage, you test large number of engines at once. This is why Merlin is the most thoroughly tested rocket engine in history despite being rather new. It has like 2k firings already.

>Notice how the Russians move away from clusters with their new rocket designs

Meh, russian space program is not a paragon of progressive design at all.

>>10596509

horrible schematic

>>10596517
True but I was answering an Anon asking
>"How low could you push cost per kg to LEO of a modernized Sea Dragon launch system design, built using modern manufacturing techniques?"
I think an important component of "modernization" is built in reusability, another part would be computer design and additive manufacturing, Sea Dragon wasn't intended to be designed by an iterative evolutionary algorithm or have significant portions of it's machinery manufactured by 3D additive printers, but that's how I'd replicate the capabilities of a Sea Dragon-like launcher with modern sensibilities taken into consideration.

>>10596532

Okay then. But the whole rationale of Sea Dragon is to minimize cost per kg to LEO by making it as simple as possible and as big as possible. Hence Big Dumb Booster. There are not even engine turbopumps, the fuel flow relies on tank pressure!

Making it more complex or smaller could compromise this and you would end up with just a normal big rocket like SLS or Saturn, with no economic advantage.

>>10596525
Relevant: Aren't there actually only four or five Soyuz engines, they just have multiple nozzles per engine (because Soviet metallurgy was super hit-or-miss)?

I still think single-digit clusters are optimal. You still have engine-out capability without much added complexity. The Saturn V only had 5 engines, and it could lose one without affecting the mission (if the SM hadn't exploded on Apollo 13, it would've been fine, despite losing an F1 on ascent).

I think the downsides of bigger clusters are less than they used to be because computer control is a thing now, but I also think that computer control would allow better thrust-balancing on small clusters too (i.e. I think a Saturn V with modern computers could've made it to orbit with 2 engine failures).

Basically: I think SH will have the number of engines reduced in future design iterations, just because I believe the SpaceX engineers are underestimating the difficulty of hooking up that many engines to a first-stage.

Again, not impossible. Just not worth it, cost-wise, and the increased complexity is going to make things a maintenance nightmare for re-usability. If there's one thing the shuttle showed, it's that you want to keep a reusable rocket as simple as possible.

>>10596506
You can use atmospheric CO2 as carbon source, however it may be pricey.

>>10596551
>(if the SM hadn't exploded on Apollo 13, it would've been fine, despite losing an F1 on ascent).
Wasnt an F-1 they lost, it was the center J-2 and that was due to POGO.

>>10596556

Indeed it is. Air CO2 concentration is actually very low for efficient direct capture.

>>10596551
For maximum reliability, you need multiple engine-out capability even during landing. This is where the constraint leading to many small engines comes from. Your engine needs to be small enough so that an almost empty stage can hover on at least two of them.

As for complexity, this is not an inherent problem. Modern airplanes, computers or cars are incredibly complex machines. But they are also very robust and very thoroughly tested. Same will be true for future rockets.

>>10595029
Imperial British SSTO checking in. All colonials can eat it

>>10596564
Crap, thanks Anon. Got them mixed up.

>>10596550
You'd probably be right if it weren't for a combination of reusability and computer design. Reusing a launcher with minimal refurbishing obviously doesn't impact the initial launch cost but each launch run without having to scratch-build an entire new rocket could have it's cost greatly reduced assuming your specific goal is to cause the cost to plummet. Of course for the sake of your own enterprise you have to reduce those costs slowly over time otherwise you can't recoup enough to keep running the project but they can be dropped once you're not reinvesting to build a new rocket with every single launch. In addition to this computer design enormously reduces the complexity and thus both the manufacturing cost and man-hour cost of putting together a rocket engine. Computer designed 3D manufactured engines can be assembled in a matter of days to weeks while conventionally machined engines of similar sizes can take half a year. Assuming printers of a sufficient size this lets you turn out large numbers of redundant engine components with a much smaller need for specialized machinery and fewer people involved in assembly and testing, all those parts, machines, and hours saved means less expensive engines and since parts aren't hand-made and hand-adjusted this means less need for fine tuning and safer engines with lower chances of failure.

>>10596583

>muh sabre
>muh precooler
>muh hydrogen

>>10596583
how's that skylon going along britbong?
its it still only real on paper?

>>10596607
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wxdXLl9P62M
They're working on it, here's some tests of the precooler and then some rocket tests which are obviously still in the early stages.

>>10596607
Skylon won't happen as an SSTO
SABRE will, partially because the DoD (specifically the US Air Force) and the RAF are SALIVATING over that pre-cooler tech and throwing money at RE to develop it.

>>10596639
To clarify: SABRE will get built. Not as part of an SSTO, and instead probably in some secret black ops super-high-altitude aircraft project we won't find out about until 20 years from now, but it'll get built.

>>10596605
A man has to dream

>>10596607
You have to admit it is aesthetic though

>>10596639
>>10596646
Yeah seems that way, hrumph. Usual story when we invent top shit

>>10596573
What about seawater CO2 capture?

>>10596676
Sure, but aesthetics have no place in the struggle of escapings mother earth's smothering embrace.

i cringe by my own words

>>10596621
Nice. British scientists don't fuck about

>>10596696
and apparently i can't even spoiler tag my own cringe anymore too.

>>10596696
To slip the surly bonds of earth, and touch the face of god.

Have to admit the gipper knew how to deliver a line

>>10596300
>The concept behind shuttle was good.
Sorry meant Dyna-soar, not Dynawing. Too much KSP. Either way, it is a smaller craft capable of doing the same shit as the shuttle, but cheaper and has a lower payload. Other benefits to the X20 were an abort system, ability to change orbital inclination by bouncing the atmosphere, and a more normal launch profile. Oh, and it was designed in the 60's. So by Space Shuttle era they might've figured out how to make normal landing gear.

>>10596348

What do you think about Stratolaunch? Seems to be the most efficient way to get rockets into space now that we know the beast can fly.

>>10596894
Stratomeme

>>10596894
How high is the payload capacity?

>>10596605
Jesus Christ that pic. Is that a real person? Why wouldn’t they just euthanize them? Seriously, letting someone like that live is just selfish.

>>10597305
Wikipedia says 250t. So one Maus tank and a Tiger I.

>>10596894
Space planes are memes. That transversal loads kills the efficiency. It does not pay-off for the little amount of delta-v a possible air-breathing engine would gain.

The only way I see them working in the future is as sub-orbital/low-orbit shuttles, for people, since embarking on planes is more convenient than embarking on rockets, and only if they can get some non-meme air-breathing engines.

So, uh, how do you folks feel about nuclear boosters?

>>10597372
Cool concept, buuuuuuut the fact that every launch will reduce the real estate value of every property for miles around the launchpad due to nuclear fallout is a bit of a downside.

>>10597374
What about launching in places where that's not an issue, like Siberia or Detroit?

>>10597372
I mean something like this. Where fuel/coolant is dumped onto a critical load to produce thrust.

>>10597372
Liquid chemical propulsion is the past, the present and the future. Nuclear has a place on space-to-space travel, though, but that is too far off. Open fusion reactors could be used to provide thrust just by ejecting the plasma, for instance.

>>10597403
That is insane.

>>10597403
I'd like to introduce you to this...
http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/enginelist2.php#ntrgasopen

>>10597412
Oops forgot to attach this.

>>10597403
They do exist, not in quite the form you show but close. Nuclear Salt Water Rockets have near-critical nuclear fuel dissolved in water which is injected into the reaction chamber who's inner surface is a neutron reflector, the fuel becomes critical and fissions while a reaction mass is also injected into the chamber and then expelled as super high temperature, super high velocity exhaust. NSWRs generate comparable thrust to chemical rockets but have ISPs closer to fusion torches or nuclear pulse propulsion "rockets".

>>10597438
So how much delta V could be achieved?>>10597416
>>10597412
I was more thinking of a booster than a main stage. Especially a towable booster that could be used on Mars or Titan or whatever to launch heavier return rockets, while not having to tow boomstick SRBs or heavy LRBs, making the lander craft a SSTLEO from anywhere in the system. The booster could be put in a decaying graveyard orbit of the Sun.

>>10597488
For a gas-core rocket, 1500-3000s of ISP, NSWRs go much higher, only 20% enrichment fuel will give you an ISP of 6730s. Both of them can easily develop the necessary TWR to lift off from the surface of a planet with 1 bar atmospheric pressure and 1g gravity. They certainly could be used as high thrust, high ISP propulsion buses although I would weep for the discarding and waste of such a powerful and high performance piece of technology. I'd much rather reuse the stage by flushing it out with some relatively cheap to manufacture liquid neutron poison than burn the whole thing out and then dump it into the sun.

>>10597523
How do those compare to NERVA figures?

Or are they the same thing and I missed something?

>>10597538
NERVA can do 1000s in a vacuum assuming everything about it is perfect. I strongly recommend that you visit Atomic Rockets' Engine list page (http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/enginelist.php)) if you want to learn more.

>>10597538
No you didn't miss anything, gas core and nuclear salt water rockets are completely different to nuclear thermal rockets which is what NERVA is. NERVA passes propellant over a light but conventional nuclear stack which turns the propellant supercritical and ejects it from the rocket, it maxes out around 850s vacuum ISP.

>>10597523
>Launching NSWRs from Earth

Not going to happen, would be great for everywhere else. I also doubt the reusability of such a rocket.

>>10597608
>Launching NSWRs from Earth

#fuckgreenpeace

>>10597608
Probably so, you'd have to find some way to confine the nuclear component of your reactant in the reaction chamber for long enough that you can be assured it will be nearly 100% fissioned by the time it's exiting the rocket. The obvious answer would be to elongate the reaction chamber but I'd guess you'll rapidly run into heating and stress issues from confining the reaction for a prolonged period of time.

Hey /sfg/ rocket designer anon is back.

I have the basic properties and shape of my engine (that I have dubbed the Reliant), and I've deiced that the first bit of hardware that I should design for this engine would be the igniter. Since Reliant uses N2O as an oxidizer and N2O can decompose as a mono-propellant, I'd figured that an igniter that exploits this property would be a good idea. Plus, the igniter would be a mini rocket engine, therefore making it and testing it can give me some experience in making and testing rocket engines.

But then a better idea came to me, what if I redesign the igniter so that all of the oxidizer flows through it? This can have several advantages. Since the decomposition adds energy into the oxidizer, then even more energy would be added when the products are burned with the methanol. Resulting (in theory) higher thrust and efficiency. Also, the decomposition process would create free oxygen which would react more strongly with methanol than if it were tied to nitrogen. Startup would be much simpler too.

There are problems with this. Modeling what happens will be difficult since I don't think an engine of this type was ever made. Also, the pre-burner (what used to be the igniter) would have to have pressures in it that's higher than the chamber pressure of the engine so that the pre-burner exhaust will preferentially flow into the combustion chamber. This means that the n2o tank would have to be pressurized to even higher pressures to feed the engine which results in heavier tanks and a less capable rocket. This could negate any performance boost from this pre-burner.

What do you guys think? The picture is to help visualize what I'm thinking of.

I'll just leave this here.

>>10597710
>"Hey James, turn back. I think I left the oven on in the module."
>"Shut up, Dave."

>>10597724

I'd kinda like it to be, but that's clearly not a real quote since the subordinate will not lip off to the superior, even in jest. Also the image is not from 15.

>>10597729
I guess I should've had it the other way around, but "Shut up Dave" sounded funnier.

Which mission is the picture from?

>>10597737

Because it sounds closer to "Shut up, Meg." Apollo 17, EVA 3, humanity's last trip out on another (planetary-ish) body. We're looking south-west-ish, and the mountain in the distance is South Massif. Cernan and Schmitt had traveled /even further/ from the LM the day previous, on EVA 2-the furthest that humans have ever traveled away from their spacecraft in the vacuum of space. Pic related is a help.

I stole the idea for the image from an already-produced short clip with extra-creepy music which actually hits home when you watch it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXiZfQe9LO8

as is made plain in the clip, the photo (ID) can be found here:

https://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a17/AS17-146-22387HR.jpg

>>10597814
STACK WHEN

>>10597814
that's one shiny boi

>>10597822
probably not for a while, they still have to stuff shit into the main body

Semi related, but is it possible to see stars from the surface of the moon at night?
Of course not in daytime when the sun is blasting but is it possible at night like on earth?

>>10597806

owo what's this

>>10597833
well yeah

>>10597836
stiffeners for where the canard things go, if you're wondering about the odd weld lines

>>10597833
At lunar night, I don't see why not. Though you'd probably want an orbital position where the Earth isn't in the sky at lunar night if you want maximum visibility of the stars. Earth is way brighter from the Moon than the Moon is from Earth.

>>10596348
I've seen this thing several time and I've always wanted to know why it's launched from the water, isn't that extra unecessary drag? Also to the replies, why couldn't this be redesigned with many smaller nozzles?

>>10597896
>why it's launched from the water
Because it was so big that a physical launchpad would be impractical not only to build but also to protect against the massive exhaust from the first stage engine.

>isn't that extra unecessary drag?
Considering the previous point, it's an acceptable loss. Also, the drag isn't that much since the rocket spends very little time in the water at launch.

>why couldn't this be redesigned with many smaller nozzles?
The goal of Sea Dragon was to be as stupid simple as possible to reduce cost and increase reliability (less points of failure). Mutlible engines would be counter to this. Also, while the outside of the rocket is resistant to the corrosive sea water, the insides of the engines would not be. On the Sea Dragon, the single first stage engine has a plug on the end of the nozzle to keep sea water out of delicate plumbing. This would be harder to do for mutlible engines because each plug would have to individually attach to each nozzle and each of them would have to detach at once which reduces reliability.

Overall, while the Sea Dragon is a cool concept and fun to bring up and discuss, it's an unrealistic rocket. As mentioned before, the engines are so large that combustion instabilities would tear them apart. It took over 200 trials by the US just to get the F-1s to be stable, it would've taken much more effort to keep the Sea Dragon engines from blowing up. Another thing was that the orginal designers were too optimistic about the mass of steel pressure vessels and the rocket wouldve weighed much more than what's advertised, so much so that it probably wouldn't even lift off.

>>10597710
>they didn't climb that sick mountain and dab at the top
Disappointing.

>>10594923
Worm logo is max kino, they need to bring it back.

>>10597940

I choose to be autistic and literal about this.

It IS a sick mountain; they went up to its foot the day before; they had to turn back and not do a sick dab, as they were limited by their packs. Going up to South Massif (and not climing it) was the furthest any space traveler had gone away from their spacecraft.

But you must understand anon that the whole history of manned Apollo lunar operations were in fact ebin dabs. Flag plantings, golfing, driving a hoopty because it's there, singing songs. It was a dick-waving thing that was all about dabbing the whole entire time, and thank goodness it took place. If men didn't feel the need to best each other, nothing worth doing would ever get done. Some singing:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8V9quPcNWZE

>>10597710
Crazy how big those studio sets were at the time.

>>10594923
so
a e s t h e t i c
is now permanently "kino"?

>>10596274
With the current state of russian space program they should stick to improving what they already do instead of developing more crazy rocket power points

>>10597370
It would still be useful to use for getting equipment into space because a stratolaunch would cost far less then a traditional rocket launch. Maybe we could use it to finally build a rotating space station in LEO.

>>10597710
who took pic?

>>10594985
>>10594985
There was a recent twin study that disprove this.

>>10594903
Friendly reminder that no living human being will ever leave this solar system.

>>10594985
No you retard. 0g IS the most important data since any mission to a planet will be mostly travel time.

You dont understand the importance of the iss experiment because you lacl basic knowledge. On here. What a shock

>>10595988
no it isn't

>>10597896
Sea dragon would obliterate any launch pad with the ass blast
also, if it's at sea, you can use a drydock to build it like a submarine

>>10596394
>It's really too bad Crew Dragon went full JUST.
So is there any news about it yet?

>>10598625
I'm not who you replied to, but are there any major findings about how the human body reacts to long term microgravity? I tried a light Google search and most I can find was "0g is bad for the human body".

>0g IS the most important data since any mission to a planet will be mostly travel time
A solution to this would be to make the living quarters a centrifuge. It doesn't even have to be a giant ring, it could be a tumbling pigeon or two cans connected by wire. Unfortunately there are no major experiments on this.

>>10598659
How so? Because the core stage is finally being assembled now. Predictions set the launch to be June of next year. Meanwhile BFR is still a hopper and no known date (at least one that I know of) or the launch of the full stack.

>>10596054
There are like 5 copies of it lying around
Two were production, one was destroyed, the rest are mockups or unfinished

>>10598675

Only that it happened during vibration testing.

>>10594995
Interesting, so the DIRECTfags got their way but it was modified by NASA and therefore made essentially useless as all their research and planning and goals were for a specific version of DIRECT and Jupiter, not the NASA modified version that threw everything out and left us with this current long-delayed SLS mess.

You may claim that things might not have been so easy if DIRECT was directly applied as originaly intended but I wager that we would have been flying our vehicles and our astronauts much sooner than with SLS had NASA not modified the Jupiter design and the DIRECT initiative.

The impression I get from all this is that the DIRECTfags were primarily concerned with retaining America's space program dignity and jobs and getting back to speed as fast as possible, while NASA was concerned with their dreams of a different more powerful rocket (SLS) and in pursuing that over a non-modified DIRECT they doomed us to this shitty situation now we're in.

They should have either opted for a new vehicle and new architecture from the start or implemented DIRECT as it was intended.

>>10599047
I dunno about you but this is not what the SLS looks like. The design was so simple, but NASA management just had to fuck it all up

>>10599050

>>10599052
>was basically shuttle without the Orbiter but retaining the Orbiter's SSME's
>turned into the all new hardware and extended design the SLS became

>>10599057

>>10598468
The second astronaut. See the footprints?

>>10599057
At least SLS is finally coming around at least. What I really don't like about SLS is the poor management around it which resulted in unnecessary delays and costs. If I recall correctly, when Boeing was late on a milestone NASA still gave the company reward money that was meant for when the company was on time. This is why I don't think that DIRECT wouldn't have been fast as supporters say because while the project was sound, the management would be poor regardless.

>>10598696
>vibration testing
I guess it was too much for the poor little thing, eh.

>>10599074
I still think DIRECT would have had us already flying by this point in time had it been pursued as intended instead of SLS, there would be far less delays because so much of the design is just straight carried over from the shuttle, compared to SLS

By this point in time we may already have begun finalizing the lunar return instead of just beginning to return to US launched human spaceflight

Also aesthetically its much nicer looking than the SLS.

>>10598212
I know right

>>10599088

>>10599094
This pic made me recall the idiots claiming the flag "waved" in the "air" proving it was shot on Earth, god why do the ignorant have to run their mouths over everything

>>10599086
>I still think DIRECT would have had us already flying by this point in time
What makes you think that? Have you seen the OIG report on the SLS? NASA was pretty much encouraging Boeing to take their time.

>>10599102
>NASA was pretty much encouraging Boeing to take their time.
I don't they would have had that attitude with Jupiter because there would be far less time they could waste, do you see how simple and straightforward the modifications to existing hardware were >>10599063 in comparison to what they went with for the SLS which is really a modified ARES V design.

>>10599112
I guess you have a point. Then again the straightforwardness of Jupiter may be the reason why SLS was picked instead, less room to get more pork.

>>10599142
>less room to get more pork.
precisely, they chose greed and their own interests over the dignity of the American public, the American spaceflight program and the American people

And fast forward to today where we have Pence praising NASA and them finally getting off their asses to launch "American astronauts, from American soil, on American rockets" as if suddenly now that patriotism and service to country matters above profit and pork.

The whole thing just makes me mad, post-shuttle NASA fucked everything up about their manned spaceflight program, inexcusable delays and slow progress that only now got a shake-up thanks to SpaceX and based Bridenstine not afraid to stir the pot.

>>10598659
Anon, they are literally beginning final assembly of the SLS rocket. It will fly first.

>>10599155
I was at a presentation by Jeff Thornburg a while ago, and he said that one of the reasons why NASA is taking spaceflight seriously again was China's recent progress in space (in particular the farside lander). The US government doesn't want to fall behind China in spaceflight so they're stepping up their game in space.

>>10599184
Finally some competition to shake up old-space out of their sleeping rut, domestic competition too with SpaceX

>>10599177
At least I was wrong that the thing wouldn't fly until 2023. It should've flown in 2017 but this pleasant and welcome. Hopefully it doesn't blow up. Or if it did, then hopefully it'll encourage NASA to clean up their management for the better.

>>10599041
Anon, the biggest flaw with the DIRECTfag's plans were, IMO, the idea that they could literally just stick those 3 SSMEs onto a shuttle ET without major design work. Even though it'd be simpler to deal with the loads of 3 SSMEs and four-segment SRBs instead of 4 SSMEs and five-segment SRBs, you'd still basically need to redesign that entire tank, at which point I think NASA decided, "well, we may as well go all-out, then."

I've read through the old DIRECT posts on the NSF forums, and they acknowledged the tank would need to be redesigned to accept in-line loads but basically just hand-waved it away. In reality, the SLS core stage has taken so long because it's barely related to the old shuttle ET. DIRECT would've suffered from the same issue.

IMO, the DIRECTfags should've pitched something more like Shuttle-C. Then you could keep the existing external tank and SRBs with no redesign work, yet get rid of all the issues of a crewed shuttle. Eventually, you could even upgrade the four-segment SRBs to five-segments, and maybe work on an in-line new rocket in the mean-time. Would've been a much smoother transition than IRL.

>>10599203
While its true that the core tank would have to be effectively a new design, it shouldn't have taken almost a decade and over $14B to figure out a new design.

>>10599203
Yeah shuttle-c would be a good option too, I would have been fine with anything, DIRECT, Shuttle-C, Ares, so long as it produced results and wasn't dragged on, its really absolutely mind-boggling to think that the entire design, construction, and operational life of Saturn V took less time than SLS is, that's an inexcusable waste of time.

>>10599217
If the OIG report showed me one thing, it was that NASA wasn't pushing or coordinating its contractors effectively. Yeah, it's easy to blame Boeing and such for slow-walking everything, but NASA management shares in that blame for not applying effective oversight and keeping them honest.

It's telling that now that Bridenstine's come in and shaken things up, all the sudden productivity and work seem to have picked up pretty massively. Just needed the right motivation to get their asses in-gear.

>>10599231
My main worry now is that when Trump goes, (because its most likely he won't be re-elected) the new (most likely dem) president will shit on NASA, either reducing funding, or sacking Bridentstine, cutting a wedge right in between this newly productive and active NASA and setting everything back.

Hopefully with the rise of competition between SpaceX and China now though that would make any such change unpopular with congress, and things have been progressing enough that we are essentially locked into this return to Moon, and Gateway focus, that NASA won't get any big major shakeups like when Obama cancelled Constellation, and Trump cancelled the NEA mission focus.

For things to have finally slowly started to pick up the pace and then get cut before the momentum reaches its peak due to political shakeups would be frustrating

>>10599250
I would go cry in a corner if that happens. It'd be 10x worse than Constellation, because at least Constellation was basically just a paper rocket program when it got canceled.

>>10599250
I don't know if Trump can do this, but what he should do is have NASAs missions restructured so that they can continue between different administrations (i.e. the mission is locked down and can't be cancelled unless the NASA administrator wants to). That would mean that he wouldn't have as much control over NASA but at least they can actually get some work done instead of proposing an ambitious mission, building some prototypes, and then forgetting about it all by the next election cycle.

Another point, any politician who feels that a project should be cancelled because its associated with an opposing party should immediately be impeached for failing to meet the age requirement. That attitude is extremely childish and shouldn't belong in government.

>>10599282
tell that to Nixon

>>10599250
its pretty much a given that a dem president will try to undo everything trump ever did during his term so nasa will get the boot too.

And the public will eat it up.

>>10599282
If Congress had a spine, that'd be true already.

The future belongs to the SLS and the accelerated schedule to put people on the Moon, an impossible feat without the SLS, is all the proof you need.

Fantasize all you want about imaginary rockets and what-ifs, reality is going to be big, orange, and make one hell of a public impact once it flies and carries the American flag back to the Moon.

>>10599250

I'm afraid things aren't so simple. Economy is doing well. Muller report was a total disappointment. There are no strong female candidates like Hillary, and the democratic party can't just pick a man after the last election and the importance put on the first woman president in history.

Most likely he is going to be re elected, and despite all the negatives that will bring at least the Moon plan might not face certain cancellation.

>>10594903
>still using rockets

https://patents.google.com/patent/US20060145019A1/en

>>10599287
I'm not sure how to judge Nixon in regards to NASA. On one hand, I fucking hate how he didn't even try to ease NASA into the new reality that they were no longer going to get Apollo-level funding, and just basically went in and told them, "This is your budget now. Fuck your plans. You're lucky I'm not disbanding you."

On the other hand, NASA was in denial about what would happen after Apollo, and they really did need a wakeup call that they were no longer a national priority.

But the way Nixon went about it fucked everything up. It fucked up NASA' mentality going into the Space Shuttle, by making them shop it to the DoD and other agencies as a big, overambitious project to replace ALL expendable launchers forever™ instead of something that was actually feasible, and it made them paranoid and super-over-protective about further budget cuts and manned spaceflight capability.

>>10599288
>its pretty much a given that a dem president will try to undo everything trump ever did
That's why Trump shouldn't get directly involved with this. If he just lends behind the scenes support and lets Pence and Bridenstine do the talking, there's a chance. Space travel is pretty bipartisan.

On the other hand, if he tries to put his name on it, it's doomed. The dems will cut it out of spite when they get the chance.

>>10599325
>The future belongs to the SLS
Do you mean NASAs future? Or ultra heavy spaceflight in general? If the latter, then I hope the future doesnt belong to SLS. Its way too expensive and slow to effectively put things beyond LEO before whatever project its lifting gets canceled or changed.

>>10599360
>The dems will cut it out of spite when they get the chance.
Well the dems have control of the House which by design has a large control over budgets, so they've already got all the power they need.

>>10599231

>It's telling that now that Bridenstine's come in and shaken things up, all the sudden productivity and work seem to have picked up pretty massively

We're late in the game in SLS development. Activity would be more apparent regardless. This is Year 8 with 2 more to go to the first test flight, not Year 1 with 9 more to go.

>>10599250
>>10599277
>>10599282
>>10599287
>>10599288
>>10599360
That's why its important that SLS is at least on the pad by the end of 2020 and all the commercial lander/gateway contracts are also making progress by then.

NASA will be so far down the moon rabbit hole then it'll be impossible to change course.

>>10599383
From my experience watching Bridenstine's latest house hearing, the dems on the HASC committee seem mostly interested in how much money goes to their own district e.g. one Rep was bothered with the green run test potentially not happening because Stennis is in his district. All Bridenstine has to do is bribe them with SLS Pork. Also, they do not pretend to care about deficits...

>>10595742
>>10595329
Human space colonies are a meme, completely ludicrous idea, the human body in its current state is way to fragile for any long-term operations in places like Mars.
Only robotic missions make long-term sense, unless tech advances enough to allows us to augment/alter ourselves into something more resilient.

Either way, it doesn't negate the significance of Mars "colonization", it seems like a lot of economic value can be extracted with robots alone.
The economic aspects and value of Solar System celestial bodies are a very interesting and seemingly underappreciated topic - how viably would we be able to exploit resources on Mars/asteroids etc? How much growth and development will be achieved once we start going interpanetary?

>>10599428
Oh, Bridenstine knows the game. He said something to the extent that he's planning to make sure his next budget request "spreads the wealth," so to speak. We are possibly looking at something as big as moving to a bi-annual SLS launch schedule for example, which die to economies of scale, won't increase costs as much as you may think.

Bridenstine is the right man at the right time at the right place. If this push fails, it will not be because of him. He has the experience to get legislators on-board with this (being one himself), and he knows how to use political reality in-service to his goals.

WHAT DOES IT MEAAANN
https://twitter.com/blueorigin/status/1121797276190437376

>>10594945
>The ISS sucks compared to MY station
t. Arthur C Clark

>>10599735
Bezos is launching an arctic expedition on may 9 duh

>>10594973
Planetes is better.

>>10594969
Mouretsu Pirates

>>10596262
The tanks are still carbon fiber so his job is still vital.

>>10599759
The main fuel tanks?

https://www.popularmechanics.com/space/deep-space/a19604/nasa-physicists-say-photonic-propulsion-could-send-a-spacecraft-to-mars-in-3-days/

>cargo to Mars in 3 days
>crew to Mars in 1 month

holy shit, exciting, why aren't we focusing on this?

>>10599806
>popular mechanics
Anon...

>>10599905
focus!

>>10594903

what kind of job can a brainlet like me with an iq of 119 get in the space industry?

>>10600051
Unit conversion specialist

>>10599050
Why not just build an expendable shuttle shaped shell with identical weight distribution to the shuttle proper? Could even put some of the saved weight into the final payload as additional fuel

>>10600064
That's literally what >>10594903 is.

>>10600069
So the question remains why not? Insufficiently porky?

>>10600064
You mean like Shuttle-C? I think the main issue with it was that it would've been incredibly expensive for the ammount it brought to orbit. Astronautix estimates 45 metric tons to LEO while "in-line" Shuttle derived launchers (like SLS or Jupiter) could do 70t minimum.

>>10600061
I did the moon missions with my conversions, pic related.

>>10600076
Heard speculation that the astronaut office freaked the fuck out at it because they thought it'd lead to the end of US manned spaceflight.

>>10600077
It would've been a faster transition than DIRECT or SLS though. IMO the optimal scenario would've been that it was developed while the normal shuttle was flying, and that it slowly evolves into something closer to the SLS or Jupiter, so that by the time Shuttle's retired post-Columbia, you've basically got Shuttle-C In-line (or whatever you want to call it) flying the next year.

>>10600203
And you, or anyone one, find a source for that? Because that sounds really silly. Sure, Shuttle-C was before ISS so NASA wasn't doing any large manned spaceflight missions, but Space Station Freedom was still seriously considered at the time if I recall correctly. So there would still be a need for astronauts.

>>10600227
It's just speculation, but it was all I could find.

>>10600219
Ideally NASA should've held on to Saturn V and made derivative vehicles while perfecting the technology like the Russians did with the R7 and Soyuz. But hindsight is 2020.

While Shuttle-C offered an improved payload capacity compared to Shuttle (45t vs 23t) the price was what most likely killed the idea. I don't know the launch price nor do I think a serious study was performed on it, but I imagine that it would be around the Jupiter's price. Which would be pretty expensive to just bring 45t to LEO. And I believe that was what killed Shuttle-C. That and probably little room to grow. I've heard of Ares proposals that mounted up to 7 SSME's in the core, while Shuttle-C could probably fit 4 max. Upgraded boosters would help, but those upgrades could just be as easy be applied to Jupiter/Ares/SLS and NASA could get more payload into space than Shuttle-C.

>>10600219
Why in the first place did we retire shuttle before a backup was ready and flying? Feels like that encouraged a lazy attitude of "oh we don't have to rush we have time"

9 fucking years later...

>>10594911
yes

>>10596500
>muh N1
The Soviets didn't have the engine management technology to handle that many engines, which is why that failed
We've come a long way since then

>>10600282
>Why in the first place did we retire shuttle before a backup was ready and flying?
My guess is that the old NASA management who worked with Shuttle were very risk accepting in order to have regular launch rates and also were accepting of the Shuttle's flaws. Then shortly before Shuttle was ended, new management came in, Columbia fresh in their minds, saw how Shuttle was handled, and didn't like how such an expensive and unsafe vehicle was allowed to be used. So the new management ended the Shuttle to encurage the development of a new and safer launch vehicle. And perhaps they felt that if they had kept the Shuttle while the replacement was developed, then that might have encuraged the slower development and less funding for said replacement (because we still have a vehicle flying so why rush its replacement ? We have time.).

At least that's my guess.

>>10594923
speaking of kino logos

>>10597690
Full flow turbine powered by n2o decomposition?

>>10594963
For how much the ISS has cost, I would want full orbital fabrication facilities, refuelling capabilities, counter-rotating sleep pods and a big recreational area to stretch your legs and shit

>>10600308
The engine is pressure fed, so no turbopumps. But the idea did cross my mind. However, I'll stick to pressure feeding for now. I've looked into pumps before and they're extremely complicated. Too complicated for one person to make.

>>10600314
>counter-rotating sleep pods
You dont even need to go for a full ring not a cylinder. You could just have cans suspended by cables, and have them spin around an axle. It'll look goofy, but it'll work and it'll be relatively cheap. For extra safety, you can have it so that each can has a small orbital maneuvering system in case a can somehow detaches from the rest of the station.

so SpaceX did do a 40sec raptor fire at McGregor
according to elon

>>10600051
could someone answer this question but unironicly because im also a brainlet at iq 120

>>10600355
spacecraft mechanic maybe

>>10600355
SpaceX jannie cleaning the break room

>>10600248
I feel like 45t is too small a number.

Google estimates Shuttle-C could've done anywhere between 50 t to 70 t. If you want my guesstimate, I'd say 60 t sounds reasonable.

Why do I think that? Well, consider that Jupiter and the short-lived SLS Block 0 were both estimated to be able to carry 70 t to LEO. Shuttle-C should be similar, but it's going to lose a little bit of capacity since side-mounting the payload isn't as efficient as stacking it, so that's why I guess around a 60 t.

>>10600395
>I feel like 45t is too small a number.
You are correct, I was accidentally reading the two SSME configuration of the Shuttle-C. 60t sounds more reasonable. Sorry.

That limited upgrade capability would still hurt the Shuttle-C compared to SLS, I think.

>>10596551
>Basically: I think SH will have the number of engines reduced in future design iterations, just because I believe the SpaceX engineers are underestimating the difficulty of hooking up that many engines to a first-stage.
Basically you "believe" you know better and they should throw out the engine they've been developing since 2009 and start anew with a bigger one in mind.

>>10600403
It would, yeah. I agree it shouldn't have been chosen once it was clear the shuttle program was winding down, but if it'd been chosen sometime pre or post Challenger, it would've been really useful, and we could've gradually transitioned to something with the capacity of SLS without a ten-year gap.

>>10600363
looks like a comfy job ngl

>>10600337
soon

>>10600327
The biggest problem is transferring crew from the rotating portion to the stationary portion. The cable thing only works when that's the only part of the station, and you don't have to leave it.

>>10600450
The cans can be spun down for crew transport. Although that does complicate things. Maybe a tumbling pigeon station would be better? Would give ample practice for Mars missions.

Then again we're thinking more creatively than Congress and NASA who probably can't figure out a way out of a plastic bag without spending billions of dollars and years trying to figure it out.

>Yes
IT BEGINS

>>10600640
What do you mean?

>>10600656

stuff

>>10600849
weird one of my images was zero bytes
thought I had selected it

anyways here's the stuff

>>10600854

>>10600856

>>10600859

>>10600862

>>10596437
Criminally underrated post.

>>10600450
>>10600494

You forgot that you also need something of equal&force weight spinning in the opposite direction to counter the spinning.
otherwise your station would tear it self apart.

And a spinning ring at 1G would need a diameter of 1km to not make the people on it puke their guts out.

What does it mean?
twitter.com/blueorigin/status/1121797276190437376
Are they gonna land in Shackleton crater?

So much bullshit.

>>10601144
450m actually

>>10601144

>a spinning ring at 1G would need a diameter of 1km to not make the people on it puke their guts out.

Nope. Its much less:
https://www.artificial-gravity.com/sw/SpinCalc/

>>10601697
Yes, very constructive.

>>10601619
Hoping to announce Moon landing

>>10602138
Given NASA's recent moon developments and BO's hints at a moon landing architecture, hopefully they'll bid on the contract and reveal everything on the 9th.
Oldspace will probably win the contract because BO's not off the ground and SpaceX looks like it's sticking with Starship (especially with Elon posting >>10601460 today, possibly at the lunar south pole).

>>10602393
SpaceX will probably only get some cargo missions for the moon with the recent draco snafu.

>>10602416
They Falcon Heavy is overbuilt for commercial LEO/GTO satellites, but it's pretty much perfect for a one-way lunar cargo hauler. SpaceX would definitely have a shot at a lunar supply contract with current capabilities, though they'd have to use FH in expendable mode.

>>10594923
Taking a page from >>10595995
and >>10598024 NASA should have handed off two shuttles to the USAF (Atlantis and Discovery?) for permanent basing at Vandenberg while holding on to Columbia and Challenger. The NRO and the USAF could then have a pair of shuttles to use to bring perform photo/radar reconnaissance, back KH-9s or launch experimental orbital weapons and all of that other spooky shit, while NASA could permanently install Spacelab modules into their shuttles, upgrade their endurance to months, and use them as re-flyable Salyut-sized space stations for long-term science payloads, etc.

From there, launch a modest Mir/Skylab-sized space station and service it with some sort of basic bitch capsule, like a Soyuz-sized capsule but minus the orbital module launched on top of a Titan III or something, while focusing on building a second space station orbiting the moon for use as a transfer station to future surface bases, building technologies for a NERVA-powered Mars mission that involves 2 or 3 spaceships similar in size to Discovery One from 2001, only lugging a DC-Y sized SSTO along instead of HAL or those pods. There's no way to safely do Mars without either a single ship that resembles the Venture Star from Avatar, or multiple ships the size of Discovery. NASA knows this, which is why they keep pushing a Mars mission off.

>>10597488
Remember that scene in Prometheus where they fire the FTL thrusters in-atmosphere to kamikaze the engineer/space jockey's ship and their giant-ass ship accelerates like a fucking rocket sled?

Any sort of continuous criticality-based nuclear rocket engine would be pretty much like that, but IRL.

>>10602504
Also, the Avatar/2001-scale Mars mission is the interplanetary equivalent of the Zheng He expeditions, Magellan's voyage, or Christopher Columbus heading out in the Nina, Pinta, and Santa Maria, while Elon Musk's Starship proposal is the interplanetary equivalent of Kon Tiki or the Polynesians paddling across the Pacific in canoes.

>>10602534
Then was Apollo the equivalent of Leif Erickson's journey to Vinland and then the nigh immediate abandonment?

>>10600421
>>10600854
>>10600856
>>10600859
>>10600862
>>10600865

Can anyone informed tell me why this supposed piece of aerospace hardware is being assembled in some open-air backlot with a level of design sophistication and build quality that resembles something cooked up by the Apostle Dr. Kwadwo Safo?

>>10602557
Its a hopper anon, nobody will ride it, no cargo will go in it.
Its just going to "hop" from spot A to B.

>>10602547
Nah, Apollo's like the first prehistoric Frenchman to paddle across the English channel and back in his coracle.

>>10602557
new meta

>>10602566
Even the so-called"orbital test article"? Even NASA in the 1960s built their boilerplate spacecraft for LES tower tests with more attention to detail than this rocket-powered abortion. The one under construction makes 1950s Stalin-era Soviet launch vehicles look like a fucking Delta IV by comparison.

>>10602581
SpaceXs general mindset is a little bit different than the aerospace industry in general (which is the mindset you seem to have). SpaceX wants to move away from the "specialist" mindset that dominated aerospace because that reduces cost.

>>10602581
a test starship is being made too right now, at least musk claims that, but so far we have little to no info on it and no pictures.
at least i think thats what your talking about?

>>10602566
no anon, the one in those pictures is an orbital test article, it's going to orbit and back repeatedly until it blows up on reentry

>>10602590
no dude it's right fucking there
he claims that the test orbital starship is in those pictures right there

>>10602588
Scaled Composites had the same exact attitude and even though Burt based his earliest designs on construction techniques for fucking surfboards, they still managed to build aircraft and spacecraft that don't look like they were built by some Ugandan farmer with too much time on his hands.

>>10602601
>>10602607
From what i understand the hopper is the one being made in open air.
And they are also working on a test starship, or at least trying to get the manufacturing lines in order for making something that big.

>>10602618
Hopper's done
it's sitting on the pad, they're going to shove a new raptor in it, install some avionics, beef up the pad infrastructure, and fly it

I'll go find a picture of it for you

>>10602612
The hoppers probably look shotty is because they're incomplete and they're prototypes. Give SpaceX time, anon. They seem to know what they're doing.

>>10602623
>>10602622
>>10602618
No, this is the Hopper
there's only one of it, and it's finished
they're currently prepping it for untethered tests
the shells that are littering the rest of the site are the orbital prototype, although they might be failed attempts

>>10602630
BIG BOY

>>10602639
everything else is of the same scale as that thing, but it's the only one with other objects for reference
that nose cone is taller than that cement truck

>>10602630
The tube steel leg fins that resemble something that came off of an oil platform's support structure are especially lulz-worthy

>>10602644
I hope they live stream the first decent hop.

>>10602656

the orbital prototypes with things for scale
>>10602661
there will be live streams of the first decent hop, with sound this time from across the river
I hope SpaceX do an actual stream tho

>>10602666
There's no way that these parts are for anything close to a real flight vehicle. They're almost certainly some sort of welding test being passed off by Elon as parts for his vaporware Starship. Musk is a master bullshitter with enough of a personality cult that his fans eat it all up. This Starship "orbital test article" BS reeks of The Boring Company's loop test bait-and-switch all over again.

>>10601460
>no blast marks on the ground

As an artist, it is the small things that really bug me the most about other people's art.

ALSO NEW THREAD WHEN AND WHERE?

>>10602696
But why would SpaceX lie about it? What would they gain from it?

More funding? Because BFR is almost entirely funded by SpaceX alone IIRC.
More public support? Then this display would only achieve a short term boost. SpaceXs credibility would get hurt if such a secret gets out.

On top of that. SpaceXs employees must be incredibly loyal to not blow this thing out. Even if the secret is on a "need to know" basis, the workers building the orbital test vehicle wouldn't be fooled. SpaceXs highly skilled engineers wouldn't get fooled too.

Take your conspiracies somewhere else.

>>10602393
>>10601460
Ohhhhh... that does look like the south pole! Those are long shadows!
>>10602698
The area under the rocket is a bit whiter, indicating freshly exposed regolith

>>10602794
>indicating freshly exposed regolith

Same thing everywhere else, so no. Those tiny apollo landers wouldn't have left anything to see, but something as large as that thing would.

>>10602557
>he's back again

>>10602696

>>10600306

>>10601144
Tetherfags don't understand what tidal forces from narrow radius can do to your inner ear. Also they don't seem to consider how to dock to a can spinning on the end of a tether. The 2001 solution (docking port in the hub, shafts to the rim) only requires a docking craft to rotate on axis. Of course there are only two places you can dock like that, so maybe an arm could capture cargo and attach it to an off-center port on the hub.

>>10603082
kek like that logo, even if it is an april fools thing most likely

>>10603059
It's gonna be lit when BO does the same, but with a booster damn near the size of a Saturn V.

>>10603017
Who's back again?

https://sspd.gsfc.nasa.gov/restore-l.html
mite b cool

>>10603215
the New Glenn booster is going to mostly be doing landing ship trajectories (only be doing landing ship trajectories?)
Super Heavy, meanwhile, will supposedly only ever do return to launch site trajectories, and it's even bigger
it's a race to see who goes up first, and either way we win

>>10603334
>2022
yawn, wake me up when they announce the launch vehicle

>>10603370
Not to start a flame war, but I'd bet that New Glenn would fly before BFR. It's less ambitious (its effectively a Falcon 9 but bigger) and Blue Origin seems pretty competent in keeping deadlines. Then again, Blue Origin is alot more secretive than SpaceX so it's unknown how far along New Glenn is.

But you're right, either way, we win.

>>10603380
I think Super Heavy is a lot farther along than you'd think, the shift to stainless steel seems to have pushed everything way to the left. they're going to be launching it suborbital first, which should be quite entertaining, and they need to do a LOT of orbital reentry testing on Starship (which means they Super Heavy to launch)

>>10603393
Nah, I think if Starship is barely capable of reaching orbit with no cargo, it should be able to get itself high enough and fast enough to do a full-strength re-entry.

>>10603447
it needs payload to orbit in order to have enough methane left to do whole transpiration thing
we'll see how it goes

>>10603370
Remember that New Glenn is simply Bezos's "baby" orbital rocket, and it's already damn near the size of BFR. New Armstrong is going to be unreal.

>>10603495
At 7 meters wide, it splits the difference between Starship Super Heavy and Falcon 9

>>10603453
Come to think of it, isn‘t it bad for the climate to vaporize shittons of methane in the upper atmosphere? Keep in mind SpaceX wants to launch these things a gazillion times and even wants to replace air planes.

>>10603693
the methane is being vaporized into the reentry fireball of Starship, it's going to combust with atmospheric oxygen to produce water and carbon dioxide

>>10594906
>more gay hover tests
>meanwhile, in the alternate universe not infested by gay retardation mind-AIDS, Mars was explored by humans in the 1980s

Rape my FAG ass