/sci/ - Science & Math

>>10839926
T - 50m or so they say

>>10839940
Thanks, oh and I didn't mean to be rude, just dont speak japanese

>yfw SLS delayed to 2021
>yfw starship is now more likely to launch before SLS

What are /sfg/'s opinion of winged flyback boosters? A possible alternative to the SpaceX-style boostback? Could it be viable? Advantages? Disadvantages?

Also image dump of winged boosters I have found.

Liquid-Fly-Back-Booster, ESA.
http://www.astronautix.com/a/ariane5fls.html

>>10839950
Energia II (AKA Uragan), Roscosmos.

>>10839943
Neither do I
;^)

>>10839951
Shuttle DC-3, NASA.
http://www.astronautix.com/s/shuttledc-3.html

>>10839960
Baikal, Roscosmos.

>>10839964
Space Ferry, Van Braun (idk if this counts as NASA)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Von_Braun_Ferry_Rocket

>>10839950
They're what the shuttle should have been.
>Viable
Sure, it can be done.
>Advantages.
Less stressful reentry and can land more like an aircraft ala-shuttle, more well understood and less dicey compared to propulsive landing on barges for example. Since it's not a full aircraft you could probably still have a full launch abort system to wrench the upper stage free if there's a problem.
>Disadvantages.
Substantially higher dry weight due to having wings, more surface area to perform maintenance on. That means less payload for equivalent size and more refurbishment/repair costs, and you need full runways to land on rather than small pads.

>>10839969
Shuttle NAR A, NASA.
http://www.astronautix.com/s/shuttlenara.html
This one is my favorite picture out of the bunch.

>>10839974
And a bonus one... MAKS, Roscosmos.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OaTO8_KNcuo

>>10839978
Wtf am I looking at

>>10839980
Oops, forgot the link about it. My bad.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MAKS_(spacecraft)
Probably the result of a drunken night with a Soviet rocket designer and a (American) football.

>>10839985
>Probably the result of a drunken night with a Soviet rocket designer and a (American) football.
:DDD

>>10839971
>you need full runways to land on rather than small pads
Could it be turned into an advantage though? Airfields are much more common than rocket landing pads, which can increase the number of usable abort scenarios. Airfields also will already have the services necessary to care for an aircraft, whereas a dedicated rocket pad would have to be built for a propulsively returning booster (sure, I guess any small flat area could do, but then that would lack the services necessary to recover the rocket).

>>10839978
Take this to /d/ please

>>10840020
>not including the dolphin sex >>10839960

>>10840022
That's not dolphin sex. THIS is dolphin sex.

>>10840024
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J-jXataovgs

>>10839940
Launch postponed until after 1620 JST
That's 0320 EDT / 0220 CDT / 0120 MDT / 0020 PDT

is.... is Dreamchaser going to make it lads?

>>10840039
yeah
it just has too much appeal to die

>>10840039
Dreamchaser will be all right. It just needs to hold on for a few years delivering cargo, just like Dragon had to do.

>>10840043
>>10840041
>>10840039
Hopefully before Starship makes it to orbit. Starship will be every other rocket killer.

>>10840067
no, crewed starship is a ways out, no matter what anybody says

>>10840074
>he still thinks crewed missions matter
wake me up when we're going back to the moon

>>10840001
Most of the runway-landing booster designs require runways that are specially reinforced. You can't just land whatever on a runway, the runway is designed with certain loads in mind. Skylon is the most obvious example of a vehicle that definitely needs a specially built runway, all 'you can launch it from anywhere' claims are completely unrealistic and memes.

>>10840085
>Most of the runway-landing booster designs require runways that are specially reinforced.
Really? The Shuttle weighs much less than a Boeing 747. Or do you mean that the reinforced runways are for the speed at which these flyback boosters would have to glide in for a landing?

>>10840085
What are you smoking? All you need from an orbital landing runway is length because it's a bit less precise to land from orbit that from usual flight level.

behold, the future according to Elon

>>10840113
>I'm a muscly shirtless spacer with only an old crash helmet for protection and I get some alien fairy tiddy.
Sign me up for Elon's future.

>>10840099
Probably both for things like shuttle, memelon, and any flyback boosters. Those things come in screaming hot and extremely fast compared to normal airplanes, most designs have to deploy drag chutes just to stay on the runway. I'd imagine the landing speed is a significant factor in stress on the landing strip although I can't be sure because landing strips are not in my area of knowledge.

>>10839950
Boeing is building one with DARPA money right now

of course it'll run late and get cancelled because Boeing, but the concept is cool

>>10839950
One thing about propulsive flyback is it's flexible. Under X kg you fly back to the launch site, between X and Y kg you land at sea and it's a bit more expensive, between Y and Z kg you expend the booster but still get to orbit. Winged flyback doesn't have that

>>10840141
>between Y and Z
over Y*

>>10840145
nope, above Z you just don't get to orbit

>>10840145
I mean with the same booster, without a redesign or anything

there will be some mass >Z that you aren't getting to orbit regardless

>>10840141
You have a point, but as rockets become more reusable, then the flexibility that allows expendability wouldn't be necessary. In a pure reuse industry, then winged boosters might come out on top.

>>10840133
That's a really nice concept too. I don't know how I missed that. Hopefully something comes from it. Maybe ESA will explore something like that with the LFBB.

>>10840149
Oh yeah sure. But you gotta, you know, get there first

>>10840149
I don't see how, they're heavier and require a larger landing surface. That means to carry the same payloads they'll have to be bigger and the infrastructure for landing them must also be larger. They can't come down at a lot of commercial airports because of all the sonic booms, a complaint people had about other supersonic craft back when some of them still flew and landed at commercial airports.

>>10840074
Well if they can stick with their schedule of 2021 for commercial missions, then building a crewed version for the 2023 dear moon mission shouldn't be too difficult.

>>10839969
wait, it has three stages and the second stage is NOT a flyback?
Also this is the most Nazi looking rocket I‘ve seen so far.

>>10839989
So why haven‘t they made more vodka rockets after V2v

>>10840295
People keep drinking the rockets

Imagine the 200 meter hop and the political and technological ripple effect it will have on the spaceflight industry.

>>10840778
More important than the last hop? Bot sure what the 200m hop will prove exactly.

>>10840784
Well, maybe 200 meter won't do much in that respect but an orbital test definitely will.
PR factor is very important. It would be (one of the) final nails in SLS's coffin and perhaps make BO, China etc. commit to the space race with a better sense of urgency.

>>10840803
I don’t see BO making much of contribution to a space race. Their tech stinks.

>>10840807
they have rather sophisticated control algorithms, as demonstrated by New Shepard
I haven't seen enough of anything else of their to talk about anything else they can do, lol

>>10840815
I was making a very dumb BO Body Oder joke

>>10840821
oh, I was trying to cast shade on how fucking secretive they're being on everything they do

>>10840827
I’m worried their strategy of doing everything super fucking slowly is now going to pay off. By the time they land something on the moon for the first time, Musk will be there cutting the ribbon on the first lunar McDonalds.

>>10840803
>perhaps make BO, China etc. commit to the space race with a better sense of urgency.
China maybe, but BO operates on it's own pace, they are not going to rush. Their ultimate goal (O'Neil Cylinders) is much farther away, so i won't be surprised if they see themselves running on a different lane from others

>>10840784
The 200m hop will get a lot more media attention since you'll be able to see the vehicle better above the exhaust cloud.
Tech wise there isn't that much difference, but the 20m hop wasn't that impressive to people who don't fully appreciate the engineering involved. Like investors or politicians.

>>10840931
honestly it's all about showing off that damned engine
nothing else matters at this point
the rocket itself will be fine if they manage to get those hulking engines roaring

>>10840936
they need to strap two more in there to really make it fly

>>10840784
200m hop at the scale of a 9m wide hopper is at the very least going to look more impressive than the hop we've already seen, not only because it's going proportionally higher but because it will definitely move up and away from the dust cloud it's going to make on liftoff, making it clearly visible without obstruction. It's also a much longer flight duration so it's going to seem more impressive to those that think there's a significant difference in difficulty between controlling the vehicle for longer periods of time.

>>10840957
what do you think generates so much dust?

>>10840807
kek
to be sure though, they're taking the turbopump assembly for the BE-4 back to the drawing board because it apparently cannot reach the 100% thrust power figure they need to achieve, which is why they've only fired the BE-4 at something like 70% power maximum at this point. Interestingly this means that until they get their power-pack redesigned and working as intended, Raptor is actually the more powerful engine by demonstration. It just goes to show how much power can be squeezed out of a FFSC engine, look at how small Raptor is compared to BE-4.

>>10840966
At 200m the hopper will be above alot of the dust and exhaust that is deflecting off of the ground.

The cloud could be minimized if they had a flame trench, but to meet it's goals the vehicle has to be designed to work without a flame trench or deluge system anyway

>>10840988
What physical process is creating that huge cloud in the interaction between the exhaust and the ground?

>>10840985
aren't those figures out of date? Elon claims he wants to exceed 2.5 MN with a second gen raptor redesign

>>10840966
When the heat of the engine exhaust blasts the concrete (calcium carbonate), it decomposes back into calcium oxide (cement) and carbon dioxide. Calcium oxide formed from super-heating calcium carbonate is a fine powder, so it remains suspended in the air for a while. Also, due to the production of CO2, when the hot exhaust is applied the surface of the concrete actually starts to 'popcorn', or blast apart from internal gas pressure, increasing the surface area of the concrete and thus increasing dust production.

If someone wanted to make a hopper pad that didn't produce huge amounts of dust when exposed to heat they could use something like basalt, but they're probably have to melt it and pour it as a (literally) monolithic slab in order to prevent the exhaust pressure from ripping it apart, which would probably happen if it were made of basalt bricks for example.

>>10840985
It’s important to note that a larger, less powerful engine that can have more operation cycles and seconds of firing between refurb is better than a smaller more powerful one that needs constant repair.

Not saying raptor will be unreliable; just that going forward into the reusability era certain performance metrics are not as important as others. The winner in the methalox war won’t be clear until that reusability is demonstrated over thousands of firings.

>>10840998
ah, so the concrete is literally ablating
anyway, Dragon has just been grappled by the ISS

>>10840998
are you suggesting that they should create an artificial volcano in order to pave their launch pad

>>10840992
see>>10840998

>>10840996
First generation Raptor will still be at ~2000 kN but they're looking at a future engine config for the Booster (specifically the outer ring of engines) that wouldn't have or need any gimbaling hardware, and would be optimized for maximum chamber pressure and thrust. This no-gimballing Raptor will probably be somewhere around 2500 kN as you mentioned, but that won't be installed right off the bat. It's less of a second generation Raptor and more just another version of the same-gen hardware, like the difference between the sea level version and the vacuum version.

Another thing that really tickles my nuts is the fact that Bezos/BO gently explain that the reason BE-4 under-performs so much compared to Raptor is that they want BE-4 to be more reliable and last a long time, so they're making it less powerful than its size would imply on purpose. Meanwhile at SpaceX they're also targeting extreme reliability and engine lifetime but they're also targeting extreme engine performance simultaneously and so far they seem to be further along than BO is anyway.

>>10840992
Some of it is just loose soil and dust being kicked up, the rest is the rocket exhaust, carbon dioxide and water. The particles are fine enough that they become temporarily suspended in the air forming a billowy cloud.

On Mars the cloud would be much less dense due to the much thinner atmosphere. On the moon there wouldn't really be a cloud at all.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luna_15
Conspiracy theory: Luna-15 was a manned mission not a probe.
The missions goals and specifications were only released after the mission failed, giving the Soviets the ability to cover up the death of the cosmonaut.
Even if the craft had gotten to the moon behind apollo 11 it may have been able to return first, making the russians the first to get a man there and back.

>>10841054
?
The West was aware of Luna 15. They even talk about it during the Apollo 11 mission.

>>10841022
The rocket exhaust of Raptor is invisible.

The same dust clouds, albeit at a smaller scale, were produced by the old Grasshopper vehicle years ago, and were only formed when the hot exhaust from the Merlin 1D engine was impinging directly onto the concrete pad.

>>10841080
the rocket exhaust of Raptor is bright fucking purple

>>10841083
It's not bright compared to the vaporizing concrete of the pad, similarly to how the space shuttle main engines were not bright compared to the solid rocket booster exhaust. Watch the hopper engine cam video again and notice how the engine exhaust seems mostly transparent except for the shock diamond region while it's close to the surface, and only becomes more visible higher up where there is less of a yellow glow to overwhelm it.

I want the old ITS back, make it out of stainless if you have to

>>10841131
2030, after the 9m version has been flying for a decade or so

I believe Starship will work and all and probably start the new era of large space telescopes and real stations, but this entire Mars plan is pure fantasy.

>>10841149
They can pull it off, but it's extremely dependent on two things:
1. interplanetary EDL (especially on the return trip)
2. in-space refueling

>>10841131
Starship is too good. It occupies the sweet spot where it can fulfill the role of F9/Heavy/New Glenn while also being Good Enough (tm) for Moon and Mars missions with some refueling. If SpaceX doesn't fail spectacularly, it's probably going to be their workhorse for the next 10-15 years.

Dumping time and money into developing and builnding ITS only makes sense when there's a demand for _regular_ interplanetary missions (which is at least a decade in the future) and it's too big and expensive to use for anything else, unlike Starship.
As a tangent, I wouldn't be surprised if ITS used nuclear engines by the time it comes out.

>>10841131

Proton-M can actualy deliver 23+ tons to LEO, not the 22 tons stated there.

>>10841237
I have to admit, the Proton looks pretty cool. Shame about the cancer propellants.

>>10841253
Is no problem. In glorious homelands we calls cancer “glorious release from nightmare of life”.

>>10840803
SLS will go on even if Starship is regularly launching stuff into space. NASA wants a backup rocket. SLS will only die off once someone else (eg BO) is launching their own rocket.

>>10841184
3 things, they also need working ISRU otherwise it can't get back from mars.

https://twitter.com/starmil_admin/status/1154750609817559040

>when you steal the grid fin design from white devils but don't have the technology to take full advantage of them

>>10841426
I mean, they have to start from somewhere. "Controlled falling" implies that they didn't plan on landing it, just testing to see how to best control the decent of a booster.

>>10841426
>>10841434
Yeah, the video from other angle pretty much shows that they just fell in a mountain hill without a landing pad or anything, so they probably intended for it to be destroyed

>>10841426
Too bad they can steer the falling rocket now. I'll miss them dropping hydrazine on villages.

>>10841465
https://twitter.com/LaunchStuff/status/1154646001262743552

>>10841465
now they can aim for a specific house to land on. Good use for that social credit score system.

>>10841482
>"Smell that? You smell that? Hydrazine, son. Nothing else in the world smells like that. I love the smell of hydrazine in the morning."

>>10841486
>You want pray games? Fuck you, here rocket

>>10840039
Did something happen to it?

So if the BFR pans out and fully reusable spaceflight for less than 20 million per 100 tons becomes a thing in the next 5-10 years, what then?

>>10841595
Assuming that BFR doesn't die due to the spaceflight industry not having the immediate need for 100t to LEO rockets yet, then much more interesting things happening in spaceflight. At the very least the things that are already being done in spaceflight can be done much better due to having cheaper larger capacity for their payloads. Probes can be made out of larger parts to improve cost and reliability. LEO stations can have larger modules. And more companies that have an interest in establishing stuff into LEO, but couldn't due to costs being too high right now with out some government contract helping out, can be allowed to do more things.

At least that's what I hope for.

>>10841608
I know asteroid mining flamed out pretty badly recently due mostly to a sense that it would take a really long time to bear fruit-could this rocket change that? honestly, seems like you could use the in-orbit refueling and sheer size of it to send a few loads of mining equipment to like 1943 Anteros and get a proper mining operation going, bring back a few tens of tons of processed metal at a time and make a sweet profit while being careful to not flood the global precious metals market too badly. If the rockets are really going to make space access that cheap, why not do this? Seems like it's doable in maybe 10-15 years.

>>10841620
platinum production globally is about 200 tons per year, so if you bring back a total of say 15-20 tons a year you're not going to have all that much of an effect on the price, a small decrease but that's not enough to flood it.

right now platinum hovers at about 800 an ounce, so if you were bringing back 20 tons per year you'd be pulling in about half a billion a year, from just the platinum. If you can lease the rockets for 30 million per launch and landing and only need to do that once per year after your initial mining set-up, you've got a great money maker. Could easily pull in a 200 million net profit per year, assuming high costs of logistics.

>>10841595
The more immediate effect would be more private entities sending stuff to space

>>10841620
>I know asteroid mining flamed out pretty badly recently due mostly to a sense that it would take a really long time to bear fruit-could this rocket change that?
I personally doubt it because it seems like even with a launcher that costs nothing, mining, processing, and returning materials from an asteroid to tell on Earth would still not be cost competitive to just buying the same materials from an Earthly source. However, being able to mine asteroids will allow for more independent and cheaper space programs since less material would need to be sent off Earth.

But, I fell that focusing on asteroid mining now (or rather after if BFR starts flying) is like trying to develop nuclear power when the steam engine has just been invented. That is, asteroid mining is perhaps a too far leap forward in ISRU technology where there can be better shorter term developments. Such as, propellant manufacture like methalox, hyrolox, or even water for an NTR, space concrete (Spacecrete?) for cheaper base shielding and insulation, or oxygen manufacturing for breathing air.

Just my speculation though.

>>10841649
>returning materials from an asteroid to tell on Earth
Correction.
>returning materials from an asteroid to SELL on Earth

Manned outposts on asteroids when?

>>10841131
They will scale it up more once BFR is complete and tested. BFR is not the end goal here.

>>10841595
I think they'll keep it to $50m price range for the forseeable future. They want to phase out F9/Heavy first, then once they master the BFR, they'll get cheaper/cheaper by simple economy of scale/reusability

>>10841620
It isn't so much tonnage as it is massive investment even if your launch system is cheaper. You need to build a drive that can get you out to the belt in a period of time that isn't measured in generations, that absolutely demands nuclear power, none of this faggy hippy solar shit. You need either a nuclear drive or even better an MPD powered by a lightweight reactor, you need to figure out how to mine rare metal groups in zero gravity, vacuum, and extreme unearthly cold, you need to develop the tools to get it done and train people how to use them safely. You need a ship that can keep your crew alive and sane for the trip plus a good margin for error, you need the facilities necessary to assemble their ship. It will be above and beyond anything anybody is building for now, even a Mars shot looks pretty fucking weak compared to a belt shot.

https://youtu.be/Mg-Nksc7Oh0

>>10841694
it'll be so sad when they stop launching Falcon 9s. The rocket that (re)started the space age.

Dear Moon will complete before Artemis 2.

So I just tried looking for a racing outfitters store for a nitrous oxide tank and oh boy I got sent on a journey in a big city downtown. Every corner looked like a intersection of Switch Blade Street and Gimme Your Wallet Ave. Almost got into an accident while trying to go through a confusing intersection that looked like the Cyrillic character zhi of written drunkenly. The whole area looked unsafe. The place looked small, kinda dingy, and had a parking space that looked accident prone. I didn't even go in because I was so drained by the time I got there.

All I wanted was a tank without having to order it online.

>>10841816
It'd be amazing if they wound up arriving together, the NASA crew on the moon looking up trying to spot Starship as it orbits above them, the Starship occupants excitedly spotting the Artemis 2 landing site below.

>>10841825
Seriously though, if Starship Proto gets up into space, I'm calling for NASA's defending. Let the Jews at Boeing and ULA rot.

>>10841824
Quit being a little puss and go back.

Nuclear isn't the future. The future belongs to antimatter propulsion.

>>10841905
Solar sails are the future

>>10841919
solar sails provide constant but extremely small acceleration

>>10841830
THOSE FUCKS AT NORTHROP KIKEMAN ALREADY GOT NASA TO CUT OTHER COMPANIES OUT OF THE HAB COMPETITION FOR GATEWAY FUUUUUUUUCK! I fucking hate Northrop so fucking goddamn much AAAAA.

>>10841061
Soviets told us the flight plan. Not the actual purpose of the flight.

>>10841926
Keyword constant, it all adds up and will keep going faster and faster. While other fuel can only go for so long before its out

>>10841941
acceleration decreases with the inverse square law. once you're away from the sun, you're fucked

>>10841941
Without a laser beam providing thrust solar sails only work in inner solar system.

Will a solar sail be able to crash satellites safely if included on a satellite?

>>10839950
>What are /sfg/'s opinion of winged flyback boosters?
Another good but untried idea. There are loads of them. Tethers, inflatables for the low heat reentry, nuclear stuff, etc etc etc - take your pick.
>Could it be viable?
Of course, why not
>Advantages? Disadvantages?
Both are unclear until tried, and both are highly specific to the particular case and implementation. May or may not be easier to return at the launch site (VTVL boosters need to be transported back when landed somewhere down the range, and a flyback one might need a better lift-to-drag which might incur a mass penalty). May or may not have worse turnaround times, depending on implementation.

>>10839971
>Substantially higher dry weight due to having wings, more surface area to perform maintenance on
Not obvious if it weights more than the additional fuel for VTVL, highly dependent on the particular case
>more surface area to perform maintenance on
>less payload for equivalent size and more refurbishment/repair costs
Not obvious either, until tried
>and you need full runways to land on rather than small pads
Hardly a disadvantage, runways are aplenty as long as you don't carry toxic components.

It's worth remembering that a rocket or spacecraft doesn't exist until it flies, preferably many times. Neither paper nor prototypes equal a proven vehicle. Simple, but many people seem to mistake concepts and prototypes for real hardware too easily.

>>10840141
Nothing stops a flyback booster from being like that, as a matter of fact.

>>10841694
Funny enough, $50 million is the price they're listing Starship for at its start-of-operations date. Elon thinks if they can prove its reusability to about 100 flights, the total cost will eventually sit at around $7 million per launch. I'll assume that's without any sort of tanker operations, so you can extrapolate the cost of a fully-fueled cargo mission to Mars to need about 4-5x tanker launches, or $35-$42 million total in launch costs minus any additional special services. $420 per kg to the martian surface is astoundingly cheap.

>>10842036
That is impressive, it would let you put something the size of a B330 habitat module (23,000kg) on Mars for under ten million dollars, assuming you can build something that weighs that much. So 10 mil for enough habitat to house six people.

>>10841934
If Proto gets to space before the first SLS launch i mean.

If Elon is right (kek) it will go suborbital before SLS ezclap.

>>10842110
Except you would never launch pre-made habitats, what's the point. You ship a TBM and just get that to drill out endless amounts of habitable space while your crew lives inside the ready to go pressurised BFR.

>>10842119
>If Proto gets to space before the first SLS launch i mean.
Do you mean into orbit or above the Bezos line? I can maybe see the Starprototype getting into a suborbital hop before the SLS launches if the SLS gets delayed again, but there's no way it's getting into orbit before SLS launches unless the SLS sufferes a catastrophe beforehand.

>>10842145
SpaceX manufacturing is accelerating. The Starship will reach space before SLS

>>10842157
I have confidence in SpaceX that they'll develop an entirely new rocket faster than NASA can assemble a rocket from preexisting parts, but Starship development is too new and SLS is too far down it's development for Starship (as in, not the prototype) to beat SLS into space. That is, of course, if nothing terrible happens with the SLS in the meantime (like an RUD during it's first launch), but one shouldn't be hoping that such a thing happens.

>>10842171
https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/07/nasas-large-sls-rocket-unlikely-to-fly-before-at-least-late-2021/

>>10842145
>above the bezos line
heh

>>10842171
>>10842176
Yeah if this shit is delayed to late 2021, and let's face it that it probably will, then Starship will 100% be orbital before it.

>>10842176
Then I'll concede that the Starprototype has a good chance suborbital before the SLS flies if things go well for SpaceX. I mean, in the end, whichever gets orbital first I'm happy. Cool rockets are cool rockets regardless if they're orange or chrome.

>>10842181
>inb4 Musk applies for permit to fly circles around SLS

>>10841816
>some rich hippies will go to the moon before nasa's best

>>10842301
I wonder if that happens, then NASA may be reorganized to be more efficient. Seriously though, NASA needs one.

Pic unrelated.

>>10842308
NASA will be restructured for sure. SpaceX's BFR is literally a dagger pointed at NASA and oldschool industry.

>>10842315
I wonder what Shelby would say about it.

>inb4 someone posts that one copy-pasta about Shelby fetishizing the SLS

We need a SpaceX for space stations. Bigelow sucks.

>>10842323
My expectation is Shelby will respond by going whole-hog into getting Bezos to expand operations in Huntsville. Either that or the power of statistics take hold and one of his organs craps out before then.

>>10842323
>SECURITY SECURITY SECURITY
That's the mantra.

>>10842326
Starship is a space station. 2.4X the pressurized volume per crew Starship than Skylab.

>>10842326
Other than their inflatable habs, how else would you quickly set up a large space station?

also this >>10842354

>>10842358
There is no real way, inflatable a best given the difficulties of building shit, especially pressurised volumes in space.

>>10842358
That's the thing...nobody is doing anything "quickly" with space stations. Everyone is taking their sweet time.

>>10842365
Also provides much better radiation shielding than stupid tin cans since you have inches of rubber meshed with steel which is pretty sweet for blocking radiation.

>>10842358
For large-volume structures that need all components to be flown up from Earth, I'd have standardized sets of interlinking panels that would be sent up in stacks and assembled in orbit (like a geodesic structure here on earth), then either the inside or the outside would be sprayed down with a specially formulated vacuum-cure epoxy that would form the airtight seal between the panels. Maybe a separate foam spray for the outside for insulation/impacts, but that functionality may be incorporated into the panels.

Specialized panels containing windows/airlocks/docks/etc. would be incorporated into the structure and masked off during spraying. Only once the structure is built would you need to pressurize the inside.

>>10842176
oh no no no no no....

>>10841492
*dies*

>>10842176
Mr. Bridenstine, I don't feel so good

>>10842468
>Imagine

>>10842468
>>10842430
>>10842188
>>10842181
>>10842171
I thought you all had read this article; it was posted here before when it came out some weeks ago

>>10842491
I'm just shitposting a bit at SLS's expense.

>Me when I try to design a rocket while drunk

>>10842491
Not gonna lie I pretty much just passively filter out SLS news and posts, it's just so tiresome.

>>10842552
Here a meme to cheer you up.

Whoever steps foot on the Moon next, will be the thirteenth person to have done so. Given NASA's very bad track record with the number 13, I wonder if they've accounted for this in their planning stages.

If I'm the male commander with the female payload on the next Moon landing, I will be more than happy to defer, and let her-just her-go first. Be #13.

>>10842552
I don't blame you, every piece of news that comes of SpaceX, while not always good, it's at least exciting, and BO always announce something good when they do announce something, but everything that comes out of SLS is just "meh"

>>10842576
>female payload
lol

I just wanna help Humanity become an interplanetary species, what can I do

>>10842643
educate people

>>10842643
Get an engineering degree and throw yourself into the Spacex grinder until you die of sleep deprivation

>>10842678
I'm studying software engineering but want to do more

>>10842687
Use that money that you make from a career in software to subscribe to Starlink and send cubesats into space via SpaceX. Also buy a ticket to Mars.

Other than that you can see if there are any ongoing space research projects that could use volunteer programmers.

>>10841004
Syracuse U has been studying artificial lava flows, and it would be good practice for the moon/Mars making dust from launch pads using available regolith.
https://youtu.be/NdkVy1Re9Ho

>>10842396
>then either the inside or the outside would be sprayed down with a specially formulated vacuum-cure epoxy that would form the airtight seal between the panels.
Lol, like bedliner?

>>10842774
Exactly

>>10842767
>Pouring molten regolith lava to make launch pads

I love it, metal as fuck. However I doubt it will have the structural integrity needed like concrete pads with steel mesh in them do but I'm just a shitposter so maybe I'm wrong. The energy requirements would also be fucking huge.

>>10842819
>The energy requirements would also be fucking huge
NOOKYOULAR
POWER

>>10842821
Not going to happen, the weight/watt is outclassed by solar so much it's hilarious.

>>10842825
Start factoring in all the other stuff you actually need to make a solar power system capable of doing its job in its local environment and re-evaluate.

>>10842176
>Previously, Bridenstine has said that, with modifications, the privately built Falcon Heavy rocket could carry astronauts on Orion to the Moon if the SLS rocket was not ready. However, due to pressure from key figures in Congress, most notably Alabama Senator Richard Shelby, Bridenstine has since said that will not happen. "We can take some decisions off the table," he said this week in a teleconference with reporters. "We will be going with the SLS rocket and Orion crew capsule. It is imperative."

>>10842844
>"We can take some decisions off the table," he said this week in a teleconference with reporters. "We will be going with the SLS rocket and Orion crew capsule. It is imperative."
Fuck you, Alabama.

>>10842851
I can't wait for SpaceX to shit all over the Senate Launch System. Hopefully BFR's success will shed the light on the embarrassing state of affairs.

>>10842856
I do want more people to know just how bad it is.
I don't hate NASA, but I do hate this eternal status-quo of LEO shit and robot probes sometimes.

>>10842839
Still not even remotely close retard

>>10842892
Try again. Don't forget to degrade your solar cell's environment accurately and to have fault tolerance in your battery systems.

>>10842892
>>10842954
Don't forget that you need enough reserve power to keep all of your critical, life preserving shit running through a months-long dust storm where the incoming solar flux is too small to even generate a voltage on your solar cells.

>>10842961
Meanwhile, on the Moon, you need enough reserve power for two weeks of Lunar Night plus contingency power.

>>10842954
>Battery systems

Not needed since you are producing massive excess quantities of fuel either on the moon or mars which can run your needs during night/lunar night no problem. People a lot smarter and autistic than you or me have run these calculations on NSF and even at ~40% efficiency on Mars, let alone over 100% on the moon, solar still absolutely wrecks nuclear in terms of weight/watt. Feel free to browse those threads and read their calculations and conclusions rather than making inane posts on a Korean basket weaving forum.

>>10842961
>>10842966

Wrong, even in a dust storm event your panels will still produce 5-20%, given that an easy 95% will be going into Methane and LOx production you just shut that down during the storm and even if it's an absolute disaster and incredibly rare months long total blackout you just bootup your LOx/Methane turbines using your several thousand tonnes of spare fuel. Those bogus 0% production figures are from rovers that have no means to blow off a coating of dust every now and then which any kind of manned base would absolutely be able to do.

Take your nuclear shit to the outer system where it belongs. Solar is so much more efficient for shipping weight/watt hours (read; the only thing that matters) out to Mars it's not even funny.

>>10843001
>We'll just use our synthetic fuel and oxidizer stocks which will be so great we won't even need batteries

NSF is full of brilliant people, but some of the ideas they pitch seem direly ill-conceived. You still need your fuel to go home, synthesizing it is the single most energy intensive activity you'll be doing, bar none, and on top of needing it to go home, the proposal is that it also keeps the lights on because the weight calculations in an idealized scenario still look rosy? Starship is not a strongly weight constrained system. Cultivate options, and bring the nukes. They will be needed.

>>10843019
You only need the fuel to go home if you are planning on sending every single starship home, which you won't be, the methalox production will also be oversized to account for these situations. Also there is no "idealised scenario" on Mars, barring the extremely rare dust storms, when you have light you have full power. No clouds or anything

Yes a small nuke plant could have uses but as a main power source? The amount of starships you would have to send and the setup required is obscene.

>>10843028
>barring the extremely rare dust storms, when you have light you have full power. No clouds or anything

If only. If you're weight constrained, the additional infrastructure requirements for tracked arrays, including much more robust solar cells that are designed to handle variable loads and the frames that transfer those loads to the ground will not be worth the trade-off.

>>10843028
The power required to produce fuel for one Starship launch is approximately 11.7 Gigawatt hours. You need approximately that much power once more to condense it into a usable liquid state.

On an aside, a two megawatt reactor based on the Kilopower program is estimated to weigh 45 tons.

https://patents.google.com/patent/US20160027536

>>10842315
No. If they get beat by private capital they will be crippled by congressional hearings and budget cuts, before going back to cost-plus-as-usual for some meme mission cooked up by a white house intern, like a sub to Europa.

>>10843042
>>10843032
>>10843001
what's the tl;dr version of those NFS discussions? how many BFR's would they need to send for a self-sustaining colony?

Soyuz is the most aesthetic rocket

>starhopper's in Texas
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mbH60wCO-Yw

>>10843226
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XlFD0Zyl_f0

>>10843262
>tfw okie
>tfw hute muh texas pride bs
I will allow ya'll to assimilate me for this very short time period
outdide of this period I will be unrecognizable as a Texan[vomits violently]

>>10841983
How do you mean? There are many prototypes of mechanics for de orbiting. Small sats in testing that are cheaper.

What's the payload /sfg/?

>>10841595
The next step will be to redirect some public funding into mass manufacturing of payloads for the BFR, instead of SLS/Gateway/Orion.

>>10842136
You still need an airtight liner for your underground habitat walls. Maybe some kind of plastic made from methane? Or annealed Martian soil?

>>10843290
*hate
*outside
carry on lone star queerfolk

>>10842643
>I just wanna help Humanity become an interplanetary species, what can I do
shitpost in spaceflight generals

>>10843290
Okies are honorary Texans.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nggqe-L9ZQ8

>>10843001
This guy is correct. Solar is just better than nuclear, at least for initial Mars colonization. Maybe later when they develop megawatt scale Kilopower reactors, we can send one over there to diversify the options and provide process heat.

>>10842844
Imagine if due to lobbyists NASA gets beaten by SpaceX and Chinks.

What the fuck happened to ESA? Ariane dominated the market for so long how could they fuck up so bad now?

>>10843347
No budget. Rather use money on rapefugees and hope Nasa does some worthwhile.

>>10841830
nah it's fine we need NASA
just get some more efficient contractors, gut the bureaucracy a bit

>>10843358
It's all SpaceX NASA is a joke for years.

>>10843323

>>10841799
>You need to build a drive that can get you out to the belt
Not all asteroids are in the belt, there are a lot of Earth co-orbiting asteroids. But in the long term you're right.
>>10841983
The word you're looking for is de-orbit, and it doesn't even need to be solar, it just needs to add a little drag if it's in LEO. The only real problem is if your satellite fails in such a way that it can't be commanded to deploy the drag sail.
>>10842192
how do you do donuts in space?

>>10843347
SpaceX happened.

They currently have a Flacon 9 clone in the works at least.

>>10843347
It's not hard to stand out when your only competitors are NASA being fucked by lobbyists and a underfunded Roscosmos working with old tech

>>10842844
As a euro it weirds me out that US republicans will utterly have a mental breakdowns over the idea of the government spending money in social programs because taxing working Americans for anything not absolutely necessary will ruin the country. But dumping 10s of billions into the SLS money tire fire is totally fine and should be defended.

>>10840113
So the future is a mux of Macross 7 and frontier

>>10840113
Can’t wait for my big tiddy alien gf. Thanks Elon.

>Elon on Twitter: "Now that Hopper has flown, Starship update probably in two weeks or so."
soon

>>10843427
Pls announce high IQ, white only mars colony.

Falcon 9 piercing the sound barrier on reentry

>>10843445
gotta go fast

>>10843427
Neat. So he'll do one after 200M hop.

>>10843417
No nigga. Republicans hate spending money on jigaboos.
Get it right.

>>10843433
Why do you want to disqualify yourself anon?

>>10843463
Because I’m a mess :(. Probably already removed myself from gene pool at this point.

>>10843433
It will be white, east asian and high IQ purely due to the cost of the ticket being $$ several hundred thousand.

Founder effect. While humanity back on Earth will continue degenerating, Mars will give rise to the first 120 IQ average civilization.

>>10843484
Wait until there 20 non-black people there and people start calling mara racist

>>10843489
>far leftists begin screeching about Mars colonization being racist
>as a result, less leftists and brown people embark on the journey

I fail to see the downside desu.

>>10843492
No. Because some of the white peoples on mars are leftist too. And screech about offering free trips for brown people to improve diversity. First rape on mars reported days later.

>>10843484
Lmao, literally every graph on google shows an increase in iq.

If I become an astronaut can i get a young QT space historian gf?

>>10843522
Beucase those are almost always local graphs, showing average IQ either in some small population or some region of the world. IQ is often rising locally (Flynn effect, now possibly reversing).

However, average IQ is either stagnant or decreasing on a global level. This is a real world example of Simpson's paradox.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simpson%27s_paradox

>>10843537
Surely it’s dropping globally due to all the dindu’s breeding right?

>>10843541
yes, basically intelligence of both smart people and dumb people improves, however the number of dumb people increases significantly compared to smart people, resulting in paradoxical drop in average intelligence

>>10843537
Simpson paradox wouldn't happen if the data showed ΔIQ instead of average IQ

>>10843536
Yes

>>10843536
>gf
You mean a tranny

>>10843612
Average intelligence is what determines the character of society. While number of geniuses will possibly increase in absolute numbers, they will be diluted by even more dumb people.

>>10843625
Nah bro.

>>10843628
The numbers of geniuses won't increase due to numbers when those numbers are almost entirely Africans.

>>10843408
A lot of people in Europe are pushing to join the new space race but EU is too busy dealing with other shit right now.

And Ariane 6 is going to be the European SLS.

>>10843717
>And Ariane 6 is going to be the European SLS.
I can understand all the problems the SLS have looking at everything that happened in the background, i can not understand how the Ariane 6 is becoming such a problem after they were having almost no problems with Ariane 5

How could there be a race in space? A delta-v drag race? An orbital marathon of endurance? Obstacle course with asteroids and mockup space-stations?

>200m hop in two weeks
>Starship presentation in two weeks
hm

>>10843717
>>10843734
The reason is only 0.03% of tax money in the European Union goes to the ESA. As a european citizen I'd gladly pay 1% or 2% of all taxes to it. Or more.

>>10843734
Frogs are pushing it despite the fact that everybody can see it's already outdated tech and they need their own SpaceX.

>>10843744
ESA has 6.5 billion $ budget compared to 20 billion for NASA. But looking at stuff like 40m telescope they are putting those $ to good use.

>>10843748
because ESA is not mandated by the European Parliament (there are not lobbies in there anyway). It's an autonomous institution inside the EU. The focus is not "keeping jobs" like NASA, but instead on getting things done.

>>10843739
Who gets to the moon first

>>10843159
Honestly NASA's perfect niche is to just ignore launch vehicle technology completely and just design and build robotic payloads to send to different solar system objects. Literally all they should care about is staying within the payload capacity of whatever rockets are available, and spamming probes at as many objects as they can.

It's pretty much criminal that we still haven't had Uranus or a Neptune orbiters, we don't currently have a Saturn orbiter and only have a fairly niche and low capability Jupiter orbiter. Just as NASA strives to maintain a permanent human presence in space (which arguably doesn't make a lot of sense at the moment because they're only in LEO, a permanently inhabited Moon surface base would be much better for science), they should be striving to maintain a permanent robotic presence aroudn all the major objects in the solar system that technology allows us to put orbiters around.

Cassini was probably the highest yield robotic space mission ever performed, and we should have a Cassini-class probe around all of the planets by now, with new and upgraded ones being sent to replace the old ones BEFORE the old ones have their missions terminated.

The two technologies we need to make that a reality, where we're generating a hundred times as much scientific data as we do today and are solving mysteries that have been around for decades, are cheap high capacity launch vehicles and mass-production of science probes. The second thing is actually the one that would allow for the greatest decrease in program costs, because as it stands nearly every probe we've ever sent anywhere has been custom designed and built pretty much from scratch (exceptions include the Curiosity and Spirit rovers, the Pioneer and Voyager spacecraft, and a few more). However, this mass-production of a common design has not been seriously taken up by anyone because of current mass constraints, so we need better rockets.

>>10843303
Probably irrelevant to spaceflight by now

>>10843739
SLINGSHOTTING, BELTALOWDA

>>10843748
Junckers presidency of the European Comission is ending in 2020. His last budget will be 2020, 2021 and afterwards budgets will be set by the new president elect Ursula von der Leyen, of the centre-right Christian Democratic Union, so I don't know if she will be favorable to increasing ESA budget.

>>10843311
You can make ethylene from methane, and ethylene is the base feedstock for making polyethylene plastics. You need a catalyst to start the polymerization under normal circumstances, im not sure if at elevated temperatures and pressures the reaction can start automatically or not, if not then you also need to make a catalyst which is probably going to be more complex.

Alternatively if you have the energy available you can use the Mond process to extract nickel metal from meteorites using nothing but CO gas and the right heat gradients, it doesn't require any electrolysis and only a modest amount of heat energy and gets you ~99.99% pure nickel metal, which you can then heat and hammer out into thin sheets and line the interiors of your constructed habitats with that, welding the seams.

Alternatively again you could probably just vitrify the interior of the habitat (assuming it's made of stone) to produce a continuous glassy surface that would be air and water tight. That would require a lot of power, the right minerals, and would be susceptible to impact damage, though.

>>10843739
>How could there be a race in space?
Same as any other race.

>>10843347
They were too slow to react. The time to rush build Ariane 6 (purported to cost significantly less than F9) was the moment the Falcon 9 came online, because its economics started off better than anyone else to begin with. Once F9 was upgraded and started to do landing tests and actually recovered boosters, the only two options to stay in the game were to do a copycat design or to develop a new launcher cheaper than Ariane 6 with lessons learned from SpaceX (have one turbopump assembly common across both stages, cluster the first stage vacuum optimize the combustion chamber and nozzle on the 2nd stage, common tank diameter, ditch aerospace tradition and buy three units of GSE when you only need two rather than buying two 100% reliable things at 3000% the price, etc). Ideally they'd do both. Th fact is that the methods and practices of Arianespace are simply too expensive to compete with F9.

That's all going to be irrelevant anyway because there's just no way in hell Arianespace would have an answer to the SpaceX Starship concept, which is currently very much on the way to becoming reality.

>>10843837
Most of the ESA budget comes directly from member states, only about 20% is EU money.

>>10843717
>And Ariane 6 is going to be the European SLS.
>solid boosters taking up most of the liftoff thrust, hydrolox core stage that pushes most of the way to orbit, much smaller hydrolox 2nd stage effectively only used for maneuvering once very near to or already in orbit
Very true

>>10843739
The race occurs on the ground, in terms of the pace of technological development. The actual flight is merely the demonstration of the fact you've won.

>>10843853
>purported to cost significantly less than F9
meant to type "cheaper than Ariane 5, and with double payload stacking cheaper per payload than F9"

>>10843853
One interesting comment from an old Ars article

"
SpaceX got tremendously lucky - the design compromises they were forced to adopt ended up benefiting them in the long term. Allow me to expand.
Rockets are, in general, over 90% propellant by mass. When you launch, you need enough engine thrust to counter all that weight and impart some acceleration on your vehicle. However, if you try to land your rocket after boosting the payload, you have expended most of your mass, and your launch thrust is wildly excessive - if applied fully, you will produce tens of g's of acceleration, destroying your precious vehicle. You need to somehow reduce it to a small fraction of design maximum - but rocket engines are, in general, really bad at deep throttling, as it can cause combustion instability, followed by flow separation, followed by a destroyed engine.
This is where SpaceX got lucky - initially, their plan was to launch small satellites on the Falcon 1, followed by parachute recovery of the first stage. To that end, they developed the Merlin 1 engine for the first stage, and Kestrel engine for the second stage. This plan failed, and nearly bankrupted the company. They were saved by NASA awarding them a contract to develop the Falcon 9 and Dragon. With only Merlin and Kestrel in their toolbox, the latter being far too small for the class of rockets they got contracted to work on, and limited funds, they opted to make the entire rocket work using their relatively small Merlin 1C engine, which, at that point, was rated for 42 tons of thrust at sea level and 48 tons of thrust in vacuum. For comparison, the RD-180 engine used on Atlas V is rated for 383 tons of sea level thrust.
"

>>10843873
"
This meant using lots of small engines together - nine of them, in fact. At this point, they were still working on parachute recovery of the first stage. The decision to use nine engines on the first stage was controversial - many believed that this can produce uncontrolled vibrations that will destroy the rocket - but they didn't really have much of a choice. However, when their initial plan to use parachutes for first stage recovery turned out to be a failure - the stage simply failed to survive re-entry - they figured out that they could use the center engine alone to produce sufficiently low thrust to make a controlled landing of a nearly-empty stage.
The second point where they got lucky is with the decision to use Merlin on the second stage. While Merlin is small for a first stage engine, it's hugely overpowered for a second stage. For comparison, the RL-10 engine used on Atlas V's Centaur produces just 11 tons of vacuum thrust, and HM7B on Ariane 5 produces only 6 tons. They are far better engines for upper stage use - Merlin's specific impulse is pathetic in comparison - but in the context of Falcon 9, using a Merlin to power the second stage resulted in staging very early in the flight, with a relatively small first stage and a huge, overpowered second stage. Whereas a Falcon 9's first stage burns for less than three minutes and stages at slightly over 2km/s, and then the second stage takes over, an Ariane 5's first stage burns for nine minutes and burns out at 7km/s of velocity. On its ballistic path, launching out of Kourou, it almost reaches Africa - you can appreciate how much harder it would be to decelerate and land it, even if its engine was capable of such a feat.
SpaceX engineers certainly wrung every last bit of performance out of their luck, but it's not like ULA or CNES engineers aren't landing their rockets simply because they don't want to.
"

>>10843837

Germans want to push into space industry hard so maybe. Some non retarded people see that it will be worth trillions in not so far future.

>>10843837
What’s the point of the EU if it can’t be used to fund a dabk af euro space program.

>>10843891
>dabk
???

>>10843893
dank, but he hit b instead of n

>>10843893

I think he meant dank but typed in a b instead of an n. That is the risk of blind typing, it increases WPM but can cause you to be inaccurate.

>>10843900
that's why i read my shit after i type it nigga

>>10843891
It's better to have ESA independent of the EU so that a new Parliament wont change ESA's goals every 5 years.

>>10843910
Lol. EU parliament isn’t pathetic US congress. Not everyone is as dysfunctional as the US.

Ignore him.

>>10842181
lmao are you high?

>>10843950
EU parliament is certainly dysfunctional in its own way.

>>10843975
>High
So the opposite of SLS? Even the steel trash can has already logged more flight time than the SLS now.

>>10844020
Well that much is true. Maybe I’m wrong, but on average in get a better impression from modern European parliamentary systems than garbage like the US two party system where each party thinks the other is evil incarnate and spends 90% of its energy undoing what the other side did when they last had power.

>>10844045
>>10844020
Don't.

>>10844293
don't what

>>10844293
Just ignore him, every reply encourages more shitposting.

>>10843739
There's an informal race between NASA's SLS and SpaceX on who gets to moon first. There's a race between SpaceX and Blue Origin on who gets to launch their next gen rockets first to space, New Glenn vs Starship/SuperHeavy. There's a race between NASA/China on who gets to Mars first. There's a race between SpaceX/others on who gets to Mars first.

>>10844352
>There's a race between NASA/China on who gets to Mars first.
I think you ment Moon

Starhopper rolled back to launch pad.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DrjrGk-04yw

wtf is that black "person" figure on it?

>>10844361
wtf?

>>10844369
We wuz astronauts and shit nigga.

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1155567236716740608

Falcon rocket reentry from space with double sonic booms

What's Elon's plan for Mars energy? Solar is highly inefficient so going nuclear?

>>10844361
>>10844369
the outline is for scale
it's a tradition on SpaceX's dev platforms

>>10844413
Solar is not highly inefficient, thin film solar cells are more efficient than nuclear in terms of watts per kg.

The plan is likely solar, backed up by manufatured propellant.

>>10844418
that figure is like 2.5 meters tough

>>10844424
>he's not 250 cm tall

>>10843873
>>10843875
>Ars Technica
>SpaceX got lucky making their rockets

While their facts are sound, there isn't much luck in hardcore engineering and rapid development. AT always seems to be talking shit about SpaceX

>>10844369
Maybe it's like those badges you paint on an aircraft when you kill something?

>>10844410
Fake! That's obviously a regular rocket launch played in reverse. You can tell by the way the exhaust looks.

Kidding, that looks cool. I'm still kinda amazed that SpaceX pushed for reusability when it seemed like it wasn't worth it.

>>10844369
>>10844400
>>10844418
I'm betting its for the successful hop count.
Dragon1 gets an ISS logo stuck on it for each successful journey. The one we just sent up had 2 and will get a third when it comes back.

>>10844423
Solar doesn't work for half of the year at the very least on Mars, that's with perfect conditions. Realistically solar won't work for more than 20% of the year.

Methane to electric might be doable, but not enough to power 80% of the year with 20% of the solar power.

>>10844369
>>10844418

/sci/... have you forgotten me?

>>10844480
who?

>>10844480
How could I possibly forget about the
ROMBUS
O
M
B
U
S
?

>>10844489
That's one helluva plug aerospike.

>>10844502
http://astronautix.com/r/rombus.html
It's huge because it doubled as a regeneratively cooled heat shield during reentry. Imagine Starship, but instead of it reentering belly first it reentered butt first.

>>10844434
>I'm still kinda amazed that SpaceX pushed for reusability when it seemed like it wasn't worth it.
I wonder what the naysayers at the time thought when the first F9 landed back on the ground

>>10843739
>mfw I see vin diesel using a stick shift on the starship and drift around the moon

>>10843739
>Instead of endless gear shifts, its endless stage deployments

>>10844524
>He's playing a character named Vin Methane

>>10844523
You mean something like this?
https://www.reddit.com/r/EnoughMuskSpam/comments/a69bu6/debunking_the_spacex_hero_myth/

Also, I'll try finding it later, but I recall an older article that interviewed someone in Ariane about SpaceXs Falcon and its reuse, and the person said that while reuse was cheaper in the short term in the long term it'll be more expensive. This is due to the fact that the launch volume is so low (14 launches per year iirc) that only a few rockets in a fleet can cover all launch requirements. If a rocket lasted 100 reuses then that means that it can be years before new rockets were needed, but by the time that its needed the old engineers had to move on to other projects since they cant just sit around not making rockets for years. New engineers had to be hired and trained, pretty much starting a new factory from scratch again which is very costly.

>>10843389
>use rocks thrusters to turn perpendicular to your trajectory
>apply main thrusters perpendicular to trajectory
>a=v/(r*r)

>>10844566
funny, Airplanes last for thousands of flights but you don't see Airbus having to lay off its manufacturing team

>>10844400
Witam kolegę Polaczka

>>10844566
>This is due to the fact that the launch volume is so low (14 launches per year iirc)
That is because cost per launch is so high. Spacex is betting on "if you build it, they will come", and I think Spacex is right

>>10844571
I think the article explained it better than my memory that has been shredded from university exams, but I'm struggling to find it right now.

>>10843717
>And Ariane 6 is going to be the European SLS.
Except Ariane 6 is a small vehicle with a somewhat streamlined manufacturing process.
It certainly didn't eat 60 billion dollars. I'm also not aware that it has been significantly delayed.
Although I guess it has the same problem that there's barely any launches planned for it.

>>10844566
LOL. That's hilariously stupid. As prices go down, demand goes up. There's not going to still be 14 launches a year when launches are 100x cheaper ffs.

>New engineers had to be hired and trained, pretty much starting a new factory from scratch again which is very costly.
Yeah.. that's not going to be cheaper than building new rockets every time so you can keep all the engineers full time employed constantly. wtf.

>>10843837
>afterwards budgets will be set by the new president elect Ursula von der Leyen
I wouldn't expect anything from her. Her run as a defense minister was a complete and utter disaster. She can't even get a fucking sailing ship repaired without embezzling money. If you had asked me last month where she'd be now, I would've probably thought she would've resigned, never to be seen again.
They literally promoted her out of the way so her party doesn't get bogged down with her.
Fucking madness.

>>10844621
>>10844588
>>10844571
I think I've found it. The numbers seem much different than I remember but the memory can be unreliable.

https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/05/ariane-chief-seems-frustrated-with-spacex-for-driving-down-launch-costs/?amp=1

>>10844647
>"It is about future business," Charmeau said. "Why do all the billionaires invest in space? Why does Jeff Bezos come to Germany and declare that the country should not go to space? He makes money with your personal data. Today he knows your Amazon orders, tomorrow he drives your car."

The salt here is unreal.

>>10844444
quints confirm

>>10844647
>>10844655
Musk has caused so much ass pain in the aerospace industry. How mad do you think these leaches are that they actually have to work and innovate for their money?

>>10844752
Mad enough that he should worry about being suicided.

>>10844647
man that's fucking pathetic

they need to cancel the Ariane 6

>>10844597

Small vehicle? No Ariane 6 is a huge vehicle. Huge enough that only dual manifesting GEO satellites does it make economic sense to launch. And sadly, the Ariane 6 is more like the Ariane 5ME which was only a upgrade to reduce existing costs of the Ariane 5 platform. It is a great rocket...10 years ago before reuseablility. They would have been better off designing a smaller medium rocket with one payload only and consolidating their Soyuz and Vega rockets onto one platform.

Still, the for what it is, the design process has been relatively smooth and it will still have customers being #2 unless Blue Origin takes that away.

I'm 90% sure that SpaceX will build the colony in Arcadia Planitia.

>>10844902
Mariner Valley, but only Punjabis with Texan accents are allowed

>>10844902
Why?

>>10844841
I thought 6 was a downscale from 5, and it was 5 that was xbox hueg

>>10844925
its good for both solar and wind power, has water, and is flat enough that it will be safer to land on compared to most other places

>>10844910
>nly Punjabis with Texan accents are allowed
this disgusts me on a level hitherto unbeknownst to mankind

>>10844971
It's the decoy colony where the outsourced tech support phone jockeys are sent to die once AI replaces them.

I'm not sure if this question belongs here or /qtddtot/ but here it goes.

Asteroid belts as depicted in television where the asteroids are mere meters apart are not generally possible because the asteroids would've gathered together to form planets due to their gravity long ago. However, how dense an asteroid belt can be in the long term? What mechanisms would result in the formation of this densest belt and to maintain it?

>>10845104
look into Saturn's rings

>>10841356
Don't bother trying to explain it to them. They're so desperate to kill the PoR that literally anything anyone does is an "SLS-killer." They've been wrong every time, of course, but that doesn't stop them.

>>10844538
>Instead of endless gear shifts, its endless stage deployments
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ikQ7XYcQBzg

>>10842556
>mixing up Block 1 stats with Block 1B stats
trash meme

>>10845140
You make me sad

>>10844941
Ariane 6 with two boosters is smaller than Ariane 5, Ariane 6 with all four boosters is bigger/more capable.

>>10845104
Wholly dependent on tidal forces. While rings like Saturn's are held from collapsing by tides from the object they're orbiting, asteroid belts are prevented from coalescing by the gravity of Jupiter, which effectively sweeps through the area and disrupts any asteroids being drawn to one another and prevents them from ever actually grouping up.

>>10845131
>the PoR
the what?

>>10845163
Piece of Rocket?
Party or Rest?
Perry of Rlatypus?
Penis or Rocket?
PPPP oooo RRRR?
Poo of Rocket?

>>10845174
POO

ON

ROCKET

>>10845163
Program of record. Fancy word for "NASA's big rocket."

>>10845190
isn't it being built by boeing tho

'rollin
http://lroc.sese.asu.edu/posts/1110
>Sometimes, material moves down the slope rapidly in discrete chunks. Running from the outcrops to the rim of the partially buried crater is a track etched by a rolling boulder bigger than a bus. Perhaps a moonquake shook it loose. The boulder bounced and rolled toward the partially buried crater, plowing a path that is still visible through the loose material of the slope. When it reached the rim of the partially erased crater, its path curved and it slowed to a stop.

How do I cope with being a space brainlet?

>>10845385
MEMORIZE IT

>>10845391
AKA RocketHub

>>10844971
Have you watched the Expanse because that's legit lore

>>10845381
>Pioneers used to ride these babys for miles
Seriously, imagine being among the first to witness a moonquake as it was happening and seeing a boulder bounce around. Must be cool.

>>10845381
>Moonquake

How does this happen? I thought the moon was inert rock with no core, mantle or anything.

>>10845462
it's pretty active
>One key finding was an improved understanding of the structure of the deep lunar interior, including the existence of a solid inner-core and sharp core-mantle boundary and a partial-melt layer at the base of the lunar mantle.[6][7][8][9] The solid core has a radius of about 240 km and is surrounded by a much thinner liquid outer core with a thickness of about 90 km.[7] The partial melt layer sits above the liquid outer core and has a thickness of about 150 km. The mantle extends to within 45 ± 5 km of the lunar surface.[9]

>>10845462
If I recall correctly, it's because the moon still retains some heat that's its losing. The crust is already cold and solid, but the inside has some heat left over. As the inside cools, it contracts, but since the crust is already solid it buckles due to the inner parts of the moon that it was resting on changing size. This creates moomquakes.

>>10843825
this

whoever plots the fastest course and manages to do it without passing out or crashing wins

>>10845462
Quakes have many root mechanisms, ed boy

>>10844540
Someone should start a petition to get him to officially change his name to Vin Biodiesel, to promote green energy and fight climate change and what not.

>>10839920
i just wanted to say... FUCK ELON... AND FUCK SPACEX!

>>10845530
I would if I could, bitch.

>>10845530
Fuck NASA, fuck /tv/ and fuck you too anon

>>10845545
>>10845549
eat your fro-yo

>>10845555
The fuck's a fro-yo?

>>10845560
he's the one with the ring in that book innit

Shit, technically Starship has flight hardware flown now, doesn't it? Four heat tiles and an engine.

>>10845578
yup
probably significant avionics crossover with Falcon 9 S1

>>10844352
There's also a race between SpaceX and Boeing to get the first human to ISS. Both sides have had many stumbles, and it's going to be close.

>>10843445
thats water vapor lol

>>10844910

>>10845900
All I know for sure is that the lasagna dish looks stupid, and "cheese farts."

>>10845945
It's just a normal edge pan.

>>10845956
Edgy

new >>10846136

>>10845722
What do you think trans-sonic aerodynamic effects are made of?