/sci/ - Science & Math

>Cannabis Launch System

>>11017428
Considering that it's going to take months to get to Mars, having a device that changes the perceived passage of time would be a good idea.

TIGHT IS RIGHT

>>11017484

>>11017484
LONG IS WRONG

>>11017529
>SLS or Commercial Crew?
Madman

>>11017299
Earth is flat

>>11017529
Someone has to crop elon from this pic and post it as a template.

>>11017564

>>11017564
>>11017569

>>11017569
saved, thanks anon

>>11017571
over 9000 hors in paint

>>11017299
Anyone else thinks it was a fluke that Musk couldn't get the ITS to be a Nasa project in 2016 and that there has never been considerable Nasa funding for BFR? Nasa would have insisted to deliver the design as advertised, so a giant carbon fiber ship that would have been in development for decades. All these changes: from 12m diameter to 9m, from carbon to steel, the different wing and leg designs, different heights, ... they would have been impossible with Nasa involvement.

>>11017606
if musk is funding it himself, why should the American Taxpayer bother paying for it?

I want the gateway to happen. PlanetS when?

>>11017612
No one gets to complain about The Great American Taxpayer's rocket $$ while SLS is still on the books

>>11017612
It is probably a good incentive system when a company develops this out of own motivation and own funds (this just requires the company to have funds...). Either way, if you want a lunar base, launch costs must cover the development costs, so the taxpayer will pay eventually.

>>11017612
Because there's still a risk involved. If America wants best value, it should do to protect its interest and minimize the risk a little by adding bit of cushion. Even few hundred million is enough for SpaceX to get some cushion for a potential for huge pay off in the coming years.


Think of it this way. A child is learning to ride a bike. You can let the child ride on their own which has the risk of them injuring themselves and potentially giving up bicycle. But if you hold out your hand a bit, in the case of a fall, you can catch them and put them back on the feet and let them try again. A grown child who knows how to ride a bike safely is better than one that sits in his home all day and not doing anything.

>>11017468
Cannabis slows your perceived time. So you are fucked.

Hullo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wRF41f7hPWE

>that part where musk starts ranting about aliens
Jesus christ.

>>11017612
>why should the American Taxpayer bother paying for it?

American funded rocket means its Americans landing on Mars.

It’s nice to see how good the security at Boca Chica is...

>>11017938
Spies are having a field day on Boca Chica, they can just grab pics posted by idiots or they can just go there and take pics themselves

>>11017977
chinese space agency is probably 24/7 following the spaceX reddit.

>>11017938
Imagine being so stupid that you post photos online of your trespassing

>>11017977
The Chinese trying ot copy this tech would be a godsend-good ol xenophobia may be what gets us into space cheaply.

>>11017938
That person is a crazy Elon-chaser who wants to get in his wallet. Check his Twitter

>>11017977
It’s not even just pictures, I’m pretty sure someone could just hop the fence, run in, grab some of SpaceX’s hardware and then leave at this point. The only evidence of the crime would be them popping up on Lab Padre’s livestream.

>>11018029
I was scared for Elon last night. Seems an easy target for terrorists if they’re real.

>>11018040
Wait, are you saying you didn’t see Jim Bridenstine sneak in and climb in one of Starship’s portholes, whilst carrying a bag full of plastic explosives?

>>11018050
Always figured it would be Thunderf00t doing the dirtywork, considering how obsessed he is

>>11018100
But seriously, the conversation Jim and the FAA administrator will be having next week, will surely be interesting...

>>11018100
Thunderf00t really jumped the shark with all those annoying,repetitive videos about feminism. He even managed to fuck up critique of the hyperloop, which is for sure a very challenging and radical form of transportation and may never become popular by acting like it's physically impossible-as several companies build increasingly functional prototypes and test tacks. India is now hell for leather going for making a hyperloop over the next few years, and that I think if it opens and works it might create a true realization even among his more die-hard acolytes that he is not the end all be all of science knowledge.

I will say this-his work on sodium and potassium's interactions with water are quite good. https://youtu.be/LmlAYnFF_s8

>>11017938
NASTY! Hope they removed that engine on purpose?

Why doesn't it look smooth? The whole appeal was it looking smooth like in OP's image. Instead it looks like a dinged up hair dryer from the 50s. Space age is canceled.

>>11018154

The Mk.1 was made out of sheet metal, the actual Starships and later Mk's won't be made that way.

>>11018138
Its probably his political leaning clouding his judgment. Bias is strongest when it collides your personal beliefs.

>>11018154
Too bad.
>>whole appeal
the whole appeal of it is that you can put a shitload of stuff into space with it. 'It doesn't look aesthetically pleasing' is the absolute worst most fanboyish thing you could say. Why don't you go back to jacking it to trap porn of old battleships?

>>11018154
Mk1 is multiple modular steel rings. Mk3 I believe or later versions will be one large(or larger) steel ring.

>>11018173
I'm talking about this. This isn't made of sheet metal, surely

>>11018138
He is just some chemist.

>>11018185
So he's talking shit that's way out of his area of expertise and with no practical knowledge or experience.

>>11018184
It looks like a cock with 24 cock rings cutting off circulation

>>11018184
>I'm talking about this. This isn't made of sheet metal, surely

Its a thick enough gauge to technically be classified as plate steel. The tank domes are 5mm thick.

>>11017977
What‘s there to spy? Starship is a steel water tower. Raptor is an engine running on magic alloys. Reuse is mostly in their software and the experience of their employees.
The rest is down to Elon‘s autism.

>>11018206
And it still looks like shit? What a hell?

>raptor started spitting some orange at the end of their test video
Again with the orange flame.
Are these things really ready for prime time? Let alone infinitely reusable without refurbishment.

>Will never fly

>Also will never fly

>>11018193
Pretty much. People need to realize that e-celebs are humans with faults.

>>11017612
Because SpaceX is an American company that employs Americans, represents America, and who's business would benefit Americans among many other groups of people. American tax money would be much more productively spent in boosting private enterprises in a lot of fields including space rather than what it's wasted on now. Personally I'd much rather just cut like 80% of tax expenditure outright because our government has IMO already greatly exceeded the limitations intended in it's original founding mandate, but as long as I'm going to have my wallet fucked I'd prefer the money go to something that generates valuable technological advances.

t. American Taxpayer

kek

>orion
has been lifted by a rocket to orbit
>starship
has been lifted by a crane to some concrete stumps

>>11018227
Honestly I used to find these kinds of rockets boring compared to giant space benises like Saturn V, N-1, or BFRship, but everything I build in KSP ends up looking exactly like this.

Why do I love ULA so much? It's pretty simple when I think about it. ULA isn't just the best launch provider in the country; they might just be the greatest launch provider of all time. Just imaging the Altas V riding through the skies of Earth, the wind on its fairing, the mighty RD-180 below it. As she rides through the red sky, NASA swoons at her very scent. They know how she smells; the essence of burning RP-1 smell is sold in Orlando under the name of "Space Orgasm." The very nature of ULA is mystery. Could they be playing a deeper game than even Tory Bruno realizes? The answer is yes, ULA has transcended such boundaries as the physical world, and has free will to do whatever they sees fit. However, ULA is filled with such guile, such arcane craft that they does not even use these powers. Why, you might ask? You will never know, for the mind of the ULA is not one that is easily penetrated. ULA rockets are such a force of nature in this realm that nothing can truly touch them, the only thing keeping them bound to this world at all is their will to exist within the preordained boundaries understood physics. ULA is not only beyond the comprehension of us, it exists within a plane of true focus and beauty. Observe the plume of exhaust gasses from this Delta IV, the gorgeous and rippling flames, the gallant fairing, and most importantly, its engines. Her engines, like cauldrons straight from hell, provide the only glimpse into the true machinations of ULA. Do not stare into them. Many good men have gone mad in the attempt. ULA is not just a launch provider, a formless collection of engineers and rockets; they are themselves the binding that holds the word together. Without ULA, Musk the Menace takes over and the entire space industry as we know it crumbles. The Mississippi would stop flowing without ULA, Kessler syndrome would take over in orbit, and the space station would fall without their fiery gaze. These are just of a few of the reasons why I like ULA so much.

>>11018211
it's a crude,early test article. Later versions of this will have 1 seam going down the back to improve strength.

>>11018245
kek been a while since I've seen that

>>11018227
What problems specifically about the Delta IV that kept it from being human rated?

>>11018264
Pretty sure one of the big ones was the massive hydrogen fireball during startup.

>>11018268
But I don't recall the Delta IV failing because of the fireball. It seems like NASA was being too scared of the Delta and not actually bothering to do anything.

My guess is SLS will survive longer than we expect, mainly to launch internationally sensitive payloads (like the fuel for a nuclear thermal rocket, or a nuclear reactor). Reason being, at this point in time the government would prefer to tightly control the entire process for such a mission in a way that might not be possible with other launch providers.

If I was to bet where Orion ends up, I have a feeling the 3-stage New Glenn could handle it.

You know Elon dunking on SLS was funny and all, but what’s far more interesting is the conversation Jim Bridenstine and the FAA administrator will be having this week. Whenever Elon tries to act snarky it usually backfires on him (see the ‘pedo guy’ incident and his misadventures with Tesla shorts). I have it on good account that NASA were giving SpaceX more leeway than they usually do with contractors, prior to the DM-1 capsule explosion due to their “golden child” status within certain circles of the agency; however, after the incident NASA clamped down on them hard and returned things to “business as usual”. Maybe this is what’s causing the friction between JB and the autist: increased scrutiny.

>>11018281
I wouldn't trust anything sensitive or radioactive to be launched using Shit Rocket Boosters.

>>11018286
>Whenever Elon tries to act snarky it usually backfires on him (see the ‘pedo guy’ incident and his misadventures with Tesla shorts)
The difference between that and his comment about the SLS is that the "pedo guy" comment was uncalled for and rude, but the SLS comment was mostly correct and is what most spaceflight fans feel about it.

>>11018290
I agree in principle, but the government gets what congress pays for.

>>11018297
It wasn’t really all that, he basically said “no u” to Jim for complaining about CC delays. Mentioning SLS’ delays as a retort, every time SpaceX is fairly criticised for unrealistic timelines is getting really nauseating. Also I’m pretty sure Elon’s statement didn’t resonate as well with the officials of NASA and Congress (The people who matter).

>hahahaha the cows are confused

God damn he is fucking autistic

>>11017938
>those rekt COPVs
>>11018040
Good thing the ULA snipers didn't know he was up in that cherry picker getting intimate penetrating Starship-chan.
>>11018152
Oh no, someone sneaked in and ran off with the Raptor in the back of their pick-em-up truck! What do you _think_ happened?

>>11018341
that the raptor had an accident during landing

>>11018346
You know they weren't going to just leave the raptor (and avionics) attached to Hopper, no matter what.

>>11018322
>Mentioning SLS’ delays as a retort, every time SpaceX is fairly criticised for unrealistic timelines is getting really nauseating
True, and it is abit of a fallacy to call out "no u" when getting criticism, but I'm pretty sure most spaceflight fans (and SpaceX) included are annoyed by NASA calling out SpaceX on their delays when NASA has turned a blind eye (and will keep doing so) on delays from other contractors (SLS related ones specifically).

>>11018210
Exactly, this is one of those situations where even having the exact recipe it is still extremely hard to bake the cake.

How can I contribute to any of this when I'm not smart enough for aerospace engineering, let alone 1% picky companies like SpaceX.

>>11018429
Learn to weld and get a job at the Starship factory.

>>11018429
spacex is just the train to the west, everything else needs to be done when you get there. Growing food. Entertainment. Mining.

>>11018429
the turnover rate at SpaceX is pretty high. just keep applying and you'll get an interview.

>>11018281
I honestly want SLS to succeed and continue its mission profile as planned. The juxtaposition of SLS setting up a rube goldberg machine of overpriced orbital infrastructure in order to barely put a capsule onto places that Starship is regularly freighting tons of cargo back and forth from would be absolutely golden.

>>11018429
Learn how to work with high and low (as in vacuum) pressure equipment and its maintenance. In time, space facilities (orbital/lunar/martian) will get big enough that they're going to need someone full-time to inspect and maintain seals and junctions. Toss in some Electrical and or Plumbing knowledge and you've got something interesting going.

In fact, determining how to adapt plumbing rules for fractions of earth gravity would be an interesting little project.

>>11017744
Even better

>>11018465
Kek indeed. The virgin SLS cucknauts miserably forcing down their NASA rations in a chilly tin can and gazing wistfully whilst Musk's chad lunar bros guzzle low g cocktails in their lavish moon pad.

>>11018277
It probably isn't that serious of an issue, I guess NASA is afraid the fireball could somehow damage the rocket and cause a RUD?

>>11018535
Well, ULA's whole selling point with their rockets was not fucking up. They have a reliable enough record of not fucking up that NASA is fine with an updated Atlas V for Starliner, so I'm going to go with ULA intentionally not offering it as an option.

>>11018211
Quick and dirty is fine when you're not pushing the envelope on performance (which Mk1 and Mk2 definitely will not).

>>11018219
>>11018223
based as usual

Should NASA just abandon CC? The ISS is only going to be around for another couple of years and have the Orion capsule to use for crew transport. In addition, both companies don't seem to need the money.

>>11018566
Isn't the ISS funded until 2030? And even after its decommissioned, its not like they'll just dump all that hardware into the ocean. Parts of it will probably be salvaged for new projects.

>>11018465
Meme's aside, I actually want to see the SLS launch and do something useful, at the very least as a last resort for ultra heavy launchers in case by some string of disasters all the other options (SS/SH New Glenn etc) don't come about.

>>11018570
>Isn't the ISS funded until 2030?
I guess I missed that. I thought it was going to end in 2024ish?

>>11018566
Until NASA gets over their PTSD of abort-free vehicles, I expect their missions will require commercial crew to transfer to and from vehicles like Starship in orbit.

>>11018578
>Until NASA gets over their PTSD of abort-free vehicles
To be fair, that's pretty well justified considering how unsafe the Shuttle was.

>>11018586
True. And that fear will incidentally benefit the space industry as a whole: instead of SpaceX immediately steamrolling all possible competitors, funding to fly NASA astronauts up and down will provide enough funding to keep some companies alive while they scramble to adjust.

>>11018591
Maybe. Hopefully ULA will step it's game up with Vulcan.

>>11018578

>200 people getting shuttled to space hotels and rotating habitats at a time on starship
>When NASA wants to send it's whamenauts it needs to send four at a time in its tin cans to dock with starship in orbit

Lmao

>>11018606
But unless starting up the Raptor is as fast as SpaceX says (which seems unlikely), then if SS/SH suffers a major problem during launch then that means 200 people may die. That's a pretty terrifying thought.

>>11018322
then jim shouldn't have chosen to call out only one of two commercial providers working on commercial crew and a superheavy lift vehicle, when the other provider has delayed their vehicle by almost a decade

yes I am aware the parts of Boeing that build SLS and the parts that build Starliner don't overlap but the same is largely true of SpaceX

>>11018599
I believe they can pull off their helicopter-capture of the thrust and avionics module, but they're going to have to adapt to the fact that flying the tanks back too is just plain easier than requiring a whole mid-air recovery team.

>>11018606
The greater the silliness, the greater the pressure for NASA to adapt to the times. It won't be instantaneous though: building space tourism as a serious industry (even if it remained highly exclusive due to price) will take at least until 2030.

>>11018612
The idea as far as I can tell is that Starship is actually pretty robust (built in a field out of steel and whatnot), and the "abort" mode is simply to ride out the fireball and propulsively land. It's not like any feasible LES could exist for 100+ passengers.

>>11018627
This is exactly it. Their analysis of rocket explosions shows the fireball is slow enough that it doesn't pose a serious pressure-wave risk.

>>11018627
And that sounds incredibly questionable and unsafe unless SpaceX can demonstrate that such an abort mode is possible and not deadly. I'd definitely seeing SpaceX using SS/SH only for cargo for some time.

>>11018633
Source on that analysis?

>>11018612
Remind me what happens when an airliner suffers a critical failure mode?

>>11018636
Give me a minute, I'm going to have to dig through Elon's tweets because it was buried in one of the threads from the past couple weeks.

terminal velocity is ~70 m/s in a starship coming in on its belly. Perfectly survivable with crash seats

>>11017986
Agree 100%

>>11018640
Those two aren't equivalent. Airliners are expected to have a chance of a critical failure of less than one-in-a-million while the Falcon 9 has a one-in-77 chance of a critical failure. So for a rocket there's a need for a reliable launch escape system because massive accidents have a much higher chance of happening compared to an airliner where it's chance of an accident is substantially lower.

>>11018634
That was just pontification on Elon's part, it isn't even slated to have an abort system.
Which I guess must be even more triggering, but imo the goal should be to reach a point where that is not cause to lose our shit. We don't expect passenger planes to have 300 ejection seats either.

>>11018636
>>11018645
Okay, found the relevant tweets
>https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1171125683327651840
>https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1171141226109620224
>https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1171161289105653761

Last tweet is the most pertinent

>>11018429
Learn how to run a political campaign, move to Alabama and defeat Shelby.

>>11018680
Thank you. The last one about the explosion being slow is interesting. It reminds me of Gemini where the Titian II was selected because it's Aerozine and Dinitrogen-textroxide propellant explodes more slowly than kerolox (which is on the Atlas) and thus it was seen as a safer option.

The wording on that last tweet sounds like he's saying something that an engineer has told him, so hopefully SpaceX has seriously analyzed this.

>>11018696
If you recall the CRS-7 in-flight explosion, after the incident SpaceX said the Dragon would have been recoverable had they had an emergency chute protocol even though cargo flights have no abort system.
To look at another disaster, the Space Shuttle Challenger had its cabin remain intact and its crew aware all the way until impact with the ocean, and that's a much worse in-flight incident than you would see for a single-stick rocket.

>>11018709
The space shuttle was also a massive boondoggle on which NASA gave itself massive leeway that it would never accept from any other party, so I think it's unfortunate that it calibrates our preconceptions.

>>11018709
I remember that. Maybe there is merit to the "tough it" out approach.

>>11018720
Here's some more fun reading on the Shuttle.
http://astronautix.com/s/shuttle.html

>>11018591
Imagine a time when SpaceX doesn't bid for a CC round because they'd rather not keep building more Crew Dragons.

>>11018844
>I am looking forward to SpaceX reaching Mars tomorrow. In the meantime, Commercial Crew has yet to be completed. NASA expects to see the same level of enthusiasm focused on the investments of the American taxpayer.
>It's time to deliver.

>>11018634
So what is the abort system for the Vomit Comet?
>tfw when you google for a stock image and find a story that applies to your shitposting
>NASA Nearly Crashed the Vomit Comet on a Reckless Trip to Greenland
https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/qkjvb7/how-the-vomit-comet-cratered

Anyone else think it's going to be a little tok intense to swing the ship to vehicle a few hundred meters from the ground?

>>11018680
>Pressure wave (aka explosion) with liquid rockets is low, as ox & fuel are poorly mixed.
SRBs BTFO
also methalox is not toxic, and there will be no hypergolics

>>11018847
>Year 2119, SpaceX's Mars Colony has officially declared independence from the Earth. In spite of Mars now being the first independent state outside of Earth Commercial Crew is still vital to space exploration and the American taxpayer cannot be ignored any longer!

>>11018860
>SRBs BTFO
They look pretty cool though.

>>11018226
this.

>>11018898
They're a great brute-force booster technology for unmanned payloads.

>>11018657
Part of SpaceX's plan of airliner-equivalent reusability is necessarily airliner-equivalent reliability. If that isn't achieved, Starship as a whole fails. It's also why multi-engine-out capabilities throughout the flight are needed.

>>11018154
This is an early prototype solely to test the aerodynamics of the aerobrake system. The next version will have a single weld (seam) along the leeward side.

>>11018970
>The next version will have a single weld (seam) along the leeward side.
no dude, each ring will be a single rectangle of steel with one weld, but the rings will still be welded to one another and the vertical welds will be offset so the thing doesn't want to unzip.

>>11018566
Orion can't launch often enough to service the ISS

>>11019006
What are you talking about? A launch every other year is often enough. We need to make spaceflight as boring as possible to keep it "pure". \s

>>11018606
Both Dragon and Starliner seat seven people.
>>11019012
>ISS has only russians onboard except for 6 month stints every other year
what would they do with the excess lift capacity of SLS?

>>11019027
>would they do with the excess lift capacity of SLS?
Lift more useless micro-g experiments? We know that roses in space grow differently than ones on Earth, but what about other flowers?

>>11019030
maybe they could finally launch a centrifuge experiment, some sort of expandable torus
probably take a whole lift of SLS just for the dampener so it doesn't destroy the rest of the station

>>11019031
>maybe they could finally launch a centrifuge experiment, some sort of expandable torus
But that's to much work anon! Its much easier to do ISS 2 Electric Boogaloo around the moon than doing something useful. Rocketry is haaaaaaard.

>>11019006
Orion can go to LEO on Delta IV or Falcon Heavy.

Holy shit. One of the NIAC presentations from last week suggests that we can build a combination laser particle beam that doesn't spread out much over 0.5 AU! And that's with a fucking 1 meter aperture! It can be used to accelerate a 1 kg probe to7.5% of the speed of light. Whoever builds one these first will essentially own the solar system! You can either relativistically bomb anyone you don't like or just use the beam directly to snipe anything that gets within AU of you.

>>11018297
>what most spaceflight fans feel about it.
spaceflight fans are a bunch of virgin losers who obsess about a random topic but they have NO relation to anyhting even remotely close to space flight, and they do not represent the general public either, much less any company.

They are basically nothing.

SLS is a massive welfare project for defense contractors, and especially the ICBM/SLBM industry.

>>11019093
don’t forget OmEgA

>>11019079
Project more

>>11019115
you actually think "the spaceflight fans" is a group with significant power.
nigga im a winner with a college degree from an university so good you wouldnt believe me if i told you, i have a god tier life and youd kid to live at least one week as me, but space is a hobby, one of many, i would never be delusional enough to believe my opinion influences the united states goverment space flight policies. All i have is work in projects at least as complicated as that sometimes more complicated but in a totally different area of industry to know that angry virgins with shitty grades from a shitt college can basically be 100% ignored

>>11019073
In theory we can already do high power pulsed nuclear fusion too, anon. Theory means shit.

>>11019128
I believe it's fairly obvious why a system propelled by hydrogen bombs is not popular with the military or the government

https://imgur.com/a/TjJd6XR
Images from the moron

>>11019156
Elon's gonna have to build a wall

>>11019156
it just punched a hole straight through the concrete, that's pretty interesting

>>11019127
who is so delusional to think their opinion outside of the industry matters anyway?

>>11019127
How many confirmed kills do you have?

the whole world is laughing at that trash can america really is the circus of the world

>>11019275
world's second ever circus in space coming soon

>>11019275
The only people who aren't loving it are Chicoms and Russians. You read like one of the former.

>>11019275
>2024
>the whole world is laughing at that trash can on the moon america really is the circus of the world
>2030
>the whole world is laughing at that trash can factory on mars america really is the circus of the worlds
>2034
>the whole world is laughing at that trash can colony ship america really is the circus of tau ceti

>>11019275
it's because they're afraid. they know how it goes, they laughed at SpaceX before it launched falcon 9 too...

>>11017299
why are they calling this metal container a starship? a ship capable of travelling between star systems needs to be able to repair damage which means hosting industry and make fuel

>>11019275
It seems like even americans are laughing.

>>11017299

Why the need to do spaceship Ass-To-Ass refueling?

Why not fill a station and use it like a typical fuel-station on earth.

>>11019342
What would that do for SpaceX to make it worth their time and money?

>>11019376
>What would that do for SpaceX to make it worth their time and money?

Establish an in orbit fuel-station. Also use this as a hotel, science lab, observatory, way point, etc.

Do the exact same with a station in lunar orbit.

>>11019328
oh no, it's a Ship for traveling around Sol
>>11019383
sounds like a safety hazard to me
what if you want a different inclination or phase?

>>11019328
Mars is a star in the nightsky, even if it‘s not a star.

Will the US government freak out and nacionalize SpaceX when SpaceX lands a human on Mars for the first time?

>>11019383
>Establish an in orbit fuel-station. Also use this as a hotel, science lab, observatory, way point, etc.

In other words, it does nothing that's worth SpaceX's time or money.

>>11019397
no

>>11019400
>In other words, it does nothing that's worth SpaceX's time or money.

So instead you launch a separate ship EVERY time to do an Ass-To-Ass refueling.
Yeah that sounds smart.

Musk is being risky in his rush to Mars.

Instead do SMALL steps.
1. refueling stations in earth and lunar orbits.
2. Dark side of moon base
3. Mars base and Mars orbital refueling station
4. Asteroid mining

>>11019275
What do you expect the world to do? Cry/Be Angry/Sulk? Laughter is the only acceptable option in this case for the world. It shows that they are trying to "fit in" in the reality of their gloomy outlook. SpaceX will mainly benefit American industry, military and solarpolitics.

The laughters of the world is their cry, best to seek help before the world sodokus itself.

>>11019383
>Ship to Fuel Station
>Fuel Station to Ship

Why the extra step? Why not Ship to Ship? Why not Ship to hotel/science lab/observatory directly? The extra step is a remnant of a legacy rocket system.

>>11019418
Dont you realize theyd have to send ships to refuel the refueling stations? Why the fuck would you want to add an extra step instead of just directly refueling the crewed starship instead?

>>11019418
I would be interested to know how you plan to refuel your refuelling stations? Maybe with, a tanker of some kind?

>>11019400
There was somebody from the satellite industry on Twitter making the compelling argument that SpaceX are killing their launch profits by taking on Starship and Starlink development at the same time. The argument basically summed up is that: SpaceX are shelling out billions to fund Starship’s development and Starlink’s deployment with no returns. There’s currently no government or commercial market for Starship as a launch vehicle, SpaceX are relying on the markets changing to accommodate it which seems short sighted. Furthermore, Starlink is actively scaring away potential launch customers due to the competition it’s providing. That’s why it’s so important for SpaceX to win the LSA, because it may be their only steady source of launch revenue.

>>11019418

>>11019434
If SpaceX becomes the only satellite company operating in space because of its launch cost, then that would mean they would have won. Starlink will fund Starship on its own.

>>11019434
Starlink, being already fully funded, could easily provide SpaceX with a bigger budget than NASA.

>>11019439
That’s the point, they are betting literally everything on Starlink. But what happens if Starlink doesn’t work out? Constellations have a history of failing and there’s a lot more to them than just launching satellites e.g. for a constellation the size of Starlink, the ground infrastructure will have to be massive, do SpaceX have the capabilities to manufacture and maintain it? Also, much of satellite operators’ revenue comes from corporate and government contracts for bandwidth etc OneWeb has snagged a lot of these, but Starlink currently has none.

>>11019450
oneweb is currently vaporware

>>11019450
Constellations have a history of failing because the historical launch cost is prohibitively expensive. SpaceX's entire 12000 satellite launch and manufacturing cost will be lower than iridium's "60"-something satellite launch+manufacturing. That's how far the cost have gone down with SpaceX.

>>11019342
ASS 2 ASS

>>11019433
>Maybe with, a tanker of some kind?

Yes, just like planes have special planes for refueling, they could have a few special purpose ships for refueling.

Establishing PERMANENT orbiting refueling station and hotel FIRST will allow SpaceX a large advantage in the future.

The people who got rich in the California gold rush were NOT the miners, they were the merchants that sold to the miners and the hotel operators.

>>11019454
Do we even know what the per-unit cost of each starlink sat is?

>>11019461
pretty low if they pretend to launch 12000 satellites

>>11019458
Sol what's the point in the fuel depot if you are bringing it all from Earth with tankers anyway? You are just adding another thing to go wrong

>>11019458
>Refuel ship directly with tanker

Vs

>Refuel depot with tanker
>Refuel ship from depot

Why

>>11019461
SpaceX said the rocket launch cost more than their 60 satellite. If we assume a 60 million for launch(f9), then its 1M per satellite. However chances are, it could be as low as $100K-$300K, with mass manufacturing and as low as $30M for F9 launch for them and $10M for Starship that will send hundreds of Starlink at same time.

>>11019455
At least the entire concept of the rocket is as attractive as Jennifer Connelly

>>11019467
>Sol what's the point in the fuel depot if you are bringing it all from Earth with tankers anyway?

Because now the fuel is already there.
You SELL the fuel to anyone who needs it.
You also have hotel and repair shop.

You can make the fuel anywhere, but making it on earth is incredibly cheap and easy. The expensive part is moving from earth to orbit.

Having a HUGE amount of fuel waiting for you in orbit makes planning long trips much easier.
Plus having a hotel and repair station in orbit is solid money making move.

>>11019477
Or, you can just dock with the depot in stead of needing four launches in short order after the lunar/mars transit burn.

>>11019477
pick one:
just-in-time delivery
a warehouse to hold all your shit while you try to work through the backlog

>>11019477
Retard

>>11019482
>pick one:
>just-in-time delivery
>a warehouse to hold all your shit while you try to work through the backlog

You DIE if you have no fuel, or have a hardware problem.
So which do you prefer, hoping the other ship arrives in time with your fuel and repairs OR head to a station loaded with everything you need.

>>11019487
The station can also send a ship to you in emergencies AND that ship is already in orbit.

>>11019489
If there is a genuine emergency in space you are fucking dead long before something can match orbits and dock with you.

>>11019485
so much this

>>11019507
Is that the shitty one shot gorillions dollar drill they fucked up?

>>11019487
>you DIE if you have no fuel or have a hardware problem
no, you either reenter or you wait for resupply because you're in low earth orbit, dumbass

>>11019512
It was cheap, but yes the seismic tool hit a rock a few feet down.

>>11019514
no, it was the temperature probe that hit a rock
the seismic tool is chilling on the surface as intended

>>11019515
Thanks for the correction. I wonder if they would have had better luck selecting an old river plain; they might have had a thicker silt/fine clay to work with as opposed to regolith.

>>11019487
You know, you could just launch the tanker first.

>>11019487
This guy is dumb.

>>11019487
pls no go play ksp and dont come back ever again...

I will be the first human to cum on mars

>>11019532
it's different in /ksp/ for a few reasons
A. minmus exists
B. equatorial launch site means rendezvous is piss easy
C. just-in-time delivery from Minmus is much harder, so LKO depots make things easier instead of harder
Depots are a luxury that simplify things

>>11019534
>>11019536
Unless you've got dual masters or a doctorate and a secondary field of experience, I doubt that.

>>11019542
2 masters is easy

>>11019545
But they are time-consuming, expensive, and more likely than not to prevent one's access to jobs.

>>11019434
There's that Jap billionaire funding Starship though. And if Starlink isn't working no doubt they'll shut it down before it tanks the whole enterprise

>>11019073
Now if you can make the laser itself weigh 1kg you're in business

>>11017529
How does he do it bros? Can anyone stop this madman?

>>11019507
Did they fix it?

>>11019073
>The UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE would like to know your location

>>11019568
He does it by delivering, and I honestly believe that's thanks to Gwynne. His biggest struggle in Tesla is he doesn't have the same kind of counterweight officer to keep things properly on-track.

>>11019477
But Metha/LOX and Hydro/LOX are the two fuels you'd least want a depot for because they both require intensive cryogenic storage to hold for any period of time and Hydro/LOX will eventually fuck up your pressure vessel anyways if you hold it in a liquid state for too long anyways. Why not just perform an in-flight refueling with a drone stage of near-identical configuration, exactly what SpaceX intends to do with Starships? A fuel depot might make sense for hypergols and monoprops for RCS or some other propellant than keeps well like say Ammonia for relatively low Isp nuclear rockets, or Xenon for magnetoplasma drives, but not for cryoprops.

>>11019594
>But Metha/LOX and Hydro/LOX are the two fuels you'd least want a depot for because they both require intensive cryogenic storage to hold for any period of time
Then long-term storage will be in the form of Ice and CO2 or Ice and Graphite. An onboard plant will then produce Hydrolox fuel or Methalox on-demand just-in-time for refueling operations.

>>11019418
You should build your depot in Kerbal, anon. Then you could put it up on YuoTube and get the mad clix.

>>11017299
The 2020 Mars opposition is on October 13. Is the assumption correct, that they need do launch about 4 months before that? That would mean a launch on June 13 2020, which is a good 8 months away. Given they are orbital in 6 month, they would have 2 month to do orbital refueling of Mk4 or Mk5 and send it to Mars. I know it is very unlikely, because everything needs to go right and at least as fast as hoped for. But is a 2020 Mars launch at least the tiniest bit realistic? Might it even be an optimistic internal goal or are there reasons why no one, not even Musk is attempting this?

>>11019597
That seems overly complicated so long as all the resources are easier to get at on Earth and the industry already exists down here. That's not to say such a thing might not become necessary, especially if there is a time when many ships are moving to and from several destinations, however as the only human activity in space is cost-efficient reusable heavy lifters performing operations in LEO there probably isn't much inventive to build orbital depots when it won't cost much to just launch a couple re-usable tanker drones.

>>11019487
>head to a station
t.learned everything he knows about orbital mechanics by watching Gravity

>>11019626
If we're talking seriously long-term, most transit up from LEO to lunar altitude might be getting yeeted from skyhook to skyhook.
Once you're around lunar altitude (L1, L4, L5, and Lunar Orbit), precise electromagnetic gun propelled batches of water and or carbon can reach those areas and be caught without much fuss.

>mars in eight months

>this piece of shit
>this six month old piece of shit
>mars
>eight (8) months
meine sides

>>11019643
Yeah, I've seen that discussed a lot, skyhooks for Earth and then either a linear accelerator or space elevator on the moon from which large masses can be yoten to the outer planets, same for Mars which could still easily host a space elevator made of "crude" material like kevlar or twaron or some other high tensile para-aramid. That or powerful laser accelerator stations.

>>11019663
If space transit is to be run by moderate autists, it's a reasonable hodgepodge of present-day technologies.

>>11019650
>>11019658
Huh?

>>11019487
A 45 degree plane change is just as expensive as getting to orbit in the first place
You don't just "head to a station"

>>11019670
I presume like all mass transit it would be organized as much as possible by hyper-autists, moderated by eng*neers, and budgeted by dickhead bureaucrats.

>>11019692
That this will be at least one of several sections of spaceflight is no issue

>>11018198

>he actually counted it

Redpill me on DIRECT.

>>11019748
IIRC, DIRECT was just going to use the Shuttle tanks with little modification. This wouldn't be possible as the external tank wasn't designed to handle much axial load. A new tank would need to be designed.

>>11019759
Most plans for re-use in the Shuttle Era anticipated using the tanks. They weren't crazy to do it either, it's just that there was no funding to pursue using the External Tank as station hardware.

>>11019137
I wasn't talking about bombs, I'm talking about magnetic confinement Z-pinch fission, or fusion, using fuel pellets.

>>11019156
>with Starship, the ground serves as the crush-core shock absorber
based

>>11019342
BECAUSE IT'S THE CHEAPEST OPTION NIGGAAA

>>11019434
>FIVE
>PERCENT

>>11019477
>You SELL the fuel to anyone who needs it.
NO ONE is buying propellant in space, the ONLY potential customers for methalox sent to orbit with Starship is SpaceX themselves.

>>11019791
Despite being only 5%...

Soon will come the day Universities and extremely preppy high schools can annually shove the equivalents of mid-century Cadillacs [mass-wise] into orbit, and no one will give a fuck.

>>11019597
It takes months with a megawatt power supply to produce enough propellant for a single Starship, dude. If you have a power supply one tenth that size you can keep an effectively unlimited amount of propellant cryogenically cooled for unlimited time. That means just launch the fuel and oxidizer to space and store it for a while. Actually don't even do that, because propellant depots in space are a meme, just refuel your spacecraft with launches directly. Depots only make sense where you're actually mining up raw materials to turn into propellants, because otherwise the losses due to shuttling that stuff around are extreme, above 90% loss per kilogram of propellant delivered to anywhere, simply because of the delta V requirements. If we ever get direct fusion rockets, then propellant depots loaded with liquid deuterium scattered around the solar system would make sense, because a deuterium fusion rocket would have an Isp approaching 600,000 seconds which would allow losses of only a few percent for delivery, similar to modern oil tankers scooting around on the ocean.

>>11019128
theory gave us nuclear weapons.

>>11019796
*fixed

>>11019818
omg you are the hero we dont deserve !

>>11019805
Or even high schools with cute girls.

>>11019597
>ice
>hydrogen
Do tell us more, anon.

>>11019812
Nuclear weapons only have to work once. Also, they all operate under the same principal; get fissile material close together very quickly, such that the mass of material goes prompt critical and remains prompt critical for as long as possible. That's finicky to get working but not difficult from any fundamental perspective. Hell, even today it is acknowledged that the hardest step by far in the entire process of making a nuclear bomb is producing the fissile fuel in the first place.
Pinch-fission and pinch-fusion are different. First of all they're meant to work as engines, which means they need to operate for long periods of time, and therefore you are battling things like erosion and neutron damage. You also need to finely tune both the shape of your fuel pellets and the strength of your electromagnetic pinch system in order to cause a uniform enough collapse of the pellet to initiate fission or fusion (fission is a lot easier, but still difficult when you're looking at one-gram pellets where a good fraction of that mass is actually tamper and an outer layer of boron to prevent the pellets from reacting with one another in storage). Even if you get your engine working at all, much less working in a way that will allow it to operate for a long time without shredding itself, you still need an additional system to deal with the waste heat of the reaction, of which there will be a lot.
Basically, anyone can draw up a design so long as most of the design is shaded in with 'figure this part out later'. Pretty much everything that guy Isaac Arthur talks about on youtube is fantasy technology for that reason, it's 99.999% blanks to be filled in.

>>11019383
And when the station is in the wrong orbit?

>>11019748
SLS is DIRECT, don't let those fuckers tell you otherwise just because the thrust structure isn't that cool inline design anymore

basically a bunch of whiny malcontents got Ares V cancelled and replaced with a cheaper, quicker, safer system that directly reused shuttle hardware, except it wasn't cheaper or quicker and the tank/corestage required a complete redesign. Oops!

then they tried to scrub their shame off the internet

In fairness, SLS (Direct 241) shouldn't have been this far over budget and schedule, they underestimated the incompetence and fraud of Boeing and ATK

New animations https://www.spacex.com/starship

>>11019954
>In fairness, SLS (Direct 241) shouldn't have been this far over budget and schedule, they underestimated the incompetence and fraud of Boeing and ATK
Don't forget NASAs passiveness to such problems.

Prepare for rectal annihilation the likes of even broken glass jars can't give.

>>11019960
prediction;
>USGOV will utilize the cost reduction brought by starship just as efficiently as they have utilized the one brought by f9 vs shuttle
In other words they'll do jack shit with it.

>>11019960
Holy shit, big if true.

>>11019960
It makes me sad that NASA didn't try at the very least to iterate on the Shuttle.

I just realized they can replace the SLS program with a space elevator program.

Naturally using legacy hardware and contractors.

>>11020001
Calm down there, Shelby.

>>11019960
Where does that number for falcon 9 come from?

>>11019994
Retard.

>>11020001
Expendable elevators are the future, just think about all the jobs!

>>11020008
>Expendable elevators
>it's an SLS with a tow rope

>>11020004
He's probably fiddling with numbers by using booster reuses.

Under normal conditions Atlas V is superior.

>>11019954
Yeah, at the absolute MOST, 'direct' derivatives of Shuttle should have used the same turbopumps and alloys, and NOTHING else.

>>11019955
Chomper bay door confirmed

>>11020016
>Under normal conditions Atlas V is superior.
Source? Because using Wikipedia I got these numbers...
Millions USD per metric ton of payload to LEO
Atlas V 401 = 11.126
Atlas V 551 = 8.132
Falcon 9 (Expendable) = 2.719
Falcon 9 (Reusable) = 3.309

The Falcon 9 (Reusable) the payload to LEO isn't listed for the FT version so I scaled down the expendable payload to LEO based on the relative payloads between expendable and reusable for GTO which came out to about 15.1t. The Falcon is better than the Atlas in cost by a substantial margin. Not only that the per unit cost of Falcon is better than the Atlas V with even the 401 being more expensive than the expendable Falcon.

>>11020043
I like how they list ISS crew service as an available option. Suck it Jim, you wanted Commercial Crew delivered? Here's your Commercial Crew.

But why would you service the ISS in a Starship that has the same pressurized volume as the ISS?

>>11020051
>But why would you service the ISS in a Starship that has the same pressurized volume as the ISS?
For the lulz, why else?

https://m.imgur.com/a/TjJd6XR

>>11020062
>how to go to prison in style

>>11020051
It would certainly help highlight the absurdity of the ISS and the fact that we can retire it the instant Starship comes online commercially.
Want to replace ISS in a single launch? Rent a Starship for a year and park it in orbit. Want to replace LOP-G? Do the same. Don't bother with rotating crews out on a permanent station, rotate Starships out with new crews and fresh new hardware, allowing a permanent orbital presence that can also evolve and keep up to new technological developments.

The only permanent space infrastructure we should be worrying about for the next 100 years is surface bases constructed on the Moon, Mars, Ceres, a few other big asteroids, and maybe Callisto and Titan (I'm not convinced we should try to colonize Titan though, the other Saturnine moons with their far lower gravity are more interesting to me, Titan will be useful as a giant orbiting brake pad to bounce Starships off of though). Once we have established BIG, industrially capable facilities on multiple solar system objects, where those facilities have the ability to trade among one another as well as with Earth, then we're pretty much fackin golden, dardy. At that point we can start really expanding and building big ass orbital habitats and shit comfortably, without having to worry so much about sinking a bunch of investment and then having everything collapse when India and Pakistan nuke each other and Earth goes to shit for a while.

>>11019156
>>11020062

>>11020016
Mate you've got that one backwards, Atlas V is actually pretty expensive, not near as expensive as Delta of course but significantly more than Falcon. The only thing that really gives the Falcon rockets a run is Ariane 5 in dual launch mode.

>>11020072
Not only can Starships themselves act as great space stations, but they're also great cargo hoists for expandable habitats which can have even greater usable internal volume. The relatively low cost of both would allow stations many times larger than the ISS to be built for only a fraction of it's cost.

>>11020072
Why replace ISS in a single launch? Fill a Starship with B330s and bolt them to Unity. You've tripled the size of the ISS in a single launch, without tying up Starship.

...

Superheavy SSTO wet workshop when Elon

>>11019960
We aren't there yet. I'll believe $10/kg though.
>>11020043
Look at that satellite, looks like the JWST went to the gym, did major amounts of steroids, and got HUGE.

>>11020072
>>11020079
But how does this affect jobs in Southern states? Specifically jobs belonging to contractors who have made parts for the Shuttle?

>>11020057
>Habmogging the ISS every time you dock to service it.

>launch superheavy to orbit SSTO, no payload
>send up a starship with a crew to recover the raptors
>you now have a skyscraper sized pressure vessel in space for the cost of fuel
>you can bring the raptors home for reuse
>or leave a single raptor attached for station keeping
>convert superheavy to a wet workshop
>or refuel it in orbit to yeet literally a thousand tons at a time to mars

>>11020093
>string eight superheavy wet workshops together into a ring station with literal cubic kilometers of pressurized area and spin gravity
>the first ring station was welded in a field in texas by mexicans

>>11020093
That sounds incredibly silly and probably never be done. But the fact that the option could be available in the first place makes my little falcon become the big falcon.

>>11020101
A thousand tons at a time to the surface of Mars. What do you think 18m Superheavy will be capable of in that configuration? Five thousand? Ten?

>>11020099
Reminds me of something.

>>11019965
The major factor here is not how entrenched orgs utilize the drop (because they probably won't), but the new avenues that open up. At ridiculously low launch costs per kg, you no longer give a shit how weight efficient your satellites/landers/whatever are within reason, so they become much cheaper to develop. IMO starship will start something like the smallsat explosion but much greater in scope.

>>11020106
>the future we were promised
>>11019748
>the future NASA gave us
>>11019960
>the future elon promises
this is why fanboys exist

>>11020107
>At ridiculously low launch costs per kg, you no longer give a shit how weight efficient your satellites/landers/whatever are within reason
Good. It sucks having to work on such tight margins.

>>11019965
Bold prediction: Starship is as revolutionary for military logistics as the jet engine, containerization, or at-sea replenishment. Resupply at any properly prepared American bases in 20 minutes, anywhere in the world, to the order of 100 tons? Cost competitive with a Galaxy? It's mind breaking. If the Air Force doesn't run a fleet of them they're insane.

>>11019581
Off to reddit with you cunt

>>11019275
That trash can is Murrica as fuck. Slapping shit together and having it just work is like the US’s faction trait.

>>11020106
I see 14 external tanks in that picture. If we take the average Shuttle cost per launch to be $450M then that station costs about $6.3B minimum.

>>11020137
Assuming the tanks are the primary payload, rather than depositing the tanks in orbit on all shuttle flights until a sufficient stockpile of them exists to assemble a station. If you do it that way the cost comes way down.

>>11020159
Wouldn't the Shuttle have to sacrifice a significant portion of its payload capacity to bring the tank into orbit though?

>>11020104
Call it 8900m^3 if the ship is 18mx70m and about half of it's volume is taken up by power, propulsion, etc. That's a goliath amount of potential payload space but it's hard limit is given by how much delta-V such an enormous rocket could possess empty, it's not really as straightforward as just taking Starship's numbers and doubling them.

>>11020176
I think you misread the quote chain, I was referring to a hypothetical Maximum Yeet by sending a Superheavy to orbit SSTO and refueling, loading and launching from LEO.

>>11019073
Like the particle cannon in C&C Generals ?

Friends,a few months ago one of you gave me a link to a video of hayabusa(?) flying to a meteor and returning home.
I cant find it,link me please.
(1/2)

>>11017744
>Cannabis slows your perceived time
mate smoke weed for 2 weeks straight and tell me how long does 2 weeks were

>>11020163
Space shuttle payload is ~24mt
external tank dry is ~30mt but its close to orbit

You could probably bait someone autistic enough to do the dV calculations

I just think you will like this pic

>>11020199
oops.

>>11020194
REAL ROMBUS HOURS

>>11020206
>if only you knew how good things could have been

>>11020189
Was it this? I posted it to a thread some months back when we were discussing/remembering Hayabusa.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TKMmWUad1wY
Bonus mango
https://danbooru.donmai.us/pools/1849

>>11020208
Indeed. ROMBUS could've been the Starship of the 70s.

>>11020206
>>11020213
THIS IS WHAT THEY TOOK FROM YOU

>>11020224
There's tons of pics of this.

>>11020231

>>11020213
>Sea dragon 2.0

>>11017299
>the virgin Starship belly flop

>the chad ROMBUS ASS SLAM

>>11020099
>has awesome speaker system which blasts conjunto music all day

>>11020241
>ASS WE CAN

>>11020231
>>11020237

You *do* know that there are rumors of a functional sub-orbital SOCOM delivery vehicle, right?

IIRC, SUSTAIN (one of the philosophical follow-ons to RHOMBUS) was more than just a concept, and the functional vehicle was rumored to consist of an X-15/Dream Chaser-sized atmospheric skipping lifting body that could carry about a Blackhawk's worth of men and supplies, along with an expendable booster, both of which were designed to be air-launched out of the back of a C-5 like that Minuteman ICBM test from the 70s.

Uh, THIC

>>11020265
>left: heading to Grandma's
>right: leaving Grandma's

>>11020163
The shuttle was originally supposed to carry its tankage into orbit until the NRO's cross-range capability requirement changed the orbiter from a belly-flopping fuel tank with wings, engines, a cockpit, and a payload bay to the smaller hypersonic double-delta winged glider that we got instead, and the aerodynamics of hypersonic lift meant that the shuttle needed to be much smaller and forced a redesign moving the tank to being externally mounted and expendable.

>>11020265
It's so...hefty.

>>11020259
Here's a render of the concept:

>>11020237
>>11020241
>>11020213
It's just concept art. There was also no compelling reason to build heavy lift in the 70s. Shuttle was supposed to do cheap space access, but the vietnam war constricted the development budget. A fully reusable shuttle was considered, but abandoned because it required doubling NASA's budget. So NASA chose a design with lower development costs and higher operating costs:
history.nasa.gov/SP-4219/Chapter12.html

>>11020265
Wouldn't it need to be proportionally taller too?

>>11020369
No you are limited by the engine thrust per area on the bottom of the rocket. If you want to get 2 times taller you need 2 times more thrust from the same size engine.

>>11019960
stop using logarithmic scales

>>11019748

As bad as Griffin, just wanted their pet shuttle derived big rocket vision in, anything else would expose them as frauds to their little personality cult and was the heathen enemy of their obsession, couldn't handle a non shuttle derived path being the program of record as that would refute their rhetoric, refused to give an ounce of consideration to Obama's non shuttle derived based plans and smeared them when they were the best starting path to the next few decades of NASA, worked behind the scenes to lobby the people that wrote the legislation that created SLS, it's basically their part-handiwork, SLS is their then thinking in 2010- they were even fine with five segments as long as it got them the shuttle derived program of record, basically fucked over spaceflight in your entire lifetime as a result, never take responsibility, endless comments since then from followers on how some different shuttle derived rocket was the way to go. SLS is the result of shuttle derived being taken.


Tldr shuttle derived was junk, throw it all out at any point.
Tldr all their work amounted to Doug Cooke getting fat checks while NASA burns alive

>>11020423
But how would being thicc affect the re-entry? Wouldn't the flippy bits be closer to the center of mass, giving it less control authority?

>>11019954

Ares V didn't exist. It was a placeholder concept without real definition that only fifty million of design studies had gone into by 2010. It wouldn't be built by now and was trash too. All of Constellation was trash. All that time and still more wasted on junk.

>>11019957

NASA's internal culture is riddled with people who are as deranged and supportive of SLS and see nothing wrong it and who are antagonistic to alternatives as any rabid SLS fanboy on the internet. Outsiders with NASA mania try to whitewash the institution as being perfect little angels who can do no wrong and have no hand in the process or events.

What are the chances super heavy actually pans out? It seems ridiculously ambitious for a project that seemingly is going to be entirely private sector. If they pull this off, it's probably going to change the game for spaceflight.

>>11020447
That question can only be answered with a simulation but my guess is you can always make them a bit bigger.

>>11020464
If you asked in 2016 I'd be fairly unsure, but Starship is supposed to fly to orbit next year and to 20km next month. Putting aside interplanetary memes are focusing just in E2E and satellite launch, the only thing SpaceX haven't demonstrated is a successful EDL of the Starship. Raptor is demonstrated, the stainless steel construction is pretty much validated, and they've demonstrated all other basic competencies with Falcon. I think it's nearly 100% it launches satellites, 80% it launches humans eventually, 50% it takes humans to Mars.

>>11020463
I've even seen someone within NASA say that SLS being written into law was a good thing.

>>11020048
F9 has bad fraction to GTO because of the low ISP fuel, the numbers to LEO are much better

"Heads up to industry: Our final call for American developed #Artemis landers is here! Kudos to the @NASA team & companies rising to the challenge to return humans to the Moon by 2024. We can’t wait to see your proposals!" @JimBridenstine

https://www.nasa.gov/feature/fast-track-to-the-moon-nasa-opens-call-for-artemis-lunar-landers

>>11020624
is starship an artemis lander

>>11020644
yes

>>11020624
I am looking forward to NASA's development on Artemis landers. In the meantime, Space Launch System is years behind schedule. America expects the same level of enthusiasm focused on the investments of the American taxpayer.
It's time to deliver.

>>11020644
>Jim Bridenstine's RW

>>11020644
I bet Starship could haul one there.

>>11020652
Depending on the volume probably a few
Ultimate power move desu

>>11020659
>SpaceX offer a bunch of shipping containers as their Artemis Lander proposal
>say delivery is included

>>11020644
Nah it will deliver the camera crew and popcorn stand to record first Artemis landing on telegram

The Spacex website has some stuff about colonizing the moon on it.
How is starship supposed to refuel on the moon?

>>11020684
you don't need to refuel on the moon, you can do direct ascent with just the propellant you bring with you if you refuel in a GTO type orbit

>>11020684
IIRC they just have to take the penalty of carrying liftoff fuel down. SS was designed with Mars in mind so I guess it's not too surprising that it's not as efficient to use for the Moon

>>11020684
bring your own carbon, crack water for hydrolox, sabatier to get methalox

You know I wouldn’t be getting so cocky and excited about Starship yet...

From a reputable source on NSF L2:

>”Yeah, I mentioned this a few days ago in the public part of the forum (Raptor - thread 2), based on what I heard from SpaceX sources. There is still a huge amount of work to do before Mk.1 is ready for its 20 km hop. My sources also advised me not to pay too much attention to Elon's "hop in 1 -2 months time"-statement. According to my sources it will be a small miracle if the hop is performed before the end of the year. One major roadblock being FAA approval.”

So basically, Elon is still the biggest bullshitter/PR whore in the aerospace industry as usual and everybody is going to be perplexed when SpaceX take off Starship’s upper half in the near future.

>>11020707
>A reputable source

shut up jew

>>11020707
yeah, we all knew that
it was obvious just from watching

>>11020707
>There is still a huge amount of work to do before Mk.1 is ready for its 20 km hop.
You don't really need to be an insider to know this, you just have to have eyes. The raptor engines hauled out for the presentation weren't hooked up and aren't the final engines.

>So basically, Elon is still the biggest bullshitter/PR whore in the aerospace industry
Ah yes, that place where no one ever misses a deadline. The aerospace industry. Right.

I think the most interesting thing to come out of the presentation was that he basically confirmed they will be sending a TBM to Mars for making pressurised space and building materials from tailings.

We mole people nao.

>>11020738
>Ah yes, that place where no one ever misses a deadline. The aerospace industry. Right.

This is nothing to do with deadlines, I just hate how he forces his engineers to cobble together unfinished mockups and sell them to the public as the real deal for PR points. He did this with both Falcon 1, Falcon 9 and Dragon 2. Nobody else does this, their mockups don’t try and lie to the audience that their functional machines. It’s also detrimental to the engineers’ performance as seen by the massive dent were they warped Starship’s nosecone to fit the tanks, somebody will have to bash that out or it might not like the broken nosecone segment.

>>11020767
There's a difference between "mockup" and "unfinished prototype" that you don't seem to be able to process.

Don't reply to FUDposter

>>11020776
It ain’t FUD if it’s true.

>>11020707
>TESLA MAN BAD
K E K

>>11020772
Don't expect him to respond with something mindful. Its clear by his "Elon is a PR whore" comment that hes just a troll. Pretty much everyone who pays attention to SpaceX knows that Elon's due dates are bullshit (ex. Elon Time), but it doesn't matter since SpaceX can actually deliver on their promises even if they're later than what Elon said. Unlike a particular company started by William Boeing.

>>11020797
>>11020812
Man I remember when Starhopper was just a PR water tower....

Wanna know what my favourite Sean Combs song is?...

https://spacenews.com/air-force-awards-ula-1-18-billion-contract-to-complete-five-delta-4-heavy-nro-missions/


..It All About The Benjamins Baby!

>>11020859
Keep the speculation down. It can still be a water tower.

>>11020878
>Since people really wanted this to a be water tower I decided to make it one!
That'd be a pretty chad move

>>11019073
>be alien looking through telescope
>see flash of light
>you're now blind

>>11020878
Wait a minute. A flying water tower that brings water to poor african children !!!
Elon is a genius....

>>11020868
>Altogether the contract awarded for rocket production and launch service for the five missions add up to about $2.3 billion.

ULA could finance Starship’s entire development with this one contract lol.

>>11020930
That's what you can get as a "preferred contractor".

>>11020920
Elon lived in south africa, the only thing his flying water tower will bring to black africans is hellfire.
Why do you think he wants to get of this planet so desperately?

Would it have a chance if the company didn't run out of money?

>>11019960
I like pictures,sir and or ma'am.
Pls post more space pics.

https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2019/09/30/tech/elon-musk-spacex-crew-dragon-nasa-timeline/index.html

>”Bridenstine told CNN Business that he recognized "a lot of NASA contractors are behind schedule" and he wants to hold all of them accountable for delays.

>”Bridenstine also noted that NASA spends $85 million per seat to fly US astronauts on Russian spacecraft, and he called SpaceX out on Twitter because he wants to ensure NASA's Commercial Crew partners are "focused on the right things."

>”Bridenstine referred to Crew Dragon's explosion as a "catastrophic failure," and said one of the reasons he's skeptical of the idea that Crew Dragon will be ready in the near future is because the updated emergency abort system "has not been qualified" and has not been tested.”

APOLOGISE.

>>11021079
>he's actually doubling down
Starlink cannot launch fast enough. Time to divest from welfarespace.

>>11021079
>”Bridenstine told CNN Business that he recognized "a lot of NASA contractors are behind schedule" and he wants to hold all of them accountable for delays.
Then actually call some of them out rather than pay them more for being late. Go tell some of those contractors "it's time to deliver".

>”Bridenstine also noted that NASA spends $85 million per seat to fly US astronauts on Russian spacecraft, and he called SpaceX out on Twitter because he wants to ensure NASA's Commercial Crew partners are "focused on the right things."
And what of Boeing? Where's the "I'm looking forward to SLS, but what about CC?" comment for them?

>”Bridenstine referred to Crew Dragon's explosion as a "catastrophic failure," and said one of the reasons he's skeptical of the idea that Crew Dragon will be ready in the near future is because the updated emergency abort system "has not been qualified" and has not been tested.”
Which SpaceX is going to test soon.

It's just odd that Jim called out SpaceX like that. It seemed like he was very friendly to them and was trying to keep them within the support of NASA. This call out seems politically motivated, done to appease those higher up than him.

>>11021139
>This call out seems politically motivated, done to appease those higher up than him.
To be honest, I think it's personal. As SS becomes more concrete in the public mind and SLS's reputation is basically dirt at this point, people are venting their frustrations at him. He's taking it out on SpaceX because he can't admit failure or lash out at congress or the public.

>>11021139
>Go tell some of those contractors "it's time to deliver".

He’s done that regularly e.g. threatening Boeing with switching SLS to FH or D4H and firing the NASA human spaceflight officials who were giving out bonuses to them for little progress.

>This call out seems politically motivated, done to appease those higher up than him.

When the White House is grilling you about why a contractor is having a PR party for their new interplanetary rocket, when they haven’t even delivered on their taxpayer funded contract to send humans to the ISS, so we can stop funding the Russian missile program...you’d snap eventually as well.

>>11021165
*constantly

Starship would need over a thousand Super Dracos to abort at a full fuel load and t/w of 2.

>>11021282
>over a thousand Super Dracos firing at once

>>11020081
ISS is an old unreliable rust bucket of a station
Most of the spent up there is maintanence
It needed to be replaced a fucking decade ago

>Jim Bridenstine, NASA's administrator, said in an interview on Monday that he is not confident in that timeline. The space agency will likely have to purchase more seats aboard Russian-made spacecraft in 2020, he said...

Imagine how humiliating this must be for Jim. First he has to crawl back to his boss to say we’re not ready yet, then he has to crawl to the smug Russians and beg to buy more seats at exorbitant prices whilst simultaneously subsidising their missile program. He’s extremely pissed now, but then he hears that Elon is doing a big PR event for his crumpled trash can looking rocket that’s supposed to let people safely travel from Earth to Mars, despite SpaceX not being able to ensure that their fucking abort system won’t literally post-partum abort astronauts. I now understand why Jim went sicko mode on Musk and it was completely justified.

>>11021139
>And what of Boeing? Where's the "I'm looking forward to SLS, but what about CC?" comment for them?
Yes, wasn't SLS originally supposed to be the replacement for Shuttle? Then someone with a clue realized ain't no way no how and started CC, despite the resistance that caused Congress to low-ball its funding for five years.
Now that SLS delays are finally starting to make them sweat it's like "hey how come CC isn't already done?"

To be fair, most of the reason CC has taken so long is NASA taking forever to approve anything at all. I wouldn't be surprised if some of his rage was knowing there was nothing he could do about NASA culture, either it's too slow and plodding, or it's "we've launched in the cold before, it's just fine, shut up engineer scum" (72 seconds... boom!)

>>11021302
> First he has to crawl back to his boss to say we’re not ready yet, then he has to crawl to the smug Russians and beg to buy more seats at exorbitant prices whilst simultaneously subsidising their missile program.
Guess who he has to blame for that: his own agency and congress. The former for its notoriously drawn out qual process which left both companies sitting on their hands waiting for NASA, not the other way around, and the latter for years of underfunding.

>Elon is doing a big PR event for his crumpled trash can looking rocket
Which is it? The accusation is that they're overinvesting in this. Clearly making a trashcan out of cheap steel in a field isn't an overinvestment. One or the other.

>despite SpaceX not being able to ensure that their fucking abort system won’t literally post-partum abort astronauts
You're right, they should have stopped investigating the issue pre-maturely and started testing it again without waiting for NASA's approval. That's how safety works, right?

>>11021318
Becuase it's toooootally not like a bus or train in comparison to an automobile. Nope, it's an AIRCRAFT CARRIER.

which will fly first, starship, or everyday estronaut's musk interview video?

>>11021327
To be fair to Zubrin, Starship is pretty ill suited for a lunar lander.

>>11021338
Depends what it's being compared to. You could make a theoretical ideal lander that obviously outstrips it, but once SS is complete it will be the best option available.

>>11021318
shut up, Dick

>>11021338
NASA presently lacks a lunar lander at all, so SS is the best on earth by default

>>11021318
I think Mars is fine due to aerobraking, but Starship really isn’t suited to the Moon.
It’s tall and thin, meaning it’ll easily topple if it lands on cratered ground.

Methane isn’t producible on the Moon, unlike Hydrogen.

Raptor is way too powerful for controlled lunar descent, you need small engines constantly firing for that and nobody wants to do a suicide burn travelling at 1km/s, just 3000m above the lunar surface.

Furthermore, if you read up about the kick up of lunar dust caused by engines, it’s pretty terrifying. Raptor will create a massive discharge of dust travelling at orbital velocity, sandblasting anything in it’s vicinity. A Starship landing on the moon would have to land miles away from a potential base or land on a pre-made pad.

Blue Origin has a really good chance here to corner the lunar transportation market, because Starship is ill-suited.

>>11021340
Right, do you spend a few billion dollars making the "perfect" lunar lander AND the system that lets you take off again (remember, a lunar lander doesn't just land), or do you use a more-or-less off the shelf spacecraft that only costs $100M and will do the job easily, and give you an option for cargo too?
I mean, sure, if you just want to put down some footsteps in the dust and go home, you can make a case for a tiny lunar lander instead of building something big that doesn't exist yet. But if there's something big already built, you can start bringing MORE STUFF with you that lets you STAY there a while.
Seems to me like he hasn't gotten over his old-space "bespoke all the things" mentality yet, and is still trying to cope.

>>11021344
NOT IF I HAVE ANYTHING TO SAY ABOUT IT AND I DO

>>11021350
>Methane isn’t producible on the Moon, unlike Hydrogen.
The Moon also has a fraction of the gravity of Mars, and can easily touch down with plenty of fuel left to go home.

petition to rename Starship Mk 1 "cows are confused"

all in favor say "hahaha"

>>11021338
It's pretty much ideal for a Lunar command module. Does it have enough dv to get to LLO and back with only LEO refueling?
>>11021350
>sandblasting anything in it’s vicinity
the "vicinity" here is cislunar space, anon
literally the entire surface of the moon and low lunar orbit is in danger

>>11021350
How powerful do you reckon the hot gas thrusters will be?

>>11021360
hahaha

>>11021365
depending on the ISP of the methalox RCS I could envision them being used to land on the Lunar surface

>>11021360
hahaha nice

>>11021365
Idk but most lunar lander concepts I see use a main engine for most of the heavy lifting and then switch to a cluster of smaller engines for final descent. This is to allow for a slow, controlled descent instead of a risky suicide burn and also to reduce the aforementioned sandblasting problem which I undersold as >>11021361 says.

>>11021386
it's a small danger, and Starship is probably armored enough to withstand it

>>11021389
Its not the starship that is at risk you dumbass

>>11021386
Most lunar lander concepts aren't Nova sized direct descent missions.

>>11021399
Why do you think the Nova/Moon direct lander was cancelled in favour of something smaller? ;)

>>11021396
oldspace btfo, then

>>11021407
More like Elon’s potential colonies are going to get shredded by moon dust bullets

>>11021389
>be me
>stranded on the moon
>not biggie, starship launches frequently enough for SpaceX to mount a rescue during one of their routine missions
>see one coming
>excited to finally come home
>starship lands nearby
>gets sandblasted by the lunar soil kicked up by it
>killed instantly
>thanks elon

>>11021407
That's a nice artemis capsule would be a shame if it were to be showered in micrometeorites FFFFFSSSHHHHH

>>11021358
You're missing out on the dV of aerobraking

>>11021405
Nova wasn't capable of RTLS boostback and rapid reuse. Imagine if it fucking was, holy shit. I don't think the processing power of the time was up to the task.

if the moon sucks so much why bother

>>11021438
It sucks how?

>>11021427
Granted, I don't think realistically this would be accepted, there would be some sort of soft landing insurance policy developed; but a moon colony would have to be constructed to resist this kind of damage anyway. There would likely even need to be a 'batten the hatches' mode for complete protection.

>>11021438
Delicious minerals and metals
The moon has big dick volumes of titanium

>>11021439
>can't land big rockets because angry dust will destroy everything
>can't go outside because angry dust will destroy everything
>no methane production
>no atmosphere
>angry dust

>>11021427
Do you seriously think the colonies won't have a purpose built landing pad

>>11021442
I’m talking more about the fragile solar panels Elon loves so much. Unless your building a nuclear bunker on the Moon, you should probably park your Starship a couple of blocks away.

>>11021452
Just spray some sorta adhesive at the angry dust to tie it to the ground, enjoy new flat surface.

>>11021454
If it were NASA running it, then the pad would be scrapped so that they don't have to "waste" the payload mass to carry it to the moon. The colony would also be made out of paper thin aluminum and the state-of-the-art(tm) carbon composites so that one more module could be sent via SLS for that particular two-year cycle. The resulting living space would be barely bigger than a typical apartment in California and cost more than one.

>>11021438
the accessible (for mining) portions of the moon are like 10% titanium by mass or something ludicrous, which takes titanium from "stupid expensive meme metal that nobody wants to use" to "all of my office equipment is made from titanium"

>>11021456
>I’m talking more about the fragile solar panels Elon loves so much
Remember those high strength solar roof tiles? It's all coming together

>>11021360
sounds like a perfectly cromulent Culture ship name, I like it

>>11021350
Err, so then retrofit some rockets higher up the vehicle for the specific purpose of lunar landing. Or, Starship carries a dedicated lunar lander and stays in orbit. The idea that Starship cannot be adapted in some way for lunar landing if necessary seems bogus.

>>11021350
>>11021342
>>11021318
>>11021327
Zubrin's view here is that starship is too big for ISRU on mars because ISRU would take too much power. Supposedly starship's ISRU requirements are an order of magnitude more. He's also like rather than do 9 refueling launches why not do much less and launch Mars direct?

>>11020099
>literal cubic kilometers
No dude, a cubic kilometer is not a thousand cubic meters, a cubic kilometer is 1000 meters long on every side, meaning a cubic kilometer is actually 1000^3 or 1 billion cubic meters. Super Heavy is big but a cubic kilometer is BIG.

>>11021525
well, the issue here is that while Starship ISRU is an order of magnitude more than his design, so is the payload

>>11021505
Even Hullo-man thinks long-term that Starship will be a ferry to and from Earth and Lunar orbit purely because it's more efficient to do it that way.
That doesn't preclude Starship landing on the moon, but it does recognize Starship isn't the best design for landing on the moon.

>>11021350
Oh and retrofit some extra extending stabiliser legs.

Also, declaring myself the faggot who popped this thread early, are we waiting for Page Eight or Nine for new Spaceflight threads?

>>11021531
Hullo-man?

>>11021544
8 if discussion is dead or dying
9 or 10 if discussion is still going

>>11020444
trips confirm, good post

>>11021546