/sci/ - Science & Math

>mrw 39A

>so much concrete, wasted
SpaceX intend to fly their next-generation super-heavy class orbital launch vehicle from a milkstool over a regeneratively cooled metal flame diverter, with no need for all that concrete

>>11195858
that's LC40 bruh

>>11195863
I know. Read the filename.

>>11195865
>posting LC 40 in an LC 39A thread

SpaceX employee here. I was just helping Elon, arrange his rubber ducks and wooden blocks from smallest to largest, as I often do during his playtime, and he turned to me and he said:
"FUCK BOEING, FUCK PEDOS, AND FUCK THAT ONE JANNY WHO DELETED MY SHITPOST MONTHS AGO"

As you can see, he is both based and redpilled but please do not share this information outside of our special /sfg/ club. Thank you.

>>11195851
>Hello darkness my old friend...

>>11195880
what's the Froyo flavor today?

>>11195884
Red Velvet Cake and Orange Splash Sorbet

>>11195887
I don't understand the commiefornians who enjoy that shit

>>11195884
>>11195887
Another SpaceX employee here. He's legit, those are today's flavors.

>>11195881
>stacks in your path

>>11195890
>>11195887
samefag

>>11195884
>>11195887
>>11195890
I like how the litmus test for proving you work at SpaceX’s factory in Hawthorne, is the flavour of frozen yogurt they served there on a specific day...

>>11195884
Blueberry Pomegranate.

>>11195896
you don't even need to get it right, because there's no way to check
you just need to convince everybody else that you know what you're talking about

also Pad 39A

>>11195894
t. a non-SpaceX employee who doesn't get free Froyo and is a literal who. Have fun not sending things into space, nerd.

>>11195911
Just to make sure I'm not having a severe case of The Dumb, Froyo is a company that specializes in single serving sizes of frozen yogurt, right?

>>11195921
yes

>>11195921
More or less, Froyo is their tradename but it's just frozen yogurt. The company name is Yogurtys or something.

I've enclosed a photo of the desk of a coworker I don't like as proof I work there.

>>11195929
Big if true.

>>11195880
post froyo or gtfo

>>11195929
screencap of one of the tours of Hawthorne or legit?

>>11195926
>>11195929
Well, to be different and talk shop for a second, is a proper factory on the cards once everyone's figured out how they want to build Starship in serial production, or are the Texas Hangars eternal?

>>11195960
I think big windbreaks + texas hangars should be perfectly sufficient
at a certain point you're going to want to install some heavy duty bridge cranes
that is, of course, unless air conditioning is required to make the whole thing work, in which case we should expect to see things going up shortly

>>11195948
That a kind of old laptop there, Apple stopped letting their logo glow a few years ago when they cheaped out on keyboards. It appears to be a Retina model because no optical drive on the right edge.

Elon has to go testify now at the U.S. District Court in Los Angeles. Even if he loses, the judge will not reward any damages since our lawyers fucked pedo guy.

>>11195994
fucking commiefornia what the hell even is that
can't you eat normal dessert like human beings instead

>>11195973
Idk about that but, that is a modern, in vogue drinking bottle.

>>11196003
Is frozen yoghurt that strange of a concept to people?

>>11196012
YES
just eat ice cream, or grill up some sausage from the hog infestation in your backyard

>>11196012
>Is frozen yoghurt that strange of a concept to people?
Not at all. The strange part is the crumbled up not-yogurt that is mixed in.

>>11196018
both parts are freaky, frozen yogurt doesn't even taste good

>>11196021
I wouldn't call it freaky, but you're right, frozen yogurt does not taste very good.

>>11195994
That looks disgusting...

>>11196027
I'm going to go kill and eat a large animal to make myself feel better

>>11196013
>>11196018
>>11196021
>>11196027
>>11196028
Fascinating

>>11195994
>the judge will not reward any damages since our lawyers fucked pedo guy.

I’m pretty sure the actual reason he’s decided not to press damages is because it would be very hard for him to provide evidence that a tweet damaged his livelihood. The other stuff like defamation is very easy to prove...

>>11195994
NDA violated

>>11196018
I think the crumbled stuff is just walnuts and shit, they would be off to the side as general sprinkles condiments.
Look at the froyo up close though, it's like some kind of alien tongue.

>>11195595
Telsat night survive on the basis of Canadian regulators having a massive fucking hard on for ostensibly local monopolies actually owned by America

>>11196053
NDAs are for fags, they should all be violated all the time.

>>11196053
>>11196068
What Mr Musk doesn’t know won’t hurt him
>>11196060
I forgot about them, their being subsided by millions of Canadian tax-payer dollars. However, they actually are a Canadian company based in Ottawa, but they do most their business in America for obvious reasons. Telesat are a veteran satellite provider, but their way behind the deployment curve and their position looks shaky, when you consider OneWeb are also aggressively targeting the polar internet market.

>>11196060
>>11196089
>Telesat
didn't they make Telstar? https://youtu.be/D6DmtPQv7V8

>>11196139
No, AT&T did with NASA’s help

>>11196161
well they own the name now

>>11196201
I know, I’m interested in how they came into possession of it.

>>11195880
I choose to believe that

Kerbal-esque biome map of Titan
follow the link for the xbox hueg version
http://www.esa.int/ESA_Multimedia/Images/2019/11/Global_geologic_map_of_Titan_annotated#.Xdv6V2nNtzI.link

>>11196272
>Soi crater

>>11196272
I kinda expected more lakes desu

>>11196272
>labyrinth
w-what?

>>11196350
areas shattered by tectonic activity

>>11196293
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_vNhLYW_e4

>>11196350
>labyrinth

>>11196300
Same. Was expecting at least a methane ocean.

>>11195929
What a shitty chair and desk.

>>11195929
I hope you didn't take that picture from your desk, someone else who works there could reverse triangulate your position and backtrace you. Good janitorial btw.

>>11196392
>>11196300
You guys don't know? Titan is a cryogenic world, but it's actually sitting right on the inner edge of the zone aroudn the Sun where such a world can exist. Think of a planet with water like Earth, but significantly closer to the Sun, so that the equator is a big belt of hot deserts and the poles have a few small seas and lakes since they're colder. In terms of a methane-analog hydrological cycle, Titan is a hot desert for the most part.

>>11196350
>>11196353
Also eroded by ancient methane-ethane rainfall.

In the 4.5 billion years since its formation the Sun has been growing bigger and increasing its output, as stars do, so while Titan started off as being relatively cool and probably covered in oceans of liquid hydrocarbons, today it only has a few small remnant lakes separated by an almost global desert.

>>11196513
No, I'd incorrectly thought it was more a patchwork of methane lakes.
What a weird-ass place.

>>11196519
Here anon, have a real image of Titan in front of Saturn.

>>11196272
>>11196524
>>11196517
>>11196513
>>11196519
>>11196353
>>11196300

>2019
>still no dedicated Titan orbiter
>still no dedicated Europa orbiter
>still no Uranus and Neptune orbiters
>still waiting on JWST
>still haven't gone back to the Moon
>still haven't gone to Mars
>still haven't put a floating/flying probe into Venus' atmosphere
>still no Callisto lander
>still no Enceladus lander

why, anons

>>11196544
Because spaceflight has been barely hanging on since Apollo.

>>11196544
>still no dedicated Europa orbiter
I think I read somewhere that such a thing would be unviable as it would be exposed to critical levels of Jupiter's radiation for long periods of time

>>11196593
Looks kind of like an erect horse cock.

>>11196587
That’s why Europa Clipper is doing multiple flybys instead. NASA were originally planning for it to be an orbiter, but then realised this would drastically reduce the probe’s lifespan due to it constantly being bombarded with loads of radiation.

>>11196462
My understanding is SpaceX goes for the dystopian nightmare world of open office planning. So basically anyone could be near his desk. He could be Elon. Not going to believe that Elon never used 4chan.

I wouldn't bet against Elon occasionally browsing 4chan but I wouldn't be on it either.

In case you're here though, Elon, you better be working on waifubot catgirls

>>11196622
That's ridiculous! I- He would never umm visit a site like this. haha. Although, that catgirl idea sounds pretty neat, I could use that.

>>11196613
>Not going to believe that Elon never used 4chan.

Hello fellow 4channellers, my name is HeartofGold2030, do any of you fine gentlemen know where I could find the pedoph-*ahem*....man known as leakanon? I want to arrange an anonymous interview with him, so I can ask him a few questions about his employment situation...

>>11196639
This! We would all like to know how this "leakanon" got his information. So we all can get more of it of course. You can trust me- him, fellow four-channel gentlemen.

>>11196587
It can be done, but you need shielding. NASA refuses to consider just adding shielding until the problem is solved (which for Europa would require about a 3/4 meter thick hemisphere of water sheltering the sensitive electronics, aka about 1.5 tons of water) because such a solution adds weight and they hate adding weight. SLS can provide the up-mass necessary to get a shielded Europa lander to Europa on a gravity assist trajectory with enough delta V to land. If the probe also switched to a higher Isp propellant like methalox (storeable with minimal refrigeration in the inner solar system, no active cooling out at Jupiter) they'd be able to increase the payload to surface. If they wanted to be really crazy and send the probe out with only a hundred kg's of water or so in a smaller shield tank, and fill a second much larger tank with water from ice on Europa itself, then they'd even be able to do a direct trajectory from Earth to Jupiter with SLS. That element carries a bit of risk though, so NASA wouldn't do it.

By the way, Jupiter's radiation is intense but not highly penetrating, which is why such a comparatively thin layer of water attenuates and absorbs so much of the radiation. It's sorta like beta radiation, can only travel meters through air and only about a centimeter into your body, but if you get blasted by 1 SV/h beta for a few hours it's going to kill your skin, which you will notice later when it starts to die and slough off of you. Put a sheet of polycarbonate between you and that hot beta source and you can sit next to that source forever and get no beta dose anymore.

>>11196593
>when you use the MK 1-3 pod on a 1.25 m stack

>Potential juror for Elon trial dropped out because of interview for SpaceX next week

Rookie mistake, should have gone in, voted innocent and guaranteed that job.

>>11196730
It was originally designed to fly on Boeing’s 2.5m orange tanks but was later imported onto Lockheed’s 1.25m tanks...

>>11196714
doesn't water have a shitty radiation shielding/weight ratio because of the relatively low hydrogen content and the heavy oxygen atom? I'd have thought some plastics or even lithiumhydride would be better because of that

>tfw launch escape towers are going extinct
I know they're relatively expensive and cumbersome compared to push motors but damn do they have a great aesthetic

>>11196884
How are tractor launch escape systems more expensive than pusher systems?

>>11196919
They have to be chucked every flight. Dragon 2 carries the abort motors with it. This is kinda pointless now that they're not reusing Crew D2, but in theory it saves you the cost of the LES every mission.

>>11196919
>>11196925
That, and the additonal bloat of having a seperate system that has to be integrated every flight

>>11196884
Don’t worry the Russians are still on it (pic related), the main disadvantages LES towers have compared to integrated systems are actually the extra weight and separation event (more potential risk) they involve. Personally I disagree with the first point, as initially LES towers are indeed heavier but unlike integrated systems, you don’t have to lug around all that unneeded fuel/weight to orbit as you can jettison a tower.

>>11196925
Reusing launch escape systems? That'll never work.

>>11196627
>>11196639
>>11196655
Kek unconvincing crypto-Musk needs to become a regular feature

>>11196964
I know this is a joke/setup for the reusable copypasta, but in reality this happened last time somebody decided to reuse one...

>>11197022
Good thing they fixed that problem then huh?

“Do you need a friend
Would you tell no lies
Would you take me in
Are you lonely in the dark”

>>11197022
Wasn't that due to a feature that's a holdover from when Dragon 2 was going to propulsively land?

>>11197059
kind of. NTO leaked into a helium pressure sometime before the test and fucked the valve when it was opening to pressurize the systems a few miliseconds before firing. That's something that most likely wouldn't have been to hard to fix but since propulsive landing is out of the question now anyways they just replaced the valves with burst discs.
Kind of sad, having the propulsive landing as backup for an incredibly unlikely freak accident causing the loss of all parachutes would have been nice. Not ever useful but still nice to have.

>>11197027
If by "fixed" you mean "gave up on re-using it," then yes. They "fixed" the problem with reusable launch escape systems.

>>11196884
They're not going extinct.
The trade-offs for LEO and BLEO are different. For LEO you use a pusher. For BLEO you use a tower, since an LAS at that point is dead weight you want to get rid off ASAP.

>>11197071
Might still be able to have that contingency ability, its just that turn-around would be longer due to the need to replace the burst disks. IIRC the helium pressurant for the abort system isnt released until it's needed.

>>11197059
It was more a very obscure design fault that nobody saw coming. But Crew Dragon’s capsule integrated abort system is a bit dodgy: with all that unused hydrazine being lugged around and cramming the complex plumbing and pressurised COPVs into the capsule’s shell, right next to the astronauts. I much prefer Starliner’s approach with the LES integrated into the service module and I’m sure SpaceX would have done something similar, if they had known propulsive landing would be axed.

>>11197089
ah yes, I'm retarded. Throttle control is not related to the pressurization system so it should still work, you're right.

>>11197080
>Swap out a handful of burst discs
>Omg no longer reusable

SLS is cringe and blue pilled

>>11197100
Don't you mean orange pilled?

>>11197100
UMM ACTUALLY

>>11196053
There are 2 reasons NDAs are used, to protect IP and to hide skeletons.
Only one of these reasons should be respected.

>>11196800
Water is actually pretty good, LIH is better of course but you can't suck that up from your landing spot.

>>11197136
>Only one of these reasons should be respected.
To hide skeletons? I mean, they're pretty spooky, and they keep harassing me to drink more milk.

>>11197136
>protect IP
>respectable
intellectual property is a false god

>>11197083
>For LEO you use a pusher. For BLEO you use a tower, since an LAS at that point is dead weight you want to get rid off ASAP.

The decision to use a massive solid-fuel puller instead of a pusher on SLS actually stems from the fact that despite being heavier, the solid puller generates significantly more thrust than any pusher system at 1800KN of thrust (about the same as SpaceX’s Raptor). To put that into comparison, Crew Dragon’s 4 SuperDraco engines produce 281KN all together. Why does SLS’ LES require this much thrust, you ask? Because it needs to outrun two massive SRBs which could potentially explode/unzip a lot quicker and far more violently than any liquid booster explosion.

>>11197137
If you want to have an orbiter you'll need to bring it anyways. Wasn't PE the shielding material of choice? Cheap, carbon is lighter than oxygen and it has a C/H ratio of >2. Also stable, structurally sound and about as cheap as it can get (I doubt the latter matters much though).

>>11197180
SRBs: Once more proving their only use is for unmanned spaceflight.

>>11197180
It doesn't just need to outrun them, it also needs to gain separation or the burning chunks of fuel with burn the parachutes. That's what killed ARES

>>11197140
Extremely long patents and copyright are bullshit but I do see a need to protect IP at least for a few year to make some areas of research profitable.

>>11197180
Man, that minor cost-cutting decision back in the early 70's to go with solids rather than liqiud boosters really has cast a large shadow on the US space program ever since

>>11197191
Their useful for keeping things interesting...

>>11197192
Yeah, I forgot about that very crucial factor.

>>11197202
>That one bad decision in the 70s casting a large shadow on the US space program ever since
That perfectly describes what happened after Apollo, not just the SRBs.

>>11197191
SRBs are fine you just need to eject the nozzle to drop their trust to near 0 in an emergency.
While everything being reusable liquids would be nice sometimes you just need a little more ∆v for a certain payload or orbit.

>>11197199
It's required for pretty much all areas of reserach. Why would anyone, from a single, poor STEM faggot inventing something in his moldy basement to huge corporations invest anything if someone else could just steal it and use it with impunity? It would lead to megacorporations becoming even more dominant than they already are.

>>11197202
>>11197208
So we heard you liked SRBs and Apollo dawg and decided to attach SRBs to your Saturn V...

>>11197208
I can at least understand choosing the full flyback shuttle booster over everything else as the future of America's space program at that time. Budgets were coming down hard and it made the most sense

>>11197227
This is unironically my favorite rocket out of the Apollo applications program. It wasn't as cheap as the Shuttle promised, but it would probably be cheaper than what the Shuttle ultimately became.

>>11197227
...then we realised it would be even better if we just turned your Saturn V into an SRB, all for you dawg...

>>11197231

>>11197231
Akshully it's more like a Saturn I.

>>11197227
>we never got a SRB first stage Saturn
>we still haven't seen the Big Dumb Booster concept tested
Now reusability is a thing there is less need but I would still like to see a a huge BDB put into service as a cheap way of getting hundreds of tons to LEO.

>>11197235
RIP big guy.

>>11197242
>Now reusability is a thing there is less need but I would still like to see a a huge BDB put into service as a cheap way of getting hundreds of tons to LEO.
But anon! Cheap big dumb boosters can't have their production spread across the states to please senators. That's no good!

>tfw America's transitional period in the late 60s-early 70s used to be the only exciting topic in spaceflight conversation
Feels good to be living in such exciting times bros

>>11197253
It does seem like spaceflight (at least American spaceflight) is about to go through a resurgence, and unlike the other times when it seems like things would get better, it'll be harder to kill by one dumb politician.

>>11197242
>I would still like to see a a huge BDB put into service as a cheap way of getting hundreds of tons to LEO.

Northrop’s upcoming OmegA Heavy is the closest thing to a big dumb booster I can think of...

>>11197258
I remember becoming a spaceflight autist back in 2009 and giving up after a couple years due to the glacial movement. It's so whitepilling to see so many upcoming heavy lift launchers, flyback boosters, moon landers etc in the next couple of years.

>>11197272

>>11197274
I know how you feel. I pretty much toned out spaceflight for a long time after the cancellation of Constellation. Before that I've read about pretty much every other NASA program that was more ambitious than another interplanetary probe get cancelled so seeing Constellation end was "the straw that broke the camel's back" for me.

It's nice to see some real progress in spaceflight again, and not just in NASA. Having different goals, approaches, and ideas for advanced spaceflight be worked on with actual results means that it's more likely that something ambitious will be done. Hopefully some of them will inspire more people about spaceflight, and bring it back into the public eye as more than just a "thing for geeks".

>>11197299
Oops, thought that image was something else. Here, have a cool Mars mission concept.

>>11197258
I wish the russians had money for their space program and the europeans would find their backbone. Things could be much more exciting than they are.

>>11197253
>>11197258
Without the private sector I would be excited about SLS today but thanks to all the innovation over the last decade the SLS is the least exciting of the major projects.

>>11197272
>OmegA
Interesting, I hadn't paid any attention to that since it was "Next Generation Launcher". Not quite what I want but a step in the right direction (and more importantly keeping Shuttle contractors happy).

>>11197307
Seeing Syria and the Qatar / Turkey pipeline were intended to bankrupt Russia I think they could start recovering now that plan has failed.
I would do anything to see a Korolev Cross followed by 4 simultaneous landings.

>>11197354
I think the reusability upgrade path for their angara is supposed to land boosters horizontally with wings that fold out, much like the plans for the old energija boosters

>>11197359
Pic related.

>>11197359
>>11197361
Interesting but seems like a lot of dead mass, it would be interesting to know how of he Falcon 9 is dead mass in comparison.

>>11197307
>tfw fobos-grunt was one of the hypests missions ever
>A Martian Lunar Landing
>A Martian Lunar sample return
>Years in the making
>tfw I watched the launch live
>that feel when it failed in orbit
When will Russia learn that Mars brings them nothing but bad luck? Both flagship multi-million dollar mission to the outer planet since the fall of the Union have failed. Plus you have to take into account all the previous failed mission from the era of the Soviet Union

>>11197367
It was probably justified on both the economics of reusability, and (most likely) being that computer control back then wasn't sophisticated enough for a propulsive landing.

>>11197371
things like that is why I won't stop chewing on my nails until the JWST is parked at L2 and reported working.

Also I never understood how mission like that could just get dropped after a failure. I always thought that at that point you've invested so much time and money that the best course of action is to assemble the same vehicle again (with fixes, if necessary) and launch it again.

Have any countries ever successfully revived a mothballed space project like Black Arrow or Energia?

>>11197375
It also allowed them to use the RD-170 engine that in itself is amazing but can't throttle anywhere near low enough for a propulsive landing. Same for the angara boosters with the RD-191.

>>11197384
No. Once the engineering and production infrastructure is down you're better off designing a new launch vehicle. Exceptions might be weapons projects like for example the north koreans trying to copy the R-27 zyb because they're lacking the human ressources to design something on their own.

>>11197384
The SLS can count on a technicality due to the concept being around since before the first Shuttle launch. Also, I think alot of the ICBM-turned-launchers (like Atlas, Delta, and Titan) were resurrected after Challenger, but I could be wrong there. Other than that I don't think that such a resurrection is possible due to the fact that usually when a project like that get's mothballed, then it's due to the government not being able to fund it and thus probably won't have the budget later to restart it.

>>11197382
While building back-ups was Russia's forte (See the core module of the ISS being Mir's back up, countless planetary missions being launched in pairs of identical spacecraft) I think it was mainly due to lack of funds. Hate to rely on the old "le budget is too low" meme but I feel with Russian interplanetary spaceflight they really were strung out too thin in the 90's-early noughts and I fear all that a lot of expertise built up over the decades has been lost.
At least they're reviving the Luna program

>>11197382
>Also I never understood how mission like that could just get dropped after a failure. I always thought that at that point you've invested so much time and money that the best course of action is to assemble the same vehicle again (with fixes, if necessary) and launch it again.
Probably because in the government, every single coin spent on something is scrutinized and double checked. Any perceived waste immediately getting smothered by politcal members suggesting how to better spend funds on THEIR projects. The first failure of project being used as an example as to why the project is a waste and thus must be shut down. Spaceflight is the most vulnerable to this due to it not being a critical service for the country, and that projects in spaceflight tending to have high initial costs.

Because of this once something fails in government run spaceflight, it becomes difficult to justify it's continued existence. Especially nowadays with so little happening. So what if a probe to Mars fails? There's already decades old data that can be looked over again, and it's not like the country is going to end because of it.

>>11197354
>Without the private sector I would be excited about SLS today but thanks to all the innovation over the last decade the SLS is the least exciting of the major projects.
It's also the furthest along.
Just saying. It doesn't have to be your favorite, but it really is exciting if you just enjoy it for what it is..

>Boeing has pushed back the launch debut of its Starliner spacecraft to Dec. 19, a two-day delay, due to a glitch with the spacecraft's Atlas V rocket.
Oh boy, here we go again.... how far back will this slippery slope take us this time..

>>11197418
It is an impressive vehicle but at $2b a launch I can't help but think about where else that money could be going.

>>11197431
>Starliner gets forever trapped in the cycle of their first launch being two years away
The SLS curse will never die

>>11197431
I don't think Boeing is being incentivised by NASA to be late this time. So it was probably a legitimate issue.

Commercial Crew is going to fly next year, r-right, guys?

>>11197450
Hopefully! Unless another capsule explodes.

>>11197450
>commercial crew was supposed to first fly in 2018
>following the first SLS flight in 2017
Don't bet on anything in the space industry.

>>11197431
>Launching american astronauts into space with Russian made first stage engine

pottery

>>11197461
>Launching russian cosmonauts to a space station on an American-made rocket because they don't have a domestic one capable of getting there
how deep does this go?

>>11197472
I thought Russia turned their back on the Gateway?

>>11197472
they seem to have changed their mind:
https://twitter.com/RussianSpaceWeb/status/1201501299541450752

>>11197495
Meant to reply to:
>>11197477

>>11197495
>Nauka years overdo
>they expect to launch a lunar space station component
Those crazy Russkies

>>11197505
The reason they actually kept going back and forth on joining was because they were like:
>hey US can we build a big part of the station like we did for the ISS
>lolno. we're not falling for that one again. you guys get to built the little docking port
>fuck you. we'll build our own lunar station then
>sure you will.
>...cyka blyat.

>>11197512
>>lolno. we're not falling for that one again. you guys get to built the little docking port
wut?

This is all just public facing. When it comes down to it, like an asteroid or radiation plague, we will do anything to survive. Nihilism, that's only the first lesson. Rail gun. Genetics. Skeet the universe.

>>11197512
I wonder if Russia's new manned craft will ever make it to Lunar orbit, let alone ISS flights
>tfw every "next gen" craft designed since 2005 has touted Lunar Exploration capabilities

>>11197517
the russians get to build a dinky little docking module for gateway because the US won't let them build something inside the actual critical path after their experience with zvezda

>>11197525
>after their experience with zvezda
What happened with Zvezda? Things seemed to have went well with it?

Remember when Roscosmos started selling tourist flyby's around the moon on a Soyuz?

Elon Musk could finance every crew dragon flight to the ISS. Just sell raffle tickets at $5 a piece. The winner gets to fly up, get a tour, and then fly down with the old crew.

SpaceX launch thread will be up a couple hours before launch, as is tradition.
I wonder how many of these I've done so far?

>>11197527
Zarya was supposed to orbit for like 6 months - it had not altitude control after that period. Zvezda was supposed to take over and perform orbital reboosts.
It ended up taking 2 YEARS.
NASA had to fly a bunch of Shuttle flights to just periodically reboost this proto-ISS, to the point that they actually rung-up the DoD and asked them if they could just use one of their classified orbital tugs instead (pic related). They only ended up relenting because they'd basically already committed to the Russians, so there was no point changing things up at that juncture.

>>11197571
Wasn't the idea of a spaceride raffle suggested a while ago on this general to increase public awareness to spaceflight? I'm all for it desu. Probably would be a liability nightmare to set up though.

>>11197575
That was right in the post soviet turmoil though, don't know how indicative that is of today's performance. Besides being horribly underfunded and having drunk workers assemble accelerometers the wrong way around or drill holes into things that shouldn't be drilled into they seem to have recovered from that. Later Russian ISS modules did fine.

>>11197592
>having drunk workers assemble accelerometers the wrong way around
I'm still amazed by how that happened. Would it have taken too much time to call someone and ask why the sensor is struggling to be bolted in?

>>11197602
Russian Aerospace workers are paid like shit. Many of them just don't care.

>>11197602
People do retarded things from time to time, you can only do so much against that. What's more baffling is that inspections didn't catch it.

>>11197573
Thank you based anon for providing quality OPs

Fulfill the prophesy, Lain.

>>11197637
Do we have any more information on him? I would like to know so I can learn more about SpaceX from him of course. haha.

>>11197571
$5 means they'd have to sell ~16 million($80M (seat+few days in ISS+training fees etc)) tickets. That's sort of support is not doable.

$100 raffle could be done with 800K people.
$20 raffle for 4Million people.

>>11197187
Sorry, just realized I meant to type dedicated Europa lander, not orbiter.

how'd the pedo thing go today

>>11197210
Eject the nozzle and they still produce between one third and one half of nominal thrust. The only way to actually get net-zero thrust from an SRB is to blow the top off so gasses go in both directions, however this is pretty shit for your launch vehicle anyway.

>Is this one galaxy or two? This question came to light in 1950 when astronomer Arthur Hoag chanced upon this unusual extragalactic object. On the outside is a ring dominated by bright blue stars, while near the center lies a ball of much redder stars that are likely much older. Between the two is a gap that appears almost completely dark. How Hoag's Object formed, including its nearly perfectly round ring of stars and gas, remains unknown. Genesis hypotheses include a galaxy collision billions of years ago and the gravitational effect of a central bar that has since vanished. The featured photo was taken by the Hubble Space Telescope and recently reprocessed using an artificially intelligent de-noising algorithm. Observations in radio waves indicate that Hoag's Object has not accreted a smaller galaxy in the past billion years. Hoag's Object spans about 100,000 light years and lies about 600 million light years away toward the constellation of the Snake (Serpens). Many galaxies far in the distance are visible toward the right, while coincidentally, visible in the gap at about seven o'clock, is another but more distant ring galaxy.


the universe is fucking spooky dude

>>11197242
Solids aren't big dumb boosters, though. The fuel is very expensive to make and install. A true BDB uses both cheap structure and cheap propellant, hence hydrocarbons and lox inside big steel pressurized cans.

>>11197306
>nuclear thermal surface-to-orbit shuttles
yes

>>11197720
Nah, for something like the Castor 600 the nozzle throat diameter is ~1/4rd of the total body diameter.
We know the body has a diameter of 3710 cm so estimating (because I can't find numbers) we get a throat diameter of ~927cm.
Thing is rockets don't give a shit about the diameter of anything, cross sectional area is what matters to flow.
With a diameter of 927cm we have a area of 674,915 cm2 for the throat and with a diameter of 3710 cm for the body we get an area of 10,810,298 cm2.
Blowing out the whole nozzle including the convergence in this case would increase the area by ~16 fold leading to ~ 1/16th of the trust.

I have blown enough nozzles out of solid motors over the years to learn this the hard way.

>>11197726
Just because they do it the hard way on the Shuttle doesn't mean solid fuel can't be cast quickly and cheaply, look at military applications to see their techniques. Sure you lose some ISP but when you go big enough that stops mattering so much.

Is The Onion real life now?

>>11198244
The Onion has been the most accurate news site for about 4 years now.

>>11196714
>not just using magnets

>>11197227
fuck off reddit

launch thread
>>11198459

>>11198244
>Timothy B Lee
The guy's got a hate boner for anything Musk.

>>11198271
>definitely looks to be worth the complexity and cost to me!
>after all the only alternative is to install a half meter thick layer of hydrogen rich material such as plastic surrounding the habitat, and that'd be pretty heavy lol

>>11197090
>nobody saw coming
except everyone who understands how painfully unreliable one-way valves are

you know, like everyone who read the wikipedia article for the three mile island thing
or everyone who ever had to look into getting or performing heart surgery

>>11197737
the responsible solution for the thinking colonist
every gallon saved is a bar of iron for the war effort

>>11198535
when's Boeing's launch penis going up?

>>11196544
>>still haven't put a floating/flying probe into Venus' atmosphere

The USSR did that in the 80's bro

>>11198589
December 19

>>11198592
yeah, but it wasn't a nuclear thermal ramjet, so boo

>>11198592
We don't currently have one, there's no reason why we couldn't put something into Venus' atmosphere that would persist for four or five years.

>>11198640
>there's no reason why we couldn't put something into Venus' atmosphere that would persist for four or five years
Probably because no one who has the money to fund it is interested in funding it.

>>11198640
>>11198645
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shukrayaan-1

>>11198659
>poo
>orbiter
I sleep

>>11198665
Both their Moon and Mars orbiters have been successful, they just struggle with landings. Also, you obviously didn’t read the bit about the potential cooperation with CNES...

>>11198665
It's sort of interesting watching nations play catchup going through all the milestones USA/USSR set decades back. India/China orbital rendezvous when?

More like Scrapship, amirite fellas!?

>>11198728
yeah, don't skimp out on quality assurance, guys
everybody hates Quality men, but we hate Quality for a reason: it's because we need them

>>11198728
>Starship under construction - July 1987
That brings me back

>>11198735
>Space Transportation System construction - Kennedy Space Center 1987, the good timeline

CRS-19 scrubbed for today due to (((upper level winds)))

"Standing down today due to upper altitude winds and high winds at sea creating dynamic conditions around the Of Course I Still Love You droneship – next launch opportunity is tomorrow at 12:29 p.m. EST, 17:29 UTC"

https://twitter.com/SpaceX/status/1202274520402317314

>>11198768
What can be done to bring the fight to the wind's home turf? Fuck the wind, something must be done about that menace.

>>11198799
Will starship be B I G enough to not have to give a shit about the wind?

If not then maybe Starship V2, which Elon says will possibly be twice the diameter.

>>11198804
Elon said Starship shouldn‘t give a shit about the weather. But then I don‘t know how much confidence he can have in that given that the design hasn‘t gone 6 months without a complete reimagining ever since they conceived of the concept.

>>11198817
I would think the sheer size of starship and it's relative T H I C K N E S S would make it much more structurally robust against shit like wind.

>>11198822
it's actually still a fairly fine rocket at the current design. This is because although it did more than double in diameter from Falcon 9, it's also much much taller.

Another scrubbed launch. When will the taxpayer burden end.

>>11198836
>he pays taxes

>>11198822
Starship isn’t very thick, it’s actually the opposite: it’s made of thin steel to reduce weight, which is partly why Mk1+2 came out looking so wrinkly.

The most important factor when trying to calculate a rocket’s wind tolerance is it’s fineness ratio. Because of repeated tank stretches to gain more performance without also widening the tanks past their original 3.7m diameter, Falcon 9 has become extremely tall and skinny. This in turn means it has a high fineness ratio and therefore, is more sensitive to phenomena like high upper-level winds and wind shear than a stouter rocket like Soyuz for example.

>>11198859
So basically, the taller and skinnier your rocket is, the worse it handles wind?

*girths in your presence*

>>11198866
Yes, exactly. Starship is quite thick, but it is also extremely tall.
Some notes: the height of your rocket is determined by the thrust to area ratio of your booster engines, and the Raptor is the king of that metric.

I want the most high tech futuristic cruise ships

That Showcase Forms Of Reality My Grade

Canister launched hypergolic fueled Starship operated by the People's Liberation Army Space Command

>>11198866
If you want a rocket that can operate in high winds, you need to build something like this:

>>11198890
I want to see Starships with custom branding
I want one with Cirno on it

>>11198894
ROMBUS
O
M
B
U
S

>>11198898
...was an unironically great SSTO design, as the whole drop tanks thing solves the horrible mass fraction problem SSTOs usually have.

>>11198917
every time you drop a tank that's considered a "stage"
so it's not an SSTO

THE STRONGEST FAIRY FOR THE STRONGEST ROCKET

>>11196544
space is hard have patience and send more money

>>11198535
God this is one pajeet tier rocket.

>>11198925
FALCON 9 BEST ROCKET BECAUSE IT'S THE STRONGEST!

>>11198931
>space is hard
I hope I live to see the day that defeatist notion gets absolutely destroyed.

>>11198933
Well, the Falcon Heavy IS the most powerful American rocket currently flying.

>>11198933
incorrect, Falcon Heavy is currently the strongest rocket
Soon, Super Heavy will be the strongest rocket OF ALL TIME

>>11198933
You mean Falcon , right?

>>11198932
>Boeing
>pajeet tier

>>11198932
>God this is one pajeet tier rocket.
>Atlas V
>pajeet tier

>>11198963
it is

>>11198859
>thin steel
the steel tanks of the atlas centaur are about a tenth of the thickness of the steel used for starship

>>11198963
pajeets could take scrap aluminum from empty soda cans and make a better rocket

>>11198859
The fineness ratio is what i was referring to. Why would you think I was referring to how thick the steel shell was?

>>11198535
It's like they try to make them look extra phallic.

>>11198535
When you're a rocket engineer but you skipped your aerodynamics classes.

>>11198897
starship with fish livery

WHEN IS LAUNCH

>>11198535
>not playing with tweakscale mod
the fuck

>>11198988
never :(

>>11197602
After 3 months of working in an small but world leading high tech company I'm not surprised in the slightest something like that happened.

>>11198988
tomorrow, it was scrubbed

>>11198990
>tweakscale
cheating

>>11198897
They could probably generate some money like that.
You pay $1 and then you get to vote on the paint scheme of the next launch.

>>11198999
I don't care, but those numbers make a compelling case

>>11199004
I decided against posting a Cirno again
I can see that I was foolish

>>11199010
baka baka

>>11198732
We had some good discussion about this several threads ago but it got derailed by fanboyism

god damn why is What About It? such a shitter holy fuck

Parker Solar Probe announcement!
https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2019/nasas-parker-solar-probe-sheds-new-light-on-the-sun

>>11199074
Where did he touch you? People here were heavily praising him recently...

>>11199087
here's his interaction with Scott Manley
https://twitter.com/DJSnM/status/1202145941941182465

>>11199074
who? I don't care much for ecelebrity drama

>>11199096
he's a youtuber guy who makes bad videos

>>11199093
>jewtubers thinking they own a story and deserve credit for reporting on something first
Could always tell this guy was a scumbag.

>>11199076
Amazing! DESU, with the reliability of gyros lately, I'm amazed that something wrong with them hasn't happened yet on Parker.

>>11199109
a retard and a scumbag
I hate his speech impediment too
decidedly not Scott Manley

>>11199093
Lol, what the fuck is this?

>>11199074
Out of all of those who jumped on the space-youtuber bandwagon, he's in that awkward space where he seems to have occasional relevant content but usually operates as a content-repeater

Also he's lacking in "street credibility" as he's lacking a degree in astrophysics

much more importantly: Roberts Road appears to have multiple bulkheads going up
https://twitter.com/spacecoast_stve/status/1201960033942155264
what are they building over there?

>>11199093
Does this mean the anon leaker wasn't larping?

>>11199138
he was surely larping but it also might mean he's legit

>>11199093
Scott is universally loved in the space community, so even if he pissed me off I wouldn’t start shit with him...Nobody is gonna back Felix up. Felix let all the attention he got, from being the first person to publicly break the news that Cocoa Starship development was ceasing (even though it was actually first posted here about a week before, god bless leakanon) go to his head.

>>11198535
This looks plain disgusting

>>11199138
>>11199143
I’m pretty sure he wasn’t larping, considering people were literally posting pictures of inside SpaceX’s Hawthorne offices last thread. I wouldn’t take vague public relations statements from SpaceX seriously. It’s obvious their moving Florida development to Roberts Road.

>>11199154
bruh he was having a right laugh and roleplaying his sneaky leak-man fantasies all over us
the fact that his leaks were legit doesn't detract from the fact that he was greatly enjoying his LARP

>>11199154
> considering people were literally posting pictures of inside SpaceX’s Hawthorne offices last thread
You mean this thread? That was me, not Leakanon. It was satire but most people didn't get that because they didn't read the post that started it and they don't know how to properly reverse image search.

If you reverse image search the office photo and look at the results down the page, you'll see that I just cropped it from a tour that Everyday Astronaut was on.

>>11199173
>you'll see that I just cropped it from a tour that Everyday Astronaut was on.

Well you fooled me...

>>11199158
I don’t know who to trust anymore

>>11199033
Was it the one that had the welded SLS tank as the OP?

>>11196587
Which is why you do a Europa Clipper. Dive in, swing by the surface, get the hell out. This is already funded, except it has a must launch on SLS congressional mandate that's fucking things over. The engineers really want to use something else.
>>11197716
>>11196714
The electronics we have can survive a month in the radiation environment. This is fine for a lander because a near term lander doesn't need to operate that long. Ain't much point of taking pictures of the same rocks and analyzing the same soil samples for months. The real issue with a lander is that we need to characterize the surface better to figure out where we can land and should land. It's too risky to send a lander, it could be a very expensive means of finding out that certain lander designs are unviable or certain terrain features are very good at killing landers.

Support the Triton nuclear ice hopper though. Enceladus is also a much easier target cause it ain't bathing in radiation and there's geysers just spewing crap out.

>>11195881
What kind of material was used to put up that tent? I looks almost like a building. Disgusting desu

>>11195881
is each of those stars on the American flag taller than a man

>>11199215
>Pic of the "difficult pill to swallow" component of the SLS on delivery to american space enthusiasts.

>>11199243
The stripes are as wide as highway lanes

>>11199270
so you could park a car on each of those stars?

>>11199243
>>11199270

>>11199190
>Well you fooled me...
Don't believe what you see on internet.

>>11199273
Wouldn't be surprised. The VAB is one of those things where our minds just can't grasp the scale of without seeing in person.
This 360 degree view is the closest I've got to truly understanding how fucking massive a building it is: http://nasatech.net/VAB/Lvl32ovrlkTrnsfrAisle_150427/

>>11199284
I Elon even a real person? I'm not sure I've seen anything about him off the internet..

>>11199093
What a fucking faggot, this guy always smelled like a scumbag to me, fully vindicated.

>>11199288
>they got their own rollercoaster
working there must be a blast

>>11199294
Elon as you "know" is not a real person. Its a model you've constructed out of some twitter, news feed, memes, etc. There's no such person like this.

>>11199327
True.

Though this is also true for absolutely everything.

>>11199332
All models are wrong but some are useful.

Do you guys agree with my theory that Plum Brook is actually just a bondage club for spacecraft?

>>11199324
>a blast
nice.

>>11199372
>Plum Brook is actually just a bondage club for spacecraf
top kek

>>11199400
We can easily deduce from pic related that Orion is into pet play...what are some other spacecraft’s fetishes?

>>11198897
Cirno is awesome, but first we need Starships with Ika Musume on them.

>>11198925
>THE STRONGEST FAIRY FOR THE STRONGEST ROCKET
Cirno can be on the booster.

>>11199408
starship is a 7' futa amazon and nobody can change my mind

>>11199408
Apollo CSM is definitely into inter(space-)racial

>>11199412

>>11199422
She's a soccer mom who can bring the whole team to practice. No seatbelts though.

>>11199444
checked

>>11199422
Could use some more tags.

>>11199422
She's a shiny robogirl.

>>11199634
Stop tweeting shit and build the wall you fucking cocksucker.

>>11199634
>inb4 whining about how space should only be fore science

>>11199634
I wish there was a SPACE version of Trump. Instead of wanting to build a wall he wants to land americans on mars.

Then we could all have salty arguments about he didn't actually do anything he promised, while accusing anyone who points this out as being a brainwashed liberal.

>>11199670
Elon is space trump

>>11199670
There was Gingrich, but he didn't turn out to be popular.

>>11199677
Hated that guy but loved his moon-base idea.

>>11199674
too productive

NASA is going to test to destruction one of the SLS test articles

https://www.nasa.gov/exploration/systems/sls/nasa-will-push-exploration-rocket-test-hardware-beyond-its-limits.html

>>11199706
I fun of Trump on twitter and now he's going to launch my tool shed into space. Pls help :(

>>11199111
amazing mirror tripdubtrips

>>11199634
As long as China and Russia make the same declarations this unironically is the best thing to do since as long as competing nations are racing to secure a new territory military projects are guaranteed to get funding and development for member nations and always end up assisting the civilian sector's development.

>>11199706
Is this 2017 again?

>>11199706
Why is there a garage on top of that rocket

>>11199817
>Why is there a garage on top of that rocket
Equipment's gotta be housed somewhere.

>>11199817
It’s actually a bungalow where Shelby lives

>>11199835
>ywn visit the Shelby Shed

>>11199837
It's his loneliness-depot, where he keeps his expendable hopes.

>>11199706
GIVE ME MY SHED BACK SENATOR SHELBY

>>11199001
>tfw not dueling people in space while wearing gay fetish gear and a cape

>>11200189
While I can't help you with the space bit, nothing is stopping you from doing the rest.

>>11200294
Compromise: scuba-duels, next best thing.

>>11200312
I like it, but can you be shirtless when scuba diving?
Wearing skintight pants but no shirt? Don't scuba suits only come in full body?

>>11200331
Doesn't SCUBA just refer to the tank/rebreather bit? I figure you can go diving in a pink tutu so long as you're able to strap on the tank. I'd thought the whole suit setup was just for diving cold water, but I'm no diver so I don't know.

>>11200344
I thought SCUBA referred to the "method." That is, any form of diving with an apparatus (the tank). But I also assumed that there was requirements on what you can safely wear.
After looking around, you're right. You can dive in anything.

>>11200356
I'm too lazy to doublecheck but I thought SCUBA was an acroym of "self contained underwater breathing apparatus", referring to just the tank/rebreather.
In any case I don't see a reason why underwater slow motion bondageclad duels can't be an olympic sport.

>>11200395
Yeah, you're right on both counts.
Now let's get back on topic - homoerotic scuba wrestling/sword fighting.

>>11200404
I wonder, can you swing a sword underwater with enough force to inflict serious harm, or does the water slow you down too much? I've never swung a blade underwater, I'd assume some resistance but a blade should be able to accelerate still even in such conditions.
Blunt objects like maces or clubs might be less effective but I can't say conclusively without running a series of tests. I doubt the YMCA would let me bring swords to the pool so I'll have to wait for the weather to warm in order to gather some usable results out in the lake instead.

It's so fucking ugly

https://twitter.com/SpaceflightNow/status/1202416423013883904

>>11199610
>unbirthing

>>11199817
The Grand Tour parked a Hilux there.

>>11200435
man, just fuck my aerodynamics up senpai

>>11200703
How hard would a simple adapter be?

>>11200732
unneeded mass
this works. isn't super pretty, but it works.

>>11200769
It looks like it shouldn't, but it does?

>>11200816
basically.
you'd be amazed what crap you can get away with once you've figured out how to actively stabilize your rockets
ever notice how basically no modern rocket has fins on their base?

>>11200830
So why was the Bridenstein stack not realistic?

>>11200873
there comes a point where no amount of active control will save you from bad aerodynamics

>>11200873
I prefer the term: "Franken Heavy"

>>11200769
>but it works
>boeing

>>11200963
>>11200830
>boeing
>in charge of a software solution to an aerodynamic flaw from slapping a new part on an old vehicle too small for the new part
WE'VE BEEN HERE BEFORE

are they naming it the Rocket Characteristics Augmentation System, too?

>>11201014

New Thread:
>>11201067
LC-39A, LC-39B, and now SLC-41. Keeping this launch pad train rolling.