/sci/ - Science & Math

ERIC B*RGER is a SHITPOSTER

>>11378146
>space flight
never happened

>>11378146
>generals
never happened

SpaceX's facilities on KSC grounds near Roberts Road
looks like they've shut it down pretty good

Yang dropped out. Now what? Do any of the candidates care about going to Mars at all?

Is going to college for an aerospace engineering degree worth it?

>>11378384
The workers there probably shat themselves and curled up into fetal positions after taking a peak at the neighbours...

>>11378386
Who's that?

>>11378393
Depends on which part of it you want to do. I've just got a masters in aerospace propulsion and I'm already getting interested looks by various companies. Keep in mind that some regions are for specific parts of aerospace than others so you'll most likely have to move. Also, a masters degree helps alot.

>>11378393
no

>>11378402
Biggest thing that I worry about is my age, I am 26 without a degree right now. Thinking about going back.

ULA is launching a new rocket for the first time this year and it isn't Vulcan:

https://spaceflightnow.com/2020/02/11/ula-to-debut-unflown-variant-of-atlas-5-rocket-later-this-year/

>>11378414
I've seen grandmothers come back for a degree. You can make it.

>>11378437
No, he’s failed and will probably die at 30 from suicide alone and unhappy.
BLACKPILLED

>>11378444
probably true
>>11378437
I might try. But space companies need IT people too I guess.

>>11378448
Working is a waste of time. Life is horrible and we should all die

>>11378444
>>11378451
GTFO debbie downer. 26-anon can still make it.

>>11378454
No one can make it. We’re doomed

>>11378454
lol, this is 26 anon, me>>11378448
idk, just getting too existential again. Going back to school while working full time would be very expensive and take several years. The only brick and motor school near me sucks. Plz ignore my BS. I am gonna try and get an IT position at a space company.

>>11378457
That attitude is what brought us to the mo- Oh wait it wasn't. What brought us to the moon was determination in the face of hardships.

>>11378463
Who cares if some dead people went to the moon? We’re going to all be dead within a hundred years due to resource depletion and climate change.

>>11378464
We won't run out of resources. We will hit a point where we can't produce more than we consume, billions will die. Then things will get ok again.

>>11378467
No we’re doomed and you might as well kill yourself because the future will be an infinite eternal nightmare

>>11378468
You go first, that way there is a fraction more resources for the rest of us.

>>11378473
I would but I’m too afraid.

>>11378489
Arousing.

>>11378183
Based and flatchestpilled err...
Flat Earth pilled.

>>11378464
Not if we go to the moon first. :^)

>>11378499
Have another.

>>11378507
Not as arousing as the first.

>>11378468
the future is absolutely an infinite eternal nightmare but that's okay because so is the present

>>11378511
Fair enough.

>>11378505
Space travel will never make money. It’s a waste of time and money grow up you toddler

>>11378514
>ywn travel the cosmos
Let's hope for a new space race.

>>11378499
>>the crazy head antennae
>>that dude with a fucking pipe in the background
oh 50s

>>11378522
Don't you dare badmouth '50s sci-fi.

>>11378522
The 50s was a magical time for space flight.

>>11378527
It was a dumb time where nerds made up bullshit like space rockets.

>>11378529
The space ferry was a solid idea conceptually. It's pretty much what Starship is aiming for but using 50s tech.

>>11378527
Optimism was high because the depression of WWII had just ended, and we all needed some escapism from the cold war.

>>11378531
Starship will fail hard and explode and fall on Elon Musk and kill him

Anyone have that picture of the spacemen fighting with hatchets and other such weapons?

>>11378535
should have worn that hard hat

>>11378532
The fact that space flight was relatively new at the time probably fed into that as well. Everything was new and there was much room for speculation.

>>11378536
No, but I have a picture of the Soviet manned moon lander.

>>11378541
Yep.
Plus we had a culture that encouraged it. Media, books, comic books, etc., were all about space.

We need more good sci-fi, to encourage the next generation. Yet we're stuck with terrible ""star trek"", bad twilight zone rip off, and marvel/dc.

>>11378541
66 years from a barely-flying wood and cloth contraption to setting foot on the moon, imagine being an old person in the late 60s having seen the progression.

>>11378549
My issue is that most space based scifi nowadays treat the technology like magic. Even relatively grounded shows resorted to magical tech. Sort of makes space flight look something that's more appropriate in Middle Earth than reality. More realistic or restrained sci-fi would be better desu.

>>11378557
I agree. Sometimes I like the magic tech stories, I just wish had more variety.
Often times bad sci-fi is actually good sci-fi.

>>11378552
Must've been a dream time for any space flight fan. Also, REEEE increase the video file size limit!

>>11378557
>Even relatively grounded shows resorted to magical tech.

Technology is magic to people who don’t understand it.

>>11378567
I don't mean magic as in something that works but isn't understood, but "tv magic" as in "it happens because we can't think of how else it happens".

>>11378384
Can't blame them, being charged $10m per launch in pad fees makes building your own launch facility a better option.

>>11378397
I want BO to do well but why do people act like they are amazing when they haven't even reached orbit yet?

>>11378582
>I want BO to do well but why do people act like they are amazing when they haven't even reached orbit yet?
Bezos has money. They'll reach orbit, don't worry.
I am curious at why they are taking so long, though.

>>11378589
probably because Bezos has money

>>11378582
>I want BO to do well but why do people act like they are amazing when they haven't even reached orbit yet?
For me, it's that there are clear signs that they have alot going on. ULA accepted their engines over Aerojet Rocketdyne. The USAF letting them in with their unflown New Glenn, compared to SpaceX having to sue to get their Falcon 9 in. It tells me that Blue has some serious clout.

>>11378549
who needs fiction when we have reality?

>>11378592
See >>11378591
Bezos has been involved in buying politicians for a decade now so he knows how to play the game oldspace have been playing since day one.

>>11378589
What gets me is the first orbital rocket they plan to build is one of the largest ever built, just doesn't seem like the smart way to enter a new field.

>>11378601
they made new Shepard work pretty good, and that's most of the hard part of reusing an orbital class booster out of the way right there

>>11378601
He has over a hundred billion dollars of personal money to throw at it though. Unlike Elon, he doesn't have to start with expendable unmanned rocket launches with commercial and government contracts. He can jump the line.

>>11378603
How has he jumped the line, BO is older than SpaceX. If they were getting towards a heavy rocket faster I could understand that but that doesn't seem to be the case.
If they were getting close you would expect at least a tank test by now, hell even SLS is finally at tank test stage.

Where do you guys get most of your up to date space info? Any twitter feeds I should be following?

>>11378609
4chan

>>11378609
Half a dozen youtubers and /sci/.
I'm looking for a decent source on Russian, Chinese and Indian rockets if anyone knows some.

>>11378607
Blue Origin didn't really start hard core development until 2013. It was a pretty small company with small tests then. Starts to coincide with Bezos's personal wealth starting to explode too. Elon hit the ground running when he started spaceX, blue origin has lingered around and didn't get serious until the last 6 or 7 years.

>>11378615
once again, the NASAspaceflight forums are the premier place for everything spaceflight, as long as you don't mind gargling kgb dick

>>11378609
eric berger
jeff foust

>>11378489
Looks only moderately cool until you remeber that it's about as high as 12-storey building

>may 7
Bros...

>>11378729
does the government tell Elon to put the american flag on his rockets or does he do it on his own

>>11378734
He should paint the whole thing up red white and blue like a gaudy 4th of july firework.

>>11378734
It's an unnecessary cost so I doubt it's his idea.

>>11378734
I don't think the government has ever had to ask. Elon is very outspoken about his love of America, there is no reason he wouldn't put it on there. I don't think there is any legal requirement for them to do it.

>>11378734
I think he does it on his own. Elon has repeatedly described himself as "nauseatingly pro-American"

Pretty sure he'd bone Lady Liberty if he could.

Elon's secret plan:
the car was just the tip of the joke

>>11378766

>>11378786
>>11378766
ULA measures fairing capacity in blue whales. ULA and SpaceX won't be able to pull off a whale launch though, but Blue Origin can. But that's only because Bezos has enough money to buy his way out of the legal repercussions and negative press

>>11378384
Kerbal space centre?

>>11378393
nah, they have you by the balls due to it being a passion field, unless you want to prop up the mil-industrial complex in which case you'll get paid ok but probably bored

>>11378419
>changing the fairing is a new rocket
By that logic they flew a new rocket during the starliner test as already.

>>11378926
New fairing changes the aerodynamic properties of the rocket. So yes, it behaved differently from other configurations when they strapped a starliner to the top of it.

>>11378766
https://youtu.be/Qrv9c-udCrg?t=50

>>11379072
I remember loving the audiobook, liking the radiodrama, and feeling nothing about the movie. I'm not even sure I recall any of it now.

>>11379080
Watch the old BBC series if you need moving pictures. The movie was shit.

>>11378609
https://spaceflightnow.com/ and their twitter, mostly

>>11378463
I thought it was sassy black ladies.

>code to synchronize the mission clock simply wasn‘t implemented, the requirement just fell through
>capsule wanted to use the same flight characteristics data with and without service module, likely leading to a loss of control and both elements crashing into one another after separation
>basic devlopment principles to ensure quality were repeatedly violated
>antenna picked up random mobile communications, making it useless over populated areas
>parachute failed on return
>still questionable thruster performance
>complete review of the entire code and the development and safety culture at boeing now under way
THE ABSOLUTE STATE OF BOING!

>>11379136
forgot to mention that the second thing was only found because they were spitballing other potential failures after the first one proved that the software was spaghetti code.

>>11379136
>What do you mean "what if the timer is wrong"? The timer is implemented by a different team, it is not our responsibility. Stop asking stupid questions and move your hands, Rajesh.

>>11379136
>Hello welcome to Boeing New Delhi how may I be of assistance today?

>>11379136
Boeing still needs 60% more cash than space x for commercial crew

>>11379136
According to US tax payers,this is fine.

>>11379136
>>capsule wanted to use the same flight characteristics data with and without service module, likely leading to a loss of control and both elements crashing into one another after separation
This seems like one of those problems you catch in early sims and press F5 for redevelopment.

>>11379136
>All of these issues were in the main program, not some obscure sub-routine hidden away that would only kick in in some obscure coconut-laden-African-swallow-hits-rocket situation and would have been discovered on a simple simulation run-through of the program.
You forgot that part.

>>11378397
Does spacex have plans to build a starship factory?

>>11378384
Disregard boomer space centre charging you massive fees, acquire chad Texas spaceport where you launch at cost.

>>11378507
Which launch was that? I can't remember one where the feed didn't cut out at some point, especially during landing

>>11379316
Anon...

>>11379217
That is what gets me, the code used for a perfect flight is liable to kill the crew.
I would rather ride a Mercury than get in that fucking thing.

>>11379403
Mercury was cool
Redstone or Atlas?

>>11379429
Redstone, gotta go with the OG.

>>11378609
Unironically EJ_SA on twitch. Every stream the first part is daily space news. Only things that he does't cover are chink launches because they drop stages on peoples and he don't like that.

>>11378536
This one?

>>11379369
I believe that was from the on-board recording and not the streamed data.
Either way, they are getting better at keeping signal. I think the last landing with starlink actually kept signal on the drone ship the whole time.

>>11378602
New shepard is a far cry from what they want to do with new glenn.
NS goes straight up and straight down, and its pretty small compared to orbital launchers.
NG is much larger and has to fly away from the launch pad so the second stage is at a good angle to orbit the earth. Then it needs to be able to turn around and come back or land on a drone ship.
Its certainly more than anyone else (other than spacex), but all that they have proven able to do so far is new shepard.

>>11379136
They forgot to do the needful

>>11379561
>drone ship

>>11379595
Seems risky in case something goes wrong.

>>11379595
>>11379598
I'm guessing it's either going to have station keeping so it can be abondon for landings or a bunker built into the ship.

I grow.... taller

>>11379666
so how tall is it now?
enough for Super Heavy and a crane?
Starship and a crane?
just half of Starship?

>>11379607
>a bunker built into the ship
Rocket crashes in to ship, everything above sealine on the ship is melting, and the boat is taking in water, but hey, your safe in your bunker anon.

>>11379786
it won't have enough propellants to melt the whole ship

>>11379786
It actually wouldn't be a bad idea to invest in a few escape craft for the ship's small crew. It's not like having an extra-hardened small escape craft as part of the boat is a new idea or something. Put your monitoring and basic navigation shit in the pod instead of the main ship, plug it in via a hardline, when the rocket is inbound everybody piles in and monitors the ship from the pod. If the rocket crashes into the boat, falls off of it, or something else fucks up they can always bail from the drone ship for safety.

>>11379794
>>11379595
How hard would it be to make such a ship autonomous?

>>11379802
they're already autonomous—there's basically no reason to have people actually on boats anymore

>>11379802
as a technical achievement or the paperwork

>>11379802
Kind of in the name, "drone" ship. Added bonus that they're named after two AI ships from a sci-fi novel series.

>>11378786
well, now you've done it....

we're gonna need whalers on the moon now.

>>11379825
Bowls of petunias too.

>>11379825
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60BjkUtqxPE

I see.

Did they remove the windows from crew dragon? Shame.

AMERICA FUCK YEAH

>>11379973
USA USA

>>11379973

>>11378511
tfw no superior soviet buran space shuttle

>>11379979
Is that you Ted?

>>11379979
>fuck this team building shit, I just wanna get back to my welding or smth

>>11379993
We don't deserve it fren

>>11380015
Its a shame that the remaining orbiters are simply left to rot away

>>11379993
>tfw they never got to play together in LEO

>gerstenmeier now working for spacex

Okay I didn't believe that stuff but it doesn't hurt to check.

This is bearstain universe, right?

>>11380097
His mustache is always so unhappy and down.

>>11380097
Why are you having a hard time believing it?

>>11380097
Working at is a bit of an overstatement, he'll be in an advisory position.

>>11380119
>Why are you having a hard time believing it?

Probably because Gerst's leadership-style is the antithesis of SpaceX's: he's very conservative and moves slowly, to the point that NASA essentially kicked him out for not being ambitious enough (on top of all the delays and cost overruns that occurred under him).

>>11380149
>leadership-style
Good thing he's just advising and not leading, then?

>>11380154
It is, but the culture shock for him will still be massive.

>>11378419
hold on, how is that stable? wouldnt the differential thrust make it go to one side? or can the main engine throttle down or w/e?

>>11380188
The RD-180 has a wide gimbal range to shift the axis of thrust so that it is passing through the rocket's center of mass. That's how the Shuttle stayed stable during launch.

>>11380188
Haven't you seen it launch? Hard gimbal to the side on the RD-180 and a powerslide off the launchpad, eurobeat style. It's quite the spectacle.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XCiDuy4mrWU

>>11380188
I wondered the same thing a couple threads ago, apparently it Tokyo-drifts right off the launchpad and powerslides to orbit.
Presumably the launchpad is playing this during launch, we just can't hear it due to rocket exhaust.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=atuFSv2bLa8

>>11380200

>>11380198
>>11380205
I love this music. Never seen Initial D, only know it through secondhand memes. Will watching it make me care about cars going fast?

>>11380213
Initial D will teach you to disregard bitches and focus your autism on cars instead.
It's full of bullshit and very dated CG, but still an entertaining watch.

>>11380188
>>11380193
>>11380198
>>11380200

https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=FQqiCMp6WPY&feature=youtu.be380205

This video highlights the sideways motion well

>>11380224
https://www.youtube.com/watch?=FQqiCMp6WPY

Have an unmangled url.

>>11378402
>Who's that?
Andrew Yang. Was running for president as a democrat. After losing big in both Iowa and New Hampshire he dropped out of the race.

>>11380247
No, the dems will cut funding to pay for welfare and undo anything that can be considered a 'trump accomplishment' and political elements within NASA will delay a Mars mission until Trumps second term ends if he wins. It's venturestar all over again.

>>11379973
So many whites, problematic.
President bernie will destroy these racists when he gets in to the oval office and will use the tax money that spaceX has been wasting to better use in wellfare.

>>11379973
Fair amount of handsome dudes, there.
...n-no homo...

>>11380274
>the dems will cut funding
What? NASAs budget has been steady in real tearms since the eighties and declining as a percentage of the federal budget since then.

>>11380286
>ywn see nasa have a budget of 4.41% of total federal budget

>>11380298
Just wait until China puts a man on the moon and they start eyeing for lunar claims.

>>11380309
>thinking modern "americans" care about china
They look at China as something to envy.

>>11380309
That's what we need. A new space race.

>>11380309
90% of the chinese industry has been cucked by coronachan right now, and food transportation is failing too, economy collapse combined with revolt fueled by starving people is a reality.
I think the chinese space plans are going to be on the backburner for a while.

>>11380319
>You will never go apartment hunting

>>11380320
>90% of the chinese industry has been cucked by coronachan right now, and food transportation is failing too, economy collapse combined with revolt fueled by starving people is a reality.
Source?

>>11380319
Moon industry I like.

>>11380326
https://fortune.com/2020/01/31/china-two-thirds-economy-shut-coronavirus-spread/
Thats from last month, it's higher now, the thing all the major economic hubs of china are in the places that are under quarantine, and most import foods come out of these places too, and china relies a lot on import food.

>>11380319
not enough nazi scientists left

>>11380346
Their still launching stuff or currently planning to tho, there's a CZ-4C going up with a classified payload next week. Also, there's been no news of Corona-induced delays regarding the upcoming CZ-5B AND CZ-7A launches from Hainan. The only visible impact is the halting of EXspace's (who are based in Wuhan) operations.

>>11380247
F. I liked you most of the socialist picks. Despite your nowallsnoguns. Best of luck in whatever you try next.

>>11380348

SN1 being decked out

>>11380376
When's SN1 expected to be finished?

>>11380418
March or April

>>11380418
Half the parts are already being worked on. So assuming nothing major crisis like virus outbreak or earthquake or a hurricane that destroys the entire facility, they'll be up/running in a month or so.

>>11380479
I wonder when the fins will show up?

>>11380522
Its probably already made/in storage somewhere. Fins are the easy part. The hard part is the cylinders right now.

>>11380526
They're probably going to go with six sea-level engines, right? Three gimballed, three super heavy no-throttle

>>11378386
No. They're going to make NASA a climate science minority employment program again. Probably remove any references to the evil germans that found and ran it.

They're also going to demand all rockets be sustainably powered by hydrogen made from solar panels.

Will starship, once fully operational, launch into equatorial orbits? There's no need for that 57 degree or whatever launch in order to intercept the ISS. Not to mention that they would have to travel over the US.

>>11380569
they need to launch to 53 in order to do Starlink

>>11378384
Fake news

>>11380603
oh?

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/02/12/fast-radio-burst-signal-outer-space-repeats-every-16-days/4726301002/

So, like what is this? Typical blog shit "news."

https://twitter.com/realhomerhickam/status/1227756759676280833

This senile boomer cracks me up, doesn't he realise NASA astronauts are there to do ground-breaking science in challenging conditions, not mine for coal?

>>11380617
He's so dumb, another example:

https://twitter.com/realhomerhickam/status/1227758751521890304

>Personally, if I was on a ship going across space, I'd much prefer a plumber or mechanic to be on board than some perpetual student with a master's degree.

I don't think he knows that engineering degrees exist...

>>11380617
>>11380629
No one cares about your neighbor.

>>11380661
I mean people do care about Homer, considering he used to be the guy at NASA in charge of training astronauts for EVAs and how to handle science payloads. Also, he does have a movie about him...

Do you think it's possible to have an open-source liquid propellant sounding rocket? Or is that too close to ITAR?

>>11380629
Engineers are some of the most useless desk jockeys I have ever met.

This weekend will launch Starlink again. Maybe sat, but if not, sunday.

>>11380617
'Member the NASA furry?

>>11380479
I know it isn't an SSTO, but it'd still be amusing to ponder how many operational rockets have less power than this prototype. I'm guessing most of them?

>>11380814
what do you mean?
Starship doesn't have that much thrust, all told

>>11380837
Ah fair enough then.

>>11380837
Starship has 2.7m lb of thrust. Falcon9 has 1.8m lb of thrust. FH has 5m lb of thrust. Starship alone has quite the power on its 3 engines.

>>11380913
six engines, anon
three vacuum, three sea level

>>11380532
3 gimballed sea levels for sure, I suspect the non-gimballed vacuums will be throttleable for parts commonality and greater control authority.

>>11380706
I read over the wiki page and it seems that ITAR only covers things written on some special lists? my assumption is that it's a list of technology patents or something like that and so if you were to make something new you could public domain it and it can't go on the list?

>>11380932
I meant for the initial suborbital Starship-only testing

>>11380940
Hop will probably be on 3 sea levels, after that I would be surprised if they don't do a full Starship test before moving onto BFR or whatever the first stage is called these days.

What the fuck bros we were just about to escape this shit dump of a planet and now we are going to get fucked in our ass backwards 200 years by some fucking ching chong bio weapon reeeeeeeeeeeeee

>>11381071
shut up, kid

>>11381083
You are a fool

>>11381090
Just don't get sick lol

>>11379542
Space Station 13 in a nutshell

>>11381093
>no clowns
>no insane janitors
>no shitcurity
>no wizards
>no murder hobos

>>11381071
This will set back the Chinese space program for weeks or months but other than that there's not much to worry about, most of the space shit is specialized and not produced in China like consumer goods.

>>11381103
It's not contained to China retard, its fucking global.

>>11381106
The worst brunt of this virus is happening in China and mostly contained there, test kits are now being mass produced and a vaccine is on the way. First worlds countries, besides having a better medical system, know what this virus is, how to limit its spreading, and soon cure and/or prevent it.

The effects on spaceflight will be mild but like I said the Chinese space program will be impacted. It is a strategic sector though so the government will keep that running as good as they can, the private space sector is kinda fucked though at the moment.

https://spacenews.com/chinas-space-industry-faces-impacts-of-coronavirus-outbreak/

https://www.thespaceshow.com/show/11-feb-2020/broadcast-3459-dr.-robert-zubrin
copied from leddit:

>- employees: 300 now, probably 3000 in a year

>- production target: 2 starships per week

>- Starship cost target: $5M

>- first 5 Starships will probably stay on Mars forever

>- When Zubrin pointed out that it would require 6-10 football fields of solar panels to refuel a single Starship Elon said "Fine, that's what we will do".

>- Elon wants to use solar energy, not nuclear.

>- It's not Apollo. It's D-Day.

>- The first crew might be 20-50 people

>- Zubrin thinks Starship is optimized for colonization, but not exploration

>- Musk about mini-starship: don't want to make 2 different vehicles (Zubrin later admits "show me why I need it" is a good attitude)

>- Zubrin thinks landing Starship on the moon probably infeasible due to the plume creating a big crater (so you need a landing pad first...). It's also an issue on Mars (but not as significant). Spacex will adapt (Zubrin implies consideration for classic landers for Moon or mini starship).

>- no heatshield tiles needed for LEO reentry thanks to stainless steel (?!), but needed for reentry from Mars

>- they may do 100km hop after 20km

>- currently no evidence of super heavy production

>- Elon is concerned about planetary protection roadblocks

>- Zubrin thinks it's possible that first uncrewed Starship will land on Mars before Artemis lands on the moon

>>11381184
>test kits are now being mass produced

The same test kits that are unreliable as fuck, give false negatives all the time and the same ones that CDC released and said are fuckups? The only reliable way to test, that China is doing now are CT scans, wonder how many CT machines there are? Suspect not many and in burger land its going to cost you 20k dollars for a scan.

>and a vaccine is on the way

12-18 Months optimistically, then you need to produce billions of them, its ogre by then my friend.

>First worlds countries, besides having a better medical system

Irrelevant when it's only going to take a small amount of extra sick to start overwhelming it

>know what this virus is

So does China

>how to limit its spreading

Lul, they have been letting asymptomatic carriers run lose or """self quarantine"""" for weeks now, are still using useless temperature scanners and haven't quarantined anywhere there are infected people. They have done literally nothing to limit the spread and looking at face value would appear to be aiding it if you want to go tinfoil.

Do you just believe whatever the TV tells you?

>>11381191
>- When Zubrin pointed out that it would require 6-10 football fields of solar panels to refuel a single Starship Elon said "Fine, that's what we will do".

Based, I like Zubrin a lot but he needs to be deflated sometimes.

>- Elon is concerned about planetary protection roadblocks

He needs to start doing what all the other big aerospace companies do and funnel some money back into politicians pockets to avoid this horseshit.

>>11381191
>Starship cost target: $5M
I doubt that they can reach that, but the goal to beat the Falcon 9 on cost-per-mass-of-payload probably isn't that hard to reach.

>When Zubrin pointed out that it would require 6-10 football fields of solar panels to refuel a single Starship Elon said "Fine, that's what we will do".
I love that attitude from Elon and SpaceX. I wish more people in aerospace think like that.

>Elon is concerned about planetary protection roadblocks
Hopefully government detractors don't shut down SpaceX's Mars goals using that.

>Zubrin thinks it's possible that first uncrewed Starship will land on Mars before Artemis lands on the moon
I doubt that desu. Artemis has alot of momentum and build up behind it. The only major thing that's holding it back is the lack of a lander, but that's in development. Everything else needed to put boots on the moon is either already done or is nearing completion. But I can see SpaceX getting to Mars first if Artemis gets delayed again, and it would be pretty hilarious if it happens.

>>11381071
It'll be a good thing. A little global hardship puts things in perspective, makes people more receptive to large nationalistic projects.

>>11381191
>mfw he said Elon isnt wanting to just build rockets, he is building a mass production shipyard

ROCKET SHIPYARD MASS PRODUCTION

ITS NOT APOLLO ITS D DAY

FULLY

ERECT

>>11381228

>>11380612
Something rotating very fast circling a galactic drain about to go in was my immediate thought. Think along the lines of an anguished scream, a pulsar or something going into a black hole.

Starship de geso

>>11381191
nice

>>11381191
I was thinking you could add vernier rockets to Starship for a moon shot, pointed slightly off-center to prevent them from blasting straight down onto the moon's surface. They'd only need to generate maybe 20% of Starship's normal thrust, and that's assuming it would be entirely full of propellant at it's maximum weight. In all likelyhood you'd instead cut propellant to the minimum needed thus greatly reducing the landing weight. The verniers could be contained in relatively simple bolt-on teardrop shaped aerodynamic projections. No need to build an entirely new Starship, just a relatively crude modification to the existing concept, the greatest cost of it would be the development of a new very small vacuum optimized MethaLOX engine, although it wouldn't really need to be spectacularly efficient, the DPS was a DNTO/Aerozine job that had a very low 7 bar chamber pressure, Merlin has already matched it for efficiency (both have a vacISP of 311s).

This is of course assuming that a Starship MUST not be able to use it's primary propulsion system to land on the moon.

>>11381376
It's landing burn doesn't run for very long right? Why can't they just yeet some sheet metal toward their site on a commercial lander, have a rover drag it around to form a flat surface. That should last the 10 or so seconds to stop the regolith being btfo and let a starship land with materials and plant for a proper pad.

>>11381401
Just glass the surface with a nuke.
Instant paved parkingspace for elon's used falcon 9 sale.

>>11381401
Starship is not exactly a light tin can like the Apollo landers were. Remember, it's going to be using gliding to aerobrake, then to its burn and park.
Good news is we've been doing some solid experimentation in Norway on making concrete from lunar regolith. Urea from piss has shown some promise as a fixative. We really need a permanent base on the moon for shit like this. It's one thing to do things in labs and in simulations, it's another thing in practice.

>>11378146
Who left their guitar laying out?

Just got around to watching the Bridenstine presentation. What did /sfg/ think of it? I'm still sceptical of NASA's ability to do any of this themselves. I can see more and more of this being taken over by private companies.

>>11381615
NASA is an irrelevant historical leftover that has become a grant chasing affirmative action monstrosity incapable of achieving anything of real value and whose only useful purpose is to dish out fat stacks of cash to private companies building useful hardware.

>>11381619
most of the money they dish out goes to building useless hardware. almost none of the massive amount of money wasted on astroshit spacefaggotry produces anything of value. gps, satellite communications, weather satellites and space based nuclear missile defenses are good tho.

>>11381628
The operative word was "useful", yes I realise most of it is kickbacks for private yachts but at least some useful hardware is produced. Not defending them, personally I would put most of their senior management and supporting congressmen against the wall for treason and corruption.

>>11381586
Nuke the moon!

>>11381586
Pretty sure it would only be a super thin layer of glass that would get immediately btfo.

>>11381638
>Elon's Previously Owned Vessels
Just needs a big ass sombrero.

>>11380224
You can also actually see the Shuttle drifting as it launches, due to the weird thrust balance it has.

https://youtu.be/zsJpUCWfyPE?t=1m33s

Note the trajectory against the straight lightning mast on the launch pad.

>2020
>Still no space battleships
Maybe next decade.

>>11381768
>Die for Israel: Orbital edition

>>11378507
wtf? at what speed is that thing descending??

>>11378557
read books then

>>11381807
It's sped up you fucking smoothbrain

>>11378557
Plenty of hard sci-fi out there.

>>11381191
Elon is a madman, but OUR madman.

>>11381854
I wouldn't go to Mars without a nuclear reactor or ten as backup. Dust storms would put a nasty fucking dent in your solar power plan. There's a hell of a lot of dust and fines on Mars and a thin atmosphere.

>>11381859
That's neat and all, but you wont be going. People who are going will be those who have accounted for those risks and found a way forward.

>>11381864
>found a way forward
Relying on a single fragile system is not "going forward".

>>11381866
Again, if you cannot think of a solution to this issue, you're not the target audience for mars. Its still better to sit in our homes and ask call Tesla for repair guys to come to your home for solar panel repairs.

>>11381859
If you have megawatts of solar power, even a 99% blackout fuck you months long dust storm will still be enough juice to power your life support. Absolute worst case scenario you boot up a turbine that burns the stored methalox.

Starlink: In the long term, SpaceX intends to develop and deploy a version of the satellite communication system to serve Mars (colony)
Boring Company: development of underground tunnels and travel for Mars colony.
Tesla Inc: development of vehicle and battery technology for Mars colony
SolarCity: development of battery technology, solar power technology, and its use for Mars colony
SpaceX: Reusable rockets and space ships for getting to and off of Mars.

Not directly Mars-colony-related per se, but can be used as such,
Neuralink: Machine brain implants.
OpenAI: Attempting to make human-friendly AI that won't be a threat to humanity.

>>11381874
>>11381859
All you'd need is one RTG for general low power backup. Which is already used in space. They power the Voyagers, New Horizons, and Cassini for instance.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioisotope_thermoelectric_generator

>>11381859
Yeah well that's like your opinion man, meanwhile there are many examples of martian rovers working just fine with solar panels without any external maintenance because the wind actually cleans them.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleaning_event

>>11381874
Energy supply for base use is not the problem here, it's the six to ten football field area of solar panels needed to resupply one Starship in an acceptable time frame.

Anyway it's not an unsolvable problem.

>>11381835
Not him, but most hard sci-fi is still sci-fi. They often have fairy tale grant farming shit in them like FTL, strong AI, quantum computers, aliens, or blackholes. Or, the general science is wildly incorrect based on some pre-internet broscience you'd hear in a men's restroom in the 1980s.

>>11381901
If there's FTL, it's not hard sci-fi. There are pretty strict limitations as to what that term entails.

>>11381191
>Then
God dammit.

>>11381905
>pretty strict limitations
Fuck man, the tv series "The Expanse" is considered hard sci-fi. It has hard sci-fi among other inconsistencies,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_science_fiction#Television

The real problem is that genre and sub-genre terms are too fluid in their definitions to the point that they come down to public opinion. The thing is that hard sci-fi and hard fantasy both strive for "logic" in their respective universes. Which doesn't always adhere to real world accuracy.

>>11381896
>it's the six to ten football field area of solar panels needed to resupply one Starship in an acceptable time frame.

If Elon has to ship nuclear plants to Mars you can forget about it because its too expensive, too much mass and too much regulatory bullshit. He won't have to though because they will just send more panels. Months long dust storms are super rare events and you just over spec your solar to ensure you can still make your two year window.

>>11381595
>living in a piss house on the Moon
>living behind a piss lock on Mars
Dare you enter my magical realm?

>>11381927
Mars is a vast wilderness of unexploited mineral wealth, its like Earth was 10,000 years ago before all the easily accessed mineral wealth was mined away. There is plenty of silicon on the surface of Mars, why ship panels from earth when the raw materials to manufacture acres of panels are sitting on Mars already just waiting for some autonomous machines to assemble them.

>>11381934
When my long gone grandparents were young, the locals would sell their piss to the textile factory by the milk bucket for the urea. Everyone lived in a magical realm back then.

Just answer one question.
Will we send humans to mars soon?

>>11381965
Not really, no.

>>11381945
In general I agree but it will be a while before that happens, you need much more than just silicon and refining silicon to electronic grade is a super intensive and specialist process which they still fuck up on the reg in gorillion dollar factories.

>>11381934

>>11381968
Why not?

>>11381595
Should the piss be used for making concrete or fertilizer? The latter is ultra easy to do, just let it sit around for 1-3 months. The former requires extraction and related resource use. Growing lettuce on the moon...

>>11381965
>soon
Define.

>>11381957
Pecunia non olet!

>>11381973
Consider for a moment that the last time we went outside the kiddy pool that is Low Earth Orbit was in 1972, 58 years ago.
Consider for a moment that the only place we visited was the moon, for extremely short visits in glorified tin cans.
Consider for a moment that we have no experience in long term stays, which missions to Mars would have to be considering the fuel requirements to get there, the fuel requirements to get back as well as the long periods between good launch windows.

Now this is not to bring down the Apollo missions in any way, because they were amazing feats of engineering, but we've been doing nothing but sitting with our thumbs up our asses for two generations as far as interplanetary travel goes. As far as Artemis stands now, we might not even get a moon base, just a remake of the Apollo missions with a single manned orbit mission of Mars sometime mid 2030. "Soon" is a very relative term.

>>11381984
Just saying that chemistry is chemistry and urea from piss has many uses, be it fixation of regolith in some weird ass new concrete, explosives, fertilizer or dyeing of wool clothes.

>>11381987
*48, fuck maths, mornings and epilepsy pills.

>>11381974
It's directly used in a new form of concrete they're working on from regolith. Can't make infrastructure out of dust.

>>11381987
Your entire point rests on

>NASA missions

>>11381987
>Just saying that chemistry is chemistry and urea from piss has many uses, be it fixation of regolith in some weird ass new concrete, explosives, fertilizer or dyeing of wool clothes.
The phrase, "Pecunia non olet!" (Money does not stink!) comes from the Roman empire when the urine tax was instituted. Ammonia from urine is also an amazing cleaning product.

>>11381996
NASA is the very definition of "Soon(tm)".

>>11382001
Good thing private companies are in the middle of blowing space wide open then. Bezos has more money than God to fund whatever development project and Elon has already developed a lot of the needed technology through various companies along with being about to rake in huge cash from starlink.

>starship is in mass production

>>11382011
Government kind of has the power to knock a good bit of wind out of the sails of private companies though.
Remains to be seen whether they'll be doing that in order to save NASA's face.

>>11382017

>>11382001

Guess who's making a comeback this year after 6 years of inactivity...

https://tass.ru/kosmos/7743903

>The second test launch of Angara A5, a new Russian heavy launch vehicle, is scheduled for the second or third quarter of this year, said the General Director of Khrunichev Center. The rocket will be delivered to Plesetsk in March or April this year.

>>11381969
they should just go up there and find some kind of minerals that are even better than earth minerals and build their shit out of that

>>11382022
>5xRD-191's
Yeah, that should lift a bit.

>>11381945
Basic survival in the face of extreme physical and psychological challenges is going to be a fair challenge in itself, let alone attempting to build and operate an advanced manufacturing plant - I'm guessing that if it were that easy to knock together an autonomous fabrication bot this would already have been done on Earth.

>>11381957
I think I read somewhere that women get paid for their piss in Brazil - there's a particular hormone that's used in contraceptives.

>>11382019
The thing about companies is that they can just fold up and move to some place with looser regulations or lobby and schmooze to get what they want.

>>11382043
>I'm guessing that if it were that easy to knock together an autonomous fabrication bot this would already have been done on Earth.
You would guess that if you hadn't been paying close attention to the development of autonomous robotics, but the reality is that the people who put these things together spend most of their time working or soccer playing robots because they think thats more fun.

>>11382051
Costs a hell of a lot of money.

>>11382053
>tfw could have had glorious automated industrial robots
>Instead the autists are busy making sex bots and the skilled engineers are busy making definitely-no-military-application bots

>>11381191
>Zubrin later admits "show me why I need it" is a good attitude
Elongated Muskrat is a retard but he's exactly right about this
a 3rd stage would totally be better for the moon but again, who the fuck wants to develop that

>>11382090
Yeah pretty sure figuring out how to land one is going to be cheaper than building a whole new fucking vehicle. There are plenty of options and you only need to land one on the regolith and then you make your pad.

>>11378734
I bet those subsidies have that as a requirement.

>>11382025
unobtanium?

>>11382051
SpaceX succes is because of it's high skilled engineers&workers&etc..
Those arent going to drop everything to move to some third world shithole.

>>11382056
>not doing something at all vs doing something at marginally increased setup cost
Wow, you sure are a business management guenisess anon.

>>11382138
>third world shithole.
>is based in the US, where SpaceX bought out an entire village and moved everyone the fuck away
Oh, deluded anon.

>>11382143
Yeah, because setting up is free. Getting new skilled workers is free. Getting new contracts is just pulled out of thin air, remember, NASA is SpaceX's primary contractor.
Not everybody is keen on just moving to the other side of the globe for reasons.

>>11382145
Just move everyone you fucking poorfag. You think going to Mexico will be expensive when this shit is GOING TO FUCKING MARS!? WEW LAD! LOL!!!!

>>11382145
lol you're a moron

>>11382145
Given that the stuff he's talking about is likely to be coming from the UN or international treaties, he'd have to move to North Korea to escape them

>>11381927
You could possibly get a nuclear plant into space without too much regulation by using a self-starting reactor, this is a system in which low-enrichment uranium is placed inside a completely enclosing berylium flask with a tiny amount of a stronger neutron emitter. Over time the constant inter-reflection is sufficient to initiate fission in the uranium core. He could also ape a page from NASA's book and create something like the Kilopower unit, something which uses a very low enrichment core exclusively to generate a piping hot working fluid to run some Sterling engines which in turn spin alternators to generate electrical power. Honestly though, in the short term a more robust version of thin-film solar sheets will be more efficient, you can carry YUGE quantities of relatively cheap solar cells, just roll them up like tarps for transit and set them up on some light aluminum scaffolds when you get there. They aren't very efficient in terms of power generation, but they're super efficient in terms of mass, storeability, and cost.

>>11382152
>>11382155
Friendly advice, don't ever go into business.

>>11382164
I sold my biz and I'm now retired, zoomer,

>>11382170
Don't lie on the internet.

>>11381343
thank you, Ika-chan

>>11382171
Get a job, son.

>>11382179
I did, I retired.
Feels pretty good.

>>11381859
Elon is in talks with NASA so he can take a (1) (uno) (one) kilopower unit but I think it fell through
it'll probably come back up, make NASA feel useful

>>11382053
> 'soccer'

>>11382053
Musk already ran into issues with autonomous factories when he massively fucked up the Tesla production line by trying to use robots for everything. He uniquely has a ton of experience on this one.

>>11382221
Early issues does not define later issues. His problem with robots for Fremont factory is not same as Gigafactories. In fact, Gigafactory in China is seen(in some images) to have the "dreadnaught" machine that builds the other machine.

>>11382138
what do you mean? they are already working in a third world shithole

>>11382280
Most of them don't work in Florida, anon

>>11382181
Don't lie on the internet.

THEY DID THE THING

>>11382333
Stagginggg :DDDDDDDDDD

Why isn't anyone building a modular telescope? Like the JWST is clearly built from modular hexagonal pieces, what's stopping the design from including the possibility of just adding more hexagons in the future? I want to see aliens having sex through a window on Proxima Centauri B in my life time.

>>11382346
>JWST as a model for anything
God no.
Incidentally, that black hole image a while back used a bunch of ground-based telescopes across the earth to form a virtual gattai. Couldn't they do that with orbital telescopes?

>>11382351
you need extremely precise measurements of the locations of the telescopes in order to do that

So when are we going to launch our own little satellite?

>>11382357
Can't we just chip in and launch a janny up instead?

>>11382354
that's not that hard in space, though. A lot easier than on Earth.

>>11382360
I imagine that would be too heavy.

>>11382364
Not like we need to bring him back in one piece of for him to survive or anything.

>>11382357
I had an idea of putting sea monkeys in space in a smallsat. It can be pretty cheap and simple. Their progress can be livestreamed too.

>>11382380
Won't that shit freeze into a fucking brick rather rapidly?

>>11382383
I'd figure that due to the poor heat transfer of being in space and the heat being passively generated by the electronics onboard the temperature inside the tank would be kept reasonable. Would need to do a thermal analysis though.

>>11381895
>300 watts
>150 million dollars
Sounds very impressive but not in the way you probably think.

>>11379136
Most of that will be fixed in 12 months given funding is provided otherwise expect few more years of buying seats from the russians.

Take your pick.

>>11381208
>funnel into this horseshit
The problem is competitors and foreign ones too will be funneling the horseshit. Everything lies on how the US gov will view it if they pick the other side better luck in another 60 years.

>>11382351
That image mostly used a lot of AI basically guessing what it might look like. It‘s also a little suspect, given how they trained their AI on images they expected it to see, so the question is whether it could‘ve even output anything that wasn‘t consistent with our ideas of a black hole.

>>11382513
>the question is whether it could‘ve even output anything that wasn‘t consistent with our ideas of a black hole
this is not how any of that works

>>11382474
Anon. Crew Dragon.

>>11381191
For reference, 8 football fields is around 500k sqft. On earth, that would produce around 5 megawatts(based on Toyota's NAPCC manufacturing plant x 2) but on mars the production is cut in half due to weaker solar power per Sq ft. That means if they use 375 watt panels, they would need about 615 panels. If they're going off the shelf price, that is less than 300K for those panels. Of course with Tesla bulk price that could be half the price, still an insignificant number to produce that much. Going by LG'S 375 watt, each module weigh 40.8 lb, x 615 = 12.5 ton/25000 lb.
Starship can carry 100 ton to Mars, so that's 12.5% of total load capacity on a single ship.

>>11382534
Much lighter and cheaper to pack a few rtg's and get free power at night or during the hellstorms that last for MONTHS on mars.

>>11382534
For loading, imagine 5 standard home fridge stacked side by side and you have 5 of those fridge stacks.

>>11382555
Rtg costs 100+ million for single piece. Few of those would cost billions for spacex. It's not worth it unless NASA is willing to give it to spacex for pennies on dollar.

>>11382555
There's probably a ton of regulations and hoops that SpaceX would have to jump through before they could send atomic material to space, much less Mars (IIRC, even the USAF was nervous about sending reactors to space themselves). That would drive up costs which is against what SpaceX wants.

>>11382561
Aside from the price rtg's produce absolutely minuscule power and there's severe shortage of them.

Melting and electrolysis of few hundred tons of water with 1-2kw would be tragically hilarious attempt nonetheless.

Really, there isn't any working mars or even space certified proper high power nuclear design reactor out there let alone one that could be made this century.

Nuclear fags are simply memeing in this case.

>>11382534
Yeah, the only serious restriction would be the volume required to carry the panels, not their sheer weight. Obviously for a rocket launch the panels would have to be packed in something, strapped down, etc. The volume of the LG375w panel is about 4203.204"^3, or about .07m^3, the volume then of a stack of them would be around 43m^3, lets be safe and triple it for padding, straps, frames, whatever needs to be in place to hold them still during the flight, and add 20% of that on top for redundant panels, spare parts, etc. That should come up to about 155m^3. Starship is said to have anywhere between 1000 and 1100m^3 of usable internal cargo volume, if we are conservative and assume the lower number then the solar panel load will consume only 15.5% of a Cargo Starship's total usable cargo volume.

>>11382575
I think the RTG/nuclear people are thinking SpaceX is only doing a small 1-2 man mission. When really Elon wants 100-1000+ manned people on the surface working there 24/7. They need few megawatts of power for that.

>>11382591
Those people still have an Apollo mindset.

>>11382469
OKAY FINE! Let them generate their own power when they exercise.

>>11382591
>>11382593
Small steps, anons. An RTG would just be for those few initial missions with few crew.

>>11382596
Small steps ironically cost more. This is why mass manufacturing is a thing. We can right now get 5 megawatts of solar panel for $300K of which is about 600 panels @ 375 watt. This can be put on a mass produced Starship of which costs $5M per ship. Spending $100+ million on 2.4 kilowatt is completely waste of money. If we want to rely solely on that, we'd need about 1000 of those RTG. That would easily cost over 100 billion dollars in cost. Its not sustainable at all. Ironically it would work fine for SLS type project where they think small, build big, cost ton, deliver an inch, in timescale ranging in decades, with no sight for sustainable future.

>>11382591
>Elon wants 100-1000+ manned people on the surface working there 24/7
>4 production shifts for 24/7 operations

madman

>>11382591
I don't think they are thinking at all and it's just /x/ false flagging.

The number of people on board is not strongly related with how many tons of fuel must be produced locally for each returning starship.

If anyone is curious about the requirements simply google how much power is required to produce 1kg hydrogen from water.

>>11382591
Yeah, the average US home uses about 11,000kWh of energy a year, let's just assume for a moment that every five of our Mars colonists are using up that much electricity (it would probably be higher because you also have to deal with robust thermal regulation, constant nonstop air circulation and filtration, etc). This would mean that an initial colony of 100 people would consoom 220,000kWh of electrical power every year, plus however much is needed to charge suit powerpacks, run excavation and construction implements, rovers, and the Metha/LOX plant and it's pumps and other systems. If we broke it down to a single day's power usage, just the housing of the colony would probably consume at least 600kWh, if not more. You would need 200 Buk RTG's (3kw output) to power just the colony's domestic energy needs, that's 220 tons or 3x Starship loads of RTG, assuming that you can fit enough RTG's into a cargo Starship to load it up to 100 tons.

>>11382144
In the third world, Elon wouldn't have bothered negotiating and just bulldozed indiscriminately.

>>11382614
I forgot, I'm assuming a colony of only 100 individuals.

>>11382594
Everyone on Mars should be a proficient cyclist anyway, what a cheap and lightweight way to get around that doesn't involve bringing an entire extra pressurized rover. My only concern is rigidity of the suit pants, would they allow regular pedaling? And the various parts of the suit, helmet especially, would have to be impact-resistant in the eventual case you fall off during a ride.

>>11382614
That doesn't account for all the heavy machinery, ice melting, water electrolysis, and other processes.

1MW minimum so a ship can return each synod.

>>11382614
>assuming that you can fit enough RTG into a cargo Starship
and that much plutonium isn't critical

>>11382626
Exactly my point, I deliberately left out all of the other power hungry processes that a realistic Mars colony would include. Just keeping the lights on, the water warm, and the air circulating would require hundreds of tons of RTGs, not a viable solution considering the paperwork to get that much nuclear material into space would probably weight several times as much. It would un-ironically be much more efficient to use some extra solar panels to charge up some very large battery packs to help deal with peak loading and periods of energy starvation during storms, you could also pump the colony's waste heat into the hot loops of Sterling engines to suck as much spare electricity out of your system as possible. Stick the cold end deep into the ground or just uncover it during Martian night, the temperature differential will be enough to really get those things running.

>>11382622
More likely you'd use an electrical bike with wide pressureless treads.

How complex would manufacturing solar panels / components, provided the required resources can be mined and processed on Mars directly? Would that be feasible?

>>11382641
Depends on how far advanced we can make the manufacturing system on earth. If we can say make a 3D printer that prints solar panels with simple parts on earth, we could possibly do that on mars. Then those 3D printers can make solar panels.

I think a more looooong term prospect is nuclear power on Mars, indigenous nuclear power, ala THorium.

>>11382641
Lots of things are feasible, manufacturing on Mars for the foreseeable future is not practical. To manufacture something you need a significant resource harvesting base, here on Earth that's easy because we've dug a shitton of holes allover the planet already for hundreds of years and can easily pull up most anything we need. Mars would need to go through that process allover again, but it would be even harder since there's no internal combustion engine, everything living needs a space suit, and even with Starship materiel to perform the work can only arrive in 100 ton lots, in very long intervals. This won't change at all even if we made Starship bigger, because what's really slowing up any logistics train to Mars is travel time, which can only be shortened by using a new type of propulsion, NTPRs and Magnetoplasma drives are the only feasible solutions, one uses integral nuclear components and the other is so power hungry it would realistically also necessitate a nuclear reactor to operate. Unless more nuclear material can be launched into space we're essentially stuck with the trip to mars being in the order of 6-8 months.

>>11382641
Panels will require advanced electronics essentially.

Panel mounts however, coincidentally heavier to ship than the panels, are much more straightforward with all the iron around.

>>11381191
>It's not Apollo. It's D-Day.

>>11382654
>yfw the richest thorium concentration zones on mars have less of it than your backyard soil

>>11382699
brb colonizing my yard

>>11380198
>>11380188

>>11382699
I'm sure there are better deposits somewhere in the neighborhood

>>11381191
>It's not Apollo. It's D-Day

>>11381191
>>- first 5 Starships will probably stay on Mars forever
it'll be pretty cool if the first habitats on Mars are just disassembled Starships. I wonder if they take that into account when building them.

>>11382746
>I wonder if they take that into account when building them.
Probably not as making special versions of Starships just for that would slow down production, but it shouldn't be hard to refit the inside of a propellant tank to be a hab.

>>11382746
At the very least steel offers much more potential for such work than carbon fiber did.
I just wonder if its good idea to put them on the side and cover with soil, losing precious space inside because the floor is now curved, or just leaving them upright and filling the tip with water.

>>11382715
>When you're in a hurry to deliver tofu to the ISS

>>11382746
Inefficient. First habitats on Mars will be shit you sent up prior to any colonization mission. First Starships might be converted into bits and pieces of infrastructure easily though. Stainless steel is easy as hell to work.
People will be living out of literal fucking containers with airlocks at first.

>>11382602
>Small steps ironically cost more. This is why mass manufacturing is a thing
Anon, mass manufacturing happens only after the small steps. You can't just build the entire thing without first testing shit.

>>11382622
Pedal cars are a thing, anon. Just seal them up and zoom zoom zoom!

>>11382760
You could cut it into sections at the tank bulkheads, giving you three sections that could stand vertical and have dirt mounded on them. Could even pack some extra steel and weld them together with little passthroughs.

I wonder what's inside the tent.

>>11382779
You have to do both at the same time. Testing only 1 thing at a time when it could blow up means it would be very expensive to test. If you have a mass produced product line that can be tested, cost to test get cheaper.

>>11382746
Starships have ~1000 cubic meter worth of space. That's equivalent to the 15 x 40 foot shipping containers. If SpaceX has 5 of those on Mars, that's the space of 75 shipping containers

>>11382622
Cycling would consume a lot of oxygen though.

>>11382784
That looks fun as hell, and way more lightweight than the rovers NASA has been building/testing for years. I presume they'd have the option to switch back and forth from pedal-power to electric so you never pedal yourself out further than you can return from, or can still get back after depleting the batteries.
>>11382816
Doesn't everything people do?

>>11382809
You don't know shit about R&D, anon.

>>11382820
>option to switch back and forth from pedal-power to electric
The Elf in the image does exactly that.

>>11382825
That's true, but Elon does. You can claim the guy mass producing test rockets is wrong, but it dont mean much when he's the one doing the tests and you're just an armchair.

>>11382820
>Doesn't everything people do?
Not when compared to trying to cycle on a loose sand in a fucking space suit

>>11382832
For fuck sake, anon. He's been doing incremental steps this entire fucking time with literally everything. What is wrong with you, selective memory?

>>11382809
>mass manufacture before testing
This is how you get Boeing

>>11382784
>cyclists in space
my disgust

>>11382837
>incremental
He has 4 different rocket being built right now. He had 2 during Mk1/Mk2. He has dozens on test engine production lines.

>>11382843
>before
Not before, during.

>>11382844
here have a reaction image

>>11382845
I take it you missed everything and just not started paying attention? By your logic they should have built the last rocket and ship needed from the first time they built anything and just prayed they got it right in one go. Fucking moron. LOL

>>11382845
>Not before, during.
Either way. Testing invalidates your current approach or suggests a superior method and you're baked in with gajillions sunk into robots and equipment. Much better off keeping capex to a bare minimum in the meantime.

>>11382844

>>11382874
>that fucktarded contraption just to pedal
I bet it cost like $5 million or more. They must think people are really retarded. All you need are handles and the pedals both attached to the deck. Like $50 in parts.

>>11382863
If you stop the manufacturing momentum to test thing, you lose out on efficiency. It takes ton of energy to restart manufacturing process. This is why US tank production never stops. Its why the Chinese road/highway/railway production never stops.

>>11382859
Ironically they had 3 test vehicles for landing test. Not a single one. All 3 were old and preflown cores too.

>>11382884
Sure thing, kid.

>>11382884
>If you stop the manufacturing momentum to test thing, you lose out on efficiency.
As far as I can tell the topic was pertaining to Starship, which is currently a series of testbeds which is subject to radical change before production. 'Stopping mass production to test' is a non sequitur.

>>11382895
There is no "before production" fot Starship. They have 4 Starships being produced right now for testing. They want to hire more to build even more Starships. Musk is doing mass production DURING testing. If something blows up, any telemetry data they can get will be used to make changes to the few parts that needs to be changed and will be test ready in the next few days/weeks.

>>11382902
None of those are standardized vehicles. Mass production isn't just 'make more than one of thing', it's the process of standardization and specialized tooling. That isn't on the horizon yet because any number of factors to come in testing could invalidate the approach and render some or all of that tooling meaningless.

>>11382902
Doing it Soviet style, I love it.

>>11382911
You're just nitpicking things. By your definition, none of the Falcon 9s were mass produced even though they produces 40 cores per year or so. But because changes happen during the development cycle and implemented as swiftly enough that each cores are different from every other, they cannot be said to be mass produced?

You're overstretching the definition of mass production. Mass production means mass production.

>>11382918
Not him, but it has to get out of the design stage before it can go into a "mass production" stage.
Sure, the Falcon goes through revisions, that's not the same, that's a finished tested product ready for mass production. This is prototype still in very early stages.

>>11382925
Falcon 9 was still in design stage even last year. Does that mean Falcon 9s were not mass produced?

I think you guys are confused. SpaceX does not have a static design phase. Its always a constantly changing and is in constantly iterating phase. Starship will continue to be in design phase even as they land people on mars.

Starship is real, it is being built, its being built as a mass production vehicle, and its continuously evolving in designs as they go along. There's no "lets stop designing and build this" phase. They will do both at the same time.

>>11382918
You say I'm nitpicking, I say you're overgeneralizing. There's a pretty big difference in the iterative development of a mature vehicle where you're just honing in the last few % vs. a vehicle that is still years away from even demonstrating full operational capability.

>>11382933
I'll consider it a finished product ready for mass product when it's actually flown a mission. The Falcon 9 has flown missions for years.

>in b4 MUH AGILE DEVELOPMENT.

>>11382934
What is Starship's "full operational capability"? Does that include flying to space and throwing payload to orbit? Does that include orbital refueling? Or Mars and insitu refueling to return back?
If its just orbit and throwing payload, that's likely happening next year. If its just 20/100 km, it might happen next month or in the next few months. If its payload, it might happen next year.

>>11382942
Technically all of the test flights will be mission driven. Unless you're talking about official paying customer, aka AirForce/Starlink/etc. In which case, I think it will probably happen next year if their 20 km hop(march?) is a success.

>>11382953
>Unless you're talking about official paying customer
Bingo. Everything else is just design/stress testing

>>11382953
Technically I suppose fully operational should be considered Mars and back considering that's the stated goal of the vehicle, but more practically I'd say payload to orbit + full recovery. Starship guidance is on Elon time so I can only guess when that will come, but 2021 would be a pleasant surprise.

>>11382918
I don't th9ink you know what mass production or testing mean. You seem yo live in your own world.

>>11382882
yeah but that would vibrate the entire station

>>11383016
>imagine having a space station so small that you have to worry about oscillation from someone driving bike pedals
>imagine running that space station for decades with no ambition to do more with it

>>11383083
it would violate the delicate microgravity environment, anon

>>11383016
Anon, the contraption in >>11382874 already vibrates the station.

>>11383123
you don't understand, muh microgravity, muh science

When's the next Starlink launch?

>>11383148
Monday unless it was...?

>>11383159
Sunday, I think

>>11383160
>>11383159
>>11383148
>A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket will launch the Starlink-5 mission on Saturday, February 15, 2020 at 3:46 PM (UTC). Check back here for live coverage (if available).

>>11383206
dumbass, it's launching tomorrow

>>11382578
That's also using a 40mm frame panel, there is no need whatsoever for them to have such fat frames on Mars, you could get away with a 10mm frame no problem. That puts you at 12.2 m3 just for the panels. They are going to be able to fit an absolute shitload of solar into a starship no problem. If thin film solar is cheaply available by the time they launch then stack that figure even higher. Nuclear is the brainlet option here.

>>11383210
Where were you? It happened yesterday, newfag.

>>11383225
Also to expand on this a little, traditional panels will need some kind of framing to hold them all up which will add some weight penalty, not great but not terrible. With thin film you can just setup two posts at either end of a row, tension a cable between them and fucking zip tie your film onto it.

>>11383148
Sat morning EST

>>11383210
>>11383227

>>11383227
I see you just caught the replay from a week ago.

So which two are you rooting for /sfg/?
https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-selects-four-possible-missions-to-study-the-secrets-of-the-solar-system
Me I'm rooting for VERITAS and the Triton mission. I'm partial to the Venus descent mission, but fuck the Io mission. I favor VERITAS because we have new evidence that Venus may be geologically active. And by geologically active we mean big volcanic eruptions within the last couple years. Triton's an icy fucking moon and scientists widely agree that we need to explore icy fucking moons. You know what Io is? Basically the exact fucking opposite of an icy moon.

>>11383338
Europa, Enceladus, and Titan are pretty much all that gets my dick hard these days. Triton fits a similar bill but nothing sets it apart and it's even farther away.

>>11383338
>Triton fucking flyby
I hate flybies
VERITAS AND Davinci+ please

>>11380055
>we will never have a freenemy like the CCCP ever again

it hurts bro's

>>11383350
>>11383355
you see this? Do you fucking see this? We only got half the moon of Triton imaged. That's absolutely unacceptable if you ask me. Aliens could have etched a giant drawing of a dick into it for all we know

>>11383374
yeah
watch us fuck up the timing on the fly-by and image the same side of fucking Triton on this one

What's the chance of him being named Person of the Century if he lands in Mars privately vs with NASA?

Personally I think if Musk lands on Mars pruvat3ky, he'll be the Person of the Century, guaranteed. If he does it with NASA, then it might be diminished a bit. Musk, land a private rocket first on Mars without NASA, please. NASA can join in after. SpaceX will forever be remembered in human history.

>>11383408
It might controversial at the time, but after he dies we'll look back at him as one of the most important figures of this century