/sci/ - Science & Math

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=emb_title&v=o0fG_lnVhHw
posting so i can watch the embed itt.

>>11428791
BASED

>>11428780
Is that pic from L2?

>>11428804
this is breddy fucking good desu. cheers mate.

>>11428791
>>11428804
>>11428812
There’s a part 2/Q&A on Destin’s second channel as well:

https://youtube.com/watch?time_continue=6&feature=emb_title&v=DQaPOIQLEUo

>>11428780
lmao

>>11428821
Will Destin be the first Astronaut to have Youtuber in his NASA bio?

>>11428856
atmosphere phatt

>>11428791
looking at the complexity and thought that goes into making their tanks it's clearer why spacex is going to really struggle with stacking and bodging rings.

>>11428881
They need to redesign the whole fucking thing. Individually, those tanks might hold up. On a launch pad with sub-cooled oxidizer and propellant loaded? Not a fucking chance that those tin cans will hold up without some serious internal and/or external structural strengthening.

And that's going to cut into the mass budget, big time.

>>11428890
and all this before they even think about launch and reentry g's, payload weight, avionics and subsystems, and some safety factor.

>article trashing Starliner
>the last sentence:
Full disclosure: I am holding a position shorting Boeing stonks

...really bro?

>>11428821
Interesting fact about the BE-4 from Tory Bruno, one of the main reasons for the deal with them buying Blue’s engines is economies of scale. Without ULA planning to initially expend BE-4s, Blue’s production rate of them would be tiny (because Blue plan to fly them 25 times each with New Glenn), in turn causing the cost per-unit to skyrocket.

Reminder to exercise daily and lift twice a week so you aren’t a weak pussy faggot.

>>11428905
also if you don't own guns, you aren't a man

>>11428902
Seeking Alpha is complete meme outlet, literally giving a blog to people who are trying to sow misinformation to make a specific stock go down. It was often frequented by the TeslaQ crowd a while ago.

>>11428907
Big true. I indulged and acquired my own “Big Iron” last week

>>11428911
"Boeing is losing the space race to spacex" is a fucking brainlet take anyways.
Is SpaceX cooler? Sure. But Boeing is going to continue sucking up billions of dollars of government money for the foreseeable future and it would be just as stupid to bet against that, as betting against Israel or the military industrial complex

>>11428913
What kind of iron anon? I have a P320 and it's quite nice

>>11428929
SpaceX is the cool kid, Boeing is the government jobber that is too big to fail and is harder to get rid off than mutated herpes. Boeing *is* the military industrial complex.

>>11428791
>pic
what the fuck is this

>>11428950
Amazon patented wagie yeeter.

>>11428950
It’s Amazon’s patented slingshot launcher

>>11428905

Reminder to save a 50 bucks a month so that you can ride 18m Starship to LEO in 20 years.

>Crouching Atlas, Hidden Vulcan

>>11428930
One of those Uberti replicas, the 1875 Army. It’s pretty cool

>>11428969
Maybe my math is shitty but twelve thousand dollars sounds relatively cheap.

>>11429003
That's about what they want to hit
$12,000 per person, 1000 people occupying ~4000 cubic meters of habitable volume, they'd break even at $12 million per launch, but they're more likely to hit ~$5 million per launch, so a nice $7 million per launch in profit

>>11429007
I could do twelve thousand in twenty years, I think. By then, I’ll be much further along on my self-actualization journey and should have acquired a marketable trade skill or three. Might be able to follow Arnold’s advice and “get my ass to Mars”.

>>11429016
I have $12,000 right now, just waiting on Elon to get his shit together

>>11429007
>thinking you'll be able to pay $12k to go to space in 20 years on Starship (which will itself be $12m a launch)

WHERE IS ELON, HE HASNT TWEETED IN DAYS !

>>11429024
dead of rocket explosion

>>11429017
You can’t expect him to just start mass-producing the biggest rocket ever already. He started SpaceX on a whim just to get humans to Mars. Takes time.

>>11429027
Did the rocket land on him.......

>>11429032
no he tried to take the ULA sniper bullet but it overpenetrated

>>11429034
ah the old 2 birds with one .50 cal bullet trick

>>11429019
1000 people per launch, my dude
1000 tickets
What's 12 million divided by 1000 anon?

SN2 better be build with the double-height rings and built inside the tents. I wouldn't fly on that at the current build quality.

>>11429052
#3 will probably be stacked in the high bay, if I'm guessing

>>11429052
I’m sure they’ll do unmanned flights beforehand

>>11429039
Will Starship ever reach $12 million a launch?

>>11429066
I think so. They think they can reach $5 million per launch.

>>11429066
Will Starship ever reach launch?

>>11429075
Yes, they were able to construct falcon 1, falcon 9, and falcon heavy

>>11429103
Plus raptor is flight proven

IT BEGINS

>>11429138
>cladding and gantry crane still not installed
maybe sn4 wont blow up

>>11429138
it's literally a shed
they're welding rockets in shed-tents out here
>>11429145
yeah that's what I'm thinking
we'll see how the new weld settings work for SN2 or 3 or whatever the next one is

>>11429138
A year later whoops we can’t do aerospace outside next to the fucking ocean and a road

>>11429138
You are like little baby, try this!

>>11429152
they can do the welds under tarps, which is almost as good
>>11429155
yes, that would be better
is that tall enough to stack a Super Heavy inside?

>>11429138
>>11429155
You are both little babies, try this!

>>11429161
>bajillion dollar building that's rusting to pieces
no thanks

>>11429159
>is that tall enough to stack a Super Heavy inside?

No, but it’s tall enough to fit a New Glenn first-stage...

>>11429138
>>11429155
>>11429161
so basically spacex has built the vab equivalent of a cuckshed.

>>11429166
It’s currently occupied by the ML and their practicing stacking SRBs in preparation for when they will start stacking them for Artemis.

>>11429138
So it looks like rocket construction is hard after all.

>>11429173
do they still have a shuttle just hanging from the ceiling for no reason?

>>11429173
*Artemis 1

>>11429166
>bajillion dollar building that's still being used to stack human-carrying rockets for sixty years
turns out investing in infrastructure pays off in the long term

>>11429175
No, all the surviving orbiters are in museums...but I wish they did.

hmmmmmm

>>11429191
Did somebody get shrapnel’d?

>>11429193
doesn't look like it

>>11429191

>>11429191
Looks like a lug nut problem.

>>11429191
I don't understand this reusable cars meme

>>11429191
>got his staging sequencing wrong and the front fell off
so this is the power of the mexican space program

>>11429202
I’m guessing the “I don’t understand this reusable X meme” meme started with someone’s unironic post here?

>>11429206

>>11429202
I just don't understand this reusable automobile meme.

The amount of money you can save from reusing motor vehicles isn’t enough to justify how much harder it makes it to do the difficult drives that usually make money in the highway world. I’m sure one day reusability will be more effective, but the truth is that when you have all the challenges that come with motor science in general, it’s almost always much more effective to throw away the automobile after it’s done its job than to figure out how to make recovery part of the mission. I know of no major technology on the near term horizon that would change that.

Even if reusable automobiles are possible now, but when reliability is THE number one priority (in this case the passengers take up 2/3rds of the cost and the actual car only 1/3rd) it makes absolutely no sense. Like, look at this vehicle (pic related). This represents some of the most advanced technologies in the automobile world. Do you honestly think that such a complicated machine can be made tough and reliable enough to be reusable? I doubt it. Best example in my opinion is condoms, sure you could reuse them but making sure that they do not suffer a drop in reliability will cost a lot of money and time.

Just because some country made reusing automobiles popular, then that doesn't mean that we will have the sci-fi future of millions of drives per year. We'll be lucky to see more than a couple dozen per year. Dial down your expectations, don't buy into the 'reusability for automobiles' meme.

>>11429024
https://youtu.be/eDizqB7k9eY
Here you go

>>11429206

https://www.reddit.com/r/EnoughMuskSpam/comments/ctyqfz/will_rocket_reusability_ever_become_viable/

You gotta give credit to Elon for his "fail 24/7" method. It's a surefire way to find the cheapest method possible in the long run.
>Use cheapest shit, fails
>Use slightly more expensive methods, fails
>Induce more complex and expensive methods
And so forth. SS will probably cost more than $5M, but it'll definitely be cheaper than an SLS rocket or a New Glenn rocket.

>>11429175
>>11429188
They did hang an SLS mass simulator last year tho

>>11429293
Why would it cost more than $5M if SpaceX fails a lot on their cheap prototypes?

Meet the Titans!

>>11429223
Based

>>11429355
What is their actual height?

>>11429343
Lol at the ridiculous things that nasa does

>>11429355
have fun inhaling

>>11428791
>>11428821
Such an awesome video, puts Atlas 5 and Delta IV in protective.

expendable space program

is there a way to select one's fuel such that there's no need to detach parts of spacecrafts as they try to escape orbit? if the mass must change, why can't it be the fuel's mass?

>>11429388
anon that's how rockets work already

>>11428791
ULA is a pretty cool guy eh builds rockets and doesn't afraid of anything

>>11429388
>is there a way to select one's fuel such that there's no need to detach parts of spacecrafts as they try to escape orbit?
If I'm reading your question correctly, then yes but with lots of caveats. I don't think there are any chemical bipropellants that can do that, there might be a tripropellant combination but it would probably be so toxic and unwieldy that there would be problems supporting a rocket like that.

Outside of chemical propellants, there are possible options (pic related), but are either fissile based (and thus scares everyone) or fusion based (and thus impossible right now).

>>11429355
Here’s a less aesthetic, but more complete diagram of every single Titan variant.

>>11429364
Can’t find a diagram but Titan 1 was 31m tall and Titan 4 with the biggest fairing was 62m tall.

>>11429366
There’s nothing ridiculous about practicing lifting so you don’t drop and destroy a unique $1.6 billion booster...

>>11429367
I will

>>11429373
>>11429402
The Vulcan stuff was really cool, looking forward to a time-lapse of the first booster being assembled like this:

https://youtube.com/watch?v=Eb8QkORA3HA

While the explosion was fun, lets get back to working again.

>>11429354
I mean the final product. Life support systems and all.

>>11429416
Still can't unsee it.

>>11428791
Nice, glad we got to see this, that’s a very special upper-stage...

>>11429409
>>https://youtube.com/watch?v=Eb8QkORA3HA
That was seriously fucking cool, its really interesting to see a rocket come together from what starts as a flat sheet pressed into shape, like seeing a ship come together from what starts as the framework and keel, is there more like this?

I really hope they do the whole rocket, seeing that all come together like that makes you realize just how complex even assembling a full rocket is, KSP vastly oversimplifies it obviously but seeing the real deal was neat.

>>11429403
>Let's splurge here. With nuclear power, we have the power to splurge

unfff, move over Sea Dragon, Liberty is here

But seriously can it work, can it be feasible? Is the exhaust really non-radioactive? This seems like something we could test build if we weren't cucked by anti-nuclear fags and cold war treaties but it also carries significant risk and would need to be proven 100% that the exhaust won't be insanely radioactive

>>11429486
>But seriously can it work, can it be feasible?
It's possible, but the technology isn't there yet. http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/enginelist2.php#ntrgasclosed The largest hurdle is making a material that can handle the temperatures of a gas-core NTR while still transferring heat to the propellant.

>Is the exhaust really non-radioactive?
Yes, if it works, but one wrong thing happens and we get nuclear exhaust.

>>11429497
I wonder which is more feasible in reality, Sea Dragon or Liberty, I know Sea Dragon has problems with the sheer size of the engine bell and everything, probably vibration control as well

>>11429497
every cool new thing is locked behind material technology. It's all been made in a lab, but can't be made at scale and it's super frustrating.

>>11429448
sauce me up

>>11429454
>is there more like this?

Sorry, I’m really struggling to find similar videos. I guess that’s because Tory Bruno loves time-lapses and Vulcan is the first new rocket ULA have ever built. However, I did find a fan-made video combining numerous NASA clips to create a time-lapse of the SLS core-stage being built.

>>11429508
fucking graphene man

>>11429514
Here’s the link: https://youtube.com/watch?v=yUKetXu0IgY

>>11429506
Sea Dragon, as it's a typical chemical propellant rocket just scaled up. Liberty uses a kind of engine that hasn't even been used in experiments before.

>>11429517
That was cool as fuck, ULA's video was slightly better though cause they showed the diagram of what was being constructed/assembled, gonna be nice to see the finished version of both SLS and Vulcan/Centaur though

>>11429536
So are they gonna build new RS-25's once they expend all these shuttle engines?

My uncle works at SpaceX and he sad Elon has been coming to work coofing up a storm for the past three days. Apparently the staff told him he should go to the hospital but he told them to fuck off with a lot of loud swearing.

Things are not looking good here.

>>11429556
I wonder what their key man insurance policy is like

>>11429556
fuck off, frogposter

>>11429556
>coofing

>>11429564
fuck off, weeb

>>11429539
>So are they gonna build new RS-25's

They’ve already built and tested new ones, which are referred to as RS-25Es.

https://spaceflightnow.com/2015/11/27/aerojet-rocketdyne-wins-propulsion-contracts-worth-nearly-1-4-billion/

https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2018/07/aerojet-rocketdyne-six-engine-rs-25-run/

>>11429539
yeah. the new RS-25Es are supposed to be cheaper due to not needing reuse stuff and some cost-saving measures found in the last decade

>>11429570
>t. coofer

>>11429572
It took NASA 30 years to make the RS-25s cheaper? Why didn't they do this sooner?

>>11429574
COOF

>>11429138
oh wow disregard my earlier statement. Still wish they were doing double-height rings, cut out half the welding.

>>11429579
>Why didn't they do this sooner?

The RS-25E is cheaper because it’s designed to be expended. It uses a mixture of cost-saving modern manufacturing techniques (e.g. additive manufacturing and 3D printing), cost-saving measures first used on the RS-68 and cheaper components that don’t need to be refurbished, to bring costs down. Furthermore, because the RS-25 no longer needs to limit itself to make refurbishment easier, the thrust has been cranked up to 119% of the original.

>>11429591
what was your earlier statement

Why don't they just get long steel rolls and wrap up massive burrito sections at a time.

>>11429632
They lost that ability when they swapped from Mexican food trucks to Texan food trucks.

>>11429632
You mean taller rolls? It's because cold rolled steel only comes in strips that are so wide, it'd probably be great if they could literally bend one big panel of steel into a tube to complete the main barrel of Starship, but it's just not a possibility at this time.

>>11429632
Why don’t they just forge a single plate and then roll it
So much welding by hand..

>>11428791
wtf i love ula now

>>11429343
>When you fucked up installing mods and now the textures won’t load

>>11428791
Why does it feel like the responses are just corporatespeak?

>>11429732
Well it's definitely sanitized because he obviously can't talk entirely openly.
But, no, it didn't sound like corporatespeak.

the beast has been slain

>>11429510
Some article on a game news site, should be one of the first things you find after some questionable google searches

>>11428791
Its hilarious that ULA is more open than BlueOrigin just because ULA wants to compete with SpaceX.

>>11429615
That they needed to move inside to weld instead of doing it all in the wind.

>>11429779
I think I missed something. was this intentional, or did they fuck up?

>>11430069
nobody knows but I think it was a fuckup

>building scaffolding and covering it with sheet metal now

Lol spacex is so bad about this shit desu

>>11430073
>Bigass white shipping container with RAPTOR on it
What are the odds there's at least 1 engine in that container?

>>11430105
I'd say decent

>>11429191
>Cabron! Who put a TD-06 on the front wheel?

Man, I really hope this was another test to failure and that it exceeded safety margins by some crazy factor, but I feel like Elon would be bragging about it already if that were true.

Has any autist out there run rough numbers on what kind of pressures would be necessary to produce the failure result we saw?

>>11429779
>>11430069
>>11430073
>>11430105
Well obviously they were planning on mounting a Raptor on it and test firing If All Went Well.
But then again, it didn't go well. The whole thing imploded under it's own weight due to having thinner structure than a can of soda for it's proportions when loaded with sub-cooled propellants.

>>11430268
I don't think it's just a matter of pressure at this stage. It needs internal/external strengthening to support it when the entire thing is stacked up. Sub-cooled propellants changes the load bearing properties of the current material more than enough for the whole thing to implode as is pretty fucking obvious at this point.

>>11430268
They said they only wanted to test operational pressures and move on.
This was bad.

>>11429556
Did he visit China lately or met with any chinese?

>>11430278
>Sub-cooled propellants changes the load bearing properties of the current material
Yes cryo temperatures make strength of the steen higher

>The whole thing imploded under it's own weight
You have no idea what you're talking about

>>11430376
>Yes cryo temperatures make strength of the steen higher
Clearly, since it fucking collapsed.

>>11430069
It looked like they were 99.99% sure they nailed it this time and were testing just in case, but turned out someone still fucked up a weld somewhere. I believe there wasn't even a road closure in effect at the time and the cars were passing by occasionally. They apparently didn't think much about filling the top tank with gas rather than liquid either and only were pretty lucky it didn't shoot the top bulkhead anywhere important.

>>11430398
>collapsed
Did you miss the part where it shot up its own height in the air? I know you're referring to it being crushed like a soda can but that only happened as the result of liquid rushing out after the initial rupture somewhere at the bottom and leaving the partial vacuum behind.

Don't put your trust in cultists and lies you will only suffer disappointment and worse.

Decades spaceflight history can't be wrong. Do your part and support those who always made and will always make spaceflight a possibility so that one day we all could see a human being walking on Mars!

>>11430416
>make spaceflight a possibility
I'd rather prefer someone who makes it a reality

>>11429556
Don't even fucking joke about that shit cunt.

>>11429486
>Is the exhaust really non-radioactive?

No, and the water vapor that comes out of nuclear plants isn’t radioactive either.

>>11430408
>I believe there wasn't even a road closure in effect at the time and the cars were passing by occasionally.
'elf and safety will have a field day if true.

>>11430458
Imagine just cruising down that road to check out spacex and then several hundred tonnes of cryogenic CH4 and steel lands on top of your car.

Suely there would have been have been a road closure though? There has been for every pressure test so far, did they just get too cocky bros?

>>11430463
>CH4
LN2 but that's only marginally better

>Suely there would have been have been a road closure though?
Last I heard it was scheduled for 2-6 am and the RUD happened at 10pm. In the video https://youtu.be/sYeVnGL7fgw there are two cars passing by like a minute before, as well as a police car nearby that got covered by the cloud later. Though I'm not sure about the local geography and it may be just perspective fucking with us.

>>11430484
>as well as a police car nearby that got covered by the cloud later
>be fat little piggy, munching on donuts in squad car on taxpayer dime
>suddenly LN2 cloud engulfs your car
>choke and die

Based SpaceX, removing government thugs one pair of jackboots at a time.

>>11429556
pls don't ...

>>11430586
>coofs

>>11428907
There's no clubs near me

>>11430408
Or maybe they were only going to fill the tank beforehand without raising the pressure and let things chill until the scheduled time but a relief valve got stuck or something and they lost control over it. Though it'd be pretty dumb.

What went right?

>>11430779
Loads of stuff

>>11430779

>>11430779
Had no ambition, so it never went anywhere

>>11430779

>>11430356
>>11430425
>>11430586
He spelled "cough" "coof", there is no way he's american.

>>11430897
It's another shitty variant of the shitty coomer meme. Creativity truly is dead.

>>11428935
give it 30 years, spacex will land, by market necessity, weapons contracts

>>11429191
Nice camber Perd/o/!

>>11430907
Yeah, I know. Nobody stays the cool kid forever. Everybody becomes a boomer sooner or later.

>>11430463
Nah, it'd only be nitrogen. As long as you don't have your windows down it wouldn't shove away your breathable oxygen.

>>11430897
>>11430901
He's a typical frogposter, that's even worse.

>>11430907
Well, we have to be ready to fight the aliens to some degree.

>>11430408
>>11430458
>>11430463
there was totally a road closure in effect, and nobody was even close to the test when it happened

>>11430992
Based.

Well this thread is dead.

>>11431302
people doing shit on sundays bruh

>>11431306
I just did drugs

>>11431311
I'm doing job applications

>>11431306
>imagine having friends, jobs, responsibilities, a life

>>11431315
ew

>>11431315
Yeah it’s awesome and fulfilling

>>11431328
>being happy
>being fulfilled
>being a well-rounded individual

>>11431338
Anyone can do it, anon. At least I think so. I swell with optimism for mankind and myself.

>>11431302
people are demoralised about space x implosion.

>>11431189
There is people here today that will never experience humanity being on a different planetary body

>>11431360
I don't want to be one of them, man

>>11431356
Why? Failure is exciting because it tells you what you did wrong. They’re already constructing another one.

>>11431370
because deep down we are all hoping for a 2025 mars mission but know it wont be realistically ready till the 30s

>>11431340
>Anyone can do it, anon
Sure, but it has to come from within.
No one can do it for you.

>>11431363
neither do i, neither do i.........

>>11431375
Nah, manned will happen in 2026-2028

>>11429506
>>11429521
Dont know about liberty, but seadragon engine is close to impossible to build with current tech&material knowledge.
There is a reason why most larger rockets use many smaller engines instead of a few huge ones.

>>11430837

>>11430837
NASA used American's livery?

>>11431389
kek.

>>11431377
>Sure, but it has to come from within.

Nietzschean Affirmation.

>>11431399
it was bought from American

>>11431387
Nuclear lightbulb engines have a lot of unsolved problems. One that comes to mind is the fact that the quartz bulb needs to be very very transparent, because the mechanism of heat transfer from the nuclear fuel gas to the hydrogen propellant is mostly via blackbody radiation, not conduction (it's what lets you get around the issue of the bulb's melting point being too low to act as a physical heat exchanger). However, neutrons interacting with quarts cause tiny imperfections in the crystal lattice, which translates to meaning the quartz bulb will darken significantly over time. Not only will this reduce the amount of heat absorbed by the propellant, reducing efficiency and thrust, it will also cause the bulb to run hotter and hotter as it gets darker.

As far as I know there is no way to prevent this issue, at least if we use quartz. Maybe some other transparent crystal material wouldn't darken, however iirc quartz was used in the original design because it had the best properties, so you'd be taking a hit using anything else. Maybe the solution would be to change the nuclear lightbulb inside the engine once the darkening hit a certain limit, however then the question becomes how much operating time you get out of each bulb; if you can only launch a few times per bulb change, your launch system is expensive. If you can go hundreds of flights, that'd be a bit better. Of course, you now have large used quartz bulbs full of activation products from the silicon absorbing neutrons while the engine is firing, which you need to put somewhere, meaning that starts getting real expensive too.

>>11431399
They bought the 747s from American Airlines, and at first only bothered painting the NASA worm onto the tails.

Later on they repainted them fully, but yes, they did use a lightly-modified version of American's for quite some time.

>>11431448
What would you say would be the most viable near-term interplanetary engine? Fission powered VASIMR?

>>11431484
chemical

>>11431490
I'm talking post-chemical engines. Chemical suck at high speed interplanetary transport. And by near-term I mean within 50 years.

>>11431499
chemical
maybe nuclear thermal if Mars becomes a nuclear capable independent technocratic state

>>11431504
So you think we're going to be stuck with chemical and maybe nuclear-thermal for the next 50 years. I'd say that's a pretty depressing outlook.

>>11431504
The right to atomic engines will be written into the 4th amendment of the Constitution of the Union of Martian Capitalist Republics (UMCR).

>>11431520
laser light sail propulsion, maybe, if Earth-govs don't throw a hissy fit about literally a megaweapon in orbit
the moon might see some megastructure mass driver stuff if that gets serious (and Earth-gov doesn't throw a hissy fit about literally a megaweapon in orbit)
anyway, chemical is good enough for most shit, and if all of the various problems with nuclear thermal can be solved to allow it to be reused with a minimum of fuss it'll be perfectly adequate for all interplanetary transportation

>>11431520
Not him, but people are so terrified of nuclear anything that generally speaking their brains just turn off. Greenfags ironically have caused a huge amount of damage, shilling against nuclear to push alternatives which have been objectively demonstrated to be incapable of handling peak grid load or low demand downtime. As a result the number of plants built and the amount of exploration in the field has stagnated quite badly. We aren't technologically incapable of building some really impressive NTPRs, in fact a modification of the Dumbo design called the TCGR or Tricarbide Groove-Ringed Reactor would allow for similar TWRs to conventional bipropellant rockets while retaining most of the efficiency of an NTPR. 600+ ISP in sea-level fired rockets which would allow for much more compact first stages or much larger second stages. Unfortunately LH2 is probably the only propellant you could use, with LCH4 being marginal, you don't want to run anything through a reactor which could cause a buildup of soot or other byproducts, basically the only way you can get them out (since you can't just pop the top off the reactor and get in there with a scrubber) is to flush something powerfully corrosive through the core afterwards. TCGRs would also be great for second stages as well, because of their high TWR and very high Vac-ISP you could get second stages to use comparatively small nuclear propulsion. There are some workarounds but I think they're still exclusively paper designs, like breeder thorium reactors which go up into orbit dead and then slowly breed up enough U235 to warm up and start working.

>>11431547
>chemical is good enough for most shit
Yeah, you're not gonna see 30 day travel times to mars with chemical rockets, and you're not gonna see manned exploration or colonization of outer planets at all with them.
>laser light sail propulsion, maybe, if Earth-govs don't throw a hissy fit about literally a megaweapon in orbit
Just set up the laser array orbiting the moon or one of the Lagrange points, and have it be infrared. Earth's atmosphere absorbs most infrared, and at those distances even an extremely powerful laser would not be very powerful when it reached earth's surface.
Also, why do you think fission powered VASIMR is unobtainable within 50 years?

>>11431564
Forgot to add this

>>11431520
We’ll eventually start using whatever kind of propulsion those UFOs use that lets them accelerate at over 50 g

>>11429572
>ywn activate the deck

>>11431484
>>11431490 This isn't me (I'm the anon who wrote up the nuclear lightbulb thing)

However, yeah, chemical is the way to go for a while. For the inner solar system (the relevant things, Mars, Moon, Asteroids), you just can't beat the flexibility and economy of chemical, in terms of actual dollars. Everything with higher Isp than chemical is either extremely expensive (nuclear) or extremely slow (solar electric) or both (nuclear electric, oh shit bro what the fuck are you doing).

We're still not hitting the ceiling in terms of chemical engines, or chemically powered spacecraft. In fact we've hardly scratched the surface. For example, pretty much everything we've ever launched into space has used lower Isp chemical propellants like hypergolics or even monopropellants. Only our launch vehicles use higher Isp stuff. We've also still not maxed out on hydrolox Isp, and while it is still more tricky to work with than other chemicals, if you are truly Isp limited (like trying to get to the more distant asteroids, Jupiter, etc), then it would be worth it to develop those engines and vehicles.

If you want to go directly from Earth to Jupiter, you are Isp limited to either using expendable stages along the way or using much more efficient propulsion. However, if you instead go to the Moon, you could fully refill on propellants there, and be slung via a very long electromagnetic track at speeds well beyond Earth escape velocity effectively for free in terms of mass fraction and so forth. Sure that's a big piece of infrastructure, but if you really want to explore and colonize Jupiter you're gonna need large fleets of spacecraft, and it quickly becomes obvious that the very expensive nuclear options or the very slow electric options get beat by electromagnetic Moon cannon with chemical deceleration and landing.

>>11431564
>Yeah, you're not gonna see 30 day travel times to mars with chemical rockets, and you're not gonna see manned exploration or colonization of outer planets at all with them.

I doubt long wait times will be a problem for the genetically engineered cyborgs that would inevitably be around if and when humans decide they want to fuck around in the outer solar system

>>11429600
>because the RS-25 no longer needs to limit itself to make refurbishment easier, the thrust has been cranked up to 119% of the original.

Hnng, how much does this enable, compared to shuttle's engines?

>>11431572
You wish.

>>11431577
I doubt genetically engineered cyborgs will be that common, even over a hundred years in the future. In fact I could see them being entirely banned by some space colonies.

>>11431580
If they can do it, we can do it.
Prototypes will be rolling off the assembly line in 3700.

>>11431564
Not that Anon, but fission powered anything will be hard to swing not because the technology isn't there (it's already existed probably for a decade, and could have sooner if more effort had been applied), it's that the highly regulated and constricted nature of how fission technology is brought from paper to field is enormously sluggish and confining.

>>11431585
>In fact I could see them being entirely banned by some space colonies.
Why?

>>11431585
>Space colonies would ban the only people who can really live in a space colony

Fascinating conclusion. Modern human meat sacks are a dead end and will be phased out in the future.

>>11429779
What you (the commoner) sees is a pile of warped and twisted aluminium, what the artist (the patrician) sees is the next award winning post-modern neo-contextual building design.

>>11431586
>3700
Most of the solar system and many nearby star systems will be in the process of being colonized or will be colonized by then.

>>11431564
fission powered electric drive doesn't have the T/W to do anything useful or get anywhere fast, unless you're sending a science probe to the outer planets and want a metric fuckton of power for a radar or something
>>11431575
this guy has it down, SpaceX are planning to push the state of the art in storable cryogenic RCS and maneuvering thrusters, which will make everything so much better
methane/oxygen RCS is so good
>electromagnetic MOON CANNON
this is a good post
>>11431596
it's a pile of scrap and they're already cutting it up

>>11431578
A 19% increase in power takes it up from 1869kN at sea level up to 2212kN.

>>11431564
>Also, why do you think fission powered VASIMR is unobtainable within 50 years?
It's not that it's unobtainable, it's that it's not that useful.
VASIMR is only even remotely attractive if you have a magic power supply that gives you something insane in terms of kilowatts per kilogram. To even approach that fanciful number you need to use ultra-thin film solar power, nothing else can come close (this is in order for the full VASIMR system to achieve the power to weight ratio needed to beat a chemical rocket in a transfer to Mars). However, using any kind of solar power effectively limits the usefulness of your high Isp thruster to a sphere of a certain radius from the Sun. Unfortunately, there's literally no way of making VASIMR more attractive for outer solar system missions than chemical, for this reason. Sure, it'd still work, given a super large solar array or a high temperature nuclear reactor, but it would be very very slow to accelerate and wouldn't be practical for manned missions (you'd be looking at decades for round-trips).

Something similar to VASIMR may make sense one day if we consider options like beamed power (make your solar panels work as if you're as far from the Sun as Mercury, even out at Neptune), in combination with chemical and electromagnetic surface-launch systems.

>>11431590
All sorts of reasons. And ideology could play a big part of that.
>>11431594
>the only people who can really live in a space colony
Lmao, no. A normal human could live on a rotating space colony perfectly fine. The only thing we don't know about is whether the low gravity of other planets and moons will be enough.

>>11431389
pleasant lol

>>11431597
Yeah, but it’d be nice to be able to travel from one end to the other in less than a year, and we must infest the other stars as well.

>>11431596
oy vey goy, old architecture is ugly and racist, we need to introduce to our new beautiful modern architecture

>>11431610
> Lmao, no.

Enjoy your infinite cancer.
There is no reason whatsoever to remain unenhanced.

>>11431437
>>11431481
Oh, I had assumed, because of the modifications to the empennage, that they got it directly from boeing.

>>11431606
Magnetoplasma drives are slow to accelerate, but because of their extremely high ISPs that's irrelevant. For anything beyond the moon a magnetoplasma drive will outstrip a conventional bipropellant or NTPR drive because while those drives can accelerate for a few minutes, the magnetoplasma drive can do so for weeks on end.

>>11431613
>Yeah, but it’d be nice to be able to travel from one end to the other in less than a year, and we must infest the other stars as well.
Laser propulsion or ICF propulsion (project daedalus)
>Enjoy your infinite cancer.
Water shielding says otherwise.
>There is no reason whatsoever to remain unenhanced.
Maybe I don't see the value of expanding into space if I'm going to give up my identity and turn into a soulless machine-man techpriest abomination thing.
>>11431618

>>11431586
>they
You mean the as of yet unproven much more likely nonexistent beings imagined by drunkard hillbillies? Sure... If THEY can do it then we can too.

>>11431629
>Maybe I don't see the value of expanding into space if I'm going to give up my identity and turn into a soulless machine-man techpriest abomination thing.

Souls aren’t real lol
How does becoming superior make you magically lose your “identity”?

>>11431632
>Fighter pilots, naval crewmen, and radars are drunken hillbillies

>>11431634
Look, I'm not saying you can't do it. But I'm sure as hell not going to.

>>11431634
>Souls aren’t real lol
>he says this with absolute 100% confidence

lmao good luck copying your consciousness into your new robot body

>>11431643
Sure, you can remain measurably inferior, less capable, and doomed to never experience any environment that isn’t pressurized, which is practically all of them, from anywhere but inside a spacesuit. There is no certainty in flesh but death.

>>11431650
I will be fine with a pressure suit or environmental suit, and billions of others will be as well. Plus, titan doesn't even require a pressure suit, only something to heat you up and oxygen.

>>11431646
You can’t “copy a consciousness”, silly. “Consciousness” isn’t a consistent thing that exists continuously over time.

>>11431657
>I will be fine with a pressure suit or environmental suit, and billions of others will be as well

Nah. Unmodified humans are doomed to extinction.

>>11431662
Even if you can copy your mind into some sort of robotic body, how are you even sure when you destroy your old body you won't just experience eternal darkness while a mechanical copy of you continues to exist?

>>11431669
Cyborg jew or non-cyborg jew, you aren't gonna get to exterminate whites.

>>11431671
>how are you even sure when you destroy your old body you won't just experience eternal darkness

Dead brains can’t sustain any sort of “experience”.

>>11431675
>Muh Jews

Can you make up some new conspiratorial enemy?

>>11431677
If there is no soul, then after your brain shutting down what will likely happen is that you'll be forever stuck at the moment of annihilation, which will probably be just blackness.

>>11431682
Maybe if you stop declaring your intentions out in public, we will.

>>11431682
>conspiratorial
Underage brainlet.

>>11431606
>methane/oxygen RCS is so good
How so?

Oxygen is basically the best chemical propellant we can use in vacuum right, or is that hydrogen

>>11431683
>If there is no soul

Souls would violate the conservation of energy, and as such deserve exactly as much attention as any other magical nonexistent thing.

> then after your brain shutting down what will likely happen is that you'll be forever stuck at the moment of annihilation

You’d just cease to exist.

>/pol/ shit
abort thread

>>11431691
>Underage brainlet

Underage brainlet.

>>11431694
oxygen is the best practical oxidizer
flourine might theoretically be better but it eats everything
methane is the best storable fuel
hydrogen is better but you can't store it practically

>>11431698
No, /pol/ shit would be people spamming VOTE BLOOMBERG or FEEL THE BERN or blacked porn.

>>11431706
Or people imagining a giant Jewish conspiracy

>>11431694
I think he meant a methalox bipropellant rcs, which isn't ideal because it probably wouldn't be as fast a hypergolic propellant rcs or a cold gas thruster. While oxygen gas does have some good properties for a cold gas thruster, it might be wise not to use that so that the oxygen can be saved for breathing later.

>>11431709
You ignore the evidence when we put it right in front of you, just like the faggy flat earthers do.

>>11431713
no, pressure fed methox hot gas biprop thruster
like a blowtorch

>>11431715
>y-you’re like da flat earthers for not believing in da giant conspiracy! Look at dis video with Justin Bieber it shoes his lizard eyes omg

Hidden.

>>11431719
too bad you can't mass downvote my post like on reddit

>>11431590
Because irrational people will exist forever and ever

>>11431625
Don’t they use lithium, though? Not sure I want to be using a resource like lithium as mere propellant.

>>11431596
>a pile of warped and twisted aluminium
First of all it's a warped and twisted pile of STAINLESS STEEL
Second it's 'aluminum'.
Do you say platinium too? Fag

>>11431725
>Because irrational people will exist forever and ever
Judging from this thread? You have a point.

>>11431728
Xenon is rare as fuck and they use that as propellant.

>>11431725
Genetically modify humans so they can’t be irrational.

>>11431730
>Aluminium
>Alternative name: aluminum (U.S., Canada)
Go be a hipster somewhere else.

>>11431733
Yeah but what the hell else do we use xenon for? It forms almost no compounds and there’s other inert gasses. Lithium on the other hand is needed for constructing batteries

>>11431730
>Second it's 'aluminum'.

It’s “Aluminium” in the UK. Grammar corrections are juvenile.

>>11431741
>Xenon is used in photographic flashes, in high pressure arc lamps for motion picture projection, and in high pressure arc lamps to produce ultraviolet light. It is used in instruments for radiation detection, e.g., neutron and X-ray counters and bubble chambers.

First result on google. I'm sure it has many, many other uses too.

>>11431608
Slightly more thrust than Raptor, but much bigger. I always forget how overexpanded the RS-25 is until I remember that that huge nozzle is attached to a combustion chamber about the size of a watermelon. Imagine how cool it'd be if they developed an RS-25F variant with a more normal expansion ratio, in order to let them pack them close together on the bottom of a booster at some point?

>>11431735
"irrational" is a moving goal post just human suffering. Even if we can reduce it down to minuscule portions relative to history, our perception will simply accommodate to take the existing spectrum as the whole. There is no future in which things like irrationality, suffering or peace are possible because there is no threshold beyond which a human brain can intuitively grasp that they are born with those things.

>>11431748
>Imagine how cool it'd be if they developed an RS-25F variant with a more normal expansion ratio, in order to let them pack them close together on the bottom of a booster at some point?
I'd love to see NASA develop that in 50 years when I retire.

When the FUCK is the James Webb Telescope going to be ready?

>>11431618
It's cheaper, and faster ('unenhanced' populations will grow much faster than 'enhanced' ones simply because dirty man-apes can reproduce quickly and it costs effectively nothing in terms of human labor or high tech resources).

>>11431750
Genetically engineer humans so that we are neurologically incapable of experiencing negative qualia like pain and sadness.

>>11431730
You are platinium mad

>>11431756
Modify them once they’re adults.

>>11431753
30th of March 2021, but both you and me know it's never going to launch on that day.

>>11431753
Soon(TM)

>>11431753
It will always be ready 2 years from the present point.

>>11431765
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RU2zlSfkdE8

>>11431753

>>11431753
in this decade

>>11431753
Few more years and make sure not to complain because it can get cancelled instead then you'll have to wait it out all over again be thankful you might get anything at all.

>>11431625
Wrong. Magnetoplasma drives accelerate at about the same rate as ion drives, they can simply be scaled up bigger. You have to look out beyond the asteroid belt for anything electric-propulsion to start to beat chemical in terms of transfer time, except the problem actually gets worse as you move further from the Sun and your power supply drops in its effective kW/kg ratio (or if you're using nuclear, remains low the entire time). Realistically, electric propulsion doesn't beat chemical until you get past Saturn's orbit in terms of transfer distance.

Chemical stages accelerate in a few minutes to speeds that the highest TWR electric propulsion systems take YEARS to accomplish, which means that the electric propulsion system needs to achieve a much HIGHER top speed than the chemical vehicle in order to arrive at the destination at the same time, let alone actually beat it to the finish line. The high Isp of electric propulsion is for the most part counteracted by the extremely low TWR in almost all cases.

Electric propulsion is most useful in cases where you are going to have to make a large series of small delta V maneuvers, in a single mission. This is why it was selected for the DAWN probe mission, which for the most part was just scooting around the asteroid belt.

>>11431782
Why can’t ion engines be scaled up?

>>11431777
>make sure not to complain
Fuck that. If JWST gets cancelled on a whim (or Artemis), then NASA and the US government deserves shit for it.

>>11431520
Look at what we've been stuck with for the past 50 years. When government (and the SIC) is in charge, progress is slow to non-existent.

>>11431752
Who's talking about NASA? I can see in the next 10 years after Raptor tech is basically maxed out SpaceX uses what they've learned to develop a super high chamber pressure hydrolox FFSC engine, in order to enable new Starship successors/variants to achieve higher delta V budgets and perform missions from Mars or Moon out to Jupiter and back.

>>11431777
I hope Elon would save it if it got cancelled

>>11431782
just ignite the chemical first then the electrical, then when the desired speed is reached, jettison the chemical and switch the ion on to maintain said speed

>>11431537
>not the Martian United States of Karate

>>11431786
They work by having an electrically charged gas flow in close proximity to a series of electrically charged grids, or gaps between plates, or other design options. Basically, they work best when everything is close together. You can only make them so big before they start to lose efficiency from things being too far apart or having the space to interact with other parts of the thruster. Magnetoplasmadynamic thrusters on the other hand are in effect a magnetic bottle squeezing on some plasma that you made from an inert gas, while a powerful microwave heats it up to high temperature and allows it to reach very high speed as it exits the 'hole' in the magnetic field. You can scale this up much more easily, and in fact it should actually get more efficient with scale, because less heat will be lost to the walls of the thing compared to the total volume in the bottle.

>>11431568
>what is SOFIA

>>11431799
>jettison the chemical
E X P E N D A B L E
B A D

Remember we need to consider the actual COST to these things, you know. We can't have an interplanetary civilization or even colonies on other worlds if we insist on a price tag in the billions for every handful of people we send.

>>11431809
>They work by having an electrically charged gas flow in close proximity to a series of electrically charged grids, or gaps between plates, or other design options. Basically, they work best when everything is close together.

Still, couldn’t you cluster them?

>>11431017
>there was totally a road closure in effect
Unless they closed it on a short notice without a public notification there wasn't

>>11431575
>Sure that's a big piece of infrastructure
I think mega-structure launchers and elevators on Earth are a meme, but on the Moon, with its lower gravity and no atmosphere, they're quite possible, once lunar industry gets going.

>>11431794
>Who's talking about NASA?
Well, the RS-25s are kinda owned by them.

>>11431822
http://www.cameroncounty.us/space-x/

They should christen the SLS rockets based on which shuttle's engines are used before sending each stage down to the drink
>SLS-1 "Spirit of Discovery"
>SLS-2 "Spirit of Atlantis"
>SLS-3 "Spirit of Endeavor"

thoughts?

>>11431834
Spirit of America

>>11431837
Yeah but there's no shuttle by that name, also what are they gonna actually call the rocket, Space Launch System is lame, maybe Jupiter

>>11431834
I like that idea. Shame they’re not reusable.

>>11431834
All that does is highlight how NASA is clinging to the accomplishments of the past instead of innovating. It's depressing.

>>11431817
Yes, but then you incur mass increases due to the additional plumbing etc. It's less efficient. Also, multiple ion engines running at once will tend to interfere with one another and reduce efficiency at least a little.

>>11431834
>mrw "We are now counting down for the launch of the Spirit of Challenger!"

>>11431845
I see it as more a fitting send-off for the engines that performed so well for the shuttle missions and in honor of their last and final mission

>>11431828
Exactly. There's no atmosphere to deal with, which is the big thing. It would be possible to build a ground level circumferential track (going through mountains and bridging over craters) that would let you accelerate at 1 g to some truly massive speeds before letting you go and fling away from the surface at several times Earth's escape velocity.

>>11431856
god I love how this looks like the shuttle is pointing up at the sky above just as much as it looks like its pointing down at Earth below, wild

>>11431830
Sure, but hydrogen engine tech in general is not. It wouldn't be an RS-25 variant, it'd be something better.

>>11431730
>Second it's 'aluminum'.
The preferred spelling everywhere apart from non-technical sources in the US/Canada is aluminium. Even technical writing in the US favours aluminium because they know aluminum is tarded. By ranting over it you are allying yourself with the tards and making yourself look like one - but don't let us stop you anon - you fight that battle and win!

>>11431448
The bulb is no big deal-just swap it out in space and throw the old one into the sun!

What's your favorite sci-fi series, /sfg/? I love Clarke's work for the realistic space autism, but really enjoy Star Trek and Dune as well.

>>11431833
>February 29 2:00a.m - 6:00a.m.
RUD happened on 28th at 10pm, so the road shouldn't have been be closed yet unless >>11431822

>>11431880
Star Trek was my first and I still really like it. The Foundation Trilogy is great too.

>>11431745
Aluminum was the spelling, before Aluminium. From a Brit, even.
>Sir Humphry made a bit of a mess of naming this new element, at first spelling it alumium (this was in 1807) then changing it to aluminum, and finally settling on aluminium in 1812.

>>11431739
sorry, aluminum was the original spelling and the Brits got scammed to change to Aluminium to be fancy

>>11431880
Expanse/Cowboy Bebop

>>11431880
I've been watching and really enjoying Farscape

>>11428986
>Crouching Atlas, Hidden Vulcan
*********WARNING************ *********WARNING************

****************BOOMER ALERT*******************

*********WARNING************ *********WARNING************

****************BOOMER ALERT*******************

>>11431748
>>11431752
But the big adaptable nozzle, along with the hydrolox propellant is responsible for the RS-25’s main selling point: efficiency. The RS-25 isn’t designed primarily for thrust like Raptor (that’s what the SRBs are for), it’s designed to produce maximum efficiency (up to a specific impulse of 450 seconds) throughout the entire ascent profile.

>>11431794
>>11431830
>>11431865
NASA doesn’t actually own the RS-25, Aerojet Rocketdyne does. For example, Boeing were going to use a modified leftover RS-25 called the AR-22 for their cancelled Phantom Express.

>>11431834
This wouldn’t work because each SLS core is using engines from multiple different Shuttles e.g. CS-1 uses engines from Atlantis, Discovery and Endeavour. But your right that SLS does need a better name, then again so does Starship, Starliner etc

>>11431911
Farscape was suggested to me recently. I'll have to give that a shot at some point.
I was watching Babylon 5 and really getting into it, but amazon now wants to charge for episodes. I enjoyed season 1 enough that I may buy the DVD set.

https://blueorigin.wd5.myworkdayjobs.com/BlueOrigin

There are currently 628 job openings at Blue right now, so at least a couple anons must be qualified to work there.

>>11431880
The Expanse

>>11431834
There's a mix of engines though, STS only had 3 while SLS has 4.

>>11431868
Explain platinum.

>>11431834
They already use that naming scheme for stealth bombers.

Torch drives are not as far away as you think-work on shear flow stabilized z-pinch is advancing rapidly. ISP in excess of 10000 could easily be achieved within the next 20 years.

>>11431950
tfw only qualified for shitty, peripheral frontend web jobs because I'm a .NET developer

>>11431950
I'm finishing up my AMT certification program right now. Will apply there when i have my certs as I live 20 minutes from their Kent, WA HQ.

>>11431977
>tfw ywn stealth bomb the moon

>>11431980
>ISP in excess of 10000 could easily be achieved within the next 20 years.

sweet jesus, how short would that short the travel time from Earth - Mars, Earth - Saturn, Earth - Pluto?

>>11431973
Explain sodium. Or magnesium. Or potassium. Just accept that everyone apart from US/Canada says aluminium and even within the US most scientific literature uses aluminium. It's such a dumb argument to start. You're allying yourself with the fucking MSM and normies over pretty much all scientists in the entire world FFS. It's just dumb, not even funny.

>>11432021
Not with that attitude. Those smug fuckers need to be put in their place.

>>11431914
this website started in 2004, it's for 30 year old boomers and older. zoomers have your snapchats and discords.

>>11432029
In Vigilo Confido

alumni > aluminim > alumininm > aluminum > aluminium > ale

>>11431920
>But the big adaptable nozzle, along with the hydrolox propellant is responsible for the RS-25’s main selling point: efficiency.
Uh huh, and by sacrificing a little bit of efficiency they could pack ~ 19 on the bottom of SLS and they wouldn't need the solids. Also, you do know I am talking about a future where SpaceX decides to build a Raptor-scale hydrolox FFSC engine, right? There'd obviously be vacuum variants, and they'd probably get closer to 460 Isp due to having bigger expansion ratio nozzles, higher chamber pressure and better thermodynamic efficiency than RS-25.

>>11431980
>10,000 Isp
and you believe this is a torch ship engine? laughable. Torch ship propulsion starts at 1,000,000 Isp and requires TWR above 1.

>>11432046
>1,000,000 Isp
How long from Sol to Alpha Centauri at such speed?

>>11432048
Well, if you wanted to accelerate at 1g for example it would actually eat up about 31,530,000s of burn time to get up to a speed approaching C any faster with conventional propulsion and you'd have to worry about slamming into particles of interstellar dust so fast you'd run a serious risk of having one punch through your ship from bow to stern, IE your drive would need be burning continuously for half a year. At that point, traveling at .5 C it would take another 7.734 years on the float before you'd have to flip around and burn for another half year to get slowed back down, give or take if you can use the larger planets and the star for gravity assists on the way to slowing down. You'd need a gargantuan fusion-assisted ramjet or antimatter drive to carry that kind of propellant with you, the payload fraction would be pretty ridiculous, or your ship would need to be an enormous laser sail, with a sort of laser highway of boosting stations set up to gradually accelerate and then decelerate you to your destination kinda like a railway.

I think even with optimistic future tech a decade at the least would be my guess, more likely .25C as a ceiling for travel speed, so more like 16-20 years. It won't be too much trouble from a human standpoint, by the time we develop a fusion-assist ramjet or antimatter drive we will also likely live much, much longer than we do now.

>>11432024
All high isp engines are total fucking memes
Isp and thrust are mutually exclusive

So any “muh 100000 isp engine” involves magic sources of power that don’t exist

Only real high isp and high thrust engine is nuclear pulse propulsion

The long boi awakens..

>>11432096
how long before chinas space program begins to worry the us government?

>>11432024
I'm gonna imagine a 1000 ton (wet) vehicle. It weighs 200 tons dry, 150 of that is ship parts (structure, power, radiators) and 50 is payload including people and their food. 80% wet-dry mass fraction, achieved by liquid fuel boosters right now (the best stages are ~90% propellant by mass).
80% wet-dry ratio at 10,000 Isp gets you a delta V budget of slightly under 158 km/s. That's certainly enough to get you to a low orbit around pretty much every object in the solar system and back to Earth, except for the Sun itself. As for how *long* it would take, that's a different story.

Given a total budget of 157,800 m/s of delta V, and setting aside 17,800 m/s of that as exploration/reserve delta V (for actually scooting around the Neptune system), we have 140,000 m/s to plan our transfer around. We can't do a single burn of 140 km/s out, because then we can't stop at Neptune. We also can't do 70 km/s out, because we'd like to come back from Neptune in about the same time it took to get there. So, our outbound delta V will be 35,000 m/s from Earth to Neptune and later from Neptune to Earth, and there will be an equal magnitude braking burn at either end (not really, because the Sun's gravity will slow us down/speed us up depending on which direction we're going, but it about evens out and we're moving so fast that it doesn't make much difference anyway).

In an ideal world those delta V's will be applied instantaneously. Earth is ~149,600,000 km from the Sun, Neptune is ~4,494,000,000 km from the Sun, which means at closest approach Neptune is about 4,344,400,000 km from Earth. At 35 km/s, it takes the ship ~1436.6 days of coasting to reach Neptune. Note that in reality, unless the ship could pull decently close to 1 g of acceleration, it'd probably take months or years to reach top speed.

>>11432115
Hopefully soon, because I imagine it's the only thing that'll get the US space program moving faster than it's glacial pace.

>>11432036
Luminum >>>>>> (all that shit)

>>11432048
>How long from Sol to Alpha Centauri at such speed?
Isp does not equal speed, it equals fuel mass efficiency, which makes it easier to achieve higher top speeds in a single stage. That being said, something with an 80% propellant mass to structural+payload mass ratio and a 1 million Isp engine would have ~15,800,000 m/s of delta V, or about 19% the speed of light. It could fly by Alpha Centauri in ~24 years, or it could transfer over and capture into orbit in ~48 years, with enough maneuvering capability leftover to get to any planets in those systems for up close photos and measurements etc.

>>11432089
Pro tip, break up your sentences.

>>11432091
>Only real high isp and high thrust engine is nuclear pulse propulsion
True, however conventional implosion-type nuclear warheads are not the ceiling for NPP fuel or efficiency.

>>11432142
Maybe twitter is more your speed than rocketry, get the fuck out. How's that?

>>11432127
my thoughts exactly.

>>11432145
Dumbass, a run on sentence is a run on sentence. If you can't parse out basic communication formatting I don't want you within 100 km of a launch vehicle production facility.

>>11432096
Long March is long.

>>11432127
Real talk, is SpaceX not a part of the American space program? Are they not currently ramming the gas pedal into the floor?

>>11431880
Star trek picard and DISCO, so empowering.

>>11432127
Having a private manned landing on the moon before Artemis could might do the trick.

>>11432165
I'm sure he is speaking for the American government's handling of space exploration. NASA and such.

>>11432165
>Real talk, is SpaceX not a part of the American space program?
Yes, and no. SpaceX is involved in parts of the US government space program, but it has goals outside of what the US government wants.

>>11432165
SpaceX is going as fast as they can, but between NASA's red tape and Boeing's floundering difficulties and a lot of conflicting inter-agency conflict within NASA right now, everything that's officially under the nation's space program is treading water or floundering. SpaceX's Starship and Blue Origin's New Glenn (and other vehicles) are being developed with private funding, without the aid or red tape of NASA or Federal budgeting, so essentially no, they're not part of the nation's space program.

>>11432167
You shut your whore mouth.

>>11432165
The usg with a chinese shaped boot in its ass has access to vast resources that no private company could hope to mobilise.

>>11432157
Glad that you've confirmed that you have nothing of significant value to contribute to the conversation about rocketry. If I need someone to check my E-mails for correct grammar and punctuation I'll give you a call.

>>11432089
Is there literally nothing out there bar a few atoms per sq m? I mean no propellant stops whatsoever? Is this density of stars normal or are we particularly unlucky to have such an apparently monstrous gap to our nearest star? Are there any ideas about stationing fuelling stops? I suppose the problem is how the hell you get them there in the first place. And the whole speeding up/slowing down thing. I wonder if we're stuck in the solar system for a very long time.

>>11432185
it's 2020 sweetie, get with the program.
soon a gay black muslim transwoman will be dabbing white people on the moon.

This post is sponsored by nasa.

>>11432164
L O N G

>>11432207
>soon a gay black muslim transwoman will be dabbing white people on the moon.
Only to be met by a Blue Origin valet who would take xer lander to the designated parking spot while a waitress leads xer to the Blue Moon casino.

>>11432116
>Note that in reality, unless the ship could pull decently close to 1 g of acceleration, it'd probably take months or years to reach top speed.

Man what a drag, even interplanetary travel anywhere seems like it would take at least 6 months one way no matter what fucking engine or meme you use

>>11432221
>You see Yankee, you don't need launch rocket and risk explosion if rocket reaches orbit from ground! *laughs in chinese*

>>11432189
I am;
>>11432138
>>11432116
>>11431809
>>11431782
>>11431609
>>11431575
plus some other posts
I'd say I've contributed significantly.

>>11432165
Yes, SpaceX is a contractor/provides services to the American space program (NASA), just like Boeing, Lockheed, Northrop, Blue etc...

>>11432165
They're a contractor, they don't have a space program of their own.

>>11432198
There's basically nothing out there, though there's probably about as many rogue planets in the universe as there are stars, if not more. The issue is, in order to get up to useful interstellar speeds, you need to accelerate for years. Slowing down at a rogue planet in order to mine some ice and refuel or whatever and then accelerate off to coasting speed again would be a minimum 5 year long thing. You're always better off just doing the entire trip in one long haul. Now, if you were headed somewhere that passed close to a place you already settled, then that settlement could assist you during a flyby by blasting you with a big ass laser that you'd reflect back, generating useful thrust without you having to slow down and restock on propellant.

>>11432248
>Slowing down at a rogue planet in order to mine some ice and refuel or whatever and then accelerate off to coasting speed again would be a minimum 5 year long thing.

What the fuck why is the reality of spaceflight so shitty

>>11432226
Pretty much. In light of the time lag involved with getting around, it makes sense that in the future people will opt for going the slowboat, comfy route of just pushing their big ass space habitat home where they want it to be rather than squeeze into tiny tin can ships that blast off out of orbit with a 99% propellant mass fraction in order to get you somewhere in half the time.

Once we have space habitats we won't need to worry about radiation or bone loss in zero G or really about any of the things we worry about when it comes to space exploration and colonization. We could colonize nearby star systems by just having a fleet of rotating space habitats accelerate away using plasma engines until they reach a coasting speed of a few hundred km/s, then just piddle their civilization along for the thousands of years in transit, recycling materials from old habs to build new habs as necessary, while tugging a few asteroids from our solar system as raw feedstock material, plus a few big shared bottles of frozen heavy water for fusion fuel. When they'd arrive at the new star system, they're pretty much already a large colony, and all they have to do is spread out into various orbits around various objects and start mining and building more habitats. Then after a few thousand more years each colonized star system spits out another handful of colony groups. Repeat a few thousand times and the entire galaxy is colonized.

Also, to do intergalactic colonization, you use a laser accelerator highway as long as the galaxy is wide to accelerate a million-strong fleet of habitats towards a neighboring galaxy, and colonize galaxies similarly to how you colonized stars.

>>11432256
If it were any other way, life probably wouldn't exist.

>>11432276
>intergalactic colonization
So is there even less stuff between galaxies compared to within them?

>>11432221

>>11432291
长征系列运载火!!!

在国际商業卫星发射市场上占了一席之地。隨著美國等地私人宇宙開發商长征系列火箭除了承接中国的人造衛星发射任务外
长征十一号运载火箭也将成为未来中国商业航天发射的主力军。相较于以往政府營運,平均发射服务成本可望降低超30%、最短履约周期压缩近八成。

最早的火箭的記載出於中國宋代,[1]所以中國被公認是火箭之祖,但其不一定具軍事的價值,通常只限於娛樂用途,例如放煙花。最遲到明代有軍用的火箭問世,作為武器的火箭相對大炮主要優點是發射設備輕巧,但因為精密度較同期的大炮低,而沒有被廣泛應用。

18世紀,印度在對抗英國和法國軍隊的多次戰爭中,曾大量使用火箭,獲取良好的戰果,也因此帶動歐洲火箭技術的發展。

之後又發展出精密的導引與控制系統,而成為射程遠、命中率高的武器系統-飛彈。

在現代多次實戰中,火箭展現出野戰機動性、射程遠、射速快、火力強、高震撼力與高命中率等特性,奠定其在軍事武器發展史上的地位。
理论发展

火箭意外!!!!!

>>11432290
Absolutely, it's like the difference between being inside a star system and being between between star systems.
You're gonna be really fucked when you hear about voids between galactic filaments.

>>11432291
Kek. It's dumb stuff like this that keeps me coming back here.

>>11432291
So that’s how Huoxing will work...

>>11432305
Sometimes the universe seems to be wilfully annoying, like how it's expanding faster than the speed of light meaning there's stuff out there we'll never be able to see. STOP TEASING US

>>11432291
Wan Roket Wan Planet

>>11431962
Best answer.

>>11432291
>>11432221
>>11432164
Imagine naming your rocket after a disastrous military campaign

>>11431448
Ps, quartz is irradiated to turn it into jet black smoky quartz. It seems that if you had ultra pure quartz without aluminum impurities, it won't darken.
https://earthscience.stackexchange.com/questions/15989/how-do-you-tell-if-smoky-quartz-has-been-irradiated

Pps. Good news! Heating quartz prevents it from darkening.
https://www.mindat.org/mesg-126976.html

>>11432027
Those all end in ium. Everyone argues about Aluminum not fitting the "ium" trend but no one argues about Platinum.

>>11432096
it looks like they started building those stairs from the bottom then realized 2/3 through that they were gonna run out of room and had to increase the slope.

>>11431657
>billions of others will be as well
lol. It will be many decades (if ever) before the cumulative number of humans who have been to space surpasses even a million.

>>11429655
That can be done. You'd just need to make a factory specially for that. That costs way more than just tacking some rings together, so it may not happen for some time.

>>11431822
the cops were out and evacuated everybody from the launch site before the test
BocaChicaGal and either labpadre or spadre guy confirmed

>>11432525
>but no one argues about Platinum
Probably because it shares a common something with Argentum and Aurum.

>>11432499
>Heating quartz prevents it from darkening.

so Liberty's engine is a go then?

>>11432706
>Americans learn metric to appease rest of world
>Rest of world uses english to appease America
Stop upsetting the balance, and know your place

>>11433013
>tfw American but uses metric because of Minecraft

>>11433017
based

>>11432652
Well it'd be extremely dumb if the workers didn't evacuate from site during the test, buf still there were two cars passing right by just a minute before the explosion and I can't find any notice of road closure effective at that time online. Nobody relevant is talking about it so everything must be fine, I just cannot connect the dots for myself.

>>11433171
wrong

>>11433177
>Nobody relevant is talking about it so everything must be fine
>wrong
So you believe they're covering it up as a part of the flat earth conspiracy?

>>11432460
That's the problem when you live in a form of society that rewrites history and turns everything negative into a positive.

>>11432341
s4 was so fucking boring I'm dreading s5.

Fresh Bread
>>11433538
>>11433538
>>11433538