/sci/ - Science & Math

static fire dates

SN3 static fire NET april 1st.
SN3 150m hop NET april 6th.

so first hop in a few weeks unless boca chica is kill from chinese virus

So wait, can SpaceX actually do orbital launches from Boca Chica? With just FAA approval? Or is it just testing in Boca Chica and they have to go to a NASA spaceport for orbital launches?

>>11506306
Why not?

food from the taco truck will kill the virus

>>11506335
I don't know, it feels wrong to have a rocket launched from the US and NASA be nowhere in sight. If NASA can be cut out entirely, I literally cannot see their purpose in continuing to exist other than to organize scientific grants.

>>11506220
mods gay

>>11506220
previous thread >>11496536
>OP is a huge etc. etc.

>>11506365
OP is a huge Shelby.

>>11506340
NASA is not a regulatory agency, they have nothing to do with deciding what people do with unaffiliated rockets. They really shouldn't have anything to do with rockets at all because they're fucking terrible at it.

>>11506340
>I don't know, it feels wrong to have a rocket launched from the US and NASA be nowhere in sight
Tell that to the NRO, they've been having things launched from the US for a while with no NASA involvement.

>>11506395
ok, but a different government agency launching things isn't the same as a private company launching things

>>11506345
Hello, newfriend! What you are referring to is called the "bump limit". When a /sci/ thread reaches 310 replies, it no longer gets "bumped" to the first page after a new message is posted. Then as other threads get bumped and created, it will naturally fall to page 10 and then get archived. You can tell when a thread has reached the bump limit because the number of replies is in italics.
Since this is the same behavior as putting "sage" in the options field, it is sometimes called "autosage".

OneWeb is finished

Any news on the boca chica shutdown? That the reason no new nasaspaceflight videos?

>>11506587
Musk has routinely spoken out against the virus panic, so unless he gets a direct order from the state government—as he did with the CA Tesla factory—I imagine they're going to keep going.

>>11506523
They couldn't get new funding from investors/SoftBank.

>>11506593
Greg Wyler is an idiot, but lack of competition still bad for people, I hope Musk don't become evil :)

What about Branson's plane?

>>11506590
Every capitalist wants the bug to go away sooner than later.

>>11506340
>it feels wrong
This this and this. The government should have NASA oversee and own all rocket launches because that's the only way to guarantee both human and the environment' safety. Anything less invites potential disaster that can take lives and spill toxic gasses or liquids out in the open and nobody wants that. Companies that reject oversight should be nationalized or if they don't want to leave the country - without their assets of course.

>>11506806
Ok Shelby

https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-awards-artemis-contract-for-gateway-logistics-services
>NASA Awards Artemis Contract for Gateway Logistics Services

>>11506819
*to SpaceX

>>11506641
Wyler's business plan was driven by Musk-hate emotion. Would've worked if Musk was a generic billionaire. OneWeb was priced close enough with Iridium on cost/bandwidth. Their advantage was latency. Starlink will be better on both cost/bandwidth and latency. So OneWeb's future looked very grim.

>>11506819
>>11506846
Awarded to SpaceX, they will use a modified "Dragon XL" variant.

>>11506858
and falcon heavy? Or booster and 2nd stage?

>>11506593
They’ve had plenty of funding as is

>>11506865
Falcon Heavy can already do ~20mT TLI. DragonXL is only 5mT

>>11506871
5 tons is just the payload capacity, the vehicle’s overall mass will be considerably more.

>>11506865
Falcon Heavy
Dragon XL is going to have plenty of dv of it's own too, going from HEO to TLI on its own

>>11506734
virgin orbit will survive because of it's flexibility. it's very useful for military/government. unless you mean virgin galactic? that shit's a dead end lol.

>>11506819
is spacex going to be the sole commercial partner or will we see based cygnus continue to the moon?

>>11507009
what can launch Cygnus all the way to the moon?

>>11507016
falcon heavy

>>11507017
oh no

>>11507009
The contract award statement specifically mentions SpaceX as the first provider and mentions multiple contracts, whilst the corresponding NSF article about it mentions multiple partners for redundancy; so I assume there will be at least one other provider chosen. Also, remember that Gateway’s habitation module is basically an upscaled and upgraded Cygnus. Ironically, SpaceX will be delivering cargo to a Cygnus...

>>11507009
>will we see based cygnus continue to the moon?

Yep

>>11507033
isn't the main habitable volume of Gateway a cygnus module

>>11506340
It's like how the FAA isn't at your private airstrip

>>11506382
So if you send something to orbit that can destroy billion dollar property and kill astronauts on the ISS nasa can't do shit?

>>11507055
the FAA would stop you before you launched

>>11507057
Tricked you, what if they buck the regulations in the second stage

>>11507064
excuse me?

could anyone else be competing for a slice of the gateway action besides spacex and northrop?

>>11507070
SNC with their dreamchaser service module based "cygnus" can

>>11507066
How does the FFA stop this after they approved the booster

>>11507078
you mean like "what if they lied to the FAA" and said they would do one thing with the launch but instead did another?

>>11507070
There could be plenty, but we have no idea who is or what they bid because the bidding process is mostly confidential.

>>11507077
rooting for snc then

>>11507081
How would that even be their jurisdiction if you told the truth?

The FAA can't stop a launch because they don't approve of what you're going to do on the moon with the payload. Same with any object in orbit.

>>11507087
they can stop you if what you're planning to do is going to be dangerous to the population at large
for example, if you were planning to deliver a nuclear bomb to Moscow via orbital vehicle, the FAA would stop you before you launched
same if you were going to put a satellite in an orbit that would interfere with the ISS or other satellites

>>11506819
>>11506858
So this is a Cygnus/Progress-style expendable cargo craft? Unusual move for SpaceX, but I guess they're pretty well-positioned for these Artemis contracts so it kinda makes sense.

>>11507089
>same if you were going to put a satellite in an orbit that would interfere with the ISS or other satellites

How does the FAA know what's going to interfere with orbital operations though? That's why I'm saying NASA or some other entity has to be in charge of that.

>>11507102
no, the FAA is more than capable, they've been doing it for decades

>>11507102
>How does the FAA know what's going to interfere with orbital operations though?
it's not that hard

>>11507102
>>11507105
>>11507108
Yeah they prevent airliners from crashing into satellites every day

retards

>>11507078
They can require that it meets the specifications for the listed mission and have nothing that could be used as a weapon. They (along with other agencies of interest) can track the upper stage and it's payload. If it's heading somewhere that the company didn't list for, then action can be done. For example if it's heading to the ISS for some nefarious purpose, then the FAA can notify the US military and demand that the company change the course of the spacecraft to a safe location or have the craft destroyed and forces be deployed to the company's location(s). If no such reply is made, then those actions will be done along with the crew performing an energy evacuation for safety.

Kinetic weapons in space are deadly, but are heavily telegraphed. They would be seen literally miles away with their intentions clear.

>>11507078
By having laws in place that would punish people that do bullshit in orbit?

>>11507114
no you, retard

>>11506590
WhatAboutIt said the county the shipyard is in is under a "all non-essential businesses must close", but might be deemed essential and stay open.

Not sure if BocaChicaGal is under quarantine or not.

>>11507237
If you look at those orders in detail they usually specify the types of businesses that are ordered to close because "non-essential" is too vague to enforce.

>>11507237
Whataboutit is such a fsggot I can't stand that cunt

>>11507114
Given that they lock down air travel over launch sites during a launch, that is not even wrong though.

>>11507254
the payload isn't a satellite until it's in orbit

>>11507266
wrong

>static fire first april
>my birthday 30th march

Baka Elon forgot my birthday present again

>>11507245
Baww I don't like the thing others like!

>>11507337
Imagine being the Internet defense force for a literal faggot E celeb who just reads elons tweets on a video.

>>11507359
Imagine telling others oh fuck it

>>11506523
when were you when OniWeb dies?

>>11507586
>OniWeb

>>11507586
i was sat at home reading nasaspaceflight.com when elon ring

'oniweb is kill'

'no'

and you?????

>>11507641
im literally shaking and crying right now

>>11507641
Oni web sounds cool, I would subscribe to their services.

F

Question for you fags

Hinged payload fairings that open and close is an intuitive and ubiquitous concept in science fiction, what the fuck is so hard about make thing that open and close. What is this catching it in the ocean shit

>>11507767
If they are hinged, that means they are permanently attached to the second stage - which makes an uncontrolled entry half an orbit away, at very high speeds. Making the whole thing non recoverable.

>>11507767
It's only a problem if you're after full reusability. For rockets where the second stage doesn't come back it's just more mass that doesn't do you any good. The Shuttle had hinged doors on the payload bay in the 80s. I suspect Starship will as well once that's done.

>>11507767
What I don't get is why they don't slide inside the second stage instead. For reusable ones.

>>11507774
>I suspect Starship will as well once that's done.

That's a second question I have. One thing that was cool about the space shuttle, though I'm not sure how necessary, was that you could deploy cargo with EVA astronauts.

So take the james webb for instance, it's super expensive and taking a forever because it has to work perfectly the first time. There's no way to fix it if something goes wrong in deployment. And that goes for anything you erect long distance at a lagrangian point or lunar or martian orbit.

So I'm pretty sure astronauts being able to put hands on equipment is a cost and time saving thing. But is it better to separate crew vehicles and cargo vehicles, performing two separate flights, or have an all-in-one like the space shuttle?

>>11507801
Starship will be big enough to do both at once by sacrificing a bit of payload space iirc.

>>11506220
Did you know that there’s a species of bacteria that performs photosynthesis using only the light emitted by hydrothermal vents 2,500 meters below the sea’s surface?

>>11507793
Fuck. This is what I get for posting when tired and thinking of something else. "Reusable second stages".

>>11506739
Capitalism drives human progress.

>>11507793
like a foreskin

>>11507814
More like pic related but with the chuck retracting all the way inside.

>>11507793
>>11507806
Probably would be easier to have the fairing open up like a mouth if you're reusing the second stage. Then again, a reusable second stage would most likely require so many design solutions for reusability that the conventional fairing shape might not be feasible.

>>11507830

>>11507841
Since it's Russian shouldn't the laughing be xaxaxaxa?

>>11507767
Because no one reusesa second stage yet
Except for the shuttle ofc which was 70 tons of second stage for 20 tons of payload

>>11507882
>Except for the shuttle ofc which was 70 tons of second stage for 20 tons of payload
The Saturn V and Shuttle were so wildly ahead of their time. I'm pissed the SLS has taken so long to catch up.

>>11507889
? The Saturn V was alright but there was no progress or improvement
The shuttle was a major step back in capability or technology

>>11507905
>The shuttle was a major step back in capability or technology
Step forward for reusability and space construction (dat arm), step back for raw lift capacity and payload diameter. Starship should finally get us the best of both.

it's kind of boring watching america conquer the stars. where's the competition?

>>11507910
Currently dying by the millions (see cell phone subscriber loss data) thanks to their propensity to eat undercooked bats and pangolins.

>>11507760
F
Sad to see a company fail like this. You can tell there was soul behind it, even if it was oldspace

>>11507009
>>11507028
>>11507033
Looks like SpaceX cinched the ONLY award according to Spaceflight Now: https://spaceflightnow.com/2020/03/27/nasa-picks-spacex-to-deliver-cargo-to-gateway-station-in-lunar-orbit/
>Mark Wiese, deep space logistics manager at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, said the agency considered selecting more than one cargo transportation provider for the Gateway, but eventually settled on picking a single contractor. NASA could open up the Gateway Logistics Services contract to more companies in the future, but there is no specific timetable to do so, he said.

>>11507037
A very heavily modified one, yes.

>>11508074
holy shit, northrop grumman btfo
they get to build ONE cygnus for gateway
SpaceX get to build a new Dragon XL for every single resupply mission

>>11508096
Yeah, it's gotta sting for them. They really could've used those Lunar Cygnus launches to help prop up OmegA.

Russians probably so mad right now.
Their largest contract in ages just slipped between their fingers.
Also, if I remember correctly, One Web sats used russian ion engines, so some russian company just lost contract for 200+ ion engines.

>>11508074
Kinda odd that NASA would do that considering how hard they fought to get two ISS commercial crew providers. Hopefully the decision doesn't bite them in the rear somehow.

>>11508177
It's all about the line-item. HLS needs cash BAD. Everything in Artemis not needed for the Moon landing is getting its line-item reduced.

>>11508074
Well at least they'll have Europe and Japan to deliver cargo too.

>>11508181
Sounds reasonable.

>https://casedocs.omniagentsolutions.com/cmsvol2/pub_47378/808974_437-1.pdf
Oneweb bankrupt now official.

>>11508096
>>11508107
>SpaceX get to build a new Dragon XL for every single resupply mission

Their currently on contract for just two cargo launches...

>>11508459
>Implying everything doesn't go right on the backburner because MUH ECONOMY CORONA VIRUS STIMULUS PACKAGES
Doesn't matter what NASA signs right now, I don't think they'll get a single fucking cargo launch.

>>11507586
>>11507641
>>11507668
>OniWeb

>>11507641
>ONIIWEB
>DENWA!

>>11508649

So Gateway is not cancelled?

>>11508671
For now.

Recommend me a book to start learning about Spaceflight/mars colonisation etc.... Non fiction that is.

>>11508708

https://www.nasa.gov/stem-ed-resources/how-rockets-work.html

>>11508177
Maybe the competition showed them only 1 party was serious

What's so dumb about the gateway again?

I know it doesn't do anything and you could just go straight to the moon. But it occurred to me that we have no experience with surface bases. So you'd have to land, build, and supply a surface base before you could use it. Where would astronauts live while work is in progress? Why figure out how to resupply a surface base without getting dust on shit when you can just dock like the ISS?

>>11508926
It gives us a reason to go back, it also gives us much easier access to larger portions of the moon.
But politicians don't really want that, they just want another fucking flags and footprints selfie opportunity for press coverage as well as a vague promise of Mars that they'll never intend to fulfill.

>>11508932
Yeah but a lot of people honestly invested in the advancement of space exploration recoiled at the idea

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_Gateway#Criticism

I've heard it described the other way, that politicians love it because it's another jobs program

>>11508956
Honestly, I would prefer a Lunar Base on the surface too, but I'd fucking take an orbiter over nothing.
Right now, I suspect we're headed for fucking nothing.

That criticism consists mostly of "Why aren't we building a base on the moon itself" and "Why aren't we going to Mars".

>>11508956
the main criticism is it's not really innovative, it's the smallest possible step forward conceivable just to say that you did something

>>11508926
Gateway makes it harder to get onto the Lunar Surface, not easier, due to the additional Delta-V requirements involved in making a stop and docking there.

In a perfect world, Gateway would be used as a staging area for a Lunar Base as well a staging area for manned Mars missions.
But we don't live in a perfect world. Expect the coming years to be extremely fucking meager years for space exploration with a lot of cuts in congress because MUH MONEY FO DEM PROGRAMS DUE TO CHINESE FLU.

>>11508708
The Case for Mars by Zubrin. His plan hasn’t really changed much in the 20+ years since, and most of the principles still apply for any Mars mission.

If you build a big shield and fill it with water, is it technically self healing if the water freezes and patches the hole? Or would it not work like that in space?

>>11509191
Wouldn't the water just get sucked out of the hole then freeze?

>>11509280
it doesn't have to be pressurized, although it would probably be way to expensive energy-wise to keep it liquid without pressure

>>11508671
sls = falcon 9
gateway = starship

>>11508978
I think lots of people are anticipating that will happen. Luckily we have SpaceX.

>>11508926
>>11508932
>>11508956
>>11508960
Most politicians are too stupid to understand sunken costs.
This was our crux with the shuttle program. We had to keep it going otherwise it would look like a waste of money.
But with the lunar gateway, in order to not make it look like a waste of money, we'd have to be making frequent trips to the moon.

>>11509545
>Most politicians are too stupid to understand sunken costs.
No, you don't understand. They don't give a shit.
As long as they can go back to their constituents and say "look, I managed to bring x jobs for Boing or whatever fucking oldspace corporation to our state, vote for me in the elections!" that's mission fucking accomplished as far as politicians are concerned.
The game isn't about getting the most bang for your bucks or even getting anything in return for your bucks. It's about getting re-elected.

Politicians don't think like engineers or space nerds do. They think about how to ensure they get to spend the next four years taking another round trip on the gravy train.

Will SpaceX get any money for the Dragon XL stuff upfront? Kinda doubting that most of the SLS/Gateway projects will happen to be honest...

>>11509571
>ook, I managed to bring x jobs for Boing or whatever fucking oldspace corporation to our state, vote for me in the elections!"
Anything we do in space is incredibly costly. So if we can convince them to invest in something grand and put a lot of money towards it, cancelling will be thought of as being a waste of money (sunk costs).
This is why we need Trump to get us as close the the moon as possible. Then, no matter who takes over, they'd be unwilling to change course.
>They think about how to ensure they get to spend the next four years taking another round trip on the gravy train.
Four? Where are you from?
US House - 2, US Senate - 6, Presidency - 4.

>>11509584
nasa provided the money to get the first two modules of the gateway done, so spacex probably got something too

>>11509588
Yeah, I'm not from the US so I just pulled that number out of my ass since our elections are every 4 years with 2 years in between alternating between state and municipal/county.
Politicians are of the same stripe no matter where you are in the world.

>>11509595
>Politicians are of the same stripe no matter where you are in the world.
That's true.
Well, most are. Occasionally you get someone truly great.

Are you from Europe? The ESA is a mess.

>>11509588
>they'd be unwilling to change course
That, is incredibly naive. How much money was sunk into Constellation before it was ditched?

>>11509607
Yes, and ESA is a fucking joke.

>>11509007
He's got a 2011 version.

gateway should be open to as much science as possible on it, that way it can copy the ISS where they have people paying to put their research, commercial, and personal payloads on the gateway. maybe they can add a commercial module or segment later?

>>11509611
>That, is incredibly naive. How much money was sunk into Constellation before it was ditched?
Extenuating circumstances - the great recession.
But you're right. It isn't always true, sometimes they cancel anyway.
>Yes, and ESA is a fucking joke.
It's too bloated with bureaucrats, lacks good leadership or clear goals.

>>11509628
>It's too bloated with bureaucrats
Europe is too bloated with bureaucrats. Red tape is all we produce these days it feels like. It's the one fucking sector that keeps growing every year.

TOTAL

MARKET

DOMINATION

>>11507841
thats a small helicopter, or a big plane

>>11508926
It was a comprise during the Obama administration. The administration didn't want any Mars nor moon missions, but NASA still had those goals in mind so they came up with a space station that's near the moon but technically not that close to it. This workaround allowed for the Gateway to be funded but it didn't enable any moon missions other than missions to Gateway. On top of that, it's ambitions are pretty low as it's just ISS 2.0. Really NASA should've changed it's plans for a lunar base.

However, it's better than nothing as it gives NASA a reason to go BEO, much like how the ISS gave NASA a reason to go to LEO. So it has a use, but Congress may push it aside and just go for Apollo 2.0. Which could mean a sudden loss of interest in space once the flags have been planted on the moon again.

>>11509628
>Extenuating circumstances - the great recession.
Counter example, X-33.

>>11509677
>However, it's better than nothing
I disagree. Space exploration can't be done in these small shitty steps or piecemeal over the course of several decades. The necessary infrastructure to have a real space economy takes a huge investment of time and money and risk, and there are no economic incentives along the way to keep capitalists interested long enough.

>>11509689
If it's not done in small shitty steps, we get nothing or if we're lucky, a re-enactment of Apollo then 50 years of nothing while they quietly deorbit the ISS.

>>11509706
Nothing is better than a fruitless usage of resources. Hire the most expensive contractor you possibly can and then pay him double, let him be late and still pay him on time, then ask him to build you a house one single brick at a time but have them only lay a single brick each month. You'll never get an actual house, maybe if you're lucky you'll get a single wall which costs ten times as much as a complete house would have.

>>11509689
With the messy politics of US space flight, small steps ratcheting forward is better than trying to do large leaps only to be canceled 4 to 8 years later and its definitely better than nothing. What we should be doing as well is to encourage non-American and private space flight as much as possible. It'll be hard for Congress to sell some small step while acting like NASA is a world leading space agency when others are doing the same or more.

>>11509725
Yeah, because we have endless time on this rock. I'm sure 50 more years of globalism and Chinese bat soup surprises won't do any harm, right?

>>11509706
no, we get cookies on the ISS just to say we're doing something and everyone pats themselves on the back and no real progress gets made.

>>11509740
Whoever runs NASA's PR should be strapped to a fucking SRB and launched, for testing purposes.

>>11509736
Yes, let's spend another few hundred billion dollars, maybe they'll replace the ISS with something marginally more technologically advanced, but maybe a module or two smaller, and hey we can land on the moon again because that will definitely BTFO the Chinese and they'll just give up being a world power and go home. What are you fucking retarded? Government space programs are not the future for the US, they can barely even work up the energy to build an inferior copy of a 50 year old rocket.

>>11509748
Well, look at what you'll be getting instead. A single Apollo 2.0 Selfie Opportunity! In 2028.
Oh and vague promise of a single manned swing by Mars some time in the mid 2030's that you know they're never ever going to uphold.
And that was before the current situation started. So yeah, shall we be generous and only add 4 years to that schedule? 8? 12 maybe?

It's ok to dream, but get ready for Constellation 2.0.

>>11509740
Or smelling roses
Or trimming green beans
Or doing the wrong exercises
Or watching rats fuck

>>11509740
>everyone pats themselves on the back and no real progress gets made
*and cashes their checks

>>11509740
>>11509746
The cookies were actually well received by normies and most people in general (aka literally everybody but the seething autists here). Furthermore, it was a privately funded experiment not a NASA one.

>>11509773
>The cookies were actually well received by normies and most people in general
For 5 whole fucking seconds until everyone forgot the ISS existed again.
NASA needs to get their heads out of their asses and stop with with the kindergarten tier pandering only.

>>11509773
the point is that we need to set ambitious, concrete goals and stop paying contractors if they fail to reach them. Failure is already built into Artemis. It is fundamentally flawed.

>>11509773
Why the fuck should anybody here give a shit what you normies like? Normies in general would rather trade space for a .02% increase in gibsmedats.

>>11509773
>The cookies were actually well received by normies and most people in general
Source? Because all I recall was 14 minutes of fame for the experiment before forgetting about it. Meanwhile the actual space flight fans wonder why this wasn't tried sooner.

>>11509789
>before EVERYONE forgetting about it
A word.

>>11509789
No, that's what he's referring to. It was in the headlines in MSM here too for all of half an hour or something. They usually don't give about space unless something blows up spectacularly.

what would be more expensive, a moonbase or gateway?
Lets say the moonbase would be occupied about as much a year as gateway.

>>11509911
moon base would be way more expensive, but would be 1000x as worth it

>>11509917
After the end of ISS, the money should go to a permanent moonbase.
And starship and maybe new glen as the transport service.

>>11509911
Moonbase, but it would be better than Gateway.

>>11509921
>After the end of ISS, the money should go to a permanent moonbase.
Considering the Hollywood-style accounting for NASA's flagship programs, all that money could only afford a porta-potty sized module on the moon.

>>11509689
>The necessary infrastructure to have a real space economy takes a huge investment of time and money and risk

As Spacex has shown us, it does not at all require a massive investment or even that much risk
Private space companies weren’t even legal before 2000 or whenever

Starts with an organization making a practical sincere attempt and being cheap Jews

>>11509938
>it does not at all require a massive investment or even that much risk
you forget SpaceX was formed in 2002. Blue Origin was founded in 2000. If Musk wasn't so autistically single-minded and Bezos wasn't so stupidly rich both of them would have given up a long time ago.

>>11509946
Yea but Blue Origin had a smaller initial budget, and decided to do some suborbital nonsense for the next 10 years
Then cry when they didn’t get any NASA awards or contracts

Say you have the “commercial cargo/crew” program in the 70s after Apollo waiting to finance any private organization making sincere efforts to reach space

Maybe it’s a whole different world

>>11509931
>Considering the Hollywood-style accounting for NASA's flagship programs, all that money could only afford a porta-potty sized module on the moon.
all of that could change with starship delivering 110tons per trip to the moon by 2022 (shotwell's words)
They could put a decent sized excavator (that is purpose build ofcourse) on the moon that way, and combine that with a installation than can build bricks from materials on the moon and you could easly build underground shelters when you get some airlocks,sealants, etc...

Only the moon dust being very similar to ground up glass in structure and creating problems in the lungs&eyes of astronauts would be a real problem.
It's never much talked about but it was a thing during the apollo missions.

>>11510030
>Only the moon dust being very similar to ground up glass in structure and creating problems in the lungs&eyes of astronauts would be a real problem.
It gives us an excuse for sweaty, goopy decon chambers like on ST: Enterprise.

>>11508177
>only one provider for services
>it's SpaceX
while I like SpaceX I don't think it's a good idea to only have a single provider
at the same time, spreading out the extremely limited resupply launches across more than one provider may make it uneconomical
Falcon Heavy is probably one of the best vehicles to launch such a service anyway

>>11508096
Jwstbucks, who cares

>>11510106
>Falcon Heavy is probably one of the best vehicles to launch such a service anyway
If they can do it on a reusable profile it's by far the best vehicle until Starship comes online. Disposable rockets are never going to be competitive on costs again. I agree monopolies are bad, but maybe other companies could try making their own reusable rockets.

Why is none of this as enticing as the mysteries JWST or LUVOIR could uncover ? Only cause it's easier to vicariously revere in a more tangible human accomplishment like walking on Moon or Mars and having a big parry ? Isnt it kinda primitive and a bit wasteful of minds and $ in the super long run? We know the geophysics, astro, the chemistry of them. There,s not even a real opportunity to learn crazy shit like from deeper strata of gas giants or the Sun.

Some rocks vs the nature of the universe. I guess they'll be our rocks, yay

>>11510138
The nature of the universe doesn't matter much if all our eggs are still in one basket when the next comet strikes. Offworld expansion is an imperative.

>>11510138
If we're gonna do it, might as well go all the fucking way such that the set of people alive right now have a shot at becoming interplanetary frontiersmen and colonists. Otherwise, why should our generation put in the heavy lifting to get up off the ground the hardest few steps when we'll have better data, fuels, materials, bots, habitats, mechatronics and protocols 100 years from now, enough to make it a doozy when you actually have to lift payloads that must keep meatbags alive ? Why not just robots now ? It's schizophreniac, and we tell ourselves it's foresight.
Epic, courageous, only too illogical and the humanistic and ego rewards are basically left only for billionaires atm.
It doesnt even really make sense from a political stand point. Current population represented will never get to fully enjoy it.

Cosmological mysteries are opportunities for whoadude rewards right here, right now, for our generation.

>>11510149

Sure, but it's inevitable anyway. Why not wait till it's cheaper ? And use those resources to actually maintain the environment we have now and explore with robots at a fraction of the cost and double the hard data insight.

>>11510164
>Sure, but it's inevitable anyway.
It's NOT. Civilization in a nuclear armed world is a fragile thing, and we've already used up all the easy oil so there will be no path back to the stars if we collapse. We need to expand off world RIGHT NOW while we have the means, the motive, and the opportunity.

>>11510100
B A S E D

>>11510169
Nukes cant kill the world, not anymore than we've been doing. Seems awfully self defeating.

>Muh opportunity for 20 billionaires

Cant just chill, enjoy a clear sky, develop real blue sky fundamental math that trickles into myriad of applications without depleting a shitload of our biosphere and stuff just to fuel a presently self defeating and BORING industrial vision. You probably wont hike on Olympus mons, however you might get tantalizing empirical hints the universe is a hologram. Perspective.

>>11510199
>dude just chill out maaaaan
>muh billionaires
Go be a commie somewhere else.

>>11510169

>Im a joyless termite migrating from rotten log to rotten log and i approve this message
>i dont even want to risk knowing theres other life out there who might just do things differently

Actually discovering biosignatures or a confirmed ayy signal will dwarf a million Mars landings.

And why does everyone keep calling it "colonization" ? Why not "population (vb.) ? We didnt colonize Antarctica.

>>11510164
>Why not wait
I fully expect a long-lived, airborne brain-eating amoeba accidentally escaping from a chinese lab in the next 50 years.

>>11510251
>Actually discovering biosignatures or a confirmed ayy signal will dwarf a million Mars landings.
Sure, until another K-T class asteroid impact wipes out humanity. We need both. Sitting on Earth jacking off to telescope readings is not a path forward by itself.
>And why does everyone keep calling it "colonization" ?
Because we want to build colonies. Full, self-sustaining human populations off world.

>>11510203
Chill figuratively. Takes a lot more calories to think about the real big questions than to think about better routes for robots to build phallic monoliths for excentric elites who got bored of skydiving.

>>11510188
Fuck I loved that show as a kid. Based.

Thoughts on Dragon XL? What are the uses beyond Artemis/gateway?

>>11510259
>Muh asteroid threat/honeycomb

Cosmic timescales and it's an assload easier to mitigate if you see it coming. We're getting off Earth anyway. Why not slow down the first steps and leave some of the workflow for our grandkids who'll have better, more efficient, less resource intensive tools... and accelerate the map-making first ?

Again, it offers actual rewards and actual beacons of posterity for the egos of currently living people.

>>11510138
Need I remind you that by the time of Insight landing on Mars we had no idea of the mechanical properties of Martian soil, and perhaps many other properties that we're not aware of. Meanwhile it took the probe months to try and fail to drive a simple probe into the ground due to us not understanding the soil. However, a couple of humans with a shovel could drive more probes into the ground to study Mars in a day than robotic probes can in years.

>Some rocks vs the nature of the universe.
The reason why some people are fascinated with space rocks is the same reason why you're fascinated by the stars into the far distance, to learn about something that's begging to be discovered.

>>11509770
>Or watching rats fuck

Would have been useful and actually productive if they had them live in a small centrifuge but nope gotta fuck that up too.

>>11510199
Fuck off mathfag, go back to your containment threads.

>>11510289
Sometimes I wonder if NASA intentionally avoids centrifugal testing due to fears that they would cause the ISS to be canceled. IDK if the rat sex testing was from NASA, but it seems odd that they never really tested artificial gravity apart from that one Gemini test.

>>11508926
So what's the likelihood of Lunar Gateway actually being built as well as a permanent Lunar installation proper?

>>11510279
>grandkids
Why hurry so much? Leave it for those living in XXXI century. Spaceflight will be trivial for them. Cosmic timescales!
Better yet, I'm sure the dominant civilization(s) in a mere million years will have no trouble detecting any incoming threat and just moving Earth out of the way or something. And in the meantime we can put everyone on welfare (which is generated by the magical field emanating from Lenin's mummy) and plug everyone into VR. Real life is so BORING anyway.

>>11510279
>We're getting off Earth anyway
Famous last words.

>>11507767
You'd have to attach the fairings to the first stage and put the entire second stage plus payload inside the fairings, that's a lot of extra fairing mass.

US space crafts in next few years:
Cargo Dragon (LEO / Cargo)
Crew Dragon (LEO /Crew)
Dragon XL (Deep Space / Cargo)
Starship (Deep Space / Crew / Lander)
Orion (Deep Space / Crew)
Cygnus (LEO / Cargo)
Starliner (LEO /Crew)

I missed something here?

11510279

>>11510347
you mean the dinosaurs?

>>11510360
Anyone got any good images of Dragon XL?

>>11510371
We've been taking giant strides since 1972, haven't we?

>>11510360
and Dream Chaser (LEO / Cargo)

>>11510274
None

>>11510375
there is exactly one good image of Dragon XL and it's up on the NASA news page and I believe in this thread but I'm not going to check because fuck that

>>11510100
ywn decontaminate your fellow astronauts in the decon chamber
why even live?

>>11510386
They robbed this from us.

>>11510443
Daily reminder that the ISS was meant to be used as a staging point for future missions to the Moon and Mars.

>>11510453
And now they just baked some cookies while solving the micro-g atrophy issues with the most simple solution. Meanwhile any meaningful mission gets shot down due to BS politics. This is why I almost hope for China to BTFO the US on getting to the moon and that they plant their big red flag on the surface right nearby an Apollo site. That way the US will finally treat space flight seriously.

>>11509611
>That, is incredibly naive. How much money was sunk into Constellation before it was ditched?
A lot less than SLS or Orion. Constellation existed for like 3 years and never even got past PDR, much less fabrication

>>11510360
HLS (lander)

>>11510466
Same.

At least we have SpaceX and Blue Origin.

I will also say that with all the focus SpaceX has on Mars, I really do hope they don't just completely abandon the Moon either, since we should really be colonizing that as well since that'd be much more valuable as a port and a staging point for deep space exploration and colonization. If anything, shorter term, the Moon is way more valuable.

>>11510485
there's a bunch of those planned, right?
Boeing's, Blue Moon, whatever SpaceX is planning to offer, probably some variant of DragonXL

>>11510494
>At least we have SpaceX and Blue Origin.
Fair point, although both would try to be nice towards the image of NASA. China would shatter it if they felt that it would give them an advantage.

>I will also say that with all the focus SpaceX has on Mars, I really do hope they don't just completely abandon the Moon either, since we should really be colonizing that as well since that'd be much more valuable as a port and a staging point for deep space exploration and colonization. If anything, shorter term, the Moon is way more valuable.
I agree with you. I think the moon is a much better first step towards long term space habitation and space resource utilization. However, in the end I don't really care about the Mars versus Moon debate, because first off there should be multiple missions doing different things and secondly anything meaningful done in space will make me happy. So I'll be just as excited if SpaceX completely ignores the moon. If they want to do something big in space and they have the means, then they should go for it.

>>11510494
I think we should focus to land on Mars first, and later we could build permanent base on Moon no problem, you really don't want China land on Mars first.

>>11510539
The US is starting from scratch on how to get people on other planets&moons.
You can see the moon as a beta test for the mars mission.

And yes, it's fucking sad that all this knowledge has been lost.

>>11510453
And yet no hardware in the station even exists to support that lol

>>11510597
>literally can't even make an F-1 anymore
how does this happen in modern day?

>>11510614
Turing the ISS into a pr*p*ll*nt d*p*t would be sacrilege.

>>11510619
TBF, the F-1 can be made today and even better than what was used for Apollo. It's just that NASA has no interest in using them.

>>11510614
I do remember talk about how ISS would be a spacedock where astronauts would assemble infrastructure for deep space missions in it's early days.
And i also remember how ISS would be a lot bigger then what we have now.

Fucking politicians.

>>11510627
>TBF, the F-1 can be made today and even better than what was used for Apollo
we can build the better version, but we can't build THE F-1 because all the notes were lost

>>11510622
Instead it’s a tourist location, or at least it would be if any “human rated” launch vehicle existed in the US lol

SN3s left the Highbay.

>>11510785
where's it moving towards?

>>11510807
The future.

>>11510807
Completely uninformed guess: Pressure testing. Just because they *think* they solved the problem in general, doesn‘t mean they definitely have, specifically in this implementation.

>>11510874
I meant if they were rolling it out of the high bay and just across the yard or if they were taking it down the street
we know they're going to pressure test it because they installed hydraulic rams to simulate raptor thrust underneath the pressure testing mount at the launch site

Considering that chemical propellants are barely good enough for interplanetary (and translunar) transport, nuclear thermal seems to be the logical next step in propulsion technology. My question is, considering the dangers of having fissile materials near places where people live (such as Earth, a planetary base, or a space station) how would the use of this technology be handled?

Would there just be a national organization for each nation that holds the sole right to use NTR engines while forbidding private ownership? Would this organization be international or even universally international? Would private ownership of atomic rockets be allowed, but with tight restrictions?

>>11510907
the most dangerous thing private companies can do is just be in orbit and we already allow them to do that

>>11510913
>the most dangerous thing private companies can do is just be in orbit
How so?

>>11510929
nigger

>>11510933
I don't understand how a Soviet super heavy rocket has anything to do with this.

>>11510466
>while solving the micro-g atrophy issues with the most simple solution.

I'm still pissed how cheap the spinning sleeping donut was and they never built it. If we know we can spin something small to cut down on the wasting issues that's one major problem of going to mars solved.

>>11510375
I think even the 1 picture we have is an artist rendering that could be based on nothing

https://twitter.com/Caspar_Stanley/status/1243894081534808066

Doesn't look sexy enough for spacex

>>11510961
that's some nobody's rendition
he based it entirely on the image released by NASA from SpaceX, which is probably based on some engineering they've done

>>11510961
>>11510968
Realized nasa has shown this guy before

>>11510961
Considering how rushed Gateway would need to be, I can imagine SpaceX forgoing form for function to get a spacecraft done quickly.

>>11510994
no that's a Cygnus
except of course, Dragon XL and Cygnus are essentially the same thing

>>11510907
NTR is a fucking meme I dunno why you people keep talking about it
It is not better than a methane lox rocket

I youtubed starship live

Please tell me this is a rerun of an explosion that already happened

>>11511038
yeah that's the Mk1 explosion, looks like
if you want the actual livestream, you need to search for "Labpadre" or "spadre" and find their channels

>>11511038
SN3 doesn't have fins

how does one procure the money needed for a moon base - star citizen made quite a bit of cash - is a similar thing possible to raise the pool of money and get a contract out? Or can nasa front all of those costs, or will blue.

We have the launch providers but the critical component providers are still not there. In theory, maybe the bottle neck is access. But it seems to be rarely that simple.

>>11510330
guys?

i really want to know

>>11507819
There's no room inside

>>11509285
>keep it liquid without pressure
Literally impossible

>>11511169
zero

>>11510169
>m-Muh oil scarcity

Oil reserves are sufficient for over two hundred years. Nuclear war was never an actual threat. Stop watching movies.

>>11510913
Private companies are a good thing, commie.

>>11510907
>My question is, considering the dangers of having fissile materials near places where people live

Uranium doesn’t emit significant radiation just sitting there.

>>11511351
>didn't even read the post he replied to

>>11508926
>where would astronauts live while work is in progress?

Are you imagining astronauts using the gateway as a home while they go down the surface and back up daily to build their base?

It seems your fascination with the gateway stems entirely from outright ignorance regarding spaceflight and basic physics and this is frankly not forgivable despite what people might have told you in school regarding your special qualities.

As for the actual reasons why the gateway is dumb is that it takes away the chance to do real missions by consuming decades worth of budget and of course time.

>>11511351
Private companies have no place in space.

>>11511978
>Are you imagining astronauts using the gateway as a home while they go down the surface and back up daily to build their base?
Wow buddy, way to jump to conclusions.

>>11511978
>As for the actual reasons why the gateway is dumb is that it takes away the chance to do real missions by consuming decades worth of budget and of course time.
Said by someone, somewhere, about every foundational HSF program up to and including the ISS.
Honestly, it's just sour grapes from people who get all upset that something doesn't track with THEIR preferred architecture.

Why does NASA still continue to collaborate with Russia and not China? Russia is literally just a gas and oil station. They aren't big in anything in the world, let alone /sf/. Replace them with China and get more cash and brains.

>>11512126
Because fuck China. Don't know if you've been paying attention, but they're not exactly what you'd call trustworthy.

OH NO NO NO NO NO NO

>>11512018
The tincan is even more useless than the downgraded ISS though.

It's a boat anchor in a god forsaken orbit meant to be manned literally once an year for week or two born out of technical, contractual, and political requirements not particularly related to space exploration and human expansion or even lunar missions.

>>11512130
And Russia is???? They literally poison people in Britain, invade other countries and hack American elections. Don't get me wrong, I'm no fan of China. But for /sf/, China >>>>> Russia.

>meanwhile near rio grande

>>11512156
Yeah, that's small time shit vs infecting the entire fucking planet, my boy.
Fuck China.

>>11512126
>>11512156
Neither are particularly trustworthy, but can you seriously not see that Russia is better than China.
Even the Soviets thought that the Chinese were too extreme.

>>11512164
The virus was spread by the CIA that's why its called america flu.
t.totally not chang

>>11512173
>t.totally not chang
Well, that's what the internet has been looking like the last few weeks, yes.

>>11512160
soon

>>11512142
Isnt the new glen as big as the SLS?

>>11512126
there's a reason China still isn't allowed on the ISS
Besides, ESA is working with China and we'll see how far that gets them

>>11512173
Okay XI

动态网自由门 天安門 天安门 法輪功 李洪志 Free Tibet 六四天安門事件 The Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 天安門大屠殺 The Tiananmen Square Massacre 反右派鬥爭 The Anti-Rightist Struggle 大躍進政策 The Great Leap Forward 文化大革命 The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution 人權 Human Rights 民運 Democratization 自由 Freedom 獨立 Independence 多黨制 Multi-party system 台灣 臺灣 Taiwan Formosa 中華民國 Republic of China 西藏 土伯特 唐古特 Tibet 達賴喇嘛 Dalai Lama 法輪功 Falun Dafa 新疆維吾爾自治區 The Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region 諾貝爾和平獎 Nobel Peace Prize 劉暁波 Liu Xiaobo 民主 言論 思想 反共 反革命 抗議 運動 騷亂 暴亂 騷擾 擾亂 抗暴 平反 維權 示威游行 李洪志 法輪大法 大法弟子 強制斷種 強制堕胎 民族淨化 人體實驗 肅清 胡耀邦 趙紫陽 魏京生 王丹 還政於民 和平演變 激流中國 北京之春 大紀元時報 九評論共産黨 獨裁 專制 壓制 統一 監視 鎮壓 迫害 侵略 掠奪 破壞 拷問 屠殺 活摘器官 誘拐 買賣人口 遊進 走私 毒品 賣淫 春畫 賭博 六合彩 天安門 天安门 法輪功 李洪志 Winnie the Pooh 劉曉波动态网自由门

>>11512237
also NASA would rather work with JAXA than the CCP and those partnerships are probably mutually exclusive

>>11509966
>Say you have the “commercial cargo/crew” program in the 70s after Apollo waiting to finance any private organization making sincere efforts to reach space
>Maybe it’s a whole different world
The public was too fucked up about Vietnam and then the Energy Crisis and then Iran to care about space. By the time that all cleared up in the '80s, Shuttle was already a thing.

>>11512160
Please don‘t blow up again.

>>11512222
New Glenn is smaller than the SLS but not by much. ~95 m vs 110 m
>>11512242
that's a sensible decision
also keeping Russian aerospace engineers employed and the rocket tooling out of the hands of iran and north korea is probably a good idea

Right let me get this straight.
Are LabPadre and SPadre the same people?

Why are SPadres live cams never working?

>>11512309
SPadre is an incompetent and a small business owner or something, and his stream is always down despite literally just being a telephoto camera on the roof of his shop
LabPadre is an insufferable retarded surfer cunt who won't shut up, but he has a wicked live-stream remote camera setup with a microwave beam or something across the coastal wetlands from just outside the build site to some receiving location in either Port Isabel or South Padre Island

SpaceX doesn't get it right until #4 bros, brace yourself for SN3 failure. i hope i am wrong

>>11512333
the SN2 test tank went well, and SN3 is just that with the rest of the ship too

>>11512333
This one's not going to blow up they've learned their lessons.
This one's going to crash.

>>11512321
Excellent, thanks.

>>11512341
engine failure?
GNC failure?

>>11512126
It's a shonen trope that your enemy becomes your ally after you defeat him. Russia is vegeta basically

Also they've sent our astronauts into space for almost a decade ever since the shuttle was grounded. Not sure if we ever had an alternative.

>>11512350
there has been no alternative
you could maybe have men ride up in a cygnus but there's no way to get them back down or survive a rocket accident in a trashcan

>>11512347
I won't bet on the exact reason but it will be landing related after they gain confidence with a small hop and go for a bigger riskier one.

>>11511978
>despite what people might have told you in school regarding your special qualities.

Actually it was your mom that said I can do whatever I want

What is the status of SN5? When SN4 inevitably explodes will we have to wait for next attempt?

>>11511038
>I youtubed starship live
There's a bunch of faggots out there who re-stream old recorded stuff as "live" to get views.
Maybe LabPadre should start putting the date on their videos.

SN3 sitting on the pad, right now from LabPadre stream

>>11512365
probably waiting to see what improvements need to be made on SN3 first

>>11512365
Domes and rings are visible here and there but no real stacking as of yet I think.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sd5ZLJWQmss

>>11512341
Then they'll build another one, and that one will stay up!

>>11512384
And now that the big one's out in the field the workers can focus on the next one, or laze around of course.

>>11512365
It took around a month to build SN3. SN4 by the end of April?

>>11512411
they're building them in parallel. I wouldn't be surprised if the first closure in the OP was for SN3 and the second (the hop) for SN4.

How much do you expect SpaceX get from NASA for Dragon XL?
They got $1.6b for Dragon 1 and $2.6b for Dragon 2

Lifting up on the test stand now.

>>11512130
A rumor I've heard is that China stole alot of sensitive information from NASA.

>>11512126
Russia aren't big in spaceflight?

Pressure test should be after 5pm tonight, lads. SN3 is just touching the mount now.

>>11512502
The other anon is correct. Russia's space flight is collapsing anon. I am Russian. There's nothing in this country any more. We don't produce anything, we don't make anything. Anyone with a brain has left to Europe and USA.

>>11512507
You can always start selling soviet IP's and score a few more points on the charts with the ownership rates of luxury yachts. With this new space craze plenty of markets are opening for related hardware and schematics.

>>11512376
that fucking crane

DATS A HUGE BITCH!

was anon was right about them not doing any fins or legs until after the initial tests? can we expect SN3 to pass the tests and then go back for modifications?

>>11512671
SN3 will pass the tests and then be scrapped to make room for SN4 which will be finished by that point

>>11512671
I don't think SN3 is planned to be used for the hop

>>11512156
And what about USA is???? They literally assasinate people around the globe, invade other countries and hack into power plant systems.

>>11512671
I think the other two Anons might be right, they could do a lot of different rough testing with SN3, full propellant load test fires, full flight duration test firing, stuff like that, but since they're working with simple steel it might un-ironically be cheaper to just replace SN3 with SN4, refining it for flight control surfaces and landing legs.

>>11512156
Chinese spies have been caught acting as staffers for the DNC, China is perpetually stealing technology from both Europe and the US via industrial espionage and electronic intrusion, and they only avoid global conflict because they don't yet have a navy of sufficient size to carry their enormous land army around from place to place.

>>11512126
The reason China develops it's space program alone is that they are considered shady by almot every space agency, China wanted to be part of the ISS but they were blocked by because there was a serious concern they would steal tech

>>11512458
What does DragonXL actually need in terms of development? Looks to me like it‘s just bigger with less features.
Should be about as easy as spaceflight gets.

>>11512692
>Chinese spies have been caught acting as staffers for the DNC, China is perpetually stealing technology from both Europe and the US via industrial espionage and electronic intrusion
This, not only DNC but a bunch of different companies and universities too

>>11512726
Not to mention stealing viruses too, apparently.

>>11512507
Russia will be a failed state as soon as fossil fuel demand drops.
So the country has between 10-40 years left, depending on how lazy countries are on climate action/energy independence.

>>11512687
>What about
>What about
>What about
Fuck China

>>11512780
>looked up the wikipedia page for whataboutism
>there's an entire section dedicated to Trump
jesus christ

>>11512798
What politician doesn't use it?

>>11512812
none. All politicians rely on it for their primary rhetoric.

>>11512376
how long until boom?

>>11512828
Yes, thanks for being intellectually dishonest. Well done.
No, just about every fucking politician reaches for that fucking card when they get caught on something they were not prepared to answer. Trump just happens to be very unprepared to answer most things because he's shit. Really good politicians will talk at length and say absolutely nothing though. Poor politicians will fall for the trap. Buffoons? Well.

>>11512491
If we were smart, our glowies would have planted bad information that would mess up their launches. (Who knows, maybe we have?) Like when the Russians blew a bunch of money on Buran because they couldn't believe we made something as lame as Shuttle, except that wasn't on purpose. Or when the Russians had an oil pipeline blow up because we fucked with its software.

>>11512156
>invade other countries
>hack american elections
Where the fuck are you from, Im getting some thicc ESL vibes from you breh.

The novachok shit was fucked Ill agree, but im pretty sure russia isnt the first country to try and assassinate turncoats, not that that makes them right in doing so.

https://spaceflightnow.com/2020/03/26/citing-coronavirus-concerns-rocket-lab-pauses-launch-operations/
Rocket Lab is finished (until corona is gone)
>Don't Stop Me Now has been stopped

>>11512743
Or maybe the lack of easy money is exactly the slap Russia needs to stop sucking dicks and grow into a new world power

>>11513087
Basically all commercial launches have been halted, but military and NASA ones will continue.

>>11512376
WHY DIDN'T THEY PUT THE HAT ON IT

>>11511099
>how does one procure the money needed for a moon base
i'd go with creating payloads for future lunar orbiters, payloads that nasa and other organizations would be willing to pay you to use or create. an example might be a cubesat that provides images of the surface.
if that's successful then you can expand on that idea in ways that lead to a future moon base. an example of that might be a lunar orbiter that has a lunar lander with it. the lander could be used to build upon the orbiter's imaging functionality while doubling as a component for a moon base (e.g. PNT services, solar power source).

>star citizen made quite a bit of cash - is a similar thing possible to raise the pool of money
yes it's called venture capital

What languages to learn to maximise potential in the spaceflight industry in the future? Looking at russian, german, and French. Do not want to learn chinese, too fucking hard. Also ITAR means we probably don't work with them anyway.

>>11512743
Europe is very reliant on russia's natural gas.
The vast majority of the home central heating&powerplants are still running on natural gas.
i only see that changing if there are massive breakthroughs in hydrogen production or electricity production becomes several times cheaper.

Sure, almost 70% of russia's export is natural gas, but they are still safe for a long time.

>>11513264
they didn't need to, it'd just get in the way

>>11513274
French or german if your looking for work in ESA.

>>11513287
the US should be dumping billions a year into clean energy R&D. It would solve so many problems for them all over the world.

>>11513274
french (canada, france, europe)
spanish (boca chica welder)

>>11513299
Surely you aren't suggesting we cut our massively bloated military, free billions for Israel, massive corporate subsidies and trillions on welfare for parasites and doing something useful with it are you?

>>11513315
I'm just saying we do what we've been doing for decades: trying to destroy foreign economies so they don't pose a threat to us.

>>11513287
People here are starting to switch to thermic heating. But unsurprisingly cities try their hardest to deny the permissions because the cities usually own the power company that supplies the heating which is made with russian gas.

So good luck trying to go greener.

>>11512333
mk1 > sn1 > sn2 > sn3 (the fourth prototype)
confirmed happening

>>11513287
Right now that‘s the case. But there‘s talks of carbon neutrality by 2050 for the entire EU. Even if they only manage half that, it may already be enough to cause trouble for the russian economy.

NUCLEAR ROCKETS

>>11513564
Sure, and the greenfags also want to close all the nuclear plants in europe and replace it with solarpanels and windmills.
The fact that nuclear is providing the base load for 2/3 of europe isnt a factor for these delusional hippies.
And these same tree hugging faggots are also having wet dreams about how electric cars will replace everything in the next 30 years but seem to forget those electric suckers need to be charged at night, and i'm still waiting for one of these wastes of skin to explain to me how they are going to pull this of without mentioning "muh tesla battery, etc...."

all these greta worshiping fags get buttblasted when you ask them to actually provide solutions with numbers to back them.
And the green lobby is ridding them like a bitch and they dont even realize it.

>>11513676
I wonder if anyone has ever done research on what a massive wind farm would do to the environment. I imagine purely removing that much energy from wind forces would have huge side effects in all sorts of weather and ecological systems.

>>11513274
>russian
I think right now that's mostly if you're going to be ISS crew, maybe ground control too.

>>11513692
More like you'll have mills eating up their brakes and then exploding during minimal loading when there's still wind and then rolling brownouts during peak load whenever there's not enough wind, plus dead birds, a LOTTA dead birds.

>>11513692
I don't think you realize how big the earth is. It would do nothing to wind speeds.

>>11513738
Not that guy, but i heard about windmills that they are bird blenders.

>>11513738
https://www.pnas.org/content/113/48/13570
>Compared with the control climate without turbines, the wind speed is reduced from a mean of 4.6 m s−1 on land (7.8 m s−1 over ocean) to 2.6 m s−1 at the maximum (3.9 m s−1 over ocean), which represents a decrease by 44% (50%).

>>11513717
Yeah, asked because I already have some knowledge of the language (both parents speak it). Want to be more involved on the policy side. Russia does look like it's falling apart, especially with oil where it is. I guess I'll use this quarantine to get some practice in French and Russian. French just has much more utility in day to day life compared to German. Thanks for the input guys

>>11513752
In local areas sure they'll reduce windspeeds, just like a city would, but globally I doubt it would have a large effect.

https://twitter.com/NASASpaceflight/status/1244362487744671748

>>11513747
I think I read somewhere that buildings kill like a billion birds a year. It's incredible. I feel solar has more potential as a renewable, but I doubt that the bird kills are driving species' numbers down. But I haven't really read up on that.

>>11513769
Fuck that's smooth

>>11513779
yeah, they've really been improving the visual quality of this project

>>11513779
>>11513791
OH NO NO NO

>>11513692
Couldn't be anywhere near as a bad as an artificial mountain

Kills the fuck out of birds though lmao

>>11513769
The visible progress is great, I think with one or two more iterations, if you were to paint it the same matte white as Falcon I doubt you'd be able to tell at a glance that it was multiple segments. I can't be the only one who thinks it would be the absolute peak aesthetic for it to be matte white on top, especially combined with the charcoal black of the reentry-side heat tiles.

>>11513774
I don't know how birds are still here

Glass absolutely slays them. Even households have several bird strikes a year you don't even know about because you're not in the room when it happens. City lights at night screw up their navigation. And then you add the toll from cats.

>>11513805
White is 1980s, starship is 2020s silver daddy

The only thing that would be more based is to put an anime waifu on it

>>11513813
When elons second hand starship emporium opens up, me and the asteroid mining bois gonna put anime girls all over that shit.

>>11513769
oh... my god im gonna, im gonna, SMOOOOOOOOOOOOOTH

>>11513805
they've said they're not going to paint it because the paint is too heavy and expensive to refurbish

>>11513813
silver is 1960's

>>11514114
starship is going to look hilariously like a 1960s rocket concept. It has a total retro-futurism vibe I'm sure they'll play into for marketing.

How wide was the nautilus x donut supposed to be?

>>11513264
If the front falls off again, it would‘ve been destroyed.

>>11513264
the nosecone is for SN4

It has holes cut that are probably for thrusters

>>11514287
All I could find.

>>11513676
Well wind does blow at night some of the time for one. Water, biomass and geothermal work at night as well.
As for energy storage, there‘s a lot of solutions that can supplement each other. Although ultimately the way to store most of the energy is probably going to be hydrogen/synthetic methane.
The beauty of producing your own methane is you get to keep using your gas infrastructure and plants. There‘s still open questions with that. Keeping extra plants just for a few days in the year is probably not going to be cheap. As is overproducing enough electricity to cover the losses of producing so much methane.
It‘s not impossible in theory though. But the road there is long, arduous and expensive.

>>11513747
Any building kills birds. And I‘d rather a few birds die than continue to support shitholes like Russia and Arabia. I really don‘t know how we put up with this being the status quo for over half a century.

As an aside, nuclear can be nice while its running. But building them can take ages, costing billions up front and even more after they are done. Will be interesting to watch France in the next 10-20 years when they have to scrap all their reactors in the country and rebuild. I don‘t mind nuclear. If this is what works for countries, they can go for it. But I don‘t think it‘s a silver bullet by any means.

Still waiting for fusion. But ITER has been sabotaged with hippie bullshit since back in the 80s. So if climate change is what you want to prevent, fusion will be too late unless china or one of the startups pulls through.

I‘ll stop talking about energy politics now.

new bread >>>11514392

>>11514287
>vacuum
Why not just rotate the rocket?