/sci/ - Science & Math

>>12159089
First for sniffing space diapers.

HYPERGOLIC
CHINESE
STARSHIPS

>>12159108

Get cancer you fucking freak. Mods, can that post and this one be deleted to have a proper start of the thread please?

>>12159108
Based

https://youtu.be/1LId4hGQd8w

Check out my video bros! Algorithm seems to like the video.

I also don't have a solid idea for my next video, any suggestions?

>@blueorigin
>1m
>Update: #NewShepard NS-13 launch is a no go for today. We are working to verify a fix on a technical issue and taking an extra look before we fly. New launch target forthcoming.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHA

>>12159140
Bahahahhaah Scrub by Scrub Ferociously!!!

I was thinking about cooking in space:
Let say you're roasting a piece of meat floating in an oven (keeping it in position with fans or wires)
Juices won't fall and pool in the plate, but will probably stay on the surface of the meat and evaporate there.
It would change the exterior of the roasted meat, a tastier crust maybe? The heat transfer to the interior would probably change.

>>12159108
>>12159113
Mods have abandoned /sfg/ long time ago. There's no salvation. Not for him, not for you, not for any of us.

>>12159140
Ok this is it. This proves that Starship development is the best way to build rockets.

>>12159146
>>12159195
>>12159140

Maybe once elon invents the world's FIRST and ONLY *fully* reusable rocket he'll understand. Oh wait, he can't. Because I already did.

>>12159157
Interesting. Makes me hungry for some delicious meat

Welcome to the club!

>>12159157
>ultra crispy spit roast
finally a worthy ISS experiment

>>12159089
>Tfw no 1960s-hair-so-big-she-needs-a-custom-bubble-helmet gf

>>12159136
You could do a run-down of all proposals to colonize Venus, or just of your favorites. Show how it could be done, pro's/con's, timelines, etc.

>>12159136
Make one about the d word!

>>12159221
What about freefall charcoal grilling?
>Hi temp mesh bag holds the charcoal as it floats around the chamber
It'd be like a combination of a rock tumbler and a smoker.

>>12159237
This is a good one lol.

>>12159228
This is good too, both added to the list. It's also really topical.

>>12159136

you could do one on the long history of failed attempts to make large pressure-fed rockets. youtubers love doing the sea dragon meme but i haven't seen any videos on all the children it spawned.

http://www.quarkweb.com/foyle/lc-desc/leocheapdesc.html
https://ntrs.nasa.gov/citations/19700001545
https://ntrs.nasa.gov/citations/19740023218

Starlink trying to get into Mexico
>The Federal Institute of Telecommunications (IFT) held a meeting with representatives of SpaceX...to discuss the Starlink project
>the meeting [was] held on September 10

https://old.reddit.com/r/Starlink/comments/izchl6/spacex_met_with_mexican_regulators_to_discuss/

Did spacex really give up on methane "sweating" cooling for good?

>>12159284
the switch from carbon composites to steel took away the need for active thermal protection. if you can get away with just bolting on tuffroc tiles then there's no reason to do anything else.

>>12159291
They talked about sweating AFTER the switch to steel

(((science))) is gay, and so are you for believing in it
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8wvaaeTZ1QA

>>12159291
They gave up on carbon fiber very early on because they couldn't make tanks big enough in a single piece and carbon fiber ovens don't scale well.
Then they brought up sweating.

>>12159304
>tries to use black people to prove a point.
Christ you're embarrassing, but Christians do love their niggers I guess.

>>12159304
Nobody cares, rocketry is cool

>>12159297
>>12159321

in my defense elon's tweets make it sound like they discovered after the switch that tiles would be sufficient, even though they switched materials for other reasons

https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2019/07/spacex-switching-to-thin-tile-heat-shield-instead-of-active-cooling.html

>>12159304
God old people making boomer memes are cringe

>>12159321
As well they realized that the stainless they are using has preferable cryo strength properties, and taking the (smaller than expected) mass hit was worth the:

a) lower cost of stainless
b) massively simpler engineering
c) ease of manufacturing & repair - good luck fixing cracked composite tanks on mars

>>12159304
LOL ;)

>>12159209
hey Jeff Who, what kind of orbit did you reach?
oh, so it was just an amusement park ride?

>>12159157
what's the point of ISS if they won't test whether or not space BBQ is the juiciest

https://youtu.be/DtNzR1Swcfc

>Bro do you want an expansive space empire?
>No bro I’d rather die on this rock.

>>12159373
I remember really liking SoS years ago, the other stuff the guy/s did as Colorpulse too.

>>12159238
fill an entire Starship interior to make the world's largest bbq
or turn the leftover boca chica tank test scraps into pic related, call them Starcookers, and have Elon sign each one

Would it be more beneficial to study igneous rocks of mars or sedimentary rocks of mars? Right now I have the opportunity to do both and I need to choose soon.

Please don't judge this gay question: but assuming my dream job was to train astronauts to do field work once they get to Mars, would sed rocks or igneous be more important to focus on? I'm thinking things like ISRU and general data collection is what they would be doing?

>>12159392
This is Texas son, there's only one kind of BBQ grill. What's next, you gonna put some sauce on your meat?

>>12159393
What is the difference?

>>12159408
The surface of Mars is a thin thin layer of iron dust. It gives Mars it's red color and it's unimportant, all things considered. You could literally sweep it with your boot. Underneath this thin veneer is mostly sedimentary rocks. These record past evidence of fluvial activity, i.e. water flows and mudstone (etc.) that got preserved in the rock record. This represents most of the Martian surface and isn't too deep of a layer (because Mars did not have fluvial activity for a long time, and sed rocks don't really get created in modern-day. They formed and they just kinda sit there) Underneath these sed rocks is a huge layer of igneous rocks. These were formed from basaltic magma that cooled a long time ago and probably contain most of the heavy minerals you need for ISRU, silicon, oxygen, iron, etc. Igneous rocks also outcrop where you have volcanic activity. I mean olympus mons is literally a giant igneous "pimple" that juts out and covers a huge area. I want to study igneous rocks because they are more interesting- but sedimentary rocks would also be cool. I just don't know which one to choose. Igneous studies would be more chemically-intensive. Sedimentary studies would be more morphological and structural intensive

>>12159393
they are just rocks anon they are basically are the same thing they just look a little different.

>>12159393
I'm not a specialist, but I suppose for studying life as well as the ancient climate of Mars, sedimentary rocks will be more interesting.
For studying how the planet was formed, evolved globally, igneous rocks give more data.
It will also depend on where the astronauts will be. For the first landings, engineering/ISRU constraints will probably lead to landing sites at lower altitude, not too close of the equator to find water easily, but not too close to the poles for solar power.
If I had to guess, I would say the first landings will be in the northern hemisphere, in the mid latitudes.

>>12159108
Sniff sniff
haha stinky

>>12159429
Igenous seems more interesting at first, but would we really need it that much for ISRU at first? Methane production only needs water and CO2 and produces oxygen as a byproduct.
On the other hand it seems that sedimentary could help at finding water in non polar regions, which is very good.

>>12159277
Does SpaceX need to negotiate with every single government of countries they want to do business in?

>>12159456
Yes, just like any other business.

>>12159393
Sedimentary looks like a winner because if you're looking for life, you need to look for sediments. But igneous is most of the planet and future mining/habs might need expertise. Also look for the less saturated field.

If you have any books/resources on martian geology (areology), please let me know. I know nothing about it and would like to learn more.

>>12159474
A lot of business don't need to negotiate anything, just open a company and start operating.

>>12159476
Will do. I'll ask my advisor. It seems most of the knowledge is in scientific papers and no one has compiled a cohesive book so far.

>>12159497
>is in scientific papers and no one has compiled a cohesive book so far
Sounds like a great opportunity desu.

>>12159497
>>12159502
You ready to become the author of the most cited paper in that specific field? Do a meta-analysis or comprehensive review of those papers and enjoy your impact factor going up forever.

>>12159497
>>12159502
>>12159520
Do it. You're welcome for the idea, remember me when you blow up.

>>12159393
>>12159408
>>12159429
>>12159436
>>12159438
>>12159455
>>12159476
Someone update this for Mars

Share this

https://twitter.com/JimBridenstine/status/1309450737873690628

>>12159367
Because the ISS is just daycare for the world's space agencies. Need to keep them busy doing useless stuff as doing anything useful there would just inspire them to move on from the station.

>>12159541
great, now we can have an increased budget to accelerate development of the sls block 1b

>>12159547
>accelerate development of the sls block 1b
SLS is still a thing?
I've heared less from them than from blue origin...

>>12159554
>SLS is still a thing?
Yes, still waiting on that Green Run that it has been sitting on the test stand for almost a year for, and was supposedly ready for in 2014. You can't make this shit up.

>>12159554
SLS has been pushing the boundaries of spaceflight technology throughout the American landscape to serve as inspiration for future generations of explorers.

>>12159520
What would be the best way to go about this? Writing a book that teters on "popsci" (i.e. dumbs-down the hard science into easy=to-understand science like PBS space time)? Writing a raw scientific paper that is just an overview of all important papers? Writing a textbook? What would get you the most impact factor in the scientific community?

>>12159113

>>12159560
Well, it has started in 1984 under the name "Shuttle-C", got renamed "national launch system" in 1991, renamed "Ares" in the Constellation programm as well as "Jupiter" untill it got called SLS.
But I'm sure it will launch the James Webb telescope before 2030...

>>12159564
The only thing SLS has pushed are deadlines, it's only competing with the James Webb telescope and the Berlin Brandenburg airport at this point.

>>12159564
>SLS has been pushing the boundaries of spaceflight technology
>Most of the major hardware on SLS is older than most posters here

>>12159577
Nice dubs; SRB's are so gay. Should have just gone with the modern F1's. Or anything else really. SLS looks like shit I can't stop getting mad at it

>>12159577
Ares IV is basically larger SLS Block 1 and Block 1B Crew is Ares IV. Block 1B Cargo is Ares V.

>>12159577
Come on Anon, we both know SLS is also going to be (CANCELED).

>>12159587
SLS is like "that guy" of rocketry, except that somehow the DM is in his favor.

>>12159587
They should have started from scratch with a KeraLox lower stage and Hydro/MethaLox upper stage.
And the contracts should better have been fixed cost, fixed deadline with money only getting paid when they delivered something.
>>12159588
It all basicly boils down to old shuttle hardware getting assembled slightly different.
>>12159585
Some of the RS-25 engines meant for the first flight came out of a museum and where flown on shuttles before, so they could actualy be older than some posters here.
>>12159600
After god knows how much money went into that bottomless pit...

likely biden presidency scenario?
>sls funding reduced but not canceled
>artemis goals pushed back by years
>moon landing pushed back until after 2028
>newspace gets financially massacred as artemis funding dries up and investors flee
>spacex continues to chug along

>>12159608
>SLS launches the first boilerplate test
>Starship has been in operation for 5 years at that point

>>12159608
I am not informed in american politics. Why is Biden's rise to throne signify defunding of NASA?

>>12159608
>sls funding reduced but not canceled
He can't do that. SLS has been written into law by Congress and that means its budget too.
>newspace gets financially massacred
How?

>>12159607
I just dont understand how you can justify SLS as being a "cheap integration of shuttle parts already built", yet you still implement cost-plus?? Like the whole point of cost plus contracting is to get rockets built when you don't have the technology developed yet (a la Saturn V, where it NEEDED cost plus). Who is responsible for SLS being made. Hard mode, dont say shelby. I'm looking for the main man in charge of it. Bush? Obama? Bolden?

>>12159618

>>12159618
The party he is tied to has little interest in human spaceflight or space in general, and it's often argued from that position that exploration is a waste of money they could otherwise waste feeding africa or some such nonsense.

>>12159618
Not who you're replying to, but my guess is extrapolation based on the Obama administration (both Biden and Obama were from the same party), fear that drive to space may be seen as a "Trump thing", and most of the "we should be fixing our problems on Earth before leaving it for space" crowd support the party Biden is in. Also, Biden never said anything specifically about spaceflight so we have no direct idea on what he would do.

>>12159607
reminder that congress forced nasa to use SRBs+RS-25s by mandating that SLS had to be flying by 2016 (LOL)

>>12159608
nasa doesn't get any lander funding so artemis 2 is just the crew going and sitting in LOPG for a week

>>12159618
in general republicans spend more on nasa than democrats and want bigger and more ambitious projects. that's not to say republicans are always better for spaceflight - constellation would have been a disaster and obama did nasa a favor cancelling the ares I in favor of commercial crew.

This is huge news

"Air Force clears
@spacex
to fly two upcoming GPS satellites on previously flown
@spacex
Falcon 9 rockets, saving $26m per flight, says Dr Walt Lauderale"

https://twitter.com/Free_Space/status/1309515417703120897

>>12159625
Damn, Trump is really fucking big, isn't he?

>>12159623
>Who is responsible for SLS being made. Hard mode, dont say shelby. I'm looking for the main man in charge of it. Bush? Obama? Bolden?
There isn't one sole person responsible for how delayed SLS is. Its caused many people; contractors being greedy as hell, politicians accepting bribes, NASA as a whole due to its culture of not taking risks, everyone as a whole accepting that nothing in spaceflight would happen within their lifetimes, and possibly demotivated workers.

Crew is welded inside, won't be long now

>>12159623
>>12159632
I'd like to see bets on what launches first:
>commercial air traffic at BER
>James Webb telescope
>SLS (manned)

>>12159634
Boing and ULA literally quaking right now

>>12159647
>Crew is welded inside
Their sacrifice will be remembered always

>>12159656
i wonder if ULA understands that they are going out of business, albeit slowly

>>12159656
Penile thoughts

>>12159653
James Webb will launch first. For sure. Also I am extremely extremely EXTREMELY confident we will see Europa Clipper launched on a SpaceX vehicle. SLS should be renamed POS

>>12159618
In the current (absolute) state of the nation, it is not unreasonable to assume that if Democrats regain control of the government they will systematically destroy any program developed or supported or even remotely affiliated with Trump simply out of sheer spite. It will be irrelevant to them that Commercial Crew started up during Obama's presidency, because it has come to fruition under Trump's and is thus tangentially affiliated to him. Similarly, it will not escape their attention that Trump favored NASA with a major budget increase and has shown support for Bridenstine and that both he and VP Pence have pushed NASA to complete Artemis.
Not to mention that the Democrat economic and social policies would, if actually instituted, bring about an enormous and unprecedented period of crippling economic depression and societal upheaval in which space exploration and technology development will be shafted hard in favor of non-functional social welfare programs, racially biased outreach, and other worthless projects.

BO stream today? or did it get delayed again

>>12159665
Falcon heavy with a Centaur 3rd stage?

>>12159671
Probably just a vanilla falcon heavy, assuming it has enough juice to yeet it to the outer planets. SLS is mandated by congress to launch europa clipper but Jim has been trying to override this

>>12159359

>>12159671
Falcon Heavy with Star 48 as 3rd stage, similarly how Delta/Atlas rockets launched many deep space spacecraft.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_48

>>12159618
Because modern Democratic party is far left and is solidly in the camp of "solve all problems on earth before moving into space" combined with utter hate and will to murder billionares like Musk and also Trump was positive for space in general and that makes democrats take the exact opposite position and defund anything that was done by Trump.

>>12159676
Falcon heavy has an issue with high energy trajectories.
Also the upperstage is severely undersized as it's identical to Falcon 9.
A Centaur 3rd stage on top of that would realy improve the payload capacity on the high energy trajectory required for a direct flight to Jupiter.

>>12159136
make something about space toilets and waste disposal
complete with diagrams on how astronauts interface the relevant anatomy onto the equipment and how and where the fluids flow

>>12159668
scrubbed again

>>12159686
>Star 48
based and (literal) SRMpilled

>>12159662
they wont lol

>>12159626
That said, considering Shelby, little interest might be better...

>>12159686
>>12159692
The fuck is this thing lmao. It looks so small

>>12159687
You're delusional if you think Biden is far left or would ever consider capitulating to the far left. Biden would be objectively worse for human spaceflight of course.

>>12159700
>You're delusional if you think Biden is far left or would ever consider capitulating to the far left.
His campaign has been bailing out rioters, regardless of what he believes they're at least pandering to those types hard.

>>12159700
>or would ever consider capitulating to the far left
He already capitulated to Sanders just look up statement about how biden will be the most progressive candidate since FDR and that he adopted a lot of out agenda said by uncle breadline few weeks ago.

>>12159700
Biden is senile puppet.

>>12159642
If there was a single guy coming up with the bad ideas it'd be a hell of a lot easier to fix, but instead it's just a blob of entrenched overlapping financial and political interests forcing outcomes that nobody would have designed.

You have to remember that 2011 was a very different time than 2020. There had been a grand total of 2 falcon 9 flights, and most people had given up on the idea that we could drastically reduce launch costs just by building a better rocket. Any moon program on the table was going to be expensive and time-consuming. Yes, a new hydrocarbon first stage would have been better, but it didn't look THAT much better at the time. Solid-boosted hydrogen cores have been intuitively appealing to aerospace engineers ever since the Air Force was looking at their own moon program in the late 50s. When NASA was given much more freedom to choose their new rockets with Constellation, they still wanted to stick with solid-boosted hydrolox (albeit with new engines).

>>12159696
The Dems controlled the White House and Senate when SLS was mandated. It's far from just Shelby.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLUFsQX4Ng6yWmD7DK7Hw50ks5ElC2rHCf
>300 hours
W E W
E
W

>>12159699
A kick motor. Since it's in space, it needs to be volume efficient rather than aerodynamic. Hence the pill shape. Some are even spherical. Also, the "48" refers to the outer diameter of the case in inches.

>>12159686
Centaur would give you more DeltaV/payload.

>>12159700
Biden is the next best thing to fucking dead. He's essentially a flesh suit for Kamala Harris to yoink herself a presidency without having to go through that whole inconvenient "winning the support of the governed" thing.
In addition, his own personal position is irrelevant because as >>12159702 correctly points out, it is objectively verifiable that his campaign actively financially supports the most radical left wing factions that currently exist in this country.

>>12159713
https://apollo17.org/

>>12159713
apollo17.org
required viewing, along with reading the whole of the notes/commentary for any /sfg/ connoisseur

>>12159705
>He already capitulated to Sanders
are you joking

>>12159730
why is there not one of these for every apollo mission

>>12159565
If you want an impact factor, you'll want to do something like a scientific paper published in a peer-reviewed journal. You don't have the credentials right now to write a textbook, and that'd frankly take too long. Also, a pop-sci book will probably just sit on Amazon and never be used. But publishing a paper will get it indexed and cited, no doubt.
I'm actually in the process of doing this right now for some different topics in my field, but I'd love to help however I can. I'm hopping on a few flights this afternoon and won't be checking this thread, but feel free to email me at my throwaway: gateway404 (at) protonmail (dot) com

>Europa orbit with aerobraking on Jupiter and Europa
15,31 km/s
>Europa clipper without aerobraking because fuck entering an athmosphere at over 50 km/s
18,55 km/s

>>12159742
https://apolloinrealtime.org/
Probably because it takes a long time to compile everything.

>>12159755
>those wrinkles

>>12159753
It's not actually orbiting Europa anymore. It's just gonna do a fuckton of flybys and then NOPE out of Jupiter's radiation belts as fast as possible

>>12159136
burger king foot lettuce

>>12159753
Conclusion:
FH can yeet ~3000 kg to europa in reuseable mode.

sure seems to be big enough for a running track

What's the purpose of SRBs? Is it an issue of power? Price?
Either way they're definitely obsolete now, since SpaceX has both with liquid boosters.

>>12159773
Good shit. But no reason to go reusable when for such a long haul mission you want all the mass you can get

>>12159089
do we have an ETA till the next starship flight?

>>12159792
October something

>>12159781
They get your rocket out of the thick parts of the atmosphere, and are made to be dropped off once they did their job and the more efficient engine can take over.

I wouldn't say they are obsolete, but they have much less valid use cases in a world with reusable liquid boosters.

>>12159782
The Probe is planned to weight less than 3000 kg to begin with.
So no reason to use expendable mode unless the spacecraft gets a lot heavier or they add a lander.

>>12159797
Correction:
Launch mass is 6000 kg.
FH needs to launch at least partialy expendable for that.

>>12159792
He wants 20km before october or before october 10, I don't remember.

>>12159797
Wait, has the blueprint, planning and approval stage been completed yet? I really want to see it happen, yet I hope it was not built around less favourable launchers available today

Would it be realistic for the first manned interplanetary mission to have a rotating habitat?
I doubt it'd actually happen, since the interior of a Starship isn't quite wide enough and Musk wouldn't want to add external modifications for a first flight because muh sleek shiny spaceship.
But could it reasonably be done?

>>12159781
Back in the 50s-60s it was thought that solids might be a low-cost solution. Development of the minuteman icbm was maybe the only rocketry program from the early days that met its deadlines and stayed on budget. Their operations costs were theoretically low since you didn't need to worry about cryogenic storage or toxic spills. And the 120-inch solids that were used on the titan 3 worked well - it was the most cost-effective rocket the US had in the 70s.

NASA didn't want to use SRMs on the shuttle but they had a lower development cost than any liquid booster concepts and NASA didn't have any extra money.

>>12159813
It could be done but probably wouldn't be worth it for a mission to mars. that's only 6-8 months in 0g, which astronauts have exceeded already on the ISS and been fine

>>12159813
Depends on how you define "could". Some retards will try to shill tying two starships with a cable and making them spin around the system center of mass.

>>12159806
NASA lists it at 6000 kg https://europa.nasa.gov/mission/about/
At 20 km/s a FH in expendable mode can launch almost 8000 kg.
So I don't see any real reason to not launch it on a falcon heavy besides making Boeing and some politicians unhappy.
Allthough I don't belive SLS will be ready in the 2024 launch window while FH is ready now.

>>12159653
>James Webb telescope
James Webb will reach its end-of-life without ever reaching L2.

>>12159813
>But could it reasonably be done?
Teather 2 starships together and spinn them around their common center of mass.

>>12159813
the real question for interplanetary missions is whether fetuses can develop properly in low gravity, which is still an open question regardless of what /scifi/ retards tell you

>>12159831
Never going to happen due to stupid complexity and tons more point of failure.

>>12159841
When we reach this level there will already be rotating habitats or a mars settlement.

>>12159831
>>12159824
that is retarded, as the other anon said

>>12159747
Take note gents, this is some next level networking lel
4chan et al

>>12159842
>tons more point of failure.
There's literally only 2. The ends of the cable.

>>12159862

Reminder there's a Delta Heavy launch tonight at midnight EST

>>12159867
>Reminder there's a Delta Heavy scrub tonight at midnight EST

ftfy

>>12159850
Bahaha This is the power of /sfg/.

>>12159625
I love how dedicated he is to manned spaceflight that he came down to Florida on two separate occasions to watch it launch.

>>12159747
>>12159850
>It's Elon's alt email

>Elon completes fully operational Starship
>Tweets at Jim
>It's time to deliver, Jim. Hand over NASA.

>>12159867
https://twitter.com/ulalaunch/status/1309464927602704384

>>12159888
>Starship refueling in orbit proven
>Elon tweets "depots"

>>12159862
No. Think again on what it entails. You have to think of the whole structure system itself.

>SpaceX set to dominate the Space/colonization process
>Tesla set to dominate Earth's energy/transportation systems

>>12159898
Shelby Launch System BTFO

>>12159907
I think fusion will black swan the energy sector in the next 5 years.

>>12159781
cheaper to make - no pumps, no preburners, no plumbing, just a tube filled with spicy rubber

Solid propellants don't need to be fueled with corrosive and/or cryogenic oxidizer before launching, which means it's constantly ready
but that's more of an advantage in ballistic missiles

>>12159909
>fusion before 30 years from now

>>12159913
and it can be a big disadvantage for orbital launchers since they can explode at any time while being stacked

>>12159913
also the air force needs a SRB supplier for strategic purposes

>>12159913
>cheaper to make - no pumps, no preburners, no plumbing, just a tube filled with spicy rubber
This is only true for expendable rockets. SRBs are way more expensive than a reusable liquid booster over time.

>>12159742
They did this for 11, 13, and 17

>>12159914
It might actually be happening this time.

>>12159920
well, duh

>>12159928
how so

>>12159920
More expensive than modern kerolox engines even. RD-180 and Merlin are both cheaper than the shuttle RSRMs in terms of thrust per dollar.

>>12159943
*more expensive than modern EXPENDABLE kerolox engines

>>12159948
>merlin
>expendable

>>12159948
wait nevermind sorry anon i misunderstood what you were saying
>>12159948

>>12159640
for you

Finally, some launches.

>>12159937
a lot of advances in high temperature superconductors. the superconductors used for the ITER magnets require supercritical liquid helium cooling because the ITER design was done in the 90s and was then frozen. Since then a couple of new materials have been developed, primarily REBCO (rare earth barium copper oxide) tape with 10x better superconducting performance at liquid nitrogen temps instead of liquid helium (big difference). As a result tokamaks can theoretically be built 10x smaller and with a lower spec cryostat. Couple of private companies are now playing with it. See: tokamak energy and others.

Also, general fusion in canada is building a proof-of-concept mechanical fusion reactor that uses steam pistons to drive acoustic waves into a spinning ball of molten lead-lithium which converges onto plasma shot into the central cavity. They've gotten neutrons which indicate fusion reactions and the math checks out on their reactor working, so they might get something of value when they finally build their full-size reactor.


Also, this is a really excellent keynote about the (absolute) state of modern fusion and why ITER is obsolete before it's even finished.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KkpqA8yG9T4

>>12160000
You should download the Next Spaceflight app bro, they update it more often and it has more details.

>>12159914
Ha! You sound like one of the ITER cultists. Read up on Zap Energy, Helion Energy, Tokamak Energy and Commonwealth Fusion Systems. There isnt 1 positive lead, theres a dead heat of well funded well staffed competing companies.

>>12159943
Solids literally only make sense if you're building ICBMs.

>>12160000
based & checked

What will off-earth babies look like?

>>12160023
Mutants

>>12160023
https://youtu.be/Zqz7-BuLijs?t=32

>>12160023

when do we expect a replacement to the ISS come about. It seems like there should be at least a conversation about a possible replacement, which seems like the best way to clear starship for actual payloads

>>12159943

To satiate my own autism I tried estimating how cost-effective various rocket engines are/were in terms of dollars per kilonewton of sea-level thrust:

Raptor: $900
Merlin 1D: $1180
F-1 (Rocketdyne estimate of restarting production): $2215
RD-180: $2610
BE-4: $2920
SSME (10 reuses): $3440
Shuttle RSRM: $4170
RS-68: $6780
SSME expendable: $34400
SLS RS-25: $78500
(assuming this is true https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/05/nasa-will-pay-a-staggering-146-million-for-each-sls-rocket-engine/ )

>>12160057
the only replacement they're currently talking about is gateway.

with upcoming heavy lift launch vehicles like starship and new glenn however, we have a lot to be excited about, its likely that the next large station is going to have skylab-tier modules, at least.

>>12160058
>SLS RS-25
>$78,500 per kN
OH NO NO NO NO, OHOHO.
Jesus CHRIST.

>>12160058
>78500 usd
>per kilonewton
>of which there are 1860 SL

>>12160057
There are talks about it. NASA is pushing congress to fund ventures into commercial ISS replacement. Blue Origin has some interest in it. SpaceX might put a Starship or few in orbit as ISS replacement. lol

>>12160057
>>12160078

There had been some talk about Axiom sending up some modules which could eventually be split off as their own independent station but I think funding for that got cut https://www.forbes.com/sites/jonathanocallaghan/2020/01/28/the-iss-is-getting-an-extensionwhich-might-detach-and-form-its-own-commercial-space-station/

So. How late is SLS, really?

>>12160110
According to Bolden, six years.

>>12160110
A government rocket is never late, it arrives precisely when it's supposed to.

soon boys!

>>12160110
see for yourself

>>12160058
what the actual fuck

>>12160137
SLS will never be cancelled, even if Starship is fully successful. People need to understand this

>>12160151
I think I understand your logic, because job programs.
But there's a point where you just can't sustain it politically.

>>12160137
>SLS is real

>>12160137
>space is hard

>>12160137

>>12160161
That point is still pretty far off though. Until Starship gets man-rated the SLS shills in congress will claim that Orion is the only spacecraft that can do Artemis and SLS is the only rocket that can launch Orion. And the current Spacex plan of man-rating Starship by flying hundreds of times by 2023 is exceedingly optimistic. If it flies 100 times before 2030 I'll be pleasantly surprised.

>>12160201
Doesn't matter.
If NASA doesn't like Starship to launch astronauts, they can send them there on Dragon.

>>12160029
if these were accurate then the dick would be twenty times the size of those hands

>>12160201
>If it flies 100 times before 2030
Falcon 9 actually flied 100 times since 2010.

>>12160181
>SLS and Orion exist now
Then why aren't they flying now?

>>12160219
they're too busy existing to do that

>>12160217
Falcon 9 had payloads to launch, and even then it's been struggling to get customers the last couple of years because it was too good at its job. It essentially worked through the world's entire launch backlog from 2015-2018.

Other than launching Starlink there may not be much for it to do, like costplus pointed out in his video >>12159136

The Starship project is progressing, but it's kinda slow.
Remember SpaceX is doing this on it's own money.
What are we waiting for? Let's dump Billions of NSA contracts into them.
Awarding them to BO or Boeing won't get you a Super-Heavy lift rocket.

>>12160240
The only reason for that is that SpaceX expected competition that never happened.
Now, they need money to fund Starship. So they're not gonna lower the cost of F9 so it can launch my cat into space for 100€.

>>12159689
>Also the upperstage is severely undersized as it's identical to Falcon 9.
Well, the upper stage is severely oversized for Falcon 9, at least in terms of comparison to literally any other launch vehicle.

>>12160253
>The Starship project is progressing, but it's kinda slow.
Slow compared to what? Also more money doesn't instantly make things faster.

>>12159753
>aerobraking at Europa
Anon, I

>>12160253
>Starship project is progressing slowly
bruh, in two years, they've gone from a dirt field to a fucking Starship factory that is pumping out new Starship prototypes monthly

>>12159402
>>12159392
>SpaceX ditches carbon composite heat tiles and instead 3D prints steaks to cover entire Starship
>By the time you land they're cooked to perfection for hungry colonists

>>12160274
As I said, SpaceX is doing this on spare money.
Actually, I bet they're throwing every last bit of it at it.
Now, I bet most of it went toward Raptor development, which is the main protagonist in everyone of these tests.
>>12160283
Yes, but I can't help but feel it could have gone much faster.
I'm gonna say it: Switch to Steel was because they didn't have enough money to make it Carbon Fiber.

>>12160297
No, switch to steel was because
1) It's retardedly expensive
2) It's retardedly time consuming
3) gl doing any repairs on Mars on CF SS

>>12159687
Stop getting your news from memes.
American politics is right and far right. There is no left and no center.

>>12160296
I ran the numbers, this won't work

>>12160308
It would have tsaved them 1 year of blowing up things, just saying.

>>12160296
Ah, the infamous Starship. Often referred to as the 'astronaut cooker' by oldspace.

>>12160317
nope, they were blowing up carbon tanks first

>>12160058

>RD-180: $2610

Imagine how much cheaper it would be if they could be recovered somehow and reused.

>>12159903
>You have to think of the whole structure system itself
Starships will be capable of being suspended by the nose from a crane in 1 G with full payload mass without crumpling. Otherwise they won't be able to stack them onto the launch pad or the booster. Dangling two starships from a cable stretched from nose to nose, and having them rotate about each other, is literally EXACTLY the same force magnitude and type as hanging a single Starship from a crane in normal gravity. It's passively stable and also subject to the same response to mass shifting, ie it jiggles and wobbles a bit in proportion to the speed and magnitude of the mass being shifted around.

>>12160321
Well, engine production wasn't ready anyways.
But I still think Steel make it a lot less safe to fly.

>>12160297
Faster than what?
It took SpaceX 7 years to strap three F9 cores together and launch it.

They didn't start focusing all their resources on Starship development until after Demo-1 launched in May, and in the four months since then we've gone from SN4 to SN11. If we have an orbital flight before 2022 this may end up being the fastest rocket development program of all time.

>>12160317
Nah, they only blew up two Starships due to steel. Mk1 (which was a meme desu) and SN1 (thrust puck).

>>12160335
>we've gone from SN4 to SN11
2 of them didn't blow up.
Sometimes you need to be pessimistic to grasp the challenge.

>>12160338
Don't rewrite history. Everything blew up except 5 and 6.

>>12160350
>due to steel
other failures were GSE, filling issues, other stuff

>>12160344
>2 of them didn't blow up.
That's kind of expected when you do a lot of destructive testing.

>>12160253
SpaceX is literally hypersonic right now in terms of development speed
More money will bring nothing but more problems. Specifically, they will start wanting to solve issues by throwing money at them rather than thinking critically about them. Even if Bezos said fuck it, gave all his money to Elon and then killed himself, the smartest thing Elon could do is slowly drip feed Starship development at roughly the same level of funding it's getting right now, just with 100% security forever.

>>12160360
Yeah, sure.
Keep telling yourself that, when the can literally ripped open in every event
.>>12160366
>>12160367
Don't get me wrong, I want this shit to work.
I'm just thinking their endeavor is underfunded as fuck.
It will be a miracle if this can gets to space at all.

>>12160297
>Switch to Steel was because they didn't have enough money to make it Carbon Fiber.
So you admit that steel is the better option, right? Because steel results in a cheaper vehicle of the same payload capacity? If not then by what metric are you deciding what the best rocket is? Tell me it isn't fucking mass efficiency, I swear to god. Mass efficiency is cool and all but who gives a FUCK about saving 3% on mass efficiency if the vehicle costs 25x as much.

>>12160325
Weren't they originally designed for reuse as flyback boosters off of Energia?

Honestly I think the biggest mistake NASA ever made was not replacing the shuttle with a large 3xRD-180/J2-S rocket in the 90s. We would've had a pretty cheap and reliable launcher that could have quickly built the ISS and a capable spacecraft in the HL-42 to visit it. There never would have been a 10-year post-shuttle hangover. It wouldn't have been Buck Rogers but it would've been a huge improvement and it would have been easy. Instead they failed to learn the lesson of the shuttle and took another gamble on SSTOs.

>>12159113
Whaaa what a pansy

>>12160383
mass efficiency matters more when you throw the rocket away

>>12160383
Maybe.
But it did take them a year of blowing up things to make sure.
And I'm still not sure about sideway forces, as in re-entry.

>>12160333
Why.
Steel is one of the best understood materials we have. Carbon fiber composites are complicated, non-homogeneous, and fail spectacularly with barely any warning. They also have no fatigue limit (basically no matter how small the stress cycles, enough of them WILL cause a failure eventually, which is not true of steel for stress levels below a certain threshold) AND they're vastly more difficult, slow, and expensive to work with. This is before you even look at the fact that they aren't very compatible with cryogenic liquids, particularly liquid oxygen, and they're very sensitive to elevated temperatures beyond ~120 celsius, requiring much thicker thermal protection coatings.

>>12160381
If the test scenario is:
>we pressurize it untill it blows up
There isn't realy a way that thing survives.
A lot of their tests where tests like that and they blew up beyond the required pressure to consider the test.

>>12160335
>They didn't start focusing all their resources on Starship development until after Demo-1 launched in May
AFAIK they still haven't focused all of their resources onto Starship, they've just gone from ~5% to ~10%.

Space Force agreed to gimp future spacecraft in order to allow SpaceX to reuse boosters. Goodbye SpaceX

>>12160397
The thing about carbon fiber tanks that make me happy is that they're a whole unit.
Now we have to rely on welds, and I don't feel safe about that.

>>12160398
>They all blew up on purpose.

>>12160381
Starhopper - flew
Mk1 - failed weld at top ring/bulkhead, made out of steel plates instead of coils, thus pretty much a meme, mockup (1)
Mk2 - didn't it make to testing
SN1 - thrust puck fail (2)
SN2 - test tank, survived
SN3 - failed due to tanking error (detanked bottom tank before top tank, causing it to crumple under pressure (LN2 is heavier than LOX))
SN4 - failed due to GSE
SN5 - flew
SN6 - flew
SN7 - popped on purpose
SN7.1 - popped on purpose
I count 2 issues related to welds, so kys faggot

>>12160413
>no source

>>12160419
Yeah, they blew them all up.
Loosing precious time in the process.
Imagine if Nasa blew up 10 SLS to test it?

>>12160422
sorry i forgot to say breaking news. i am the source

>>12160381
>Keep telling yourself that, when the can literally ripped open in every event
So when the GSE failed and allowed liquid methane and oxygen to flood onto the ground and ignite, detonating and destroying the vehicle, you're counting that as a failure CAUSED BY the choice of steel construction material?
When the nitrogen loading sequence got fucked up and they accidentally depressurized the lower tank while the upper tank was still full of ~400 tons of nitrogen, crushing the lower tank like an empty soda can, you're ALSO counting that as a failure caused by the choice of steel?
The fact is that if they used carbon fiber they still would have had the capacity to make errors detanking to the vehicle and the GSE hardware could still fuck up. If Starship were carbon fiber and the lower tank depressed while the upper tank was loaded with hundreds of tons of nitrogen, it would have still collapsed. If the GSE started pissing methane and oxygen everywhere and it exploded, it would have blown up CF Starship just as easily.

>>12160428
Instead the SLS is going to be more than 10 years old before any hardware leaves the ground. You tell me which development process is quicker.

>>12160431
>>12160438
Guys, all I'm saying is that switching to steel, really did a number on the SS project (yeah it sounds bad).
What we've watched for a year is SpaceX learning to weld a tank together.
I don't think this will be safe to fly for a person for 15 years.

>>12160387
>Weren't they originally designed for reuse
Eeeh, not really. The RD-170 was a four chamber engine meant to boost Energia, and was definitely expendable. Later design proposals would have had a booster capable of coming back to land, but now only would this have required redesign of the booster, the engine itself would probably need a number of changes to make reuse any kind of viable. RD-180 is essentially half of an RD-170, with a turbopump of the same basic design but half as powerful. RD-190 is half of an RD-180, and down to a single chamber. All of these engines were built for performance first, with reusability being an afterthought. Remember, shit can go sideways when you focus on performance before economics; RS-25 is a perfect example of chasing performance making reuse a nightmare.

>>12160419
wow.....Space-X seems to fail a lot. I can't get behind a failures. Blue Origin has never had a failure by comparison

>>12160453
What other option was there? (it has to produced at scale)

Reminder, Virgin Galactic has killed more people than all other private space ventures combined

>>12160453
Did you also think they didn't know what they were doing when they failed their first 10 booster landing attempts?

>>12160308
>3) gl doing any repairs on Mars on CF SS
they wont be able to repair steel spaceships on mars either

>>12160465
Well, they could have kept the carbon fiber thing going.
In the end, I think that's what they'll do when SS brings them money.

>>12160483
>guys my motorcycle helmet makes my head hurt so I just don't wear it anymore

>>12160478
Because?

>>12160472
anyone have the VG trolley problem meme saved

>>12160391
Starship made of steel already has a decent mass ratio. Without payload it's gonna be ~150 tons dry and ~1450 tons loaded with methalox. The delta V to get to Mars is only ~3600 m/s. Starship can put a total dry-plus-payload mass into LEO of ~300 tons. That means 150 tons of payload for stainless steel starship. With that payload, Starship only needs 510 tons of propellant; That is to say, even when made of steel the mass ratio is good enough that it doesn't even need to be half full of propellant to reach Mars from LEO. All switching to carbon fiber would do would be to trade a few tons of dry mass for payload mass; the same 300 tons reaches orbit, except ~215 tons of that 300 would be payload and ~85 tons structural.

Now, before you point out that a 65 ton improvement in LEO capacity would be a good thing, the catch here is that each Starship now has a construction cost of ~$250 million instead of ~50 million, and comes with aaaaall of the drawbacks of using CF as a structural material for a vehicle that soaks down to cryogenic temperatures yet also gets blasted by plasma at >3000 degrees.

>>12160453
>>12160438
let's just accept the fact that the original spacex timeline for starship was not even close to anything related to reality

>>12160395
You think they wouldn't blow up carbon fiber Starship prototypes too? lol
SpaceX is three years ahead of where they would be today if they had stuck with CF Starship.

>>12160523
based and spacepilled

>>12160524
partly the speed is dropping those stupid union workers at San Pedro

>>12160518
>The delta V to get to Mars is only ~3600 m/s
LEO really is halfway to everywhere in the solar system if you've got the patience for a Hohmann transfer.

>>12160518
Don't forget you need much more heatshielding for CF than SS so your payload to LEO is much less than that .

>>12159321
they didn't give up on CF until they started actually looking at production and realized it was impossible

>>12160518
Sorry, anon.
As election cycles go by, you'll see Starship used to maybe go to the moon.

>>12160524
They only tested one.
They went steel because they realized their didn't have a competitor, and therefore couldn't benefit from lower launch costs.
It's a cost driven choice.
Drill it into your head.

>>12160483
Carbon fiber production is not very scalable. It requires a massive oven that takes hours or days to make one piece.

>>12160523
I can agree to that.
I think SpaceX would rather do Carbon Fiber Spaceships, but they can't.

>>12160415
>The thing about carbon fiber tanks that make me happy is that they're a whole unit.
They are not. Carbon fiber tanks are made of millions of tiny fibers that are glued together, effectively welded, by resin. Tiny defects and variations in thickness of the fibers as well as their arrangement, both in terms of distance from one another AND through-thickness of the material cause tiny stress concentrations that are effectively invisible until enough force is transferred through the material that fibers start snapping. When one fiber snaps due to a stress concentration, it both makes the entire structure weaker, as well as introduce MORE stress concentrations.
Also, the tanks would not have been one big unit anyway, remember? Their plan was to make domes and barrel sections, then join the domes to the barrels to make tanks, then join the tanks to the thrust structures and to the nose cone/habitat sections. There would have been HUGE seams, which by the way couldn't have an actual carbon-fiber joint across them, they would effectively be glued together as separate pieces by resin. Welds are far more homogenous and predictable by comparison.

>>12160459
can't fail unless you try

>>12160546
Yeah, it's difficult.
But is it more difficult than welding steel together so it doesn't blow up on fucking Mars?

>>12160472

>>12160557
And that's what make it strong.

>>12160458
Yeah, I can't get too mad at the RS-25 just because they had no knowledge base to work off of on reusability.

But yeah the Soviets were just on another level as far as engine design after the 60s. I'm sure it helped having a guy like Glushko who knew his shit calling the shots but still. Even with the RD-0120 they built something comparable to the RS-25 even though they had no experience with hydrolox and I'm sure on a much smaller budget.

>>12160540
If you can refuel Starship enough to get to the moon and return to Earth, that's also enough fuel to get to Mars. Your argument is clearly rooted in attempting to discourage anons rather than any concerns about engineering or orbital mechanics. Go be a kike somewhere else.

>>12160562
Yes?

I don't understand why you think steel magically weakens on Mars, or becomes impossible to weld, or whatever.

>>12159456
countries get really really weird about the internet, anon

>>12160428
>Loosing precious time in the process.
Every blown up prototype they've had has been a million hours of high-fidelity simulation time saved, and tens of millions of dollars NOT spent paying egghead salaries.
I'll say it again; if Starship was never switched to a steel structure design, we would still not have seen a single static fire test yet at this point. SpaceX has brought functional Starship AT LEAST a decade closer to actual reality by switching to steel; their current timeline estimate is optimistic, but CF Starship's timeline was always HOPELESSLY optimistic.

>>12160557
I hear you. The thing is, we'll never know.
I think no-one is gonna launch on Starship until at least 2035 because it will keep blowing up.

>>12160472
Did Virgin ever stand a chance, could it still do somehow? I remember reading some what-ifs here about selling suborbital flights but it doesn't seem like it'd be anywhere enough.

>>12159481
Telecoms isn't like that because every country wants to have it's own national broadcasters and protects them at all costs. The biggest issue with Starlink in Canada will be the CRTC.

>>12160582
This. Elon had been talking about ITS/BFR/whatever for years and had nothing to show for it and then after he announced the switch to steel we had starhopper flying in just a few months.

>>12160582
>>12160578
>>12160576
In an alternate timeline, SpaceX didn't switch to steel.
How far along do you think the program is?

>>12159577
JWST is launching on Ariane, anon
that's the European contribution to JWST

>>12160562
Yes, it is. We can weld steel at the bottom of the ocean. We can also easily make assembly lines for steel components, see half of the things around you.
If anything the low pressure, low reactivity atmosphere of mars makes it easier.

>>12160593
They're probably only going ~10% as fast because Elon wants to build a rocket MASS PRODUCTION FACTORY rather than just a rocket. I think they'd still be having issues with tank design, hop would absolutely not have happened yet, maybe not even a static fire. And of course all that time and money sunk into the body of the rocket would have either fucked progress on Raptor sideways or forced them to raise prices for Falcon / Dragon.

>>12160593
Blowing up test tanks at the port of LA as an increasingly angry Elon sits on a throne of unflown Raptors

>>12160453
I think the exact opposite, I think Starship will be launching humans to Space within three years.

Wanna know why SpaceX has blown up a lot of shit made of steel in the past year? it's because instead of doing all their homework in a closed off warehouse somewhere, paying highly educated engineers to pour over math and simulations and do all the consultation and research effort required to avoid anything messy, Elon decided it would be cheaper and faster to just fucking start welding shit to other shit, break it, fix the problem, weld together more shit, get farther before it breaks too, etc etc. Now, not even two years since the switch to Starship, they've got TWO successfully flown and still flight-ready prototypes built, several newer prototypes with even better structures and materials and more flight hardware waiting in the wings to do more ambitious tests, a contract with NASA to build a Lunar-lander optimized Starship, the list goes on.

>>12160531
was it that bad in san pedro

>>12160312
>American politics is right and far right
Nigger do you even now what right wing politics even is?
Trump was a Democrat shortly before he decided to run for president and is very liberal when it comes to social issues. The only thing that's right wing is a slight decrease in taxes and more talk about immigration, despite the fact that Obama deported more people in his first 4 years
Republicans can't even remove Obama care or touch other welfare programs, in fact we've only seen an expansion of gibs-me-dats this year
Oh and I forgot all the right wing extremists that's been burning down the cities for months now

Do the people itt talking up carbon fiber not understand why they switched away from it?

Carbon fiber has terrible thermal properties, interacts poorly with LOX, and isn't really that much lighter when you include the extra TPS needed. Steel is cheap as dirt, holds up well at both temperature extremes, and can be welded in a field.

>>12160602
>>12160603
>>12160607
>>12160608
I'm just saying.
SS was supposed to be mass produced, 500 tons to leo Carbon composite thing, totally re-usable.
Just one of them would have changed the future.

>>12160622
yeah
https://www.popularmechanics.com/space/rockets/a25953663/elon-musk-spacex-bfr-stainless-steel/

>>12160609
If you go back and watch the hearings, it was absolutely maddening. They'd have some goofy guy in a hardhat act like a mob boss saying "you better use union construction workers"

>>12160459
>Blue Origin has never had a failure by comparison
Their first try at a rocket failed competely so hard they scrapped it, and the first New Shepard vehicle crashed as well. Then they did a few successful hops and then nothing for a few years, they say they've got a reusable booster rocket on the way and have sold a few engines to ULA.
Meanwhile SpaceX has gone from being founded 2 years after Blue Origin to being the world leader in practical space technology and making significant enough gains in their Starship program that government space organizations around the world are slowly beginning to shit their pants, because Falcon 9 is already eating their lunch and Starship promises to be literally 100x cheaper per kilogram, and cheap enough per launch to completely dominate any other launch vehicle except the extremely tiny ones that cost less than $10 million each.

>>12160611
>despite the fact that Obama deported more people in his first 4 years
That's a lie. Obama cooked the stats so that anyone turned around at the border counted as a deportation. Trump's numbers are competitive with Obama's even without that cheat, meaning actual deportations are way up.

>>12160623
>I'm just saying.
Linguistic tell for admission of defeat.

>>12160622
and most importantly steel looks way cooler than carbon fiber

>>12160608
>Now, not even two years since the switch to Starship, they've got TWO successfully flown and still flight-ready prototypes built
nobody here doubts spacex capability to send humans or cargo 150m into the air and back down

pop

>>12160312
Stop getting your news from The Atlantic and Reddit. Putting Bernie anywhere near the center is admitting you think Trotsky was a moderate.

>>12160623
Now Starship is mass produced, 150 tons to LEO, steel, fully reusable. Turns out mass producing carbon fiber rockets isn't worth it, and 500 tons was too big. It still changes the future in exactly the same way. Why are you so hung up on CF?

>>12160483
What is the advantage of carbon fiber? Oh, it's lighter? What's that do? Oh, it lets you carry more payload on the same sized rocket? Why not just build a bigger rocket? Oh, building a bigger rocket is too expensive? Not if you make it out of steel.

>>12160630
No, I'm saying Satarship isn't what it was supposed to be.
If it's just throwing 100 tons, then a Saturn 5 or SLS can do the job.

Elon said it himself. The only reason they switched to steel was because the carbon fiber was taking too long. Everything else is just cope lol

>>12160638
No, it's stronger.

pop

>>12160536
Right, but I was looking at the better-than-best case scenario for CF just to make my point. You get less than 1.5x the payload to orbit for way more than 1.5 times the cost. Therefore, no advantage to using carbon fiber. It's really that simple.

>>12160641
No retard, Saturn V and SLS aren't reusable. The absolute throw weight matters INFINITELY less than the cost per kilogram.

>>12160647
Carbon fiber is weaker at cryogenic temperatures and is weaker at reentry temperatures.

>>12160634
huh it popped very cleanly

>>12160629
yeah but muh bozos

>>12160654
Still will cost the same.
Your pseudo science is blinding you. SS will never be reliable enough, made of welded steel sheets to throw people out there in the next 15-20 years. Even if it never explodes in this timeframer.

>>12160656
That means the welds gave out before the steel did.

>>12160540
>They went steel because they realized their didn't have a competitor, and therefore couldn't benefit from lower launch costs.
Switching to steel REDUCED the projected launch costs, dumbass. Making a rocket out of steel that is 25% bigger in order to match the payload of the carbon fiber rocket saves you 75% on the launch costs because the launch costs are what's paying for the construction of the rocket, and building out of steel is at least 8x cheaper than building out of CF. That's AT LEAST 8x cheaper. Elon's actual estimate for the manufacturing cost savings of switching to steel was roughly a 100x improvement.

>>12160661
silence, Jew

>>12160661
>pseudoscience
>basic metallurgy
Okay, are you just trolling at this point? Do you not actually know what steel is? I'm fucking baffled at how much irrational hate some iron atoms conjures in you.

>>12160648
The orange fucker has nice innards, gotta give it to him

>>12160663
I'm talking about falcon 9.
Re-use was supposed to lower price.
Yet it didn't because there's no client.
The price is just not low enough for people to want to throw shit into space every other day.

>>12160666
Look, I'll watch as SN8 dismantles because of aerodynamic forces when it comes down from 20 km up.

>>12160671
Please put on a tripcode so we can filter you. It's exceedingly clear you're only here to troll.

>>12160675
That's still not an argument. Do you or do you not know what steel is? Because every single post you've made indicated you're either arguing in bad faith, or literally don't know the most basic material science.

The earth is flat

>>12160669
painstakingly artisan hand crafted isogrids machines directly into a single 200 meter long aluminum billet by japanese samurai on full moons

it's pretty, though

>>12160677

Cry more, Elon.

>>12160684
sure it is pal, but that has nothing to do with spaceflight

>>12160548
They wouldn't rather do CF Starship, here's why;

Steel is faster
Steel is cheaper
Steel is stronger
Steel components don't have finite lifespans, due to fatigue limit
Steel doesn't require the worlds largest autoclave to cure
Steel is homogeneous, carbon fiber needs to be made in discreet windings and layups which get glued together after curing
Once you consider the increased thermal protection system mass, the mass of the joinery, and the relative weakness of carbon fiber at both extremely low and extremely high temperatures, the mass fraction of a reusable rocket vehicle made of carbon fiber is actually at most only 5% lighter than that of a steel vehicle, which translates to a 1% improvement in wet-dry mass ratio, which translates to FUCK ALL in terms of actual significant performance gains.
Seriously, switching to carbon fiber would allow Starship to launch about 2.5 extra tons of payload to low Earth orbit, OR, push the same 150 ton payload up to an additional 20 m/s. That's literally rounding error performance margin, folks.

>>12159822
Only 6 months in 0g but then another several months in 1/3g then 6 months in 0g. Having a slow ramp up to 1g on the trip back could be very beneficial for the crew to readjust to earth before landing

>>12160690
retard

>>12160683
It could be made out of mud.
I predict you SN8 will just dismantle at max-Q downward, because they fucking lego-ed this shit together.

>>12160692
Steel won't do the job.

>>12160699
You already said you had an uninformed guess and were really confident about it, no need to repeat yourself. It wasn't useful information in the first place.

>>12160704
Yes it will.

>>12160704
it already did

>>12160707
So nice having SpaceX engineers telling me to fuck off.
You don't know anything.

>>12160713
>t. ULA engineer

>>12160562
>But is it more difficult than welding steel together so it doesn't blow up on fucking Mars?
Yes, it's far more difficult. Go study up on materials science, dude.
>>12160568
That's what makes CFC weak and shitty, actually. I'm serious. CFC as a structural material has exactly ONE attractive quality, its strength to mass ratio at standard temperatures. Two problems; a reusable rocket needs to be made of materials that are more than just strong for their mass, they also need to have good stress response characteristics and good strength across a large temperature range. Carbon fiber composites are weak when cold and weak when hot, in fact the temperature range at which they are most strong is not likely to be encountered by a rocket vehicle for more than a few seconds during a multi-year mission, during the moments between being exposed to reentry heat and being cold soaked in deep space. Oh, and carbon fiber composites also have incredibly BAD stress response characteristics; they are rather flexible until they have degraded enough that they aren't anymore, or if they're too cold, or if they just don't want to be strong anymore, at which point they tend to exhibit brittle failure modes, ie shattering. In many cases the energy released when a single fiber bundle snaps can be enough to cause a miniature cascade failure across a wide area of the part, as the recoil shock causes a momentary spike in stress on other already-stressed fibers which causes them to snap, too.
Basically, carbon fiber a poopoo and a fuck.

>>12160571
There was never any mysticism in the Soviet Union about rocket technology. It was just another series of pumps and valves and alloys. The Soviets were able to produce a very decent RS-25 clone on a small budget and a short time frame simply because they didn't give a shit, it was possible on paper so they just went and did it, they weren't constantly fellating themselves about how amazing their engine was going to be.

>>12160662
Do we have a pressure yet?

>>12160727
>>12160724
It's a money problem. If Starship works, they're gonna get back to Carbon fiber.

>>12160671
Even if that was the driver behind the switch (which isn't clear to me, they switched right after the Falcon 9's best year), people have been talking about cheap steel tankage on reusable rockets going back to sea dragon.

If Starship was going to refly as many times as a commercial jet then I'd agree that carbon composites might offer some real advantage on lowering recurring costs but even raptors are only designed for 1000 reuses and a 747 could fly well over a 1000 times using aluminum. Carbon Composites would be overkill.

>>12160731
No.

>>12160713
>you're a SpaceX engineer
>also you don't know anything
ok

>>12160732
No, they aren't. Because steel is better for a reusable TSTO than carbon fiber is. We went over this. You haven't put forward literally any argument for carbon fiber or against steel.

>>12160584
I think we will see one or two prototypes blow up during the belly-flop-to-backflip landing tests, maybe have one Starship burn up during reentry, and over the next year and a half maybe one or two failed landings due to unknown unknowns in the miscellaneous pressure and controls systems in the vehicle, and then the failures will go away. Maybe one in 2500 launches and landings will fail and we'll see a Starship crash once per year for a few years, then the reliability rate will increase further to one failure in ~50,000 and people will stop giving a shit.

>>12160733
Look, even as high of a price as rocket launches are, A F9 launch is like 60 Millions?
Let's pretend the fist stage and fairing are free, we're maybe looking at 20 millions?
Starship project need billions, dude.

>>12160744
Per launch? Lol no. The billions in development cost includes everything from Raptor to the launch pads and GSE to the design of the factory and so on. The actual metal tanks are a tiny fraction of the overall cost of the program.

>>12160744
You are very clearly not speaking from personal knowledge and your posts reek of ESL. Kill yourself.

>>12160750
Well, I imagine Elon is surfing on a very tight financial rope.

>>12160593
>In an alternate timeline, SpaceX didn't switch to steel.
>How far along do you think the program is?
They have built two low-fidelity Starship tanks, one as a pathfinder and the other to do a shitload of pressure and cryo tests. They have a third in the design phase as they work out how to do a carbon fiber thrust structure to hold Raptor. Due to the slow pace of the composite structure development, Raptor development has not had a fire lit under its ass and as such they are just now testing Raptor number 8, with a few designs for Raptor Vac kicking around but none actually built yet.

>>12160744
Elon has billions and he's been raising billions more - $1.3 billion last year and $1.9 billion this year.

https://www.space.com/spacex-raises-1.9-billion-funding-round.html

I imagine switching to steel probably made funding a lot easier because now they have actual prototypes to show investors.

>>12160753
What is ESL?

>>12160758
You seem to imagine a lot of bullshit without anything to back it up. Elon is one of the world's richest men.

>>12160764
English second language. He's saying you're not only a dumbass making shit up and talking trash, you're an Indian dumbass making shit up and talking trash.

>>12160765
Even Saint Elon can't waste his money without regulation coming in.

>>12160773
I'm french, but thank you for your patience.

>>12160776
There is no regulation on how you can spend money.

>>12160762
To further my point: If all that $3.2 billion has been spent on R&D, then SpaceX has spent more money developing Starship in the last 2 years than it spent on all Falcon 9/Falcon Heavy/Dragon development combined.

>>12160785
There is.
You can't just spend Tesla money on SpaceX.

>>12160773
You could have picked any 3rd world shithole
And you pick one that's English speaking
lol

>>12159140
shitting suborbital pineapples, gradually, ferociously

>>12160623
>SS was supposed to be mass produced, 500 tons to leo Carbon composite thing, totally re-usable.
No it wasn't. The original design, ITS, was 300 tons to LEO and would cost $250 million to construct per upper stage alone. ITS was NOT meant for mass production, it was an engineers wet dream of performance optimizations because they were thinking they may optimistically be able to get ten of those things sent to Mars per launch window.

Modern Starship is going to be ~$50 million sticker price, ~$10 million per launch, Booster will probably cost less than $70 million, and they'll be able to shit these things out at a rate faster than they can build Falcon 9 upper stages. In fact Starship production rate is 100% going to be limited by engine availability, which is why SpaceX wants to get something like a Raptor per day rolling off of the line. SpaceX is not thinking ten vehicles to Mars every 2.5 years anymore, they're thinking a megaton to orbit per ten Starship per year, and they want to be able to to 1000 Starship to Mars per 2.5 year launch window by ~2050.

The steel pill will save you, anon, but you need to be the one to take it.

>>12160793
Yes he can, the same way Bezos spends Amazon money on BO. Stock sales.

>>12160630
The only thing Obama cooked were anchor babies and their mothers in his illegal immigrant concentration camps.

>>12160818
If only that were true.

>>12160806
Fine.
Math gets weird when you start recovering the whole vehicle anyways.
Might as well be made of diamonds if you're sure to recover it.

>>12160816
Well it' illegal.

>>12160795
India has 19 official languages.
No, I'm not indian.

>>12160647
Carbo fiber is literally weaker than steel per kilogram of material when both are cooled to liquid oxygen/methane temperatures and when both are heated above 120 degrees celsius.

>>12160826
>Well it' illegal.
No it isn't. The CEO of a publicly traded corporation is absolutely entitled to sell his shares of the company to fund other ventures. He can't use the profits from the public company to fund another, but that's not what's being done.

>>12160704
Jesus how do you cope with day to day life of being a total pussy

Your bones my break before you got to a testosterone shot so just watch this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MKMG-FdCGtM

Look, just remember to vote for the right candidate.
I'm not American, but I see where it's going.

>>12160641
>If it's just throwing 100 tons, then a Saturn 5 or SLS can do the job.
Starship can throw 100 tons at Mars for $50 million, after refueling. SLS can throw less than 35 tons at Mars for >$1 billion. Saturn V is dead, so it's not an option in any case, but it too could have only thrown less than 35 tons at Mars. Starship isn't just unique in that it's a hundred times cheaper to launch anything into orbit using it, it's also the only rocket that can get as much payload to fucking direct Jupiter intercept as it can get to low Earth orbit, because in LEO it can be refueled.

>>12160836
Yeah, that fucking sucks. And should be illegal.

Today’s thread sucks.

>>12160841
IF in orbit refueling works.
There's a lot of ifs.

>>12160843
You're fucking retarded. You spout lies, get corrected, and then spout "well I WANT my lies to be true!"

I want you to be dead.

>>12160848
Yeah, but in orbit refueling isn’t one of them. There’s virtually no way in orbit refueling poses a problem. It’s just transferring fluid from one hose to another.

>>12160844
I'm trying to challenge you all.
Don't think the way to Mars is paved.
Don't even think spaceX will do more than blowing up steel tanks.
Who's the competition.

>>12160843
Lol retard

>>12160843
Why? Stock is property just like any other asset. If the board feels that the CEO is neglecting his duties to the public company's shareholders due to his focus on other ventures, they can vote to remove him.

>>12160844
i just wanted to compare engine costs and bully jeff bezos and then metallurgy happened...

>>12160851
You aren't "challenging" anything but our patience because everything you bring up is either easily refuted or a bald faced lie.

>>12160843
Why?

Someone buys the share that bezos/musk/whoever sold. The company is unchanged, money isn't "taken" from tesla/amazon/whatever, the share just changed owners.

>>12160864
And there's WAY bigger bullshit issues in the stock market, like naked short selling which is illegal but happens anyways.

Big contact for SpaceX

https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-awards-launch-services-contract-for-imap-mission/

>>12160864
Because your boss can just throw away your job for another project he's been financing with your work?

>>12160871
>naked short selling

I'm about to get mad after reading wikipedia arent I

>>12160881
You didn't understand a word I just said. All the information you needed was in the post you just replied to

>>12160671
https://twitter.com/Free_Space/status/1309515417703120897

kys fag

>>12160882
yeah probably
>tl;dr selling a stock you don't own on the theory that you can buy it back for cheaper later and pocket the difference
>this is sometimes abused to drive the price of a stock down so some bank doesnt lose a bunch of money on a short or options trade

>>12160881
The money isn't leaving the company, retard. Musk and Bezos exchange their personal shares in a company for liquid capital they can use to finance other things. The shares get sold on the market to other investors. The only net effect on the company is potentially having more shareholders, which has no influence whatsoever on company operations.

Pajeet 1: please stop posting your opinions on the tankage, they are bad
Pajeet 2: please stop getting so mad at Pajeet 1 and if you have to ragepost at him at least use humorous reaction images to liven up the thread a little

we can all be friends here!

>>12160876
What's been the recent breakdown of NASA science mission launch contracts? I know Psyche is slated for a Falcon Heavy.

>>12160881
I strongly believe leftists only exist because they fundamentally do not understand markets. This is a perfect example. The worst part is, leftist politicians absolutely do understand the market, but play dumb to get votes from idiots like you.

>>12160894
You're the retard.
That's how you get people to not want to work for your company.

>>12160904
There's nothing more retarded than being angry about things you don't understand after having it explained to you multiple ways. Imagine being a living definition

>>12160904
You're free to not work at Tesla and Elon is free to buy or sell Tesla stock as he wishes. Deal with it, commie.

>>12160899
I'm not a leftist by any means.
But there's a number tied to an enterprise name, and they shouldn't overlap.

Delta IV Heavy US$350 million
Falcon Heavy Reusable: $90M, Expendable: $150M

Delta IV US$164+ million
Falcon 9 New: US$62 million, Reused: US$50 million

Source: The wikipedia pages.
You guys don't need to wait for me every time, you can btfo the BOINGay by yourselves.
I promise I won't be sad.

>>12160645
>he only reason they switched to steel was because the carbon fiber was taking too long.
He's also said steel is the lightest option AND the cheapest option. If we're going by Elon's word as gospel, then carbon fiber has literally no redeeming qualities.

>>12160661
>Still will cost the same.
Starship Super Heavy won't cost more than $200 million to construct, with all reusability hardware and engines and everything taken into consideration. Even if SpaceX built fully reusable Starships and launched them in expendable mode only, that option would STILL cost one-fifth as much as the OPTIMISTIC figures for the price of an SLS block 1. Not to mention fully reusable Starship running in expendable mode can get more like 210 tons to LEO vs SLS block 1 at like 104-ish tons. Now think of the fact that if SpaceX was choosing to give up on reusability for Starship they're obviously not gonna install the legs, or flaps, or header tanks, or TPS, etc, which is going to increase the LEO performance AND reduce cost even further.
Expendable-optimized Starship is actually a ~300 ton to LEO launch vehicle that costs ~$150 million. There is no fucking universe in which Starship becomes on-par with SLS in terms of per launch cost, and especially not in terms of per-kg-to-orbit cost. Keep in mind this is if reusability is an UTTER failure.
More realistically, and pessimistically, if Starship can launch ten times in total and each launch costs $10 million in terms of propellant and logistics and salaries etc, then each launch only needs to cost $30 million in order to pay off Starship, pay all secondary costs, and make $10 million pure profit per launch. At least 100 tons to LEO for half the sticker price of a Falcon 9. More likely to be ~150 tons to LEO for ~$20 million, with each Starship launching at least 100x before retirement. Those economics work out to half a billion dollars in profit per Starship over its lifetime.

>>12160910
Look, I predict you massive layoffs because F9 actually fucking works.
SpaceX needs money.

>>12160916
I wonder what's the cost for ULA to launch D4H or Atlas V. We know that F9 costs SpaceX 28m per launch (reusable)

>>12160904
What are you talking about? Why would anyone working for a PUBLICLY-TRADED company give a shit about an insignificant percentage of shares changing hands? It has literally no effect whatsoever on how the company is run.

>>12160911
That's fucking illegal.

>>12160912
No, the market cap and stock price isn't just "a number tied to a name". It's the value of a company (a share is fractional ownership of a company) according to the open market. Tesla is worth half a trillion dollars because the stock market believes it's worth half a trillion dollars. Elon owns a significant portion of Tesla. If he wants to sell some of his ownership stake to raise capital, that's entirely his business. And he probably wouldn't even sell his stock, he's far more likely to take a loan against it.

>>12160927
SpaceX isn't publicly traded?

I want Starship to loft massive killsats into orbit for DoD so we can point them at China and our other enemies.

>>12160928
It literally isn't. You've claimed that twice now and you're still wrong. There's certain restrictions on when Elon can sell and the paperwork he needs to do because he owns more than 10% of the company, but as long as he files all his trades with the SEC and doesn't sell right before big news he's free and clear. Generally a CEO who intends to sell shares will set up a regular sale (monthly, quarterly, etc) so nobody can claim they're timing the market with inside information.

>>12160938
Elon selling Tesla themed short pants on Twitter probably gave a dozen SEC agents ulcers.

>>12160933
The scenario being discussed is Elon selling some Tesla stock to fund SpaceX, which is perfectly legal and exactly how Blue Origin works.

>>12160938
Yeah, you know what, if it's legal, it shouldn't be.

>>12160933
No, but Tesla and Amazon, Musk and Bezos' respective cash cows, are. They can sell shares in their public firms to raise capital for their private space ventures.

More Big Jim

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jq_pyPw4UKg

>>12160941
Shouldn't be allowed.

>>12160933
>elon has to spend his money on publicly traded stock

How does he buy food and shelter

>>12160940
Okay, yes, Elon shitposting about shorts might actually be illegal.

>>12160942
Why are you arguing in circles? You said this before. We told you why you're wrong before.
>>12160843
read the replies you got the last time you said the same stupid thing

NOOOOOOO ELON CHAN I DON'T WANT TO WORKERINO FOR SPACEX STOP TRYING TO FORCE MEEEEEEEEE
NOOOOO NO NO NO NO ELONG STOP I'M NOT GOING TO WORKERINO FOR SPACEX BECAUSE YOU SOLD TESLA SHARES
THINK OF THE STOCKERINOS NOOOOOOOOO

>>12160671
>I'm talking about falcon 9.
>Re-use was supposed to lower price.
>Yet it didn't because there's no client.
Falcon 9 expendable costs ~$62 million IIRC. Falcon 9 with a reused booster is gonna cost the air force less than $40 million per launch. What was that about reuse not saving anyone money? In fact the only reason reusable Falcon 9 isn't even cheaper is because the fairing and the 2nd stage cost an assload and are expendable (or at least difficult to recover successfully, in the fairing's case).

>>12160946
You are literally advocating abolishing capitalism. A free and open stock market is integral to capitalism. Killing communists is always self defense.

>>12160946
You shouldn't be allowed to post, yet here we are

>>12160950
I don't know man? Think about it. A bald man has been selling us stuff lower than market price for years.
How do we stop him.

>>12160954
>>12160916

>>12160962
?????
What the fuck does that have to do with anything? You don't like Amazon, so Elon shouldn't be able to sell his Tesla shares to fund SpaceX?

>>12160540
You’re either just throwing out bait, or you are actually retarded lol. /sfg/ isn’t just circlejerking elon and supporting steel because “elon is muh god”. It’s actually smart. Carbon fiber is WILDLY expensive as of right now and there aren’t fabrication techniques to make good tanks 9m big. Also steel gets stronger as it gets cooled (i.e. when it is filled with cryogenic liquid fuels) and has a higher heat resistance than aluminum (which the shuttle was made from). Are you stupid anon?

>>12160966
I'm saying rules should apply to billionaires.
Any business owner knows he can't mix treasuries if he got more than one.
That's a luxury only those fuckers get.

time to repost this gold quote:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ptPdlVAwFg

>>12160970
I'm the one shitting on steel, btw.

>>12159824
that's the best idea I've ever heard, we should begin work on it immediately

>>12160977
Rules do apply to billionaires. Elon selling Tesla stock does not appear anywhere on Tesla's financials. It does not cost Tesla money. The secondary market for shares is disconnected from corporate financials. The only way Tesla raises money on the market is by issuing new shares. This is literally 100 level accounting.

>>12160924
https://spacenews.com/cost-of-delta-4-heavy-launches-is-down-but-the-real-price-is-a-secret/

D4H true cost is below $300 million but probably not much lower than that or else they wouldn't have given up on it so fast after FH got flying.

Atlas V is probably quite a bit cheaper than the $110 million sticker price though. Vulcan-Centaur's minimum price is $82 million and the BE-4s are gonna be slightly more expensive than the RD-181 so it's gotta be less than that for the single-rl10 version.

>>12160704
Daily reminder that closest thing we've ever had to an actual honest to god single stage to orbit vehicle was made of steel and had kerosene fueled engines with a specific impulse no higher than 316 in vacuum and an average of about 240 Isp at sea level.
Daily reminder that this steel missile mass produced in the late 50's and early 60's was the first American manned orbital launch vehicle.