/sci/ - Science & Math

>>12484588
Why did you post a picture of some water towers being built? How is this related to space flight?

>>12484594
hilarious and original

>>12484588
Early last year or somethng?

woah, wait a minute. what's that, lads?

How long until SpaceX is finally broken up for forcing a corporate monopoly on the launch industry?

>>12484601
a glove in his back pocket

>>12484601
he's a big guy.

Will Peter Beck be able to pull off Venus sample return? You know he wants to

>>12484601
It appears to be some sort of man

>>12484604
Never because oldspace companies still get government preferential support and that will keep them competitive.

>>12484601
propellant is stored in his balls

>>12484601
ZOOM IN. ENHANCE.

>TONIGHT, on /sfg/

>>12484618
poopy

>>12484618
>jeremy plays moon golf
>richard points at a satellite bus
>james docks with two men

>>12484618
VacRaptor swaps: the LS8 swap of space, or an express ticket to destroying your upper stage?

any food wholesome space twitter posts today? feed me

>>12484601
Big Bob has found his life's calling: balancing behemoth balls

>>12484602
I wonder if they'll make a stripped-down, non-reusable starship for missions where they really need to yeet the fuck outta something

>>12484632
there were some normies excited that the sonic boom today was loud

>>12484641
they will

>>12484604
The DoD really wants starlink, and Elon is going to have his own men in Washington once the money really starts pouring in.

>>12484507
No. They can't openly say that they don't want the telescope because they hate Whitey.

Islanders HATE mainlanders.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kill_Haole_Day

https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/intelligence-report/2009/hawaii-suffering-racial-prejudice

Yet most of the Asian inhabitants of Hawaii are descendants of Migrants who came to work on fruit plantation....

>you'll never have a piece of the soyuz crater in your backyard
why live bros? But really this thing is a tough SoB. Survived both reentry and impact very intact

>>12484653
Elon will protest on principle probably but he really should get in an the lobbyist game.

>>12484641
Actually once they start mass producing star ships like 747's what they can do is use a star ship that's near it's EOL such as it's been launched 20 times.

It might have 5 more launches left in it's life span, but the probe would be deemed valuable to not cut to close to say 2 more remaining launches before it has to get scrapped.

>>12484661
Elon should become Weyland.

>>12484661

>>12484661
>people start fucking with SpaceX
>mysterious 20 million dollar donations start to roll in to SuperPACs during election season
>"Committee for people who like fast internet" starts running ads with scary music and old people talking about how Senator Shelby is taking away their internet

It seems like you could have a pretty solid politics game if you put a little bit of effort into it.

>be rocket engineer

Work for national agency
>paid to study hypothetical manned flag planting mission doable in one presidential term
>only allowed to upgrade 80yrs oldspace design
>no unproven newspace technology allowed to be tested
>have to wear cap made of red tape
>every few years your budget and design goal reset
>do mission-critical R&D side-project that will never be used
>people call you a tax-thief with a cushy-job

Work for private company
>paid to build a mars-rocket right now is it done yet?
>free hands to try any imaginable new concept
>no uncool technology allowed to be tested
>green paper fall from the sky
>subsidies money keep coming no matter how much explode
>get all mission-critical R&D for free from national agency
>people glorify the CEO who pay you minimum wage to make gravity his bitch

>>12484675
SpaceX engineers aren't getting paid minimum wage lol

The base wage is low and the stock options are massive, so that everybody has an incentive to make SpaceX stock prices go up, Starlink is probably going to make an entire generation of rocket engineers into millionaires.

>>12484661
Why stoop to those lows? Star Ship might get launched 8 additional times before the SLS gets a 2nd mission, while carrying more weight than the SLS each time.

In the mean time Musk can send people like Shuttle Era engineers & their grand kids, as well as say NASA shuttle era janitors & grounds keepers into low earth orbits as dirt into the eyes of NASA's leadership.

Imagine how cucked you would be as a NASA administrator to not go into space but it's the retard Janitor or Mexican lawn mower who gets to go.

>>12484661

Those spent boosters and stages must be a treasure trove for local salvage and recycling companies.

>>12484600

Yeah, early 2019.

>>12484594

Lmao, yeah, the early days when making a grain silo (made out of steel no less) that can go into space was beyond the comprehension of many people.

>>12484687
>Star Ship might get launched 8 additional times before the SLS gets a 2nd mission, while carrying more weight than the SLS each time.
Starship might be launched dozens of times before the second SLS mission

>>12484670
this is a good idea. Remove its wings and heat shield and give it a proper viking burial in the air.

>>12484673
lmao. He's not wrong, F9 is a bit of a prima donna. Though it's also advantageous to chose a less shit launch site.

>>12484673
SpaceX doesn't have to work in shitty conditions because they have enough money to launch out of a first world country.

Thirdoid cope extends even to the space race now.

>>12484706
Musk should invite Russia's space Agency to come out with Martian & Lunar surface modules, and equipment such as excavation equipment.

Rather than be the rocket that sends stuff they should design the stuff that would get sent. A tunnel boring machine & infrastructure equipment to support it's work would be worth it's weight in Carbon Nano-tubes.

Why bother building surface structures when you can build hundreds of miles of corridors 20 ft under ground? Once you start building underground you can do what the hell you want & not be constrained by some cramped surface structure.

With underground structures you could give individual colonialist their own 1500 Sq feet apartments to live in for 50 years.

Will Uncle Joe pick her bros?

>>12484749

>>12484754
>>12484749
She's retarded.

>>12484706
Or what they can do is park a bunch of about to be decommissioned tankers into orbit, then link them up with each other. So you could have 3 or 4 Martian Colonial Transporters worth of fuel being used to send a payload to a destination very quickly. Or use the tankers as fuel depots.

>>12484673
I mean..."gentle SpaceX" built a ship which gets strongest around -180C so yes, they could probably build and launch Starships in cold weather.

>>12484754
:0

>>12484601
America

>>12484691
spent stage salvage is a major activity in Khazakhstan

>>12484749
>I'd just do another internet company.
...like Starlink? Was that his master plan all along?

>and more than 100,000 KBOs over 100 km (62 mi) in diameter are thought to exist.
Its mind boggling how much space there is just within our solar system to explore and colonize. Pretty much any ideology or religion could create their own colonies out there and never be disturbed.

>>12484802
;)

>>12484759
>>12484773

They're just upset that they won't be having their socialist utopia that would include them.

They would rather set the space industry back 50 years than to allow people who aren't had picked by the government to go into space.

>>12484742
>A tunnel boring machine & infrastructure equipment to support it's work would be worth it's weight in Carbon Nano-tubes.
Boring Company

>>12484600
two years ago, December 2018

>>12484805
That's the thing. Diversity is chasing the last white person down.

You could give non-whites quick access to 1 million paradise planet that has no natural disasters & entire planet that's covered with a Californian climate, but they'll still be pound at the door of a pure-white colony that lives in tin cans on a planet that has the climate of Venus

>>12484805
This is why I hate how sci-fi always has to be interstellar in scale. You could set a massive, sprawling sci-fi setting with thousands of cool locations, cities, etc; in just our Solar System. I suppose that means you can't have aliens all over the place, but seriously the Solar System is underused as a setting, and underdeveloped in interstellar settings where trillions of humans could live in the Sol system alone.

>>12484760
I like this idea. Instead of a SS having to link up with multiple tankers, link the tankers to create a giant one that can do the job in one go.

I've never really been convinced of the idea that you can send a SS into space and then quickly launch a bunch of tankers. Too many things that could go wrong. Better to regularly put tankers into LEO.

>>12484808
>50 years
You mean indefinitely, there would never, ever be significant human expansion into space without the boundary pushing of the private sector.

>>12484808
im confused by them, im try to understand them but i cannot

>>12484823
Its sad, really.
>>12484828
Most authors have very little knowledge on the subject.

>>12484832
Von Braun wanted to do multiple refuelings because he envisioned we would build a martian base quickly after arriving. There would had been multiple generations of people born on the moon by now if he had his way,

It's a lot easier to engineer a space craft to be topped up with fuel by a fuel tanker than to build a huge Saturn 5 type of rocket that has to send everything up in one launch.

My theory is that the contractors feared the possibility of opening up the door to smaller firms who could afford to engineer a smaller rocket solutions, so they pushed the government to go for all-or-nothing big rocket.

>>12484607
Maybe once Electron is dead and buried and Rocket Lab is a satellite business. And even then, the technology to do an atmospheric sample return is probably just barely available, and a surface sample is far in the future.

>>12484618
https://youtu.be/X-SmtAPi-EQ
Today's regularly scheduled programming. Sponsored by Astra.

Will they make it bros? Or bankrupt by christmas? Also is Steve Jurvetson an investor? Saw him shilling for them on twitter.

>>12484673
now this is a cope

>>12484673
Rogozin is one hell of a guy lol. Love him. His twitter matches Elon's autism.

>>12484604
>forcing a corporate monopoly on the launch industry?
SpaceX is the best at what they do, they aren't sabotaging other flight companies.
There are plenty of other """"""single use"""""" options in the launch industry!
Get off the internet Jeff, BO will never catch up

could this really happen bros?

>>12484872
astra will probably survive because of the fact it can fit a rocket and its GSE in two standard payload containers, which the CIA and US military will probably like a lot

>>12484836
They're parasites.

When Musk goes to the moon many times while legacy-space flounders around to get a 2nd launch up before Musk could hit 10 missions to the moon the 3rd dot-com bubble will commence. It will be called "Space-Com".Technology on the stock market is pretty much stagnant, speculators have to turn to SPACs to make money now.

Once SpaceX goes to the moon every engineering student will want to copy Musk's stainless steel rockets. I can see steel refineries who make rolls of sheet metal trying the rocket game.Eventually the market will get over saturated, so these space companies will keep on chasing things like fuel depots, modules for the Moon & Mars, space suits, ect.

The Parasites will get snuffed out. What I fear is NGO's sending poor & dumb individuals to live on the Moon & mars in the male of equality.

>>12484802
Imagine keeping an idea like Starlink in the backpocket until one day you decide you need a couple more billions

>>12484749
>quoting yourself

>>12484893
Yup, that's probably it's best use-case already getting contracts from DoD and AF as a matter of fact

>>12484901
holy shit you're right. this cunt is insane

>>12484898
>Once SpaceX goes to the moon every engineering student will want to copy Musk's stainless steel rockets. I can see steel refineries who make rolls of sheet metal trying the rocket game.Eventually the market will get over saturated, so these space companies will keep on chasing things like fuel depots, modules for the Moon & Mars, space suits, ect.
You're totally wrong about this. People won't make their own rocket companies, instead they will make companies to exploit starship's insanely low launch costs. Shit like orbital manufacturing, orbital tourism, asteroid mining, orbital shipyards, etc etc will finally be viable.

They were inspecting flap mounting points on SN9 last night. Wonder how she held up.

>>12484910
an SN10 nosecone has been stacked without the forward starboard flap. I wonder if people speculating that said flap is going to SN9 are right.

https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3114155/elon-musk-and-jeff-bezos-are-two-man-space-race


More interesting stories/quotes and background information between Musk/Bezos and their companies.

>>12484910
sn9, what a disgrace

>>12484889
Look at this.

>>12484919
Thank you fellow redditor and Chinaman

>>12484925
huh? wha

>>12484919
it's really not much of a rivalry

>>12484909
>People won't make their own rocket companies, instead they will make companies to exploit starship's insanely low launch costs.
I can only hope you're right.
Too many times the average business man looks at what is making bank and emulates it to make a quick buck. Right before the industry gets over saturated, they sell out and continue on to the next new thing.

>>12484918
>>12484910
im guessing SN9 is going to fly then if they diverted a flap from SN10 to be used on SN9

>>12484935
SpaceX has such a big head start on what they're doing that it makes no sense to try and emulate them. Anybody with a brain can see that the money to be made will be made by exploiting starship's low launch costs. Even if it takes a decade for people to start doing so, they eventually will.

>>12484919
ol musky vs an empty chair

Is this legit?

>>12484944
There's always going to be a duopoly/oligopoly situation where another party will want a piece of the cake. That's Bezo's competing with Musk to get slice of pie. After that, lesser companies wont be able to compete on an ever shrinking pie as the financials dont make sense.

>>12484918

>>12484937
it's a good sign

>>12484958
Will New Glenn (assuming it ever manifests) have any niche notable advantage over Starship? I'm struggling to think of anything. New Glenn really needed to have come out years ago.

How are people still skeptical of Starship? I know it’s not done yet and there are a billion key systems that have to be tested (heat shield looks like it’ll be a bitch) but like does no one realize that SpaceX will do whatever it takes to make this thing functional? People doubted Falcon 9 and they got shit on in the end. Even before the first Falcon 9 flew, it was listed as being able to put 4.5 tons into a GTO at a cost of $50 Million, and Arianespace still didn’t care.

>Today, I will remind them
>OH NO NEW SHEPARDBROS WE GOT TOO COCKY!!!!!!

>>12484968
New Glenn was designed to fight against Falcon Heavy and Falcon 9. Expendable Starship costs like $100 Million and can put 21 tons into a GTO, which is almost twice that of NG

>>12484969
>heat shield looks like it’ll be a bitch
i think heat shield will be easier then people think honestly

>>12484974
True. Stainless steel is stupid strong and can survive amazing heat. It’s just that no one knows how it’ll fare as a large pressurized structure.

Methane as a rocket fuel is a complete meme.

>but muh isru in mars
Use carbon monoxide there and ethanol here if you want something renewable.

The game changer is going to be a flex-fuel rocket engine. One that can burn either CO or Ethanol.

>>12484968
New Glenn isn't going to compete with Starship. Its going to compete with Vulcan/Falcon9. Falcon9 will be removed from service probably mid 2020s. So that leaves New Glenn to compete against Vulcan for the second half of contracts from NASA/Airforce as they want to maintain a "competition" against Starship.

>>12484969
>How are people still skeptical of Starship?
General misconception that all projects are one failure away from being canceled. Happens when people don't know much about a given project except when it fails. It also comes from project-ending failures being better known than failures that don't end projects.

>>12484969
They'll have to change a lot of things. For deploying things to orbit it doesn't need to burn methane. For going to mars, methane is going to be useless, and for coming back from mars it's going to be unfeasible.

>>12484969
because they don't want to accept that the space program went nowhere once the Shuttle became a jobs program.

>>12484972
There's going to be 0 reason for expendable Starship, if their refueling inorbit works. Why waste a perfectly good vessel when it can be refueled in LEO and land back.

>>12484969
"Elon Musk slave miner."
"Musk isn't engineer. He doesn't know anything"
"SpaceX is a fraud."
"I hate Musk because Tesla stock is fake"

>>12484944
are you kidding? you want spacex to have a monopoly on access to mars? when musk dies those cheap launch prices will skyrocket. either spaceport and transportation infrastructure becomes a public utility or someone has to compete with them

>>12484918
Whats more likely now to be the first to static fire?

Remove SN9's raptors and put it on SN10 (add flaps)

vs

Examine damages on SN9 and replace SN9's flaps

>>12484977
Carbon monoxide is more dangerous to humans than methane and requires more cooling to stay liquid than methane. Also methane as a fuel has much more research and development than carbon monoxide. Ethanol is friendlier to humans than carbon monoxide, but it's energy content is lacking.

>>12484985
I mean in a worst case scenario. Raptors cost $2 Million a piece. 28 on the first stage and 3 on the second (we don’t need sea level Raptors) is 31 in total, and $62 Million. The stainless steel costs $3/kg as stated by Elon. 300 tons of it is $1 Million. Assuming other furnishings and whatnot it’s likely that Starship costs $90 million to build. A 1.5X margin which is apparently industry standard (Don’t quote me on this but I asked Tory Bruno) means that it’s around $135 million for a complete expendable Starship stack.

Reusing the first stage but throwing away the second likely gets you to around Falcon 9 prices.

>>12484996
Who fucking knows. SN10s nosecone is stacked which means that it just needs a final stacking operation for the entire vehicle. I’d honestly rather have SpaceX wait a few weeks and get SN10 right rather than have SN9 explode mid flight or some shit

>>12484872
>Sponsored by Astra
Did this actually happen? Sounds like you're just joking but it does seem like you pulled your punches regarding the future of smallsat launch industry. They're obviously not able to compete on price with the larger launchers but they're also not going to be able to compete on flights to niche orbital inclinations either with all the space tug companies starting to come online that will piggy back on cheap ride share launches.

Anyway, Astra is the one company I want to fall, but if they can't get money from the private sector they could probably get money if they went public via a special purpose acquisition company. It would be SPCE 2: Electric Boogaloo and I would drown in shills calling it the next SpaceX. I wonder why other spaceflight companies haven't done this.

>>12484969
Simply because all the past big space projects that promised what SpaceX is promising failed

>>12485008
We can assume both will fly as demonstrators. So it wont be a one time thing. The more experience they get, the more likely they'll win NASA's HLS funding in Feb. So they likely have 1-2 month left before they can do their demo right.

>>12485012
bigot

>>12484969
I'm not skeptical you can build a reusable heavy launch rocket. That's honestly just doing bigger and taking road that are forbidden to national space program because they are risk averse.
Getting it back from orbit now that's going to be a challenge and I'll remind everyone SpaceX didn't take the monetary risk of having that reusable 2nd stage like they planned either.
Then you'll need to rate it for human use, then recondition it for flight. That's what killed the shuttle.

Going to the moon, that's not going to be as simple and cheap as claimed but still just a matter of size. I don't believe we'll do anything constructive until we learn to make space-dock and build rocket meant only for the void.

Now going to Mars raise more than one flag, I simply don't trust a multipurpose vehicle stretching the limit to be reliable enough for that long.

It doesn't matter how skeptical we are, as long as SpaceX is the only one to do it the media&social network are going to blow it out of proportion.

I found a good wallpaper sized version of a Falcon Heavy launch. I think this is Arabsat-6a.

>>12484872
I hope they fail mainly because of the retarded BLM thing

>>12484872
Astra is fucked, can't launch a rocket right and they don't offer anything other launchers can't.

>>12484919
I know about Musk. But the other guy? Jeff? Jeff who?

>>12485003
>Carbon monoxide is more dangerous to humans than methane
Which is why it will be used only for the trip back from mars. If methane or oxygen or anything leaks you're done for anyway, so the point of it being more dangerous is moot.

>but it's energy content is lacking.
Compare the pressure requirements for storing methane in liquid form x ethanol in liquid form. With ethanol you just pour it in, no need to vent it out just because it got a little warmer. It's a superior fuel from a practical standpoint. Just compare natural gas x ethanol cars

Don't get me wrong, I like the concept of a methane rocket, it's cool, it works, but it isn't going to Mars

>>12485031

>>12485024
yes.jpg

>>12485043
SpaceXBros...it’s over...we lost

>>12485031
Imagine people trusting you to not drop a 6 or so million dollars engine. That guy is high up in the foodchain.

>>12485004
Why does it matter if the whole thing costs 100 million when a single RS-25s cost 140 million a peice?

>>12485054
Raptors are dirt cheap. They’re $2 Million a piece currently and are apparently likely to go down to $250 Thousand. There’s also dozens of them currently around so losing an engine isn’t the end of the world. I think they’re at Raptor 60+ at the moment? We saw 46 installed into SN9.

>>12485056
I mean Starship has to be commercially competitive too.

>>12485056
SpaceX has to make money, but more importantly, they have they have to manage their resources properly so they can succeed in their ultimate goal. If SpaceX fails to make Starship reusable (very unlikely), then its going to make it that much harder to achieve their goal of sending humans to Mars, if not downright impossible. That's why that sort of scenario is bad, but very very unlikely.

>>12485065
Just to think NASA has to rip out all of the RS-25s from their shuttles to throw away into the ocean when they were going to make new ones anyways.

>>12485036
I think their niche is being able to launch from a mobile platform?

>>12485031
I don't care about that, but I do care about how scummy their management was last launch. FFS they even used a fisheye lens on their 2nd stage to make it look like they were higher than they actually were. They even had to delete a tweet where they were boasting about being one of the elites who made it into "orbital space". That was a straight-up lie. They failed to reach orbit. I mean for their 2nd launch it went pretty well, they didn't have to be shitheads about it.

Getting away from earth requires high energy. About this recent .CN probe, Is it that easy to get away back from the Moon ?
Which source of energy did they used ?

>>12485069
I get the economics, but if they have to do a handful expendable launches out of several thousand then why is it considered to be a big deal when one star ship will cost the equivalent of a single rs-25?

>>12485074
they want to slowly erase exceptional American spaceflight history to start a new space age of mediocrity and endless delays.

>>12485065
>$250,000
holy fucking shit

>>12485082
>I think their niche is being able to launch from a mobile platform?
Astra's whole thing is the integrated rocket and GSE fit in two shipping containers so you can set up anywhere and go. That extreme stealth+mobility combined with their demo flights being from Kodiak for polar-LEO or SSO means they're marketing this pretty exclusively to the gooberment.

>>12485031
>the chad 130 million dollar engine queen treatment vs the virgin few hundred thousand dollars diy scrap made fart puffer dragging

>>12485085
SpaceX can compete and "win" against RS-25 or SLS or whatever, but at the end of the day, what really matters is their own internal resource management.

fucking chad

>>12485092
how would this tech be used in practice? Launching from the middle of nowhere just because? Being able to launch from anywhere with a US military presence?

>>12485096
>fucking chad

>>12485102
Spysats launched from anywhere on short notice to shore up holes in our network caused by natural deorbits or enemy ASAT missiles.

Christmas Raptor

>>12485107
sounds like a comfy niche for them. Though the rocket currently can't make it to orbit without a payload. Those may have to be some extremely light spysats

>>12485107
I could unironically see Astra going under but their rocket suddenly being used by the government.

>>12485082
Yeah Astra is a scummy company. Any private firm that pulls their punches while launching is a POS. SpaceX is based and let us watch SN8. Even ULA will broadcast Vulcan’s maiden flight live

>>12485107
>*teleports in space*
>*deploys ball bearings in retrograde orbit*
nothing personnel, kid

Hi /sfg/, I'm trying to find a good book to redpill my niece on spaceflight (Christmas gift). She's high school level, really need something to make her think. Fiction or nonfiction dont matter

>>12485126
Ashlee Vance’s Elon book is great

>>12485126
Forget it she'll get into it when mars and moon landings start getting routine and the NPC tribe explodes about the topic nu-internet style.

>>12485126
Ignition!

why doesnt the v2 exist today? whatever happened to the og small launcher?

>>12485039
>but it isn't going to Mars

>>12485126
Moon is a Harsh Mistress
that'll be interesting to see her work through

virgin galactic vs chad spacex ;)

>>12485133
this is a really special book. most of the chemistry went over my head, but the informal bits made me lmao. i remain in awe of the massive testicles of early fuel chemists

>>12484983
What

What is the future for composite booster bodies?

>>12484983
Do you know anything about mars exploration?

Literally every reasonable mars architecture since mars direct has been based around methane. Are you going to suggest kerolox, or, god forbid, hydrolox? How many massive, shitty hydrolox rockets need to be built before that meme dies.

Yes, congratulation, hydrolox as an upper stages provides better specific impulse. But when you take into account every other engineering variable necessary to get humans to mars - size (ESPECIALLY tank size), cost, ISRU at mars, and others, hydrolox is not as advantageous.

And don't suggest splitting the fuel architecture in booster and upper stages. That is moronic; one of the reasons starship and f9 have been so cheap to build is that spacex really only had to design 1 engine and a nozzle extension for both, which was small, easily transportable, and easy to scale into mass production.

>>12485069
SpaceX's goal isn't to send humans to mars, it is to colonize mars. Two very different things. If SpaceX wanted a flags and footprint mars mission they could of done orbital assembly with falcon 9. But they didn't because the whole goal of starship is to lower the cost of access to space enough that sending hundreds of thousands of people to mars is economically viable.

>>12485177
There isn't one, for the near future. Composites make sense for internal tanks for a number of reasons and would have been awesome in the venturestar, but the switch spaceX made was driven by cost, re-entry performance, and the still-finicky issue of sealing composite tanks without a stainless steel tank liner + maintaining strength at cryo temps. They are simply too application-specific, temperature inflexible, and layup-sensitive to be viable for launch vehicles that use tank walls as structure.

T. just finished engineering course in composites

>>12485124
>deploys ball bearings in retrograde orbit
Would a ball bearing survive reentry?

>>12485190
Probably yeah

>>12485178
>Literally every reasonable mars architecture since mars direct has been based around methane
For no good reason

>>12485178
Chemical rockets won't cut it
We need to go nuclear

Show me how much methane has been made in Mars to this date

>>12485190
Depends. Aluminum, no. Stainless, perhaps. Tungsten, definitely.

>>12485184
If SpaceX can't send humans to mars, then they can't colonize mars. Colonization is part of the whole sending human to mars thing.

>>12485206
Kino pic but any chemical mission to Saturn is going to take 6+ years. Jupiter can be done in 3-4 though

>>12485186
would old space do them any ways just because?

Was Venture star doomed to economically fail?

>>12485202
>for no good reason
methane is well behaved compared to hydrogen and fairly easy to produce on Mars, those are both very good reasons

>>12485202
Oh boy here we go. Another nuke autist who thinks that it's a good idea to delay manned mars exploration by 30+ years and run into the quagmire of public opinion so that he can use nukes.

Obviously nukes are the fucking ideal for interplanetary transfer. Good fucking luck getting them built and deployed in >current year. Methane is the next-best architecture for mars for a variety of reasons. Obviously it isn't as good as using nukes, but nukes are not going to happen.

>>12485209
Correct, but you have to realize pretty much every other plan to send humans to mars has been for the purpose of either flags and footprints, or at most a small non permanently manned scientific outpost. SpaceX's goals are 1000x more grand then this.

>>12485202
>>12485216
>not just building transfer ships in orbit so you don't have to take off or land using nuclear propellents

fucking amateurs I swear

>>12485202
I did some math and I found that SpaceX can send people to mars and back without ISRU. I’m willing to expand upon my retard math if you’d like but ISRU is needed for colonization - but not the initial “flags and footprints” missions.

>>12485216
Don't forget 30 years over budget & overdue product after waiting 30 years for the technology to mature to start the development.

By the time we have nuclear rockets 2-3 generations of humans could had been born on mars.

>>12485177
We know more about steel then any other building material known to man. The ASME Boiler & Pressure Vessel Code is over 100 years mature now. Carbon fiber has a good place in small size applications like the COPVs and handles for chairs and shit, thats about it.

>>12485229
We could had been to Mars in the 90s but it would had been a repeat of the Apollo program so it wouldn't be until 2050 or 2075 we would go back.

I've talked to people on the Internet and they said they don't care, and they just wish that we went because they said that we're wasting money on the military.

>>12485223
There are no "every other plan to send humans to mars." There is only SpaceX's plans. NASA has no plans, China has no plans. Russia has no plans. Blue Origin has no plans. Lockheed Martin has no plans. Boeing has no plans.

There is ONLY SpaceX with any mars plan.

>>12485229
Tbh the groundwork for colonization should come before the first manned mission.

It would be easier to drop off supplies and rovers and shit than it would be to drop off people, and it would serve as a proof of concept.

If you use the first few starship missions to Mars to just drop off freeze dried food, atmosphere equipment, and a nuclear reactor, you could have Mars be continuously inhabited permanently or semi-permanently from the first landing onwards.

>>12485229
SpaceX will never do "flags and footprints" missions. If they wanted to do that they could of done orbital assembly with falcon 9. The first mars missions will be for the sole purpose of setting up the initial ISRU propellant depots, as well as the initial base/solar power farm.

>>12485254
they'll do it if the US government pays them enough to do it

>>12485253
It will. SpaceX plans to send cargo starships before they send humans.
>>12485249
People don't understand this. The whole reason SpaceX is designing a fully and rapidly reusable rocket is so that they can actually afford to send hundreds of thousands of people to Mars.

>>12485177
The way I see it, we have two basic problems with carbon fiber and other composites.

1: the material itself is super expensive

2: it's difficult and complicated to actually build stuff because you have to manually lay down sheets of fiber

If you could develop an injection molded polymer/fiber mixture that was cheap to manufacture, then it could be useful for mass production, but right now the weight advantage just isn't worth dealing with the added hassle.

>>12485260
You're literally fucking retarded. Why would SpaceX waste their time putting a man on mars and making him set up an american flag if they can send two dozen men to mars and make them set up an american flag AND an early colonial outpost.

UK Starlink beta invites are going out
https://old.reddit.com/r/Starlink/comments/kg4oyu/uk_invites_happening/

>>12485260
US government wont do it. That will embarass the US congressmen who have been supporting legacy companies long before SpaceX was even a thing.

>>12485267
Because one of them is much more achievable in the short term and that's worth much more money to an administration that has at most 4 years to justify its spending on space exploration. SpaceX can walk and chew gum at the same time—getting external funding for a different type of Mars mission that is nearly 100% on the critical path to their own Mars mission aspirations isn't a problem.

>>12485281
>Because one of them is much more achievable in the short term
Not with Starship lmao. It needs full orbital refueling to be useful at Mars arrival anyway.

>>12485215
>hey, lets go some food
>"what do we eat?"
>this cockroach paste is kinda non-toxic in comparison to ground centipedes
>"cockroach paste? why don't we go and eat gnocci"
>because cockroach paste is better behavd and more studied than ground centipedes

>>12485281
>Because one of them is much more achievable in the short term and that's worth much more money to an administration that has at most 4 years to justify its spending on space exploration
How is one of them "more achievable in the short term" when one of them involves developing a whole new launch system and spacecraft while the other just involves sending one crewed starship and a couple cargo starships to mars?

https://twitter.com/draw_jose/status/1340386960779726848

>>12485289
And?

No shit SpaceX is going to be testing orbital refueling as soon as they're done figuring out how to get stuff into orbit. That opens up an absolute ton of possibilities for them.

>>12485293
SN10 was stacked just today

>>12484889
nice movie but with 100% fantasy physics

>>12485290
>food analogy that doesn't explain anything

>>12485213
I don't think venturestar was doomed economically. It was projected to cost about 1/10 the cost of the shuttle per kg/orbit. Assuming oldspace incompetence let's say 1/5th. That's still a significant improvement in like, 2009. It was still a symptom of spaceplane autism, but all things considered seemed to have taken the lessons learned from shuttle into account.

They ended up figuring out the composite tanks later anyways. And the dreamliner went into service in 2009. Our knowledge of composite fatigue is a lot better now, but unfortunately the political will at the time meant that Venturestar was killed by a couple key politicians. Whose home addresses I may or may not have on a wall chart next to me with plastic explosives sitting underneath it.

>>12484889
>Establish a turkic/muslim city
YIKES

So with the removal of sn10's wing for sn9 we can assume they going to fly the bitch?

>>12485293
I wonder if they can land just the rear portion of the Starship without the nosecone at all. The nosecone could be a mars or moon lander.

>>12485290
I legitimately can't decipher how this is supposed to have any connection to Mars colonial propulsion choice.
>hydrolox: makes your rockets retardedly large, leaks everywhere, deep cryo
>nuclear: good luck convincing the US government to let you launch hundreds of NERVAs every synod
>methalox: just werks
>keralox: no oil on mars

>>12485305
We dont know which will fly first, but my guess is both are in similar timeline (very close to flying) and both will fly.

>>12485226
Obviously they wouldn't be used for launch you fucking idiot, but even launching them on traditional rocket is going to cause a huge panic and overall they're just a fucking mess to get implemented.

>>12485262
They want to be able to say that we've done it, and it wouldn't make sense to go to Mars again since we've "already been there".

>>12484618
Could the Reliant Robin have made it into orbit?

>>12485300
The sail the ether, not real-life outer space.

>>12485306
>I wonder if they can land just the rear portion of the Starship without the nosecone at all

>>12485304
> It was projected to cost about 1/10 the cost of the shuttle per kg/orbit. Assuming oldspace incompetence let's say 1/5th.
Shuttle costed 270k $/kg to LEO. 1/10th would be 27000 kilograms to LEO which would still be more then twice the $ per LEO of saturn V.

>>12485320
My venturestar survival predictions are assuming no SpaceX influence at the time.

Obviously venturestar would have been completely embarrassed as soon as f9 was flown and reused.

>>12485312
I mean, we've already launched ships with radioisotope generators. It's been done before.

>>12485306
They did, twice

>>12485292
How is sending two or three people for a flags and footprints mission more achievable than setting up a self-sustaining colony? Uh...

>>12485331
Why would you go through all the trouble of sending people to mars and give them nothing to do there but to put up a flag dumbass

>>12485307
Who is talking about hydrolox?

Get it now?

>>12485331
From SpaceX's perspective those are the same thing.

Either starship works or you can have hundreds of tons of cargo on the Martian surface years before the first human beings land, or it doesn't, and you have to wait for oldspace.

With the way things are going, it's going to be the former.

>>12485340
to BTFO China and Russia, anon. The same reason they went through all the trouble to put someone on the moon and give them nothing to do there.

If I were in charge of the WH I would push the Armed forces to be a gate way for the Moon & Mars.

it would be like Starship Troopers.

Right now the US military struggles to fill positions because the public doesn't like the current US's mission.

So what I would do is say that if you're in the military for 10-15 years you get to join the Space Force to live on Mars & the Moon.
Now what sort of jobs that would potentially gain you a slot for the Moon & Mars can debated, but the Idea is that we would send batches.

For instance if you're on batch 15, you'll live in a 1500 Square foot apartment built by batch 14. When you arrive your job would be to build apartments for batch 16, and made to do other forms of construction.

Once batch 16 arrives in 4 years with supplies & equipment you're freed up to do other things like dick around on the surface of Mars, and get to apply for a job in the general work force such as machine shop.

>>12485249
>>12485253
>>12485254
STARSHIP AUTISM AND MATH PART 1/2

NASA’s DRM V: The Phantom Pain states that a manned mars mission needs 9 tons of surface cargo to support 6 crew for 500 days on the surface. They also state that a pair of 7.5 ton rovers are needed to explore the surface fully. Other furnishings are listed such as a habitat and whatnot, but this makes no sense, as Starship is already a giant space habitat.

An empty starship has a mass of 120 tons. It can carry 1200 tons of propellant. It’s sea level ISP is 330 seconds. It’s vacuum ISP is 375 seconds.

Our “lander” holds 25 tons of cargo (15 tons of rover, 9 tons of supplies, 1 ton of extra science stuff). It has a mass of 145 tons when dry.

Mars ascent takes 4.1 km/s of delta V. Thanks to the bellyflop, a landing is “only” 0.5 km/s. Let’s round up and say LMO to the surface and back is 5 km/s. This means that our 145 ton lander needs 550 tons of propellant, assuming an ISP of 330 seconds (we’re being VERY conservative).

To carry out 550 tons of propellant, we will need special tankers to service our lander. The plan sees the lander reaching mars using its own tanks, and filling up in LMO thanks to tankers before the crew arrives.

The tankers also have a dry mass of 120 tons, and their ISP is 375 seconds thanks to their vacuum engines. They each hold a 30 ton tank in their payload bay which can itself carry 275 tons of propellant. This is pretty damn conservative seeing as Starship already has an amazing ratio of Prop:Tankage. As each tanker carries 275 tons of propellant to mars, we need two tankers..

>>12484828
>I suppose that means you can't have aliens all over the place
Even then you could have a lot of exotic cultures of cybernetically or biologically altered humans, sentient AIs, or even uplifted animals all living in different colonies or source habs

>>12485327
There's a difference between radioisotope generators weighing maybe a kg or less and a fully operational nuclear reactor with enriched uranium inside.

>>12485353
NASA might do that but SpaceX has no reason to do that

China's going to be launching their Long March 8, their first attempt at a reusable rocket.

Does anybody know if they'd be live streaming it?

What do you think the chance of success would be? It took SpaceX a couple of tries to get a successful landing for their F9 I believe.

>>12485376
That's what we're talking about: >>12485260

>>12484849
>Most authors have very little knowledge on the subject.
Most authors write what they know and so will wiggle around their settings to justify outdoor earthlike environments.

>>12485373
I was thinking the simplest route, both from an engineering perspective and a politics perspective, would just be a larger radioisotope generator with some kind of active ingredient that isn't uranium.

You don't need a huge amount of energy, just enough to heat up some water. It wouldn't be hard to beat existing spaceships in terms of Delta V with a relatively conservative rig.

>>12484863
That makes sense since it's literally the Shelby/SLS dynamic.

>>12485383
If the US government pays them to place an american flag on mars they'll include it as part of their current mission infrastructure.

>>12485382
Do they have a target-village for landing?

>>12485364
Better to bring 100 tons of cargo and 30 crew so you have a big safety margin and less chance of a Dwarf Fortress style tantrum spiral.

>>12485392
Why do people keep saying shit like this? They're launching off Hainan.

>>12485366
That's basically what Eclipse Phase is, and the setting lore presupposes AGIs gone wild have rendered Earth uninhabitable to force people to explore the solar system.

>>12485397
>Why do people keep saying shit like this?
It's a mystery anon. So are they doing a landing-barge or targeting a pad inland?

>>12485404
Like all their space launches, everything is kept secret until just the minute of.

I'm thinking somebody here might know something, but seeing as how nobody is talking about it, nobody here cares about Chinese rockets.

>>12484828
Have you seen The Expanse? Highly recommend it

>>12485410
Expanse is gay and retarded

>>12484828
Cowboy Bebop universe is purely Solar system wide and its awesome.

>>12485328
>>12485319
those were low altitude, starship relies on the FLOP, and if the noscone is gone, so are the nose flaps. How much fuel would it need to perform a fully propulsive landing?

>>12485389
Once Starship is proven and orbital refueling is all figured out, it's probably like a 2-year project to prepare a manned Starship mission to Mars and back, and realistically 6+ years for any permanent colonist transfer, not to mention the cost would be pennies in spaceflight terms. Why would they not jump at this opportunity? Literally any first world country could finance the trip if they wanted to.

>>12485418
Why would they not jump at the oppurtunity? You are beyond retarded. WHY THE FUCK WOULD SPACEX NOT SEND A COUPLE CARGO STARSHIPS ALONG IF THEY WERE GOING TO SEND HUMANS ANYWAY? HOW COULD YOU BE SO FUCKING RETARDED

>>12485418
>Why would they not jump at this opportunity?
Democrats are actively hostile to American greatness and would rather repeal ITAR to force Elon to give his secrets to the Chinese.

>>12485439
I legitimately have no idea what you're trying to say, but calm the fuck down

>>12484706
>F9 is a bit of a prima donna
When you landing and reusing those Soyuz-2 stages, Rogozin?

>>12485408
>nobody here cares about Chinese rockets.
Reruns are never as interesting than the first time.

>>12485449
>reruns are never interesting

We see reruns here all the time.

>>12485443
Because I have repeated the same thing to you like twenty times mate

>>12484828
Eclipse phase is exactly like what you're looking for.
Well extra-solar colonies do exist but unless you run a gate crashing campaign then you'll never know it.

>>12485455
the same point that SpaceX isn't going to run their own barebones Mars trip? We're not talking about that. We're talking about a government funded barebones Mars trip.

>>12485460
What I'm saying is SpaceX won't put off their own mars program for a barebones government trip

>>12485449
That's not a picture of Shenzhou, that's a picture of progress
That same picture of progress was references in a poorly written zeenews india article
This meme was made by an Indian poojeet

>>12484893
Their two standard payload container rocket can't even make it to orbit. It's flawed.

>>12485462
they're not mutually exclusive. They're basically the same critical path. It's not like manufacturing more Starships is a bottleneck, the only bottleneck is the administrative logistics which are mostly shared.

>>12484977
>Ethanol
That shit has the worst fucking Isp and energy content/mole ever.

>>12485470
They are mutually exclusive

STARSHIP WILL LAND ON THESE PLANETS BY 2040!

Not a great view, but from this angle SN9's flap mounts look fine

>>12485478
lol no they aren't

It just means sending a starship with cargo and people first instead of sending the cargo first and waiting to send people.

>>12484828
Using another star system makes the logical leap for most audiences much easier. All of the scientific evidence assumedly points to us being alone in the solar system, so for plot purposes it complicates things

>>12485478
>hires more people
Wow suddenly they can do more than one thing at a time. Launch the manned version from 39A and cargo from Boca Chica. You know, like how they were launching DM-2 and testing SN4 at the same time, two "mutually exclusive" programs, one of which is government funded and not on the critical path towards colonizing Mars.

>>12485489
SpaceX will successfully tip over a Starship, stand it back up, bang the dents out, replace two flaps, and fly the repaired Starship before NASA successfully completes LOX load on SLS...

>>12485382
>LM-7 with 2 boosters, 7A 2nd stage and 3A/3B/3C third stage
>Reusable
Sure.

>>12484673
I wonder if it wouldn't be even easier due to how much less power they'd use for superchilling the O2

>>12485299
Today they stacked two sections of the nosecone to the extent that's shown today. They still have a little more to do before the whole thing can be stacked.

>>12485506
This is their first launch test, there are other variants in the works.

>>12485517
>Landing with boosters attached
I've seen the concept videos. That shit's gonna RUD itself apart when it hits the wall.

>>12485486
Oops, you seem to have forgotten a planet.

>>12485521
Maybe, maybe not. From what I read, they're still years away from VTVL, but first stage reusability is I think next year. But with covid, that would probably be delayed... maybe? Don't know how much covid have delayed them.

>>12485382
I don't think they are going to try and land it, I mean, if I recall correctly they didn't even put legs or gridfins on it.

>>12485526
BASED

>>12485514
Oh right, thx for clarification

>>12485382
>China's going to be launching their Long March 8, their first attempt at a reusable rocket.
Based

>>12485526
A FLAG FOR EVERY SURFACE

>>12485500
loading lox is hard

>>12485530
I haven't seen pictures of it yet. If that's true, then they're in the very early stages of testing. I'll keep an eye on it and drop some webms if it turns out they're landing at least something.

>>12485526
>plutoniggers
Uhm, yikes department?

>>12485548
I wonder how much this concrete cost them

Titan when

>>12484754
lady you're batshit crazy

I'm still learning about this stuff. What are the practical implications of hydrogen having to be that cold? Holy shit that's not far from absolute zero.

>>12485449
>14 years between a test space station and a real space station
Things in spaceflight can take forever. We need to speed up the process.

>>12485496
why would you not send cargo if you can send cargo and you can't send people

>>12485382
>Does anybody know if they'd be live streaming it?
Don't know if they themselves are going to live stream it but this dude maybe has a way:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8RpHcDU6qhk

>>12485550
This is the video where I saw it doesn't have legs or gridfins:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QMzxFeDjfQ0

>>12485065
>$250,000
Can they sell them to civilians? Who will be the first to put it on a car?
>>12484618
desu

>>12485580
Because there's a lower risk of fucking up and killing people, and because it sets the stage for permanent or semi-permanent colonization almost immediately after the first manned landings.

>>12484749

She's not wrong. Musk is racking up tens of billions of dollars of personal net worth from this.

>>12485577
Not only does it have to be that cold, it can also phase through solid metal because H2 molecules are so tiny. Hydrogen first stages are just awful.

>>12485591
Musk getting wealth from either of his company is sheer will power and hard luck. His companies have been near bankrupt couple of times.

>>12485584
>this dude maybe has a way

Ah, yeah. I remember watching the Tianwen-1 launch from him. Think he got some feed from some bystander filming with his cellphone during the launch.

>>12485608
Wouldn’t second stage Hydrogen tanks suffer from the same leakage?

>>12485590
How is there a lower risk of fucking up and killing people if you send a cargo mission to mars before a manned mission dumbass

>>12484544
it's in the public half of NSF, anon, not in the paywalled side

damn didn't even realize this NRO launch used a flown booster. I think that's a first.

>>12485652
I didn't read your post very carefully.

>>12485646
Yes, but they're at least moderately useful in orbit via higher Isp. As first stages you have all those downsides and abhorrently bad TWR. I think the only pure hydrolox first stage ever built was the Delta IV Heavy. Everything else needed solid boosters to get off the pad.

>>12485614
I don't think he can gain wealth from blowing up full sized prototypes on the ground

>>12485678
He absolutely could burn SpaceX to make him a couple hundred billion and retire (just do an IPO), but Musk literally doesn't need the money. If he wants to retire he's already one of the richest men in the world.

>>12485646
yes. This is why ULA has to use more insulation on their centaur 2nd stages on longer GTO missions. Because if they didn't they'd literally lose too much fuel to complete the mission.

They have proposed clever ways to circumvent this, though. Their ACES system was supposed to use the boil-off to power an active cooling system. A neat approach, but as of now it only exists on paper.

>>12485666
Larger but has almost 2.5x less thrust. Musk is right; hydrogen is hell.

>>12485686
Musk has said he wants to retire on Mars. SpaceX is the only way he can do that.

>>12485691
So it's not about money, it's about Mars. QED, Lori BTFO. Why can't """journalists""" think critically anymore?

>>12484976
Yeah, this has never been done before. How will Starship handle having its tank exteriors heated so much?

>>12485686
He could have retired from SpaceX/Tesla before he even started those companies. He had 200+M dollar after paypal and stuff and was filthy rich. He could have bought few islands and lived a life of luxury if he wanted. Or invested in Apple/Google and grow into billion dollar + while living the dream of ordinary men(island ownership)

>>12485697
They can, but they chose to report information in the most dishonest way possible. All Press are muckraking scum and should be reviled.

>>12485700
On reentry the main tanks should be mostly empty and the fuel should be in the header tanks.

Do you guys think SN9 is going to ace it?

>>12485729
landing gear failure

>>12485729
Yes.

>>12485729
After sn8, yes

>>12485729
Hits the ground a little less hard, crumples but no kaboom after falling over.
If God has a sense of humor it will wind up leaning against something again.

>>12485748
>If God has a sense of humor it will wind up leaning against something again.
Screencapping this for posterity

>>12485314
At least the robin got of the ground.
The SLS in the mean time...

>>12485759
I'm sure at least some of it will get off the ground when it RUDs on the pad.

>>12485729
Every flap fails but the replacement one

>>12485729
Yes, but it will be leaning disconcerting on landing

>>12485729

I think the better question is when it is going to have its test flight.

>>12485768
>'ol Tippy's at it again!

I find it down right insane that SN9 will most likely fly in the next few months while having a massive accident, something that would slow down the SLS project for years.
Just shows how unorthodox SpaceX is doing things.

>>12485759
>The closest the UK has gotten to a space program
The absolute state

>>12485774
Imagine if the orange tank got dented

>>12485723
main tanks will still be pressurized, though. Do you think they'll have to vent as the steel heats up the gas? Will the header tanks need some form of insulation?

>>12485775
Anon, not to shit on previous US space achievements, they have achieved monumental goals.
And i personly think of spaceX achievements not being entirely US achievements on the part of how many US social gov factors in play that have activly tried to stop spaceX ever getting off the ground even.
But if SLS never gets to space, then yes, a fucking british car show is about as good as fucking NASA.
Lets be serious here and admit that if it wasnt for spaceX having so much success with falcon9&dragon that some poor fuckers would probably burn alive on starliner for example.

>>12485774
>Ah darn the ol' space ship tipped over
>Better buff that out and replace the flap
>Okay we're ready to go!
vs
>oopsie whoopsie we forgot how to fuel up the orangetank
>we need another month and 20 million to fix this

>>12485729
The flip maneuver isn't trivial. It's perfectly possible that another bug is discovered after they fix the one that plagued SN8. Assuming that SN9's tip doesn't lead to an earlier failure she's going to make it to landing at least. 50/50 she aces it imo.

>>12485777
>Whoops, need to replace the orange tank
>Don't worry anon we're still launching in the 2020s, probably
>>12485775
Poor bongs

>>12485799
>some poor fuckers would probably burn alive on starliner for example.
To be perfectly blunt I don't think post-boomer aerospace is up for putting someone on the moon without killing them. The notion that they can do the same job as Apollo NASA is laughable. Even with modern tech to bail them out. Our only hope is SpaceX and Elon throwing around his Gen X weight.

SN9 test flight, when?

>>12485817
10 days from now they're doing static fire or so

>>12485774
>>12485800
>something that would slow down the SLS project for years.
already happened: http://nasawatch.com/archives/2017/05/sls-lox-dome-dr.html

They somehow mishandled the aluminum lox dome and completely destroyed it. Had to make another from scratch.


One of the underappreciated things about Starship's stainless steel is both how rugged it is AND how repairable it is. It's the perfect material for interplanetary missions. I'd go as far to say that sending humans to another planet in any other material would be negligent. Current alternatives are simply far too fragile. Imagine being left to die on mars because your carbon fiber got a little scratched.

In fact the specific type of s steel that spacex has chose is extremely easy to wield. Don't need an expensive/fickle friction stir wielding setup. A dude with a torch will work just fine.

>I find it down right insane that SN9 will most likely fly in the next few months while having a massive accident
pretty sure that any other rocket would be done if that happened. Not sure if even the soyuz could handle that kind of impact followed by sitting there crooked for like 24h

>>12485804
what a dorky looking rocket. I like it.

>>12485801
The maneuver itself is absolutely trivial. Spacex's software fucking crushed it. SN8 had no trouble with the flip, its problem was running out of gas AFTER the flip.
The non-trivial elements are in hardware reliability like Raptor relights and hydraulics. If the hardware is capable of the necessary range of operation in the moment, then the flip is fine.

>>12485837
Some guy made these others too, I don't know anything about bongistani rocketry though so no clue what's just fantasy here.

>>12485856
It looks even goofier than pajeet rockets, I love it. What a shame they gave up on rocketry.

https://youtu.be/cdIu8tdMxRw

Live stream of the ISS installing that airlock we saw in cargo dragon 2's unpressurized storage. I kinda can't see shit but whatever.

This thing is pretty wacky. It can launch smallsats?? Looks like the crew would load it from the inside, then the arm takes the airlock off, aims it, and it fire sats. https://vimeo.com/288376161

>>12485854
SpaceX are software gods, absolutely.
>its problem was running out of gas AFTER the flip.
was the loss of methane header tank pressure unrelated to the maneuver?

>>12485880
The Japanese module can already do that.

>>12485880
That's neat

>>12485901
Yea but the reason for change was because the Japanese module use was limited for NASA, thus the need for this module to be used.

>>12485907
Momentus claims they can have Vigoride launched from the ISS, and that's not a negligible size

>>12485918
The new module can launch 5x more payload than the Japanese module.

>>12485907
>"a dude with a bucket on a stick" is actually a viable deployment mechanism for satellites once you're already in orbit
Space is so silly.

>>12485965

https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/benefits/cubesat
I honestly didn't know that launching sats from the ISS was a thing. Pretty cool.

>>12485965
>Alexsi, you forgot to shove off comrade suitsat!
>oh da, hold on give me moment

>>12485548
it's true
>>12485074
They're not in the shuttles, they were swapped out for dummy engines and then warehoused.

>>12486005
Why do they always do that weird pose like they're half sitting?

>>12486031
Ever seen someone floating in a pool? Same thing. Your legs don't rest at full extension unless you're standing on them in gravity.

>>12486035
So you're telling me they're just relaxing in the most natural position?

>>12486041
Yes.

>>12486005
>i must go my planet needs meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

I've been browsing Atomic Rockets again and it turns out all the non-chemical launch mechanisms short of an orbital ring are more expensive than $20/kg. Between that and the "use orbit-only Starships to yeet probes at the outer planets" plan Elon mentioned, it looks like FFSC Methalox and stainless steel is a local optimum until we get to torch ships.

>>12486065
i dont understand why torch ships are automatically cheaper when we've never built one and dont know the actual cost.

>>12486065
Chemical lifters are also much easier to scale up. Multiple space elevators can't be built because one failing would most likely take down all the others. Chemical lifters just need more pads for take off and landing

>>12486073
Anything incapable of brachistochrone trajectories is not taking manned exploration much further than Mars except for flags and footprints on Ceres MAYBE. Torch ships will probably be ruinously expensive, but they're what we've got.

>>12486079
Can't a Starship refueled on Mars reach most of the belt easily? Especially with a favorable transfer window, Ceres to Mars shouldn't be a lot of energy

>>12486073
Because a true torch drive (high thrust AND high efficiency) would make launching a cargo of basically any size easy, and could put that cargo anywhere in the solar system in less than a year. Candle drives though, low-ish thrust but high ISP drives like all of the fusion engines that are plausible with near future technology may end up being more expensive per kg because they won't be able to lift off and will still need huge boosters to get away from Earth, or be assembled in orbit, both very expensive.

>>12486085
>being more expensive per kg because they won't be able to lift off and will still need huge boosters to get away from Earth, or be assembled in orbit, both very expensive.
Will it still be very expensive if Starship is selling rides at $20/kg or whatever? And if it weighs less than 100 tons you can throw the whole drive up at once.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cxNJoaBLLNM
The comments on this video are scary. So many people saying "Just throw it straight down???"
These people actually exist...

>>12486095
orbital mechanics is very confusing and unintuitive

>>12486103
Delightfully unintuitive, even.

>>12486088
Probably, fusion confinement is very expensive and requires either precision made electron guns or cryochilled superconducting magnets, and I think even once the big brains really figure out plasma physics and the engineers really figure out how to optimize and improve confinement machinery fusion drives are still going to be inherently expensive to manufacture, even if you can lift the whole thing into orbit once it's built.
The average nuclear reactor costs between 2 and 9 billion to manufacture, and even if fusion isn't held back by the same kind of red tape because it's inherently much safer and cleaner, I could still imagine a fully mature fusion reactor costing upwards of a billion dollars, with even smaller more streamlined fusion drives costing many tens to even hundreds of millions of dollars a piece.
Their use will also be strictly controlled since every fusion drive with significant output is also a deadly radiation gun. I wouldn't even be surprised if it were made completely illegal to even fire one until your ship was outside of the Earth-Moon system.

>>12486095
Give it a few hundred years and it might be possible

>>12486114
>I wouldn't even be surprised if it were made completely illegal to even fire one until your ship was outside of the Earth-Moon system.
Let's be real, Gateway is never happening. As long as you're outside the Van Allen belts and pointed away from the moon you're golden.

>>12486081
Yeah, the poster you replied to only really took into consideration launching from earth.

>>12486103
basic orbital mechanics are not very confusing

>>12486134
At $2/kg or whatever it would be from Mars to the belt, isn't asteroid mining totally viable?

>>12486137
You still need crew to do the mining, so that's probably a Starship variant with 2-4 crew and half the payload (75 tons) dedicated to return ore.

>>12486095
>grug only know throw rock at rabbit physics
good reminder that most people are not much different from grug in their experience and understanding of the world.

>>12486130
Strictly speaking yes, but I can't imagine why you'd allow a torchship to fire it's drive within it's dangerous range at all, and with vacuum offering essentially zero radiation protection I think torchships would probably be prohibited from switching the spicy hydrogen on until they were well away from any populated area. Have them perform almost all of their acceleration and deceleration at the very edge of planetary systems and then make final adjustments with hall thrusters or something.

>>12486136
Sure but most people don't even think about orbital mechanics, ever, at all.

>>12486144
That actually brings up an interesting point. What instinctive model of physics will Martian or Belter kids have? Will they even be able to walk on Earth without constantly tripping over themselves, jello-baby issues aside?

>>12486137
Yes
>>12486143
More likely a privately constructed spacecraft in orbit. A lot of people forget that once starship lowers launch costs to a few dollars per kilogram into LEO that constructing interplanetary manned spacecraft in orbit will actually get pretty cheap and be doable by small companies

>>12486155
Are there any other public companies that acknowledge this like Momentus?

>>12486159
Momentus isn't doing manned interplanetary spacecraft though? I thought they're doing something similar to rocket lab's photon.

Just watched the NRO launch. Damn these landing are getting so fucking smooth.

>>12486149
I'd imagine that agoraphobia might be a serious issue for them, if it turns out that low gravity has permanent detrimental morphological effects on human growth then spin stations will be built for children to be borne and raised on until they're done growing so I doubt there will be problems with the gravity itself, however people borne in space will never really know what it's like to be outside somewhere under a sky. They'll always be either inside a pressurized surface settlement, a pressurized space station, or pressurized ship, the closest they'll ever get to outside will be in an enclosed and pressurized space suit.
The first rounds of colonists will all probably be taught orbital mechanics, but as the generations go on there will probably be entire sections of ground dwelling colonists who also never really think about it, they may still live their entire lives on the surface of a world or in the halls of a large space station. The percentage of them though who understand zero gravity movement and are comfortable with it though will still be much, much higher than on Earth. It might be similar to learning how to swim here, not everybody will know, but most will.

NASA to skip repair of Orion electronics unit
https://spacenews.com/nasa-to-skip-repair-of-orion-electronics-unit/
>NASA announced the problem with the PDU Nov. 30
>NASA will not repair a faulty electronics unit on the Orion spacecraft
>NASA said it had decided to “use as is”
>One of two redundant channels in one of two communications cards in that PDU is not working.
Shit breaks. Lockheed says it'll take a year to fix. NASA decides to not have it repaired, because the system is redundant.

The fucking... I'm just at a loss for words.

>>12486159
Oops, skipped over "manned"

>>12486167
Kek I hope it blows up and toasts that female space criminal.

>>12486168
Yeah. An interesting type of company would be one that runs an orbital shipyard and has customizable modular spacecraft that they rent out to customers. There probably won't be demand for stuff like that for at least a decade or two though.

>>12486167
>prime contractor Lockheed Martin warned it could take up to a year to replace the PDU because it is located in an adapter between the crew module and service module that is inaccessible now that the two modules are mated to each other.
>vital components inaccessible without disassembling the whole fucking thing

Sasuga oldspace gremlins

>>12486167
It's fucked, I mean I'd sell a nut or a kidney to go to space, EXCEPT IN FUCKING ORION, or SHITLINER. FUCK BOING AND FUCK LOCKHEEB!

Pretty neat.

>>12486114
>The average nuclear reactor costs between 2 and 9 billion to manufacture
commercial reactor initiative when

>>12486180
>banking on Starship's massive success
seems like a high-reward move. So if I understand this company they plan to have space tugs moving sats around? Will they be refueled? Come to think of it what kind of fuel do they use?

>>12486183
>Will they be refueled? Come to think of it what kind of fuel do they use?
Yes, water plasma.

SpaceX should make spaceships that look like Slave 1 that’d be cool

>>12486180
>>12486187
It's pretty much the optimal near-future way to do space tugs. I spent about a day banging my head against the problem and the only way I could come up with better was improving the thruster tech to ELF/HDLT type stuff rather than simple microwave electrothermal.

Nuclear autists please go. Yes we should have a giant fleet of nuclear powered Mars transfer vessels but its not going to happen thanks to the government. So you'll just have to settle for a giant fleet of methalox starships instead.

>>12486218
Destroy the government

>>12486218
Musk will start fields of breeder reactors on Mars and there's nothing anyone can do to stop it.

So I know you can make a casawba howitzer out of boosted and pure fission devices, but can one be made from the Teller-Ulam device? How does this affect your ISP

>>12486221
B A S E D

>>12486227
Is there any significant source of fissile material on the Martian surface?

Would launch costs to LEO of below 50$/kilogram make asteroid mining viable? Particularly asteroid mining of rare metals like gold, platinum, palladium, etc etc

>>12486269
Not directly. You still need orbital ore processing, preferably at L4 or L5 where it's not going to accidentally drop on Earth and kill gorillions of people.

>>12486278
Couldn't you just process the ore on earth?

>>12484673
>b-but can you launch at absolute zero?!?
holy coperoni

>>12486278
It’d probably burn up and kill no one

>>12486167
Based Onion exposing oldspace

>>12486279
You'd lose literal tons of ore to atmospheric ablation.

>>12484673
F9 is a VAB queen but I bet Starship could launch in those conditions.

>>12484673
Based elon dabbing on sub-arctic "humans"

>>12486284
>get ore
>put it in a giant heat shield
>use a railgun to shoot it into an orbit where it will aerocapture

>>12486284
Huge expanding foam heat shield around each ore slug. Ore out of space easiest.
OOOSE

Did some calculations and 10 tons of pure gold is apparently worth 607350000 dollars. The issue is I have no clue how much raw ore you'd have to process from your average M type asteroid to get ten tons of gold.

>>12486292
>10 tons of pure gold is apparently worth 607350000 dollars
At current market prices. Don't sell it all at once.

>>12486280
>"Why yes Vlad, we do launch at about -185C."

>>12486292
There is this concept called inflation that some people might worry about. I can already envision the tacky fashion trend of putting gold on everything in the 2050s.

>>12486167
Kinda based, are you kinding? this is earky spacex tier, just trim the engine bell lol fuck it, niggy gotta fly

>>12486218
>don't like oldspace? build your own company
>don't like sls? build your own rocket
>don't like chemical engines? build your own engine
>don't like government not allowing you to build nuclear engines? build your own, uhh... government?

>>12486303
early spacex was based because it was a handful of independents doing crazy shit

the fact that lockheed doesn't have a fucking spare unit they can swap out is just pathetic

>>12486292
600M isn't even that much in space travel terms

>>12485306
not through reentry

>>12486302
More like being able to use it in all of our electronics to make them way more efficient.
Really though I can't help but wonder what the effects would be of one single market of metals getting flooded with material to the point of near worthlessness.

>>12486294
I know
>>12486302
>>12486312
The issue is would mining ten tons of gold from an M type asteroid be profitable with the low launch costs offered by starship?

>>12486311
yeah but it's not lockheed making the decision. nasa is basically telling lockheed to go fuck themselves and fix it in the next one instead of getting more pork to delay delay delay. without nasa's successful partnership with spacex they might not have even considered this approach, it's unequivocably based

>>12485417
it could probably be done from full tanks in LEO, but I haven't done any math
somebody should set that up in RP-1 or some other sim

>>12486320
What I'm saying is that Lockheed Fucking Martin shouldn't even be in this position. The fact that a fucking electronics unit can't be swapped out easily is fucking pathetic.

>>12485526
where's Earth

>>12486325
they're incentivized to delay because they keep getting paid regardless of outcome. im not saying lockheed is based, im saying nasa is based for not giving in to their begging for another delay / payday

>>12485889
we don't know

>>12486325
Yeah good point. The whole point of reverting from shuttle back to capsules was more safety, higher launch cadence, and easier manufacturing. SLS has proven to be worse than shuttle in both R&D and ground maintenance

>>12486325
This, it's like fucking engineering gospel that you have to be able to actually take the thing apart and fix it if it's broken, Orion is literally fucking Iphone/Mac tier garbage design. It's a fucking insult to engineers, I fucking refuse to believe that whatever smoothbrain designed the thing graduated from a university with any degree that would qualify them to design a space capsule.

>>12486332
Pretty funny though that Boeing spent years “perfecting” the art of delaying their rocket for money. And then lockheed has one hiccup and NASA tells them to fuck off because they’ve had enough hahah

>>12486332
This could be a sign that the green run wont delay the launch. What if some shit goes wrong during the green run and Boeing asks to delay another year? Unless it fucking detonates on the stand, NASA could tell them to stick it and launch anyway.

>>12486319
If you're bootstrapping off of an existing colony, the answer is hell yes.

I think it'll happen on the Martian surface before you see dedicated asteroid missions

>>12486065
FFSC Propalox and stainless steel with some sort of flexible cryogenic bag separating the fuel and oxidizer instead of using common dome construction would probably be better but requires two key technologies that don't exist:
FFSC Propalox (fuel rich propane preburner is an unknown quantity)
flexible cryogenic bags

>>12486302
Lock the prices to stop inflation from ever happening. Just solved economics.

>>12486343
At that point I'd petition congress to open an investigation into whether or not Boeing was attempting to knowingly and maliciously defraud the US government.

>>12486343
>NASA could tell them to stick it and launch anyway.
They’re already doing that though. After starliner failed to rendezvous NASA did it’s own audit and found out that boeing didn’t do integrated testing for starliner. And they found out that they didn’t do it for SLS either; but trying to fix it would take too long so they made a rule that all future rockets (no matter who makes them) MUST do integrate faodtwqrw testing. And they decided to go ahead with Artemis I anyways thought because delaying for software testing would take too long. God I hope artemis I fails miserably

>>12486350
pff that's been their MO since i've been alive

>>12486322
it also doesn't have grid fins or any form of RCS on the top of it with the nosecone removed

>>12486228
signal boosting
>>12486364
don't need that, just keep at least one Raptor lit the whole way down

>>12486360
Yes but I mean if I were the head of NASA, it would be a career death sentence but I'd push for it hard until it either happened or I got replaced.

>>12486356
If SLS does blow up during the green run, I hope it's something as dumb as "we forgot how to operate SSMEs"

>>12486302
this meme about asteroid mining of
>lmao it doesn't make sense the metals would be worthless if you brought them all back
is stupid and naive. You make all your deals (and receive investments) ahead of time when there's still considerable risk attached to the project and gold hasn't tanked yet because your trip is not a certainty (fairly likely to fail). The industries that benefit from the heavy metals market crashing (electronics, manufacturing, etc) would be more than happy to invest in speculative asteroid mining if it means they can ensure a certain amount of exclusive access to gain a market advantage of their competitors. Not to mention once you're set up and it's no longer profitable to mine metals from the ground on Earth, you have a huge amount of power which comes with fortunes all of its own. You IPO and easily shoot up to the top of the market with your new power and start assassinating political leaders who get in your way.

>>12486370
I hope 20 seconds into flight the guidance computer goes
>Uhhh let’s point this baby at the VAB, that’s a good trick
and the whole program goes down in sweet, sweet hydrolox flames