/sci/ - Science & Math

>>9475099
What's in it? Where's it going? The moon?

>>9475104
A Tesla car. No joke.

>>9475107
I'm going to watch the launch while Riggs' Radar Rider is on loop.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_KXgFpguE0

>>9475099
Old news, man.

>>9475292
It is happening next Tuesday. This is a reminder thread.

>>9475104
>payload
Elon Musk's personal Tesla Roadster playing Space Oddity on repeat

>Destination
Mars orbit.

>>9476427
mars orbit is not exactly correct. It gets close to mars, but stays in an earth-mars-sun orbit.

https://www.fbo.gov/index?s=opportunity&mode=form&id=cc4fe6a113403f3a7b1d79cee4a123ff&tab=core&_cview=1

wonder how many of these SpaceX will win. Probably a lot. SILENTBARKER sounds fascinating; it's a collab between Air Force and NRO

>>9475107
God I hope they put a camera in the car for a livestream.
>just before fairing deploy, a black window pops up in the stream
>fairing deploys
>view from between the seats, looking past the dash and through the windshield at Earth below

>>9476542
Needs to have some of these on board

Falcon Heavy is
>6 months away for 6 years
>6 weeks away for 6 months
>6 days away for 6 weeks

>>9477348
pic

>>9475099
Three cores simultaneously???
Isn't the centre core detaching later ???

>>9477394
thanks god infinity doesn't exist and achilles ends up winning then

>>9476444
that’s boring, why couldn’t they truly orbit mars?

>>9477421
OP is a faggot

>>9477421
yup, not sure why op said simultaneously

>>9477426
Would need even more fuel to get it into an insertion burn

>>9477432
they should’ve made it 3 stages, what a waste.

>>9477348
>6 hours away for 6 days
You know that's going to happen.

>>9476945
>Needs to have some of these on board
Those aren't Kerbals.

>>9477435
The whole thing is a test of a new system, it's pointless to add a third stage if you're just testing for reliability of the new launch stage.

Is everyone who works at NASA or aerospace a giant liberal

That would explain a lot.

>>9477426
It won't even flyby because planetary contamination hysteria.

I guess that explains why they constantly blame congress or the military or whoever for NASA's ineptness

fucking liberals

>>9477478

Educated and scientific people are generally liberal and tend to favor the Democratic party.

>>9477494
Yea affluent whites like to virtue signal

>>9477510
having virtues is not a crime

>>9477519
Evil is not a virtue

>>9475107
I love the madman.

>>9477442
>Falcon
>VAB
Huh?

>>9475107
That car really puts into perspective how big those fairings are.

>>9477519
The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

>>9477656
to you dogola

>>9477519
"Virtue-signalling" doesn't mean "having virtues and showing that you do", it means taking actions merely in the attempt to create an appearance of virtue.

It's like wealth-signalling doesn't necessarily entail actually being wealthy:
https://www.theonion.com/as-you-can-see-from-my-name-brand-clothing-i-am-not-po-1819583675
...except that virtue-signalling is itself an unvirtuous act. A person who takes shortcuts to appear virtuous is demonstrating that they are, in fact, lacking true virtue.

When you say "educated and scientific people are generally liberal" you're being dishonest. Academia is a liberal stronghold, which hands out undeserved degrees, titles, and wages to allies, and government bureaucracy is another one, which hands out undeserved titles and wages to allies based on academic approval.

People with a genuine strong scientific understanding lean right and tend to vote Republican, not left and Democrat. People with genuine profundity don't need academia. They can simply go out and gain what they desire from the free market. Those who lack it, ally themselves with a centralized power structure that will hand them the things they desire and are incapable of winning in the competitive arena.

Is it too late to make changes to the payload?

>>9478012

>>9478012

You ok?

new news: https://www.wired.com/story/spacex-gears-up-to-finally-actually-launch-the-falcon-heavy/

Falcon Heavy spacing out boostback:
>To reduce risk even further, SpaceX is staggering the boostback burns, letting each side booster touch down separately.
BFR:
>WIRED has learned that SpaceX is actively considering expanding its San Pedro, California facility to begin manufacturing its interplanetary spacecraft. This would allow SpaceX to easily shift personnel from headquarters in Hawthorne. But it would put an entire country between the largest spacecraft ever brought to manufacturing and Florida’s space coast.
Sources within the company believe it will launch those first long-range missions from the facility SpaceX is building in Boca Chica village near Brownsville, Texas. And the Houston Chronicle reported this week that SpaceX is now seeking an additional $5 million in funding to develop the launch complex on top of the $15.3 million already pledged by the Texas Spaceport Trust Fund. If SpaceX feels like it has outgrown Kennedy, the Falcon Heavy may be its last new launch vehicle to make a debut at the historic site.
2018 Reuse:
>WIRED learned from sources with knowledge of the manifest that in 2018, the company intends to fly 50 percent of its 30 planned missions on recycled rockets.

>>9478458
the 3 boosters configuration of the falcon heavy stack is probably distracting because they won't see/care how it was launched

>>9478607
>>WIRED has learned that SpaceX is actively considering expanding its San Pedro, California facility to begin manufacturing its interplanetary spacecraft
This is the sort of opening article line I want to see regularly within my lifetime. It's like something you'd hear a newscaster say in the background during a Futurama episode.

>>9478607
>additional $5 million in funding
flamethrower/torches basically secured this.

>>9479748
He actually made more than that, The first day of sales made 2.5 million alone, last I heard the total was 6 million but that was a couple days before they sold out. I'd estimate the overall total is somewhere near 10 million.

>>9479776
Hey, if trolling people into buying a gigantic fondue-torch can help secure funding for more rockets then i'm all for it

Toy rocket compared to the Russian Angara rocket family. Still, great achievement for the american standards.

>>9479783
There was no trolling. He decided to make a big toy for a fundraiser and overcharged because the point of a fundraiser is making money. Clearly there is going to be significant profit on the product.

Do you consider boy scouts selling overpriced popcorn or girl scouts selling over priced cookies trolling? How about school clubs selling overpriced candy?

>>9479820
I see you too love all those videos of the Angara booster landing. I get tears in my eyes every time I see real russian engineering at work. It has no western counterpart and its the future of spaceflight...

>>9478607
>SpaceX is actively considering expanding its San Pedro, California facility to begin manufacturing its interplanetary spacecraft.
It's too bad. The need for a larger factory would be the perfect excuse to pull out of California and move to Texas, near their test facility and their spaceport.

Probably the biggest thing stopping the Trump administration from being entirely behind funding SpaceX's BFR, through NASA and DOD, is the fact that they're based in California, a Democrat stronghold and sanctuary state.

Of course, people don't like to be uprooted, and moving a factory is a huge job that will cause lots of problems and delays.

>>9479783
If I had money to spare, I might have bought one as an investment. They're likely to be resellable at high prices in the future.

>>9479941
Those micro-sats and cubesats are really getting tiny these days

>>9479994
>>9479941
I would unironically love to work on building orbital rockets that small. I think they can be made to work.

>>9479941
If there was any merit in landing boosters it would have been done already.

>>9480002
The New Zealand rocket Electron is "just" Height 17 m (56 ft)
Diameter 1.2 m (3 ft 11 in)
Mass 10,500 kg (23,100 lb)
Payload to 500 km SSO 150–225 kg (330–495 lb)
Some annon can calculate if that small of a rocket can lift 1kg of a cubesat.

>>9480018
Just by eyeballing it, the single-stick version would be about half a ton, or 500 kg. For a payload of 1 kg, this would be an extreme vehicle:payload mass ratio of 500:1.

For medium-lift rockets, the ratio is usually around 30:1, or 50:1.

Small rockets should have inferior ratios due to a number of factors, but that's a lot of margin to work with.

>>9479941
Angara is pretty kino though, not an exploding space dick like SpaceX has.

>>9476465
>SpaceX will win.
If a F9 can do it, half. The other half goes to ULA. The government is not going to create a monopoly.

>>9479941
Angara has flown already. Unlike certain paper rockets that are delayed for years...

>>9479980
It's not like Texas is in a better demographic situation than California

>>9480130
Texans voted Trump over Hillary 5 to 4.

Californians voted Hillary over Trump 2 to 1.

>>9479941
>>9480002
Do you think with rockets that small it would make fuel crossfeed easier?

>>9481054
Not really. As you make stuff smaller, if anything complicated features should get harder to squeeze in and add more mass.

Scaling changes a lot. You've really got to design differently if you want to make a tiny orbital launcher.

>>9475099
Imagine if they blow this shit up

>>9481126
It's not really a big deal. Lots of rockets have infant mortality, and this is not just an incredibly ambitious rocket and a test flight with a silly, worthless payload chosen for whimsy, but also a cobbled together prototype that doesn't reflect the Block 5 version that will be flying routinely. Unless they've done something completely stupid, how it blows up (for instance, at max Q from unanticipated aerodynamics) would give them important information on how to make routine flights work.

>>9481135
And it is made from recycled 9s.

>>9481126
Doesn't really matter. What you should be imagining is if the Ariana Grande rocket carrying the James Webb blows up.

>>9477421
core is landing on the drone ship. Still all three cores landing in one mission and two cores simultaneously.

>>9481162
>Ariane loses contact during launch
>James Webb is shot directly into the sun

>>9475099

>>9475099
Shit

>>9481162
>if the Ariana Grande rocket carrying the James Webb blows up.
'no'

>>9480037
The smaller the rocket the bigger the structural mass fraction. So the effective minimum mass ratio decreases. Where a Saturn V can go down to like 20:1, these tiny ass rockets will be in the hundreds because you have to add the rocket's mass to the payload mass. Shit like engines, propellant tanks, pipes, fairings, etc becomes much less mass efficient because you have all sorts of minimum thickness requirements.

>>9481162
>>9482319
>>9482051
>giving a shit about a fucking telecope

>>9482358
>not caring about space telescopes
what are you, a faggot?

>>9482370
>faggot
Why the homophobia?

>>9475099
OHHH SHIT NIGGGGGGGGGERRRRRRRR

>>9477442
>Those aren't Kerbals.
hahah nice one my fellow memer! I too have learned copious amounts of le rocket science by playing KSP as well! My only regret is that I have but one upboat to give you good sir!!!

>>9482391
He's not being homophobic, you worthless, cum-guzzling, butt-pounding, turbofaggot. Now stop trying to force your faggot-meme. Nobody likes it because it's a gay meme for degenerate prostate-tickling gaymos.

>>9482391
There isn't any, you're just a faget

Will they put a tesla car in orbit or can the ship land again with the payload bay?

>>9482458
hmm? FH has a regular 2nd stage. This demo launch has the Tesla permanently attached to the 2nd stage.

>>9482462
Actually, SpaceX engineers have confirmed that the FH's second-stage has been modified to some extent. It's apparently been modified with a stronger payload adapter for larger payloads and the second-stage itself has been strengthened to lift said heavy payloads. There have also been unspecified upgrades to make it qualified for USAF EELV payloads, with it's first proper mission after the Demo being a test run carrying multiple military payloads to different orbits.

>>9482619
yes, that is true. It is regular in the sense of replying to that other anon's inquiry about landing the "payload bay".

in other news, here's the launch license https://www.faa.gov/about/office_org/headquarters_offices/ast/licenses_permits/media/LLS%2018-107%20Falcon%20Heavy%20Demo%20License%20and%20Orders%20FINAL%202018_02_02.pdf

>>9482330
And we just had the perfect example: JAXA just set the record (again) for smallest launch vehicle, with the successful launch of their SS-520-4.

This modified sounding rocket had a liftoff mass of 2.6 tons to put a 3kg satellite in to an elliptical orbit.

(Pretty neat, that we're getting the world's smallest rocket and largest rocket launching within a few days of each other!)

>>9482330
>these tiny ass rockets will be in the hundreds
Not necessarily.

>you have to add the rocket's mass to the payload mass
That's only true of the orbital stage.

>you have all sorts of minimum thickness requirements
Ordinary soda cans have the same mass efficiency relative to their contents as the space shuttle external fuel tank, and they're not remotely aerospace grade material. There will be differences here, but not such severe ones.

The biggest problem for small rockets is aerodynamics, and the best solution is to ascend relatively slowly through the atmosphere (not as costly as you might think - a subsonic ascent out of atmosphere can be done with a stage roughly equal in mass to its payload). It would also be helpful to use air launch, so it ascends using conventional, efficient aircraft technology, then starts from the thin air of the stratosphere.

>>9482701
>modified sounding rocket
See, they're not really trying to optimize for performance, or per-launch cost, they're optimizing for minimal development effort to convert a medium-range ballistic missile into an orbital launch vehicle.

The S-520 is a single-stage, solid-fuel "sounding rocket" that first flew in 1980. 2.6t lift-off mass, 140 kg payload (plenty for a modern strategic nuke) to suborbital flight. The SS-520 is the same thing with a second stage (first flew around ~2000), and this latest version has a third stage to hit orbit.

Why would this have poor performance relative to a purpose-built nanosat launcher? Well, a missile should be rugged. You should be able to take a smallish missile into remote areas, so it should tolerate rough handling and neglect. It should fire off at a moment's notice. It should accelerate and ascend quickly, to minimize the time for enemy response.

These requirements are at odds with mass-efficiency and cost-efficiency.