/sci/ - Science & Math

still waiting for New Armstrong to be revealed. It should be BFR size, or thereabouts. The door to their factory is big enough

and that's it for the snaps. Demolition is also moving along for the rest of the facility

T E N T S
E
N
T
S

>>9844794
don't you mean high performance tensioned membrane structures?

>>9844813
Honestly I love it. It's starting to seem like Elon is questioning using buildings because tents are faster.

>>9844840
no no, you don't understand. It IS a high performance tensioned membrane structure (it's a Sprung tent). I don't think Sprung likes people calling them 'tents' lol

http://www.sprung.com

same company that made the Tesla general assembly 4 tent.

>Ok sweet ill build my big fucking rocket in port of LA, shits cyberpunk as
>Listen Elon that's great but building consents, permissions, blah blah blah delays blah blah correct procedures
>btw we are extorting you so you have to use the union of overpaid mexicans to build it
>Blood pressure rising
>Shotwell
>Get the tent

>>9845112
It also means that if the state/nation/planet collapses, it's much easier to hightail it out of there and leave nothing behind.

>>9845112

meanwhile at ULA

>>9845165
In awe at the size of that fairing.

>>9844772
not science or math

>>9845188
m8 I've been making space threads on /sci/ for four years, bugger off

>>9845191
Was I talking to you, bitch?

>>9845198
yes

>>9845165
And it will only cost 5 times as much as a BFR launch.

>>9845183
pic


>>9845287
probably more than 5 lel

>>9845330
thats one long boi

The hilarious but also dreadfully cringy part is that if he does kickstart the space age and start colonies on Mars, he will get a huge and unironic mechanicus cult worshipping him as the Omnissiah.

I look forward to the grimdark future.

>>9844781
Don't hold your breath, we don't even have full specs for New Glenn

>>9845165
None of these will ever be built. The future is Vulcan only, maybe Vulcan Heavy (but more likely Vulcan + ACES)

>>9845664
I don't see much of a future for ULA at all. The government wants multiple LV's for redundancy, which means BFR & New Glenn / FH. Why have a third, more expensive option?

>>9845165

>>9845659
Well, anybody who does such a thing deserves a cult.

if the Mars colonization thing really gets going, I wonder if SpaceX will sell licenses to build BFR clones to other companies? We're going to need a lot of ships

>>9846174
Won't be necessary. Blue Origin will have their own BFR equivalent two to five years later, the Chinese will surely have their take on it within the decade of that, and then every other space agency can jump on the bandwagon or die (most of them will probably choose death)

>>9846166
>expendable launch vehicles
>expendable launch vehicles
>expendable launch vehicles
It's a meme image, right?

>>9846202
ULA's dream is to slowly enrich the oceans with metals for their sleeping god in the sea

>>9846202
yes (no)

>>9846202
https://www.gao.gov/new.items/d11641.pdf
https://www.gao.gov/assets/670/661330.pdf

Short answer: ULA plans to develop a whole new generation of expendable launch vehicles starting in 2030

>>9845112
this pleases me immeasurably

I can't shake the feeling that an Earth to Mars BFR flight would be simpler to pull off than the LA to Tokyo one Elon seems to want

>>9846234
When Elon says "I can do this because physics doesn't say I can't" I tend to agree (at least on everything but the timeframe), but this is one that's a little too crazy for me. Bureaucracy is stronger than physics

>>9846241
If these rockets can be made just as reliable as airliners and be made ready just as quickly, I could see this being adopted
big businesses have to send people across the world frequently, and with flights taking anywhere from 3-12 hours depending on where you go, that's a lot of time lost traveling
If they could get across the world in an hour or less, that shaves a fuckton of time off their schedules, and would let them do more work for their time spent, and thus make more money

Bureaucrats will probably be a nuisance in the beginning, but if the technology proves itself, the corporate interests will probably demand they cut the red tape for it and let it through

e2e bureaucracy might not be that big of an issue if SpaceX uses offshore platforms to launch and land

>>9844840
Why not just build tents on Mars?

>>9846166

>>9846166
>30 fucking years to industrialize space enough to have 1000 people up there
thank god for Musk lighting a fire under their asses
we would never leave the earth before dying off if these ass dragging fuckwits had their way

>>9846354
It wouldn't surprise me if Elon buys Sprung and starts adapting their designs for Mars desu

>>9846260
>e2e bureaucracy might not be that big of an issue if SpaceX uses offshore platforms to launch and land
Offshore adds hours of traveltime to the trip which defeats the point of the whole thing.

>>9846374
Tents and domes are worthless on mars
The radiation and micrometeorites would kill everyone

Mars will be underground cities until we have the concrete production to go above ground

>>9846234
The problem with those earth to earth missions is that most people would lose their lunch during the travel.
A lot of people can barely stomach theme park rides and you want to strap hundreds of them in a rocket?

>>9846383
it wont need to be that excessively offshore, just far enough to ensure the noise from the rocket doesn't blow out the city nearby
a good passenger ship could cover the distance in short time, probably shorter than the time people have to sit around doing fuck all in a airport now

>>9846386
Just like with airplane sickness/fear, it's entirely optional whether or not you get on one
if you can't handle a rocket, take a plane

>>9846166
I like how they have to stress the expendable part. Reminds me of the diamond industry. "It's not a REAL diamond unless at least one black child perished in a mine digging for it. W-Why would you want something that does the same thing, but way cleaner anyway?"

>>9846384
Tent makes a fast temporary structure, cover it in Martian soil and you have yourself a relatively permanent structure.
Admittedly I'm just spitballing. Subsurface will definitely come into play - it's no coincidence Elon started a mining company. But it's not necessarily the most energy or time efficient way to start out.

>>9846255
>taking rocket from tokyo to florida
>old cold-war satellite picks up sub-orbital heat signature compatible with ICBM
>automatic systems launch anti-ballistic missile
>die

>Grimes will be the first Mars Queen
I don't know how to feel about this

>>9846361
this...this is satire, right?

hey guys want to hear a joke

>>9846431
I'm afraid not. ULA employees will soon arrive at your home to commandeer you to work at their ULA expendable launch vehicle assembly facility. Along with the rest of your friends, family and the entire rest of the western hemisphere population.
It's tough and millions will die in the forced labor rocket assembly, but such is the price of expendable(!) human space exploration.

>>9846374
perhaps not buy, but SpaceX will definitely use more Sprung stuff going forward. Wouldn't be surprised if the San Pedro facility is majority Sprung, besides some cleanrooms etc

>>9846470
It's not like people aren't expendable too
If it takes 100 lives to put a man in orbit, and a 1000 lives to put a man on the moon, all is worthwhile.

foundation work being done

>>9846436
No.

is anyone else sort of disappointed that space travel is completely automated? Both Dragon 2 and Starliner don't need a human inside to actually complete any docking/berthing/reentry tasks.

>>9847087
I guess that we've been spoiled by space vidya with 6 degrees of freedom (descent, Elite). Even if that will never happen in real life

>>9846722
Looks like they've got the beats by dre sound silo up and running

>>9847087
No. At least no one will accidentally hit a switch that immediately self-destructs the craft like in space ship one.

>>9847087
could have started with the shuttle except astronauts feels had to be protected. i'm more offended by artificially hampering like that than automated space flight.

>>9847587
yeah, that's a good point. the only real controls in Dragon 2 are things like "cabin fire suppression", and "deorbit NOW"

I still can't believe that a private company stomped the entire launch market in ten years and will build the first all-purpose spaceship within five. An actual fucking spaceship. The future is finally here and it's glorious.

>>9850031
I've still yet to see how those fan-type solar arrays will work in practice. Does anyone actually have a working prototype? How much space does it save over traditional panel origami stuff?

>>9850106
It's just an artists concept. I seriously doubt they'll look like that on the final version. I hope they'll deploy something like pic related. 50 KW for 50kg, baby.

>>9850176
gotta be able to fold it back up though.

>>9846174
The BFR tech isnt that hard to copy and with the current problem of company espionage you can be damn sure that half the blueprints of spaceX are already on some desk in china.

>>9850204
I wouldn't be so sure. ITAR means no non-American (or at least non-NATO) citizen work for SpaceX and they intentionally don't patent anything so the competition can't steal them.

>>9850211
Yeah, but company espionage people dont give a fuck about that.
For example, never use a huawei, because then your already fucked.

>>9850204
A lot of Space X's success with landings seem to be based on experience and a lot of trial and error. Not sure if you can steal stuff like that or if it will help at all.

>>9850224
Well ofcourse, blueprints, trail&error logs, email traffic, installation manuals.
This is all stuff that is high on the list for espionage.
For example, the chinese goverment has a shitload of high end prostitutes working for the chinese Intel agency, its the job of these woman to hit on visiting businessman,technicians,goverment officials,etc... who visit china
they fuck these men's brains out and when they are past out in bed copy as much intel ass possible and pump their phones full of spyware.

supposedly whole engineering areas at SpaceX are completely airgapped.

Well, let's give it a couple years and see if Fralcon Nien pops out of a Chinese factory

>>9850245
all of the goverments are holding of on building their own.
They are letting the private sector handle this problem and then will just roll in and take all the credit/steal it.

>>9850255
There's only so many ways to build a reusable rocket. Just look at New Line-1, it's like a micro F9, even though none of the hardware is "copied". At the end of the day you need atmosphere control surfaces, landing legs, and a deep-throttle engine. Stuff is going to look like F9 one way or another

>>9850270
Blue origin designs don't share nearly as much similarity even though they're all looking at similar goals. This is more an example of chinese follow-the-leader design principles. Not that it really matters, any reusable design they come up with will be competing in a post-Falcon 9 world before they're even close to competing with the F9 itself.

>>9850286
NG is sort of F9 like if you squint. It shares the highly-throttleable engines, landing legs, control surfaces (at also at the top of course for more control).

I sort of see it similar to how most jetliners have converged on similar design traits nowadays. Airbus and Boeing have their differences, but they are all still big aluminum tubes with engines under the wings

>>9850296
Practically speaking, yeah. There's only so many ways you can put together a metal tube to explode itself into orbit given the low margins we have to work with on Earth, and when you throw in reusability that constrains design even further. But one was clearly developed independently while the other was almost certainly the result of "that worked we'll just do that." At the end of the day neither is objectively a wrong way to operate and both have the same hurdle (a late start)

>>9850312
where the real magic lies is in how the guts of the things are engineered to allow for less maintenance and downtime between flights. That's the real secret sauce - getting the tubing, electronics, servos, and engines to not only be sensored enough to self-report issues, but also to have the smallest possible amount of refurb hours needed for a reflight.

>>9850320
Yeah. Right now Space-X is considered unique in the rocket field with iterative design and vertical integration - I have a hard time seeing any rocket reliably achieving the design goals of full reusability without taking the same approach. Rockets will crash into launchpads, people will have to figure out why, adapt the designs and try to make it work again. Unless you can actually steal the internals of an F9, pretty much everyone's gonna have to do the same thing Space-X did.

>>9850296
I have a feeling that the NG is going to have some serious problems landing without gridfins, and BO will probably be forced to modify the design to accommodate them. People underestimate the impressive passive breaking capabilities of the gridfins, their the reason why F9 only has to burn twice for very short amounts of time to land, most of the breaking in atmosphere is done by the gridfins; the only way to sufficiently compensate for their breaking capabilities would be to have the engines constantly running at low throttle throughout the descent, but this would greatly reduce the range, and inturn the payload of the NG due to it's inefficiency. The gridfins slow the F9 boosters from hypersonic to subsonic speeds, which I can't really see NG's control surfaces doing.

>>9850337
NG has those fin things at the top & bottom, remember. I'm sure they have a good reason for doing that over the waffles. And unlike F9, NG can hover, so you have more leeway when it comes to getting close to the landing pad and then making late transitional adjustments

https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2018/07/spacexs-39a-upgrades-dragon-2-crew-launches/

can't wait for comm. crew DM2. There's a good chance that SpaceX nabs the ISS prize flag, since ULA has gone quiet on publishing timelines as of late

>>9850296
NG is basically F9 built if you had unlimited money.Building the factory test stand and launch pad within few miles of each other also is the best system if you don't have to worry about running out of money.

>>9846166
>commercial habitats in 5 years
so in 5 years they'll solve all the biological problems of permanently living in micro-g?

>>9850748
_____ ______

>>9845330
>>9845206
>>9845147
>reddit garbage

>>9850361
ULA isn't a commercial crew operator, idiot.

>>9850780
Boeing, whatever. It's a Boeing capsule on top of a Boeing + Lockheed rocket.

the absolute unit

>>9850748
>durr what is rotation

This problem was solved fucking decades and decades ago.

>>9850827
we're not going to have simulated g for a long time. In the grans scheme of things, those going to mars will only be spending 9mo in zero g. The consequences of taking on failure modes introduced by a rotating space structure are greater than the benefits it provided

>>9851020
What failure modes

>>9851034
all of them? you're introducing a very complex system. Think of all of the ways a rotating space structure could fail, however small. All of those go away when you don't bother with a sim-g structure


the failure mode tradeoff is the same reason BFR has no abort systems. The chances of the abort systems messing shit up is greater than the chance that it will be needed

>>9851038
>I can't actually think of any failure modes other than "it violates conservation of momentum and spins too fast and tears itself apart"

>>9850031
we gonna make it bros

>>9851020
>>9851038
Simple solution: tether between the nose cones of two BFS. The BFS will be lifted onto its booster with a crane anyways, so it should be able to withstand any forces created by spin gravity. Only real problem is keeping the cable rigid.

>>9851124
Could work but would increase rad exposure pretty bad since there is longer all the mass of engines and tanks and shit between the crew section and the sun.

>>9851124
There's not going to be simulated g on the BFR. It isn't going to be in transit long enough to make it necessary

>>9851131
What a shitty spaceship.

>>9851131
Sure, but my point is that's it not very hard to generate spin gravity. You just need two BFS and a cable. I think we'll see a setup like this in LEO sooner than later, maybe even before any Mars mission starts, to check the effects of Mars (and Lunar) gravity on the human body.

>>9851139
it's not for long duration space living. It's for lugging 150mt of shit around the solar system.

WHEN SHIT HITS THE FAN, YOU'VE GOT TO HAVE YOUR GAME PLAN ON.

>>9851145
HI EVERYONE THIS IS JOHN WITH TODAY'S ACTIVE SELF PROTECTION LESSON OUT OF SHITVILLE, BRAZIL

>>9851139
this >>9851141 basically
Maybe we'll get pleasure yachts in space if the BFS takes off, but to start off with it should be able getting as much people/resources to another planet as possible

>>9851149
>>9851145
>>9851149

shit wrong thread I was shitposting in /k/
please ignore

>>9851150
yeah, you'll have much better structures if you design space stuff to live and space. BFR is a compromise design, something that works on earth and in space. Space stuff that only works in space is better suited for the 'job'

>>9851080
not unless you start saving your shekels

Once BFR is up and going, someone really needs to pay for a few flights to haul up some ISRU gear. 7+ launches for refuelling one trip to Mars is uneconomical as fuck, need to refuel that shit in space.

>Identify nice big run of the mill Carbonaceous Chondrite asteroid near Earth (There is a lot of these)
>Use 1-2 BFRs stacked to the roof with solar panels for all your power needs
>Drill insulated hose with heated end into ice core and extract water
>Crack water into O2 and Hydrogen
>Grind off high-carbon parts of asteroid and oxidise with your O2 under heat to produce CO2
>Sabatier reaction Hydrogen and CO2 into Methane
>Small, low acceleration mass driver to launch inflatable tanks of Methane back to orbital staging post

The best part is this could be nearly automated, even if you need to crew a small station you already have

>Water
>Oxygen
>Organics for hydroponics from water ice

Already on hand and don't need to ship them up.

>>9851168
those seven launches only cost 49 million in total, though. Pennies compared to the special asteroid hardware you'd need

>>9851170
Yeah it's obviously an up front investment, but will make you rich as fuck over time while at the same time massively decreasing solar system travel costs since you aren't lugging all that fuel up from earth every single time and also saving a shitload of wear on rocket components without all those extra flights.

BFR has a potential payload: https://twitter.com/MartianColonist/status/1015213352434454528

https://asd.gsfc.nasa.gov/luvoir/

>>9845664
Vulcan's dying. The government has noticed that the engine supplier is a direct competitor with ULA (who has also never put a component of any sort on an orbital launch). They're going to withdraw support for Vulcan and put it behind re-engining Atlas V with the AR1.

>>9846177
>Blue Origin will have their own BFR equivalent two to five years later
Blue Origin will struggle to have a Falcon Heavy equivalent two to five years after BFR.

>the Chinese will surely have their take on it within the decade of that
China's crashing as the US ends the offshoring trend and the EU crumbles, with each fragment eager to re-establish its own industry. They never had internal integrity, it was all propped up by foreign interests. You're more likely to see starvation in China than China continuing to run in the Space Race half a century late.

>>9851131
>There's not going to be simulated g on the BFR. It isn't going to be in transit long enough to make it necessary
Half a year is a very long time to live in zero g, especially for people who aren't professional astronauts. There will be serious health effects, and they won't be landing on a developed planet with hospitals and rehabilitation facilities. They'll need to be fit to work when they land. Everyday life will be full of inconveniences and indignities. Many passengers will hate it, and this will create serious problems when they start so soon to regret the decision they're committed to for at least a few years. Artificial gravity solves a lot of problems.

Tethered centrifugal gravity is *easy*, and BFR is built in a way that allows it to be done without significant modification or redesign. It's already built to be hoisted from the nose, all they need is the tether. It can be spun up using the RCS thrusters.

They'll use simulated gravity on a tethered BFR to get experience with living in Martian gravity long before they send anyone to Mars.

SpaceX is finally doing an RTLS missions at Vandenberg soon, probably for Saocom-1

goddamn seals

a future with no weather scrubs, glorious

>>9854016
Holy crap imagine riding one of those things up with 300kmh winds at high altitude, you would shit your fucking pants.

>>9854622
Dude, it's going to be big and heavy. High ballistic coefficient. You'd probably barely feel it.

>>9852251
>NASA is considering launching the Large UV Optical Infrared Surveyor on the BFR if the SLS isn't ready in time
>The Large UV Optical Infrared Surveyor is projected to be launched ... in 2035
>they're worried the SLS won't be ready

>>9854638
that's not exactly true; what they're doing is funding a study to see if they want to do a smaller LUVOIR for cheap and launch it on BFR, instead of the larger LUVOIR (SLS block 2 has a bigger fairing than BFR) for more $

>>9854638
>The year is 2035
>Elon Musk has a fleet of 500 BFR vehicles flying daily
>Thanks to the cheap cost per payload kg they offer
>Space age beginning, all sorts of space development startups and massive cash injections, Mars colony well underway
>Meanwhile at ULA headquarters
>U-um excuse me uncle sam?
>Yeah we still need another 1, maybe 2 billion to finish our rocket, s-sorry
>pls fund

>>9851168
>It takes more Delta-V & time to get to that asteroid than to just go to Mars

makes sense Keepo

Lunar refueling might make sense at some point, but otherwise once you bring costs down to a multiple of fuel price, you don't need to worry about anything.

>>9854640
>the year is 40,000
>mankind has colonized the stars
>FTL travel is common and dangerous
>the Imperium fights against the dark forces of chaos and xenos
>ULA projects the SLS will definitely be ready by the year 40,005

>>9854640
>>9854666
SLS isn't ULA, it's Boeing. And the Orion capsule is Lockheed Martin. ULA is just a joint Boeing/LM venture. Totally different.

mars is a great opportunity to start from scratch when it comes to standards (power outlets, computer connections, wireless communication frequencies, docking ports).

One has to think that whatever standard is on the first mars colony will be the standard for all mars colonies, since you can't exactly swap over

>>9854764
It's hardly going to be affordable if you reinvent everything, including the stuff that's common on Earth.

>>9854764
Finally the cylinder plug will have a chance to triumph.

>>9854936
if they adopt IEC 60906-1 I'll scream

>>9854949
With anger or excitement?

>>9854957
both I guess. It would be acceptable, but not perfect.
The best mars power 'plug' would be three concentric flush plates, with an external unisex latching mechanism. That way there are no pins to break, and it is easy to rig up a fix in a pinch.

>>9854979
the plates are arranged with the + - in a vertical arrangement so one can twist one connector 180°

>>9854979
If it's such a great idea, why doesn't anyone use it? (hint: it's not actually a good idea)

>>9854990
because it seems like a good idea in my head

but yeah, something like >>9854936
is probably the best

>>9854998
Honestly, I thought you were describing: >>9854936

Look, there are many problems with designs like that. They make all kinds of trouble even as data lines, which is why they didn't go with them for USB ports, even though RCA connectors have been around since WW2.

>>9855006
>They make all kinds of trouble
What's the trouble.

>>9854936
>>9854764
Sad ghost socket > all

this Thai cave rescue make you realize how useful BFR will bit E2E. Can fly rescue supplies and personnel from anywhere to anywhere in 45 minutes, assuming you have a big concrete slab to land on and the right permission

>>9855201
For instance, they don't always make good contact all the way around... or any of the way around. Another thing is how big, heavy, well-constructed, and unworn they have to be, to be equally secure in the socket against accidental disconnection.

You want the conductors to be spaced well apart to prevent accidental shorts. But you also want the conductors to fit in a small area so the plug is compact. Now, suppose you want the conductors spaced a minimum of 1/2" from each other. If it's three concentric conductors, that's a minimum diameter of 3". If it's three thin conductors in a triangle, the diameter can be well under 1".

If some conductive bit of debris is connected to one of the conductors, you want it to have a low probability of touching another conductor, not a near certainty.

>>9855261
45mins vs 16 hours doesn't make much difference here.

>>9855322
it does. the rain can raise water levels quickly.

>>9854666
>>9854640
>Meanwhile, the JWST is set to launch in 18 months

>>9854979
>unisex
You cant say such things, it will summon /pol/

>>9855624
>Meanwhile, the JWST is set to launch in 18 months
Last week they rolled it back another year and tacked on another billion dollars

https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-completes-webb-telescope-review-commits-to-launch-in-early-2021

>>9855627
You're trying too hard to be funny

>>9850218
>Worrying about a government on the other side of the world knowing things about you, and not the government that can kick down your door at this very moment
You better not be using any Apple, Microsoft, or Google products or services.

>>9855945
Imagine the telescopes a BFR can put into orbit. Direct exoplanet imaging, here we come.

>>9854979
>flush plates
It would be far too easy to accidentally short them.

>>9856883
By this pace a BFR carried telescope will be operative before JWST.

today's news
>Crew Dragon has finished thermal testing
>Mr Steven has a new arm, and there is a mysterious inflatable ring...

really though, what is below all of that ice

>>9858500
either a fuckton of basic life because of tidal heating, or absolutely nothing
one or the other

>>9858565
there ought to be some interesting geologic formations one way or the other

>>9858287
Is that row of fenders made out of old tires, or are they custom made rubber rings?

>>9858769
off-the shelf fenders

>>9858500
I was gonna say "probably not much" but I remembered they recently discovered evidence of plumes, which could indicate interesting shit going on. Overall Enceladus is much more exciting than Europa tho

>>9858897
Titan is where the cool shit is. I did some Titan geology research not too long ago.
-Craters are 1% of the surface area. Most craters are at low latitudes.
-Linear dunes compose 18% of the surface area. These dunes are made up of porous organics.
-There are a number of theories as to the creation of these large (100 meter high) dunes. One is that, similar to Earth, coriolis forces sent particulates westward across the equatorial regions, which drives dune buildup.
-The largest surface feature is Xanadu, composing 14% of the surface. It is a 4,500 km wide mountainous area, possibly the remains of an ancient impact. Xanadu is the oldest surface feature on Titan, and is extremely radar-bright. It has 2-9x higher crater density than Titan average.
-Titan has stable standing liquid (methane/ethane) on its surface, and an active hydrologic cycle.
-Lakes compose 1.5% of the surface, with the three largest lakes being comparable in size to the great lakes in North America.
-Titan’s lakes are potentially stratified, with ethane sinking below the methane(!).

>>9859304
-Titan’s small lakes typically interact with the hydrologic system through infiltration, while the large lakes interact through evaporation. Some lakes are thought to be formed by methane rainfall; this precipitation occurs at all latitudes.
-10% of Titan’s surface lakes are now empty. These empty lake features can be 150-300 meters deep.
-Large parts of Titan are dissected by fluvial river networks, which contribute to erosion on the surface.
-Cryovolcanic features are 0.6% of the surface area. These volcanoes might act as a methane source for Titan’s atmosphere.
-Featureless, low-relief, dark planes compose 14% of Titan’s surface at the mid-latitudes.
-Titan does experience seasons (taking place over a 29.5 year cycle), which are thought to influence some of the morphology of the moon, mainly adjusting the distribution of hydrocarbons by decreasing Titan’s overall insolation.
-Meteors up to a kilometer in size can be safely disintegrated by the thick atmosphere before they impact the surface.

>>9859304
I'm with you. Titan is my favorite body in the solar system after Earth. When it comes to the search for life I like Enceladus for its big salty effusions, but as a place to just explore Titan has got to be up there. Plus it's just pretty

>>9845165
this is an oooold idea
note the lack of Vulcan

>>9850312
can we get rid of the FUCKING meme that rocket engines are a controlled explosion? A fucking moped uses controlled explosions, that doesn't mean anything.

>>9850689
>NG is basically F9 built if you had unlimited money.
I'd argue BFR is Falcon 9 with unlimited money, not NG

>>9851129
Most space radiation doesn't come directly from the Sun anyway, it swirls around due to magnetic field interactions.

>>9851177
>you aren't lugging all that fuel up from earth every single time

Yeah, instead you're lugging it from much further away and spending huge amounts of money to produce it in space rather than buy it for ESSENTIALLY NOTHING here on Earth.
The whole point of BFR is that flying very often in fully reudable mode takes advantage of economics of scale and reduces overall costs per flight. This is true even with 6-7 Tanker flights per Mars mission. Why would you throw that advantage away to haul chemicals that are dirt cheap here on Earth all the way from halfway to the outer solar system back to LEO?

>>9851168
>or you could launch it from Earth and not have to spend a billion dollars to build the mining operation or wait over 2 years per propellant shipment

Seriously, even with the added wear and tear of Tanker launches it makes more economic sense to just launch propellant form Earth than to try to work the wrong end of a very long lever because of 'muh launch delta V'. Tankers are going to be far cheaper than Spaceships anyway because they won't have anything up front, they'll literally be an outer body structure with propellant tanks and engines.

>>9851177
>decreasing solar system travel costs
How are you going to beat BFR Tanker's ~$40 per kilogram delivery cost? That's assuming the Tanker can carry exactly 150 tons of propellant into orbit minus landing reserve, but it could be more like 200 tons because of the lower dry mass compared to the Spaceship. I'm pretty sure it's impossible to beat that with any kind of in-space production, which is why the only place where it makes sense to produce propellants is your destination (Mars).

Also isn't this why he mentioned that with extra refueling BFR can do fully loaded 150 ton payload missions to the Moon's surface and carry enough propellant there to get all the way back and land on Earth? That way you can avoid ISRU on the Moon completely, at least as a part of your transport architecture. I take this as to imply that ISRU is going to be much more expensive and difficult than simply launching more Tankers; I'd bet that if it were possible to do Mars missions without ISRU they'd have set up BFR to do it that way. Unfortunately Mars is just too heavy and far away to be able to work out that type of mission.

TL;DR ISRU is a necessary expense for Mars, not a way of reducing travel costs. It would only be more difficult to use asteroids to provide propellant to the Mars colonization effort; it would make more sense to try to use Mars propellant for the entire architecture before asteroid propellant.

>>9854622
>300kmh winds at high altitude
by the time you get to high altitude you're moving at like 5000 km/h lol

>>9854685
kinda like how SLS/Orion is a joint Lockheed-Boeing venture

>>9854649
>Lunar refueling might make sense at some point,

Lunar refilling will make sense when we're living on the Moon and are making shittons of oxygen as a byproduct of iron, titanium and aluminum smelting. Incoming ships would be short loaded on liquid oxygen, which is pretty much always the more dense propellant. This means each ship can carry more fuel mass, and once topped up with oxygen on the Moon they have a lot of delta V leftover.

It's not really refueling because it isn't fuel, but since the Moon is incredibly poor in both carbon and hydrogen compounds, yet has a surface composed almost entirely of oxygen compounds, it makes sense. Fuel production on the Moon will only be needed when whatever civilization is living on the Moon starts wanting to build and launch their own rockets.

However, since a space elevator is very plausibly on the Moon compared to on Earth (steel cables or kevlar would both be able to handle the stresses involved), actual 'launches' at that point would more likely involve riding the elevator to zero gravity then maneuvering away.

>>9859467
yep. mars will always be there. asteroids won't

>>9859494
lunar space elevators have to deal with the irregular gravitational field. Not sure if any researchers have figured out how to manage the device without serious stationkeeping

>>9859494
Imagine if all we could go by for Earth resources, would be whats visible on the surface from outer space.

Could you make an accurate prediction of the resources ? Of course not, not even close ! Even today after hundreds of years of exploring it new stuff is found constantly.

So really, you can expect that you would produce all fuel needed, not just oxidizer, on the moon.

Oppy is still not talking. Oh well

SpaceX has contracted out some construction for a new transporter https://imgur.com/a/wOMcdNE

It could be for the West Coast or perhaps Boca Chica?

>>9845147
kek

>>9850031

fuck this looks good

Will SpaceX use fossil methane or will they eventually make it synthetically from water and carbon here on earth as well?
Since fuel prices isn't really a huge factor anyway, might as well pay twice or thrice as much for fuel and claim your fire spewing hell machines as environmentally friendly.

>>9859629
Remember when we were running out of oil ressources at some point? Those were the days.

>>9859574
>>9859494
I don't think you even need space elevators. You can just build a long road and accelerate maglev vehicles to escape velocity because there's no air resistance.

>>9860282
Moon dust is shit and building large structures on the moon is also shit.
Building electrically charged large structures is even more shit because the moon dust is actually charged and floats around.

Israeli moon lander now has a NET date for launch on F9: https://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/248700

>>9860307
JEWS
IN
SPACE

>>9860335
Morris Kahn is behind it. A South African, no less

>>9859574
Not really, because the way Lunar space elevator works is by tethering to a weight on the Earth-side of the L1 point. This weight wants to fall towards Earth because it feels a stronger gravitational pull in that direction, keeping the line taut. The structure is more stable than a conventional space elevator held up with centripetal force because as little perturbations move the weight away from the Earth, the Earth's gravity pulls it back to its rest position again.

This weight could be an artificial station or a captured asteroid or even just an extra length of cable extending far past the L1 point. In fact the most optimal solution would probably be a station at L1 with a second cable extending a few thousand kilometers towards Earth, because anything dropped off of the end of that cable would find itself on a highly elliptical orbit that would take it down close to the planet. Likewise, spacecraft going to the Moon would only have to boost onto this same elliptical orbit (with good timing),then grab the tether as they approached it at close to zero relative velocity, then climb it up/down depending on your perspective towards the L1 station, or further down towards the Moon.

Objects actually free floating at L1 are not in stable orbits of course, but this isn't a free floating object, its a large counterweight on a string connected to the Moon. It would be a stable construct.

>>9859629
>Imagine if all we could go by for Earth resources, would be whats visible on the surface from outer space.

We'd know that Earth has ridiculous amounts of easily accessible water and lots and lots of minerals containing carbon, not to mention a nitrogen based atmosphere with free oxygen. That alone would be more than enough to make prospectors cum buckets, while the hidden resources (I assume you're talking about hydrocarbons) would be a relatively minor but welcome plus.

The thing is, we're pretty sure we know how the Moon formed, and we know that it hasn't had an atmosphere for essentially the entire time it has existed. Those facts coupled with the conditions on the surface (extremely hot in the sunlight) mean that even if it formed with significant water, nitrogen and carbon content (which it almost certainly didn't), most of that would have sublimated away completely by now. At best there may be a few million tons of water and other ices at the bottom of permanently shadowed craters at the north and south poles of the Moon.

We know for sure that the top hundred meters of soil across 99.99% of the Moon's surface are probably completely devoid of significant volatile resources like water, CO2, ammonia, etc. That includes hydrated minerals as well. What this means is any Moon colonization effort is going to be pretty strapped for volatile resources as it is, and with no atmosphere and weak Lunar gravity they can expect to lose pretty much 100% of the resources they put into rocket fuel (by comparison the majority of exhaust from rocket launches remains bound to Earth's gravity and becomes a part of the atmosphere, and the same would be true for Mars to a lesser extent, meaning these resources are not actually lost for the most part). Minimizing the loss of these resources from the Moon will be vital to any Lunar colony.

>>9860145
>Will SpaceX use fossil methane
Yes, at least at first. For BFR fuel costs are actually a factor, so until it becomes cheaper to make methane from CO2 and water than to pull it out of the ground and/or make it from heavier hydrocarbons they will stick to fossil methane.

If someone can drop the price of energy to below a certain threshold then making methane from non-fossil sources will be cheaper and SpaceX along with pretty much every other company that uses hydrocarbon fuel will switch over.

>>9860282
That's useful as a method of saving propellant until you can build a space elevator. However your vehicles accelerated via the electromagnetic ground system must also carry propellant to actually reach orbit around the Moon, unless you're firing them directly onto a Lunar escape/Earth orbit trajectory, but even then they still need propellants to maneuver around. With a space elevator you can climb up to a point where if you let go you're already in orbit. You can also go further and end up in Earth orbit, falling towards Earth farther the longer the elevator extends beyond L1. At some point you would be able to let go and fall directly onto a trajectory that will have you enter the Earth's atmosphere, meaning zero propellant would be required for a trip from the Moon's surface back to Earth.

The big thing to consider is that this transport method goes both ways. An electromagnetic surface gun can let to leave the Moon, but it can't catch things, at least not feasibly. A space elevator however can allow a spacecraft to launch onto an elliptical Earth orbit that will have it meet up with the cable end at almost zero velocity, where it can capture and climb to L1 then descend to the Moon without needing any more propulsion. Instead of needing to be fully refueled from a highly elliptical orbit, a BFR spaceship could launch directly with zero refueling to meet up with the cable and be transported to the Moon, land, and return to Earth with nothing in the tanks except for landing propellant. Of course it wouldn't need to really do anything beyond meet up with the cable and unload its cargo, but that is actually even better because it lets you reuse the vehicle faster and make more money.

>>9860307
>>9860335
>get to moon
>make settlement
>somehow a palestinian kid shows up and throw rocks at you

>>9860530
>In the grim darkness of the far future, there is only debate over the 1969 borders
I think we can avoid the heat death of the universe by capitalizing on the spontaneous release of energy whenever the Israeli-Arab debate comes up...

>>9860523
How many million tons will such a cable actually weigh?
How do you produce such a monstrosity and how do you bring it to the moon?

>>9860587
Produce it on the Moon, and it doesn't have to weigh a lot to begin with. We obviously wouldn't start off colonizing the Moon by building a space elevator, it'd be overkill and a waste of resources better spent building habitats. However once the Moon is populated enough and there's enough back and forth travel between the two worlds to justify a space elevator, we'd explore building one at that point.

L1 is 56,000 km above the near side of the Moon. If we want to do the extended cable design for making Earth transport easier, then we'll round that up to 75,000 km.
Steel is an acceptably strong material to make a space elevator cable on the Moon. To make the calculations easier I'm going to assume a starter cable diameter of 1.12 mm, because a section of this cable 1 mm long has exactly one cubic millimeter of volume. 75,000 km is 75,000,000,000 mm. Conveniently, that means there's also 75 billion cubic millimeters of steel in this cable. That works out to 75 cubic meters of steel, which would weigh 588,750 kg or 588.75 metric tons.

So, if BFR can deliver up to 150 tons of cargo to the Moon per flight, that means four BFR flights can deliver the entire mass of steel needed for the cable to the surface of the Moon. Alternatively, and perhaps more effectively, a single BFR could deliver a 150 ton spool of cable with 1/4 the cross sectional area but the full 75,000 km length directly to the L1 point, which could then be lowered via unspooling from a purpose-built satellite with the help of a plumbob down to the Moon's surface. We would then have a very thin but functional space elevator in place.

The second step would be to produce additional steel cables on the surface of the Moon and lift them via the original cable, and build up the combined thickness of each steel thread until significantly large masses could climb the cable into orbit. Each additional thread could be thicker than the individual ones preceding it.

>>9860729
(cont)

Eventually the space elevator would be made up of a cluster of steel ropes multiple centimeters thick, and would be capable of supporting huge amounts of mass along its length. Other than the original 150 ton steel wire sent from Earth, all of the steel needed for the cables would have been produced on the Moon, so the fact that it would weigh millions of tons would only translate to a healthy steel economy on the Moon instead of a logistical nightmare of space transport costs.

The other materials that would be suitable for a Lunar space elevator that can be easily sourced from the Moon itself is titanium, which is much stronger for its weight than steel and would be able to support much more weight for a given mass of metal, and therefore would also be able to support the same weight with a much smaller mass of metal, meaning less overall production costs (if titanium production on the Moon is any cheaper than making steel on the Moon; remember, steel needs carbon and the Moon has very little of it).

I personally think that the Moon is one of the only places in the solar system apart from asteroids where space elevators can actually work and be useful. They're impossible on Earth and Venus and pretty much infeasible on Mars, and would be subject to much more extreme tidal forces on any of the gas giant moons (tidal forces coming from the gravity of the other moons themselves as they change position relative to the cable). Even so, a Lunar space elevator is not early game technology and shouldn't be seriously considered until we're producing at least a few hundred tons of metals on the surface of the Moon already, which implies Lunar industrial capability is up to the task.

>>9860458
How big does the station/elevator need to be before we have to worry about it fucking with the Earth/Lunar orbits?

>>9861002
geo/lunarstationary orbit is at 88,000km, which would receive interference from earth

>>9861002
It's impossible for us to build a space elevator massive enough to affect the orbits of the Moon or Earth, don't worry about that.

>>9861060
Not really. The Moon rotates so slowly that the Earth's gravity starts to dominate before the centripetal force of the Moon's rotation starts to take effect. That's why on the near side of the Moon you can build a space elevator just 56,000 km tall and have it be stable; the Earth's gravity pulls on the counterweight harder than the Moon at that point. You can also build a space elevator on the far side of the Moon, extending up to the L2 point, but that needs to be longer at 67,000 km, because at that point the centripetal force caused by the Moon orbiting the Earth overcomes the combined gravity of both objects and results in any counterweight being 'pulled' away from the Moon. These are the only two points where it is possible to build a Lunar space elevator, either directly towards Earth or directly away. All others would be unstable and would either fall down or would actually swing either towards or away from Earth depending on their ground tethering point, since they'd essentially be falling towards either L1 or L2. Again, to a tethered structure the Moon's L1 and L2 points are completely stable. This is possible because the Moon does not rotate with respect to the Earth's frame of reference; it does librate slightly, but not enough to cause any problems.

RocketLab will announce its pick for a US launch site next month. http://spacenews.com/rocket-lab-selects-four-finalists-for-u-s-launch-site/

> In a statement, the company said it had shortlisted Cape Canaveral, Florida; Pacific Spaceport Complex – Alaska; Vandenberg Air Force Base, California; and Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia as the potential locations of what it calls Launch Complex 2.
>Rocket Lab said it will select from among those four sites for the complex in August and start construction “immediately” thereafter. The company said it expected to have the site completed and ready to host its first launch in the second quarter of 2019.

https://www.teslarati.com/spacex-falcon-9-block-5-fleet-production-ramp/

>Building off of a number of Falcon 9 booster, upper stage, and fairing spottings over the past six weeks, it can reasonably be concluded that SpaceX has completed, shipped, tested (i.e. static fires in Texas), and delivered (to launch sites) as many Falcon 9 rockets in six weeks as were shipped, tested, and launched in the preceding five months – perhaps even 30% more.

this is odd to me, because Shotwell has said that they actually expect to launch ~28 F9's this year and LESS in 2019, due to lower satellite orders.

>>9861332
but on further analysis, it makes sense to just build as many F9's as quickly as you can, so you'll have enough for your predicted launch schedule UNTIL bfr comes online. that way you can move the massive F9 production unit of SpaceX over to BFR work

>>9861332
Elon and Shotwell have said multiple times that the plan is to construct a large fleet of Falcon 9 Boosters then stop production to shift resources onto BFR. For some reason people haven't taken this seriously, but all sources indicate it's what they're gonna do. With a large fleet of Block 5 boosters, plus a reduced launch cadence in the near future, they should have more than enough potential launch capability with Falcon 9 to fill any orders they get between now and when BFR is able to take over completely.

in awe, lads

>>9861651
>tfw Elong killed that small ice cream business on the right

>>9861699
Sacrifices must be made to reach the stars anon. The first Mars settlement shall be known as Small Ice Cream Business in their memory.

>>9861699
The images are in the wrong order for whatever reason, so elom is actually responsible for creating that business. Praise be

>>9846436
Jeff?

>>9861651
the arms are retractable, "and springy, like a highly damped trampoline"

>will S2 recovery be worth it?
"Definitely. Can’t wait to try that. Been a little distracted past few months on mostly Tesla matters, but back at it soon."

-elorg

boca chica viewing area under construction

>>9862248
whoops, hi res

stevenvision

>>9862261
>I whip my arms back and forth

more morning news

>Yu Matsutomi of Blue Origin, during #AIAAPropEnergy session: we’re planning a few more New Shepard test flights this year, with first human flight at the end of this year.

from Foust

https://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-18-476
NASA Commercial Crew Program: Plan Needed to Ensure Uninterrupted Access to the International Space Station

>>9862275
god damn NASA get your shit together. They're dragging their feat

>>9862289
Jesus. sasuga post-shuttle NASA, I guess.
Anyone who thinks NASA has a role to play in manned spaceflight going into the future is fooling themselves at this point. Unless that role is spoiler

>>9862289
never trust the government
they're too fucking incompetent to reliably do anything
they'd lose their own asses were they not attached

SpaceX is going to hand an old F1 in their main facility on the ceiling.

LOX tanks at boca chica

>>9862523
>>9862443
article that condenses the report: http://spacenews.com/commercial-crew-delays-threaten-access-to-iss-gao-warns/

>they say that Boeing is ahead of SpaceX
yeah right

>>9862568
>tanks
where's the other tanks?

>>9862568
source: https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=45623.msg1837233#msg1837233

>>9846470
>ULA employees will soon arrive at your home to commandeer you to work at their ULA expendable launch vehicle assembly facility.

This reads like a wet dream.

>>9861332
>>9861341
>>9861377
I think there's a psychological barrier to the BFR actually existing. I feel it, too. There's been so many ambitious projects for so many years that got nowhere, it's hard to believe that someone, somewhere is *actually* building the rocket to surpass Saturn V.

Falcon 9 was impressive, but this changes everything, and it's hard to believe everything can actually change after decades of Soyuz and billion dollar NASA boondoggles. In the back of my mind (and seemingly most other people's) there's an expectation at some point that SpaceX will just go "Oops BFR isn't happening, back to launching 20 tons for $60 million until the year 2100"

>>9862780
don't forget, the initial plan was to build ITS. BFR is just the beginning

I can't wait for bfr to get BTFO.
>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vt_PcU_Jqts
Note: this guy basically invented the Raptor engine himself.

>>9862783
Spacex diaspora are making their own plans too.
https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2018/07/x-spacex-raptor-designer-has-ready-for-development-designs-for-nuclear-rocket-that-will-be-2-7-times-better-than-bfr/

>>9862802
>>9862805
lol, NTTR mind

>>9862802
>>9862805

>>9862802
>>9862805
>nuclear anything
they will never allow it to be made
Nuclear is a curse word to the common peasants and politicians

>>9862802
The only NTR that will take off in the next couple of decades is cuck porn my dude

>>9862802
>>9862805
I love nuclear as much as the next /sci/ fag but quite frankly, no country on earth will let a nuclear rocket take off on their soil.

>>9862783
If BFR delivers as promised I would expect the next iteration to be a jump again of the same scale from F9 to BFR. Something 20-30m wide is not out of the question at all if the materials can handle it and a launch site is made that big.

>>9862840
>>9862819
This is decades down the line but the best place to build a nuclear thermal rocket is on another planet.

>>9850827
>>9851124
>>9851140
>What is the Coriolis effect

>>9859448
NG gets a $1B a year no strings attached guaranteed from the richest man in the world.
If anything happens to falcon 9 (like pic related), everything else at SpaceX gets shelved.

>>9862963
most of the money doesn't even go to NG, retard

>>9862973
no, Bezos does cash out 1 bil each year, from his amazon stock. Half of it goes to BO. That anon said NG when he meant BO

>>9862973
What the fuck else does it go to? No way New Shepard costs a billion dollars a year.

>>9862963
Coriolis doesn't affect humans for jack shit once a sufficiently large diameter is reached you moron. Do some research before you post.

>>9845165
>Addl Strap-ons
LEWD

>Rocket company to get to Mars
>Electric vehicle company to hammer out flaws in battery powered vehicles and automated driving
>Power company to work on solar energy and grid scale energy storage
>Tunnel boring company to work out how to tunnel fast and efficiently while using spoil for useful construction
>Schools to train new generation in advanced engineering and science

Holy shit it really is a master plan.

>>9863524
Don't forget satellite internet so that different Mars bases can easily communicate with each other.

>>9862622
They have caused years of delays for SpaceX just to keep them "neck & neck" with boeing, who is even receiving like twice as much money too

>>9863524
and "vacuum" tube trains that conveniently are designed for ambient mars atmosphere

>>9863524
>>9863797
>>9863816
Truly the absolute madman of our time.

>>9863524
and Neuralink, so we can interface computers with humans

she's a big boy

>>9863997
>she's a big boy
>she
>boy
You appear to have made an error

>>9864145
>Mr Steven is a male name
>Ships are female

It's a female (male) of course

>>9863524
IT'S NOT FAIR WHY CAN'T I BE HAS SMART OR COURAGEOUS AS HIM WHY AHHHHHHHHHH TSUUUUUUUUUUUUU

>>9863997

this looks like something out of Neon genesis Evangelion

thick

>>9863997
>Tonight, on Deadliest Catch

>>9864311
>those mission T-shirts

>>9863807
NASA is such a pack of cunts, everyone is all like

>hurr you have to respect NASA look at all the good work they did

Yeah half a god damn century ago and since then it has been fuck up after fuckup after endless amounts of beauracracy and wasted cash. The technology for reusable rockets has been here for literally decades, I could be living on fucking Mars right now if these cunts had their shit together, thank fuck for SpaceX dragging these fat fucks kicking and screaming into the space age.

>>9864364
kek'd audibly

>>9864509
>>9864364
Tell Elon to get Sig Hanson to skipper it. He's probably free these days, i dont think opie crab is in season just now

>>9864192
You've got that totally ass backwards. It's a structurally female vessel using a male name. It's a boi (female)

did someone say ass?

>>9865113

>>9865117

>>9865123

>>9865135

>>9865136
Fucking hell that is huge, I love how they don't fuck around though and just do shit to see if it works and how to improve it without a decade of paperwork, so refreshing. Next will be

>Mr Steven still struggling to catch fairing
>We have upped net size another 4x
>Willl catch this time for sure

>>9865377
Are fairings really that expensive that these crazy logistics are worth it? Won't the fairings then have to be extensively refurbished?
If there's anything I learned from the space shuttle it's that refurbishing shit is more expensive than building it anew half the time.

>>9865377
>its now 2023
>still no fairings catched
>net is now 45 square miles
>boat has been replaced with 4 super-heavy lift barges
>there now exist no-sail zones in the gulf

>>9864538
He's probably fucking cod fishing.

>>9865452
The fairings aren't super expensive (3mil each, 6 for a pair), but it still an appreciable cost. In addition, they anticipate a production rate issue as launches continue ramping up, as the autoclave can only make them so fast.

>>9865452
Oh and
>using the Space Shuttle as an example of how to refurbish something
No heat shield or intricate turbo pump motors to refurbish- just the cold gas thrusters and parachute to repack.

>>9845206
criiiinge

official spacex pic

>>9850204
>ke more money
>Bureaucrats will probably be a nuisance in the beginning, but if the technology proves itself, the corporate interests will probably demand they cut the red tape for it and let it through
When youre talking about this level of complexity, actual industrial capacity, infrastructure and skilled workforce is much
more relevant.
You could give china detailed schematics of the BFR, hell even lend them some of your top professionals. Without american workers, factories ,infrastructure, and particularly money, it would get nowhere.

>>9851034
nigga, they fucked up a space probe because they inputed wrong units. Imagine how they could fuck up something as complex as a rotating habitat

>>9865842
I think
>official spacex pic...
would have been more appropriate
lol

>>9851129
But it would be rad!

>>9854640
>ally needs to pay for a few flights to haul up some ISRU gear. 7+ launches for refuelling one trip to Mars is uneconomical as fuck, need to refuel that shit in space.
Lol, robo-elon musk will have landed on alpha centuari prime 100 years from now and the whole solar system will riot to stop the 1.000.000 trillion dollar SLS project to be stopped before they convert the complete mass of the asteroid belt into boosters

>>9854764
You should read the mars trilogy by kim stanley robinson, in that book when they arrive at mars its an international mission made by the whole un, and so characters comment as to which countries tools are better for each job, for example russian stuff is sturdy but less delicate, things like that.

>>9866667
>the complete mass of the asteroid belt

Only the parts covered by swing vote congressional districts.

>>9859304
>>9859307
>>9859395
you americans cant fool me you want titan because of the fuel.

What i do like about titan is that the only place in which the cliche of space being cold is true. You could have a nuclear reactor there and not worry about cooling.

Actually it would make a lot of sense to use gas and petrol engines there.

>>9860344
Fucking south africans, always tied up with capitalism this nigs.

There was this very prominent business nig, who was a RUTHLESS entrepeneur, like worst than trump, youd think theyd be all peace and love because of the opression they suffered in africa.
I dont recall his last name, his first name was morgan and he said something like this " Resources exist to be consumed, if not by us then by the next generation, by what right can they take from us what is ours"

>>9861651
Lol, Mr Steven is a sentient biological organism that gets aroused when he sees or thinks about fairings and has an animalistic desire to catch them similar ot sex. The outside plating is a facade, below it its made of huge organs and meat walls.

>>9866690
Premise of a good short story.

>>9845659
Musk and the other billionaires fueling the private space push, as well as a number of people whose fortunes will be made in the early "gold rush" (water rush? aluminum rush?) are going to be immortalized in history. Their names are going to be bigger than Rockefeller by leaps and bounds.

>>9866700
quick, name without googling one person who got rich during the actual gold rush

>>9866732
the people that sold the mining equipment.
everyone else got pretty much nothing

>>9866732
Levi Strauss
Then again, he made pants, not panned for gold.

>>9866734
but there were just some rich assholes that made some money used that money to lure the prettiest girl they could, making up for their lack of physical beaut ylike all merchants, and even proabbly raised the child of someone else becasue girls are naturally inclined to genetically superior males, then faded into obscurity

there are no inmortailized gret names of early gold rush

>>9866735
>>9866734
>>9866732
This only goes to show that someone did get rich during the gold rush, just not the gold panners.
Who’s to say that someone will get rich off of the “space rush” (that term sounds retarded, anyone got a better one?) that isn’t the person providing the equipment to go on it? I’d say Elon Musk and others are sitting right on that spot if he continues his current direction. Now we just need to find the suckers who’ll actually go out on the rush.

>>9866742
the problem with the gold rush was that there wasn't that much gold, and prospecting was at its infancy. With this space blitz, we know exactly where the valuable resources are - the issue then becomes profitable recovery and transfer of them back home.
>oh you recovered 600t of palladium?
>too bad, someone already dumped 2000t on the market. there goes your four billion dollar investment

"land" claims are going to be huge, since one punch is all it takes to beat someone to the punch

>>9866753
The whole table of elements are in asteroids, and many elements will be in perpetual demand no matter how much is brought back
mining equipment can always be reused, and would be reused since it wouldn't cost much to just collect the shit and put it on a new asteroid
then you have expanding industry, rare earth elements are always in demand, lithium is in massive as all bloody fuck demand as of late because of the surge of interest in battery technology
big iron, aluminium, and titatium hauls would probably be more desirable than equal amounts of gold, since once the space rush begins, people are going to want orbital infrastructure and stations to jump in on the fun, refining, manufacturing, and shipping, but also tourism, luxury services, and habitation, where else are those miners going to live and spend their cash, after all

>>9866954
There is a serious lack of research into economical reentry tech for theoretically bringing these resources back. There have been great advances in cheap launch tech in the last decade, but what about the rest of the things that will develop a space economy? Not to mention mining technology itself. Nobody knows how to even begin mining and refining asteroids and the costs for figuring it all out are going to be enormous.

>>9866732
Trump

>>9865842
ur moms boyfriend on the top
me on the bottom

>>9867009
people are already developing the technologies to mine and refine asteroids, and once there is a need for massed reentry tech, people will put money into making it
Look up Planetary Resources and Deep Space Industries, they're the two big asteroid mining companies working right now

>>9867049
Planetary resources is ded

>>9867049
Seriously thinking about investing in some DSI stocks.

>>9867144
a Mr Steven would be useful for 2nd stage recovery as well I'd think

>>9867144

>BFR update still a month away

Fuuuuuuuccckkkkk I don't have the patience for this shit nigger.

>>9867202
wonder if they'll have the 'final' raptor specs. Even small improvements in raptor can result in significant changes to the 150t to orbit spec

>>9867094
Rip in spaghettios, that just leaves the one

>>9867222
Probably some updates on Raptor including flight engine test article, finalized engine layouts on both stages, slightly altered payload performance specs due to mostly nailed-down propulsion and dry mass specs, updates on ground infrastructure progress, possibly some pics of prototype tanks and other structures being built.

The most significant changes to the overall launch vehicle are likely to be in the length of the first stage tanks (depending on Raptor thrust) as well as more fleshed out stage mating and vehicle docking hardware. It looks like they've already got an idea of how they're doing the landing legs although they haven't outright released anything yet. Diameter is obviously not changing any time soon what with the tooling already existing.

Once BFR is actually flying the most obvious development path is going to lead to things like further tank stretching as engine thrust increases (same number of engines can lift a taller column of structure and propellant) and thermal shielding modifications to both stages as SpaceX gets data back on how these things handle reentry. The grid fins will likely go through several updates, increasing or maintaining control authority while maintaining or decreasing mass. The internal structures of both stages of BFR are likely to change a lot between versions, increasing strength while decreasing mass as cryogenic CF structural technology improves.

After a few versions of BFR are developed, including perhaps a few more highly specialized upper stage vehicles (Elon mentioned an optimized Tanker design which probably looks like a stretched BFS propulsion system with no forward payload bay), SpaceX will most likely produce a fleet of BFRs to own and operate for the next few decades while they develop their next rocket, which will probably either be much bigger, very like the current process of building Falcon 9 and Heavy cores and upper stages to allow the shift in focus to BFR.

>>9867009
There are two methods we could do with modern or near future tech.

The first method would be to use a reusable vehicle to pick up products shipped to Earth orbit or possibly the Earth-Moon L2 point (since it's favorable in terms of delta V, you can do non-propulsive capture there). This method would ensure safe delivery of cargo directly to ground facilities capable of offloading and transporting it across land. It would also by extension allow for the transport of materials directly to specific destinations in orbit, such as low Earth or low Lunar orbit, Lagrange points, etc. The downside to this method is that you require at minimum three pieces of space hardware; your mining facility in interplanetary space, a transportation vehicle that can move large masses of payload to Earth orbit and return to the mining facility, and the orbit-to-ground vehicle. We currently do not have propulsion technology that would allow for either of the two transport vehicles to work, the space tug would need to have dozens of kilometers per second of delta V between refueling, and the orbit-to-ground transport vehicle would need to be able to get from Earth to L2 and back without refueling, unless we also incorporate a large refueling infrastructure which adds significant cost and complexity to an already expensive and complex system.

The second method would be to cut all the way back to a single facility in space, and use an electromagnetic gun to fire inert slugs of payload at the Earth. These slugs would be spherical and embedded in a sphere-cone shell of refractory foam manufactured from waste products from the mining process. The slug would be carefully aimed so that it entered Earth's atmosphere and landed in an uninhabited area, such as the ice sheets in Antarctica. The payload materials would then be retrieved.

>>9867812
>cont

This method of ballistic capture and entry of dumb slugs of payload would be far simpler in terms of transport at the cost of significantly more complex deep-space mining and production equipment. All of the delta V of the slug would come from the electromagnetic gun, which would be propellant-less and rely on solar power. The aiming of the gun would need to be extremely accurate however, and in fact it may not be even possible to achieve a landing ellipse of less than a few hundred kilometers in radius. There's also the added factor of needing to be capable of remotely constructing and assembling the thermal protection 'vehicle', as simple as it may be. All it would need to do is protect the slug long enough that none of the precious metals have a chance to vaporize before the slug can strike the ground at (probably) hyper-sonic velocity. Actually building what could be a ten meter wide sphere-cone of aluminum oxide (example) foam however would not be trivial. It's really only in the face of the immense cost and difficulty associated with pickup-and-dropoff transport in deep space that this method becomes close to reasonable.

crashing this thread

reminder to not reply to the shitposter.

>>9868140
kek, Gagarin wasn't the first one in space... he was the first one who returned though.

>when the shilling doesn't work so you instead start smearing shit all over the walls and screech like an autist

>>9868171
>thread past bump limit
Mission accomplished.

>>9868170
the lost cosmonauts theory is literally nazis-under-antarctica tier.

>>9868173
time for a new thread then
>>9868180
>>9868180
>>9868180

>>9868170
>Inventing fantasies in order to make your rivals look bad
kek

>>9865459
Top kek

>>9846211
>starting in 2030
yeah and I plan to get my dick sucked by taylor swift by then, neither of those goals are gonna happen

>>9868177