Nasa

[Anonymous No.9560760]

Can NASA be saved?

Will it ever secure consistent funding or guidance?

[Anonymous No.9560782]

>>9560760
Space exploration is generally dead for the public.
The most likely turn-out will be H.G. Wells-tier with the majority of the middle class and upper class becoming literally brain dead, the working class moving underground or to some toxic shithole (China), and the upper class leaving this shitty planet.

The most intelligent, richest, with the most connections will be able to get in on the space scene. The rest of humanity will be left to rot behind.
So in a sense, this is actually the optimal turn-out for NASA, considering that they don't WANT the eyes of the public on them.

[Anonymous No.9560802]

>>9560760
To add on to previous post, >>9560782
science is no longer the primary concern in society.
We've replaced true progress with "progressiveness". We've replaced politics with "identity politics". We've replaced information with distractions.
At this point, its highly unlikely that any relevant future projects, in particular those that deal with space exploration, will be in the public spotlight.

[Anonymous No.9560811]

>>9560760
>let's spend a fortune propelling a giant piece of shit onto an empty rock
Good riddance

[Anonymous No.9560814]

[Anonymous No.9560815]

Assuming their 20 billion budget is doubled what can we expect for those money? What does twice more money mean for them anyway?

[Anonymous No.9560818]

>>9560811
this

[Anonymous No.9560824]

Space X has shown everyone what a waste of money NASA is. It’s just a government cash cow for select aerospace companies.

[Anonymous No.9560828]

>>9560811
>>9560818
What do you suggest we do instead? Just fuck around and masturbate all day?

[Anonymous No.9560833]

>>9560828
We can always invent better masturbation tools.

[Anonymous No.9560837]

>>9560833
BONED.com

[Anonymous No.9560858]

>>9560815
>Assuming their 20 billion budget is doubled what can we expect for those money?
Anything is possible! Perhaps even a flight!

[Anonymous No.9560915]

>>9560824
The only thing SpaceX has shown everyone is how they are one of the most dishonest companies in the history of private space travel. Seriously each launch following the Falcon family as they “revolutionize the launch industry” has been indistinguishable from the rest. Aside from the meme landings, the company’s only party trick has been to overwork and underpay its employees to reduce launch costs, all to make the mythical “full and rapid reuse” seem effective.

Perhaps the die was cast when Musk vetoed the idea of ambitious yet realistic missions like Red and Grey Dragon; he made sure the company would never be mistaken for an innovative force to anything or anybody, just ridiculously questionable government contracts for his companies. SpaceX might be profitable (or not), but it’s certainly the anti-NASA in its refusal of wonder, science and excitement. No one wants to face that fact. Now, thankfully, they no longer have to.

>a-at least the landings are cool though
"No!"
The camerawork is dreadful; the landings of the charred boosters are boring. As I watch, I noticed that every time a Falcon 9 lands, Musk said either “self-sustaining civilization on Mars” or “imagine if you had a 747 and you threw it away after one flight.”

I began marking on the back of an envelope every time one of those phrases was repeated. I stopped only after I had marked the envelope several dozen times. I was incredulous. Musk's mind is so governed by clichés that he has no other style of thinking. Later I read a poorly-written news story on SpaceX by some fat web blogger. He wrote something to the effect of, "If these kids are watching these launches now, surely they will work for SpaceX in the future and they too can have paychecks based off of government handouts." And he was quite right. He was not being ironic. When you are a SpaceX fan, you are, in fact, trained to be a mindless supporter of government-funded billionaires.

[Anonymous No.9560936]

Sure it could be saved

But is it realistic to expect 75% of the poeple who work at NASA to be fired & replaced?
Is it realistic for them to dump almost all their overpaid contractors? Is it realistic to expect lynchings of bureaucrats ?

Nope

>>9560782
The most likely turn out is that white civilization will simply end, as if it never existed, as our race & genetics vanish from the Earth

Then 50 years from now the Chinks will destroy all their space ships/rockets, never leaving their country again.

[Anonymous No.9561010]

>>9560815

With additional 20 billion dollars NASA will be able to form a special commission tasked with the goal of finding out what can be done with additional 20 billion dollars.

[Anonymous No.9561028]

>>9560760
50 years and we cant even match let alone exceed that size.
As time goes on it seems we are either under a spell of incompetence or large scale occupancy of space just doesn't comply with economic and physical reality.

[Anonymous No.9561032]

>>9560915
>Government funded

Kinda like ULA?

Space X is competition. Competition is good.

[Anonymous No.9561042]

>>9561032
SpaceX is a sad excuse for an eccentric billionaire's personal playpen.

[Anonymous No.9561043]

>>9561032
>replying to pasta
>reddit spacing

[Anonymous No.9561052]

>>9561042
Blue Origin is a sad excuse for an eccentric billionaire's personal playpen.

[Anonymous No.9561069]

>hydrogen on the first
full retard

[Anonymous No.9561071]

>>9561052
It is though.

[Anonymous No.9561073]

>>9561028
>its maller therfore a back step
Were your parent related, like, before theyh were married?

[Anonymous No.9561084]

>>9561073
Unless you're doing some cute space elevator shit, at some point, the rocket needs to get bigger to hold more stuff.

Like we need to get to cruise ship size at some point for a feasible space economy. At some point these things need to get physically bigger.

[Anonymous No.9561109]

To save nasa? Contract out all the heavy lifting.
Let nasa focus on exploration.
In the case of manned operations.
NASA can operate past Leo
On ships lifted on commercial rockets

[Anonymous No.9561113]

>>9561109
Of course that’s NASA, the US military should have its own fleet of vehicles

[Anonymous No.9561268]

>>9561052
>Blue Origin
All privately funded

>SpaceX
All paid for by $10 billion in government contracts

[Anonymous No.9561355]

>>9560915
How come nobody gets this.
I caught the bait and then laughed my ass off.

[Anonymous No.9561363]

>>9561109
NASA has left the launch market. The SLS is the only rocket they're working on and will be their only rocket once it finishes. The only reason they're working on it is because Super Heavy Lifters are extremely expensive to both develop and operate. They are inherently unprofitable so NASA has to make it themselves because no company in their right mind would.

[Anonymous No.9561371]

>>9560936
>The most likely turn out is that white civilization will simply end
No chance. Some white countries will end, such as the US and parts of europe. There are too many small pocke

[Anonymous No.9561433]

>>9561363
>no company in their right mind would.
except the bfr which is based on proven principles
would cost less than 45000 times less to develop and is much higher better of all goodnes>>9561363

[Anonymous No.9561462]

>>9561433
>would cost less than 45000 times less to develop
BFR is being developed for $1 million?

[Anonymous No.9561483]

>>9560915
You must be an eternal pessimist. Oh, there's no fooling you.

I'm a welder for SpaceX. I don't mind the pay or the hours at all. The mission is worth everything.

But please, tell us all why we're not impressing you. Surely you can do better.

[Anonymous No.9561488]

>>9560815
More memedrives

[Anonymous No.9561494]

>>9561433
>BFR
Nice meme.

[Anonymous No.9561499]

>>9561483
>I'm a welder for SpaceX
Prove it, faggot.

>I don't mind the pay or the hours at all. The mission is worth everything.
Exactly. When you put in twice the hours, the overhead cost of things like medical insurance can be essentially halved. It's a sick practice especially when it's justified by "we're doing something important though :)."

[Anonymous No.9561500]

>>9561483
>The mission.
wew nice brainwashing

[Anonymous No.9561513]

>>9561499
I don't work "twice the hours" and my medical insurance isn't a factor. Try harder.

[Anonymous No.9561515]

>>9560760
Hey, why did NASA forget to put the cargo capacity of the Saturn V on this infographic?

[Anonymous No.9561519]

>>9561494
>>9561363
BFR and New Armstrong will probably both be hauling 150 ton payloads into orbit for $10 million a flight before Block II SLS ever has its first launch

And if that happens somebody at NASA should commit seppeku

[Anonymous No.9561527]

>>9561513
Prove that you work at SpaceX, faggot, or shut your whore mouth.

[Anonymous No.9561531]

>>9561519
Nice
Meme

[Anonymous No.9561538]

>>9560760
>Can NASA be saved?
pic says no

[Anonymous No.9561556]

>>9561538
Replace it with Vostok, Voskhod, N-1, Buran, Kliper and Federation and you get Russian space program in nutshell.

[Anonymous No.9561616]

>>9561556
At least the Russians have the sense to keep making their best 1960s rockets forever

Imagine if NASA took the exact amount of money spent on the Space Shuttle program and instead just did 200 to 300 Saturn V launches with it

[Anonymous No.9561636]

>>9561616
the issue is that saturn V wasn't as flexible as the shuttle for the missions wanted to do, it was just a great heavy lift rocket

[Anonymous No.9561644]

>>9561616
Nixon thought spaceplanes were cool, public and senate too because of muh Star Trek and Star Wars, they renamed first article Enterprise.

If old nazis from NASA had budget we could have colony on Mars by 2000.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YPYYw8Qcy-o

[Anonymous No.9561651]

>>9560802

Real life is happening outside, you just aren't there to see it.

Stop being a victim and drama queen.

[Anonymous No.9561654]

>>9561636
No, the explicit justification for the shuttle was cost savings, not mission versatility. When you consider the capabilities demonstrated by Gemini, Apollo, and Skylab, the shuttle was a clear step down in versatility, and a step up in cost.

[Anonymous No.9561655]

>>9561644
we'd have a colony on mars by the 80's if they didn't gimp the budget

[Anonymous No.9561734]

>>9561655
>if they didn't gimp the budget
Yo:
>>9561538
>>9561654

The NASA budget was way too much government money to continue for long to be spent on actually getting things done. When you're starting up an agency, you begin by hiring only the people you need. The real problem begins when you don't fire them as you stop needing them. Then they start hiring other people you don't need, including ones whose specific skill set is in lying to you about who you need. Soon the whole thing is a farce. That's the truth behind the Apollo-Shuttle transition.

To get results after Apollo, they needed to shut the whole thing down, fire everyone and start over, hiring only the people they needed for the next thing, not throw more money into the all-consuming maw.

[Anonymous No.9561753]

>>9561538
This image describes exactly what my grampa told me about the government agency he worked in (not murrica and not spaceflight related). Fascinating. If this phenomenon is known why is it ignored?

[Anonymous No.9561766]

>>9561753

It's just the way of all businesses. The only difference is it's much harder to kill off a government program than a private company. Private companies get restructured or implode if they don't produce profits.

The money doesn't run out for government agencies until politics intercede. Civil servants have a lot of rights too, far more than other workers.

t. Civil Servant that works in a government lab

[Anonymous No.9561767]

>>9561753
To much money for to many pockets!

[Anonymous No.9561783]

>>9560760
NASA? Only if a future US administration gave two shits about it.

[Anonymous No.9561787]

Bump

[Anonymous No.9561867]

>>9561268
>Blue Origin all privately funded

"Blue Origin has also completed work for NASA on several small development contracts, receiving total funding of US$25.7 million by 2013. As of April 2017, Bezos is selling approximately US$1 billion in Amazon stock each year to privately finance Blue Origin."

Umm no sweetie, they get loads of government gibs from both NASA and the airforce, mainly because Vulcan (ULA's next rocket) is powered by their BE-4 engine.

[Anonymous No.9561874]

>>9561867
>receiving total funding of US$25.7 million by 2013
So they received about 0.01% of the same funding that SpaceX did.

[Anonymous No.9561877]

>>9561874
Can you read? It says by 2013, I'm pretty sure it's a lot more by now. Also: "The Air Force in March 2016 awarded more than $160 million in cost-sharing contracts to Aerojet Rocketdyne and a ULA-Blue Origin partnership for development of competing main-stage rocket engines. Aerojet received $115 million to help fund development of its AR1 kerosene-fueled engine while ULA received $46.6 million to help fund development of Blue Origin’s BE-4 methane-fueled engine."

[Anonymous No.9561888]

>>9561877
>"The Air Force in March 2016 awarded more than $160 million in cost-sharing contracts to Aerojet Rocketdyne and a ULA-Blue Origin partnership for development of competing main-stage rocket engines. Aerojet received $115 million to help fund development of its AR1 kerosene-fueled engine while ULA received $46.6 million to help fund development of Blue Origin’s BE-4 methane-fueled engine."
That funding for BE-4 was literally recently revoked thanks to AJR lobbying

[Anonymous No.9561904]

>>9561888
That doesn't change the fact that Blue Origin are not a fully privately funded company as some like to portray them as, and despite currently being unable to actually provide service as a launch provider unlike SpaceX they are still receiving millions of dollars worth of government subsidies.

[Anonymous No.9561913]

>>9561904
SpaceX is 90% government-sponsored and Blue Origin is 0.5% government-sponsored. Only a complete dumbass thinks this is the same thing.

[Anonymous No.9561922]

>>9561636
>shuttle
>flexible

The shuttle was a fucking dumpster fire. A cool looking dumpster fire at least.

[Anonymous No.9562168]

>>9561922
>>9561654
sorry, I meant "flaxible"

[Anonymous No.9562201]

NASA needs to build a cycler for manned mars travel.

[Anonymous No.9562203]

It failed so hard that it never even was, all that is had done just ceased to exist

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8GFfbsOaZc0

[Anonymous No.9562213]

>>9562203
>>>/pol/

[Anonymous No.9562220]

>>9560760
>Will it ever secure consistent funding or guidance?
The "guidance" is two thireds of the issue. If NASA wasn't given entirely different goals every few years they might actually accomplish something, rather than just funnelling endless funding into contractors.

[Anonymous No.9562221]

can't decide what's more pathetic and ignorant, NASA haters or SpaceX haters

[Anonymous No.9562231]

>>9561913
The government wants to put stuff into orbit,so they pay Spacex to do it.

How is this bad or nefarious?

[Anonymous No.9562232]

>>9562221

[Anonymous No.9562234]

>>9562232
not a fanboy, im just informed

[Anonymous No.9562244]

>>9562232
That's pretty funny and I'm quite fond of New Space in general and of SpaceX in particular. It does attract the whole IFLS crowd of obnoxious fucks who know nothing about the industry and all its complexities, the type of people to suddenly bring up the emdrive like it works or talk about wormholes like they're not blatantly in violation of causality and general common sense. But come on now,SpaceX's failure rate now is about average for the industry as they essentially use test rockets to launch payloads, and they have impressively cut costs over the last few years, which has driven the other launch providers to attempt cost-cutting and partial recovery plans like SMARt to get back engines after launches. They're a good thing.

[Anonymous No.9562252]

>>9562232
Found the Orbital ATK employee.

[Anonymous No.9562278]

>>9562232
Which congressional district do you represent?

[Anonymous No.9562287]

>>9561268
>>SpaceX
>All paid for by $10 billion in government contracts

except for CRS7, all successfully delivered

[Anonymous No.9562290]

>>9562278
One that's not getting enough por-oh sorry, "work contracts".

[Anonymous No.9562293]

>>9562278
The rest of the country that isn't commiefornia, texas or florida.

[Anonymous No.9562307]

>>9562290
>>9562293
I’m glad someone got that.

[Anonymous No.9562583]

>>9560915
Is this some kind of new pasta?

[Anonymous No.9562589]

>>9561363

See Commercial Crew Program.

NASA can contract out their (arbitrary derived to rationalize SLS) "unprofitable" requirements to competed firms who build and continue to operate systems to meet NASA's criteria.

NASA can commission firms to build vehicles for the roles SLS would do.

NASA did just that in the commercial crew program. They commissioned new vehicles and paid SpaceX and Boeing to create them and operate them.

[Anonymous No.9562698]

>>9561766
And people get fired if they announce they are way behind schedule

Imagine if some people pulled the shit that NASA did with constellation, 5-6 years into the program finally admitting that they couldn't do it, that they didn't even have plans to do it, that they hadn't fucking DONE ANYTHING to the cost of billions..

[Anonymous No.9562743]

>>9562589
Commercial crew program is a fucking disaster of endless billions spent on nothing
They have been deliberately stalling for years

[Anonymous No.9562815]

>>9560760

NASA doesn't need saving, only reform specifically to the more mundane administrative tasks. Jim Birdenstine championed this via the American Space Renaissance Act, and is why Trump selected him to be the NASA Director. Democrats don't want to confirm him because he once said climate change wasn't man made.

[Anonymous No.9562817]

>>9560915

go away /pol/

[Anonymous No.9562821]

>>9562815
>Democrats don't want to put a person willing to deny science for the sake of politics in charge of an important group of scientists.

[Anonymous No.9562823]

>>9562589

>(arbitrary derived to rationalize SLS)

Resupply is arbitrary, flagship missions aren't.

>NASA can commission firms to build vehicles for the roles SLS would do.

No because then NASA is doing things exactly like the Air Force, an entity that wastes almost as much money as the Navy. Seriously STOP AND THINK about what you just said. NASA would have to put out each contract to bid and then politely wait for the private industry to provide. The private industry will then provide the shittiest option meeting the lowest standards so they can get the lowest cost, then the mission itself is compromised because it can't meet all it's objectives without selecting higher cost options, which is not allowed without explicit legislative approval. Much in the same manner as NASA does things currently, but with private companies making all the decisions and not engineers.

Your idea doesn't work. All it would do is cause stagnation because private firms are risk-adverse and will not innovate. NASA would stop at LEO because the private market won't jury rig together a way to go elsewhere. But even then that wouldn't work because NASA is ending the ISS in 2024, meaning there'd be no manned LEO missions either. Manned spaceflight simply ends as cheaper private vehicles take over.

[Anonymous No.9562825]

>>9562821

He's able to lean on Republicans and get money for NASA as a whole, as well as implement reforms which would make NASA operate more efficiently and more transparently. Democrats don't like this because they are blinded by ideology.

I don't even disagree with the dislike over his position, but he's already walked most of it back and denying him now is just petty and ideology-driven.

[Anonymous No.9562830]

>>9562823

This.

The rapidly decreasing launch costs are the bane of spaceflight.
If there is no political will to salvage the situation with decisive action we will witness the greatest loss for all of humanity.
We can't allow it.

[Anonymous No.9562836]

>>9562830
Not just costs, but time ! Imagine if people were launching payloads 6 months after starting construction of them...
We all know it takes at least 15 years of budget to produce a proper probe!

[Anonymous No.9562837]

>>9562825
Dems are more responsible for the current state of NASA th an anyone else
Hell, what do you think these NASA government bureaucrats vote for

They love their unaccountable criminal bureaucracies

Obviously at this point the Dems want to stonewall everything for the next 7 years

[Anonymous No.9562849]

>>9562836
Utter insanity.
I do not wish to even imagine the impact on employment, let alone the one on science.

[Anonymous No.9563285]

9560915
>a genuine paid shill

[Anonymous No.9563949]

>>9562583
its actually pretty old one

[Anonymous No.9563971]

>>9562589
The Commercial capsules are being put into space on top of rockets, that regularly launch comercial payloads into orbit, there's no comercial payload for a super heavy lifter. That's not even getting into the massive costs and experience required to make a massive rocket. I know SpaceX has brainwashed people into thinking that creating massive rockets is an easy peasy thing that anyone can do, but they're retarded.

[Miniature Spacecraft No.9563975]

>>9560760
>Can NASA be saved?

Yes, in 2022 when the orange president will be (bad) history.

[Anonymous No.9564450]

>>9562583
It's tailored from a /lit/ or /tv/ meme about bad writing.

[Anonymous No.9564496]

>>9563971
>the only people in the world who actually have an operational super-heavy launch vehicle don't know what they're talking about

[Anonymous No.9564537]

>>9564496
>what is reading comprehension
>what is proving the anon's point almost immediately

[Anonymous No.9565240]

>>9560760
The iss was shut down early because its all fake

[Anonymous No.9565529]

>>9561042
>more launches last year than any other organization on the planet, with a rocket larger than most that can also land the first stage

k

[Anonymous No.9565530]

>>9561069
this

>>9561109
this too

[Anonymous No.9565534]

>>9561363
>Super Heavy Lifters are extremely expensive to both develop and operate. They are inherently unprofitable

Falcon Heavy is a super heavy launch vehicle and costs $150 million to launch fully expendable, $90 million with reuse. Your argument is invalid.

SHLVs are only extremely expensive when they are pork barrel government projects meant to keep ancient Shuttle technology in production OR were designed in an era where the most advanced rocket fabricating technology was your grandfather with a welder and a cigarette.

[Anonymous No.9565537]

>>9561515
don't worry about it, goy :^)

[Anonymous No.9565543]

>>9561877
>2013 was 22 years ago
shit man, where did the time go?

[Anonymous No.9565546]

>>9562201
No advantage except not having to launch a relatively large and heavy habitat every time for the Mars transit. Relies on the idea that space launch will always be super expensive and launching a big thing all the time will therefore also be super expensive. If we can get the cost of launch down via a large reusable rocket we can afford to launch something the size of a Mars cycler every single sinode, except instead of a cycler it's a fully reusable lander and return spacecraft.

[Anonymous No.9565554]

>>9562743
NASA's fault. They keep asking for changes on a system that's years into development. Apparently they want SpaceX to investigate completely replacing the COPV vessels on the rocket with iconel ones now. It's pretty telling when both guys in the race announce schedule slips that are approximately the same length at approximately the same time.

[Anonymous No.9565557]

>>9562823
>NASA announces SLS and Orion are scrapped, posts contract to develop new SHLV and long-lifetime spacecraft
>SpaceX bids BFR
>Humans colonize Moon, Mars, and Asteroids

it just works

[Anonymous No.9565606]

Without an iss won’t the commercial cargo contracts (except sats) dry up?

[Anonymous No.9565607]

>>9560760
SEND KANYE WEST TO SPACE

[Anonymous No.9565609]

>>9565606
yeah but there are plenty of satellites to be launched anyway

[Anonymous No.9565623]

>>9565607
The first human mission to the sun!

Send Kim and her family too!

[Anonymous No.9565637]

>>9565534

Falcon heavy is not "heavy" at all.

It is structurally limited to ~10 tons.

[Anonymous No.9565638]

>>9565637
10 tons is still not enough to haul kanye west and all of his genius

[Anonymous No.9565639]

>>9565637
Same thing fot the SLS, they count the weight of the upper stages as payload

[Anonymous No.9565685]

>>9565637
They don't need to be able to lift 64 tons into LEO, they need to be able to lift smaller masses to further away places. That's the real application of SHL. You don't need to actually launch large masses to LEO unless you are either building something large in LEO or are doing on-orbit refueling.

[Anonymous No.9565688]

>>9560760

[Anonymous No.9565713]

>>9565637
Source? Even if the base Falcon 9 is only structurally sound enough to lift 10 tons, the Falcon Heavy's core has been significantly reinforced and also possesses a stronger adapter.

[Anonymous No.9565762]

>>9565713
It's still the same upper stage on both rockets

[Anonymous No.9565765]

>>9565688
SpaceX would have more return imo

[Anonymous No.9565786]

>>9565762
No, the Falcon Heavy's second-stage has been modified with a stronger adapter and body to handle larger payloads. The propulsion system has also been modified in unknown ways to allow it to do direct to GEO orbits which the regular Falcon 9 could not.

[Anonymous No.9565797]

>>9565688
I spent way too long on this tbqh

[Anonymous No.9566057]

>>9561913
>SpaceX is 90% government-sponsored
maybe at the beginning with the CRS contract, but they are mostly doing commercial work now.

[Anonymous No.9566155]

>>9560915
I saw this before in a deferent thread...

[Anonymous No.9566194]

>>9560915
>>9562583
>no one recognizing a years old Harry Potter pasta

[Anonymous No.9566988]

>>9565534
>Falcon Heavy is a super heavy launch vehicle
No its not. The Saturn V, N1, and Energia could all loft >100 tons into orbit, FH can't even get close.
>SHLVs are only extremely expensive when they are pork barrel government projects meant to keep ancient Shuttle technology in production
Yea, because there's all those examples of cheaply made and commercially successful super heavy launchers. Oh wait.

[Anonymous No.9567089]

>>9566988
>>Falcon Heavy is a super heavy launch vehicle
>No its not.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_heavy-lift_launch_vehicle
>A super heavy-lift launch vehicle (SHLLV) is a launch vehicle capable of lifting more than 50,000 kg (110,000 lb) of payload into low Earth orbit (LEO).

>The Saturn V, N1, and Energia could all loft >100 tons into orbit
Saturn V could and did, but N1 never went to orbit, and Energia went to orbit only once, with considerably less than 100 tons (an unloaded Buran -- and arguably the payload of this system is not the Buran spacecraft, but whatever's in the payload bay, since Energia by itself wasn't intended to be capable of putting a passive payload into orbit, the "payload" was required to perform the final insertion into LEO).

>FH can't even get close.
Let's look at the list:
#1 Saturn V ~125t to LEO in theory (actual heaviest payload before discontinuation: 77.1t, Skylab)
#2 Energia ~100t to LEO in theory (actual heaviest payload before discontinuation: 80t or 0t, depending on interpretation -- in any case, it only had one test flight)
#3 Falcon Heavy ~64t to LEO in theory (still active)
#4 Delta IV Heavy ~29t to LEO in theory (still active)

Falcon Heavy is close to being able to carry the heaviest actual payloads ever launched (and further performance increases are likely to be announced). The only other thing done with a super heavy was moon missions, and Falcon Heavy will be capable of a high launch rate to divide up such a task into multiple launches, with superior availability and lower cost than Saturn V (which cost 8 times as much as Falcon Heavy in fully-expendable mode).

[Anonymous No.9567099]

>>9567089
who the hell cares what the single launch tonnage is

>Option A: $10 for 1 kg
>Option B: $3 for 1/4 kg

Guess what you do? You launch multiple times for cheaper. Not everything has to be complete after a single launch. The future of space structures and probes will be huge behemoths assembled over multiple launches

[Anonymous No.9567101]

>>9567099
oh shit I can't math. Option B should be $3 for 1/2 kg for the point to make sense

[Anonymous No.9567115]

>>9560760
>Can NASA be saved?
It was saved by privatizing the infrastructure to space. Now NASA can focus on science and administration and not having to maintain an infrastructure.

[Anonymous No.9567117]

>>9567089
>Wikipedia
>Trusted source
50 tons for a Super lifter is absolutely retarded. Every proposed and functional rocket of that class could lift over 100 tons.
Energia wasn't just the Buran shuttle, there were plans for a normal launch vehicle without the plane that, in the largest configuration, could lift 175 tons. Good research.
>The only other thing done with a super heavy was moon missions, and Falcon Heavy will be capable of a high launch rate to divide up such a task into multiple launches, with superior availability and lower cost than Saturn V (which cost 8 times as much as Falcon Heavy in fully-expendable mode).
Jesus Christ could you be more of a bootlicker? You sound like a fucking salesman "FOR THE PRICE OF A SATURN V YOU CAN LAUNCH 8 FALCON HEAVYS!!!!!!!!!" Get that dick out of your ass and grow a spine.
Despite being 6 years late, there hasn't been a single payload either proposed or in development that could take advantage of FH's lift. Face it, it's not going to be some amazing breakthrough in spaceflight. In all likelihood it's going to be just like the Delta IV Heavy: lift secret government payloads to complicated orbits once a year and nothing more. There's a reason why ULA is not going to pursue a tri-core Vulcan Heavy even though it would be capable of lifting over 100 tons into orbit.

[Anonymous No.9567120]

>>9567117
with block 5 and FH you can launch payloads which normally have to fly on expended F9. This is a big benefit. The whole point of block 5 is not having to throw any of them away.

[Anonymous No.9567137]

>>9563971

See Delta 4 Heavy, an out of market spec vehicle which launch services provider ULA owns and operates and receives funds from their military customer to continue to provide that service, to the military's specs, on an ongoing basis.

[Anonymous No.9567152]

>>9563971
>there's no comercial payload for a super heavy lifter.
Hi.

[Anonymous No.9567156]

>>9567117
>hasn't been a single payload either proposed or in development that could take advantage of FH's lift

SpaceX will use Falcon Heavy for every launch too heavy for Falcon 9 to launch and still recover the booster core. That's the point of Heavy. The fact that it's partially reusable makes this possible, but even in expendable mode it's less than half as costly for more than twice the payload of the Delta IV Heavy.

>There's a reason why ULA is not going to pursue a tri-core Vulcan Heavy even though it would be capable of lifting over 100 tons into orbit.

Yeah and it's because a Vulcan Heavy would not be able to compete with Falcon Heavy in terms of cost even if they go forward with their engine reuse plan. There's also the fact that a Falcon Heavy with Block 5 cores can reuse the same three boosters many times rapidly, while a Vulcan Heavy would require three new cores be built every time it launched.

[Anonymous No.9567172]

>>9567099
There are real disadvantages to having to break a payload up into smaller pieces. However, in the case of the Apollo spacecraft, it was already an assemblage of smaller pieces.

To perform a moon landing, it works out neatly to divide the launch into two Earth departures, using four Falcon Heavy launches with recovery of all lower stages and one Falcon 9 launch with booster recovery. Two of the FH launches would have a stretched upper stage with docking capability (the FH maiden launch demonstrated the ability to coast for 6 hours before relight, and Dragon does a 6-hour fast rendezvous with the ISS, so it should be trivial to develop a two-launch mission architecture capability). The other two would be the lunar module and the crew module, which rendezvous in low lunar orbit. The Falcon 9 launch would be the crew in a Dragon (so neither Falcon Heavy nor the crew module would need to be "man-rated" for launch from Earth and have abort capability).

It would go like this:
- launch of lunar module to LEO on FH
- launch of stretched upper stage on FH
- rendezvous of lunar module with upper stage, earth departure
- lunar module performs lunar orbit capture maneuver (will probably not circularize immediately, but enter an elliptical orbit, due to the instability and high stationkeeping cost of low lunar orbits)
- launch of crew module to LEO on FH
- launch of crew to LEO on F9
- rendezvous of crew with crew module, transfer of crew
- launch of stretched upper stage on FH
- rendezvous of crew module with upper stage, earth departure
- lunar module and crew module circularize to low lunar orbit and rendezvous, crew transfer to lunar module
- lunar module lands on moon, surface activities
- lunar module launches back to orbit, rendezvous with crew module, crew transfer
- crew module returns to Earth

[Anonymous No.9567178]

>>9567172
I have a better idea.

>Launch BFR
>refuel
>Land on moon
>take off
>refuel
land on earth

ezpz. Oh wait, that's why spacex is focusing on BFR

[Anonymous No.9567186]

>>9567178

BFR is a dead meme that will never fly (at least it's conceptual form). spacex certainly won't be solving the boiloff issue any time soon.

[Anonymous No.9567192]

>>9567152
That weighs over 100 tons and requires a 10m fairing. aka, only launch on SLS Block 2. They're really focusing on the 330 which is going to launched on Vulcan.
>>9567156
>SpaceX will use Falcon Heavy for every launch too heavy for Falcon 9 to launch and still recover the booster core.
I hear this constantly, yet I see no indication that anyone is choosing a FH over an expendable F9. Why would they? A FH is more failure prone by sheer complexity and there's no cost incentive to do so.
>Yeah and it's because a Vulcan Heavy would not be able to compete with Falcon Heavy in terms of cost
Way to completely ignore my post. No one needs launch capacity of that size, and you hilariously talk about how FH is meant to replace expendable F9 while saying that its meant to lift giant payloads.
>>9567178
>BFR
oh i'm lafin

[Anonymous No.9567194]

>>9567117
>Despite being 6 years late, there hasn't been a single payload either proposed or in development that could take advantage of FH's lift.
Every expendable F9 launch proves u wrong

[Anonymous No.9567197]

>>9567152

That's a meme payload.

BFR will be so cheap than any small payload is its customer, especially large quantities of human meatbags and small satellites. Pack a lot of small payloads together and they weigh the same as one large payload.

[Anonymous No.9567199]

>>9567117
>Every proposed and functional rocket of that class could lift over 100 tons.
Bullshit. You think there were never any proposed rockets with a payload between 50t to LEO and 100t?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shuttle-C

>Energia wasn't just the Buran shuttle, there were plans for a normal launch vehicle without the plane that, in the largest configuration, could lift 175 tons.
>plans for
So Energia was just the Buran shuttle. Did you know there are plans for a "Falcon Super Heavy" with more boosters, that could push the payload over 100t? It's probably not getting built, but it's a lot more likely to than a 175t Energia variant ever was.

>In all likelihood it's going to be just like the Delta IV Heavy: lift secret government payloads to complicated orbits once a year and nothing more.
Falcon Heavy will be used routinely to launch comsats to GTO, because despite its immense payload capacity, it's still one of the cheapest rockets on the market. New heavy payloads will likely be designed to take advantage of this cheap launch option.

[Anonymous No.9567207]

>>9567172
>There are real disadvantages to having to break a payload up into smaller pieces.

You never ship anything fully assembled
The REAL issue is that there is no experience in sending someone up there to weld/bolt/assemble stuff together

[Anonymous No.9567208]

>>9567178
BFR's at least 4 years off. Falcon Heavy could put men on the moon before the end of Trump's first term, and do it for the cost of discretionary spending that SLS's allies in congress won't know they've approved.

[Anonymous No.9567209]

I sure do like screencapping
>bfr is a meme
posts for my collage :^)

[Anonymous No.9567212]

>>9567199
>"Falcon Super Heavy" with more boosters, that could push the payload over 100t?
About as probable and likely as the Delta super heavy with 7 boosters.
>Falcon Heavy will be used routinely to launch comsats to GTO, because despite its immense payload capacity, it's still one of the cheapest rockets on the market. New heavy payloads will likely be designed to take advantage of this cheap launch option.
Yet I don't see all those new launches on its manifest while the expendable F9 continues to get contracts. And like I've repeated before, FH was supposed to launch in 2013, and despite this, there's no payloads in development to take advantage of its power.

[Anonymous No.9567218]

>>9567208
President an congress like their pet NASA and ULA more than SpaceX.

[Anonymous No.9567221]

>>9567209
>>9567208
>>9567197
I wonder if you faggots memed so much about how the ITS was going to make everybody else irrelevent. I wonder what happened to that? I wish I could've collected images of people saying that the ITS was going to happen. inb4 b-b-but ITS became BFR!!!!

[Anonymous No.9567222]

>>9567186
>boiloff issue

Boiloff for LOx is already pretty much a non-issue. Methane is liquid across a similar temperature range. ULA plans on developing ACES, a stage that will be able to store hydrogen as a liquid for months at a time. If that's possible then storing methalox should be too easy.

[Anonymous No.9567225]

>>9567199
>New heavy payloads will likely be designed to take advantage of this cheap launch option.

FH will never carry a payload heavier than ~20t, maybe even 10. It's primary purpose is just to push more to GTO to compete with Atlas and Delta.

[Anonymous No.9567229]

>>9567221
>I wonder what happened to that?
Nothing bad happened to ITS. BFR is just the revised design of ITS. BFR as announced probably isn't the final name or design, but SpaceX is going to build a large, fully-reusable rocket that uses the Raptor engine.

[Anonymous No.9567233]

>>9567192
>yet I see no indication that anyone is choosing a FH over an expendable F9

Because it's a brand new rocket. Falcon Heavy is going to launch at least once more this year, probably several times, and as it does more FH launches will be requested by customers. A reusable Falcon Heavy can put a payload directly into geostationary orbit that a Falcon 9 can only put onto GTO in expendable mode, and they both cost $90 million in that case. Gee, I wonder if satellite companies will want to take advantage of direct GEO insertion for literally the same cost as having to circularize using the spacecraft propellant from GTO and cut two years off the operational lifetime?

[Anonymous No.9567234]

>>9567222
>Boiloff for LOx is already pretty much a non-issue. Methane is liquid across a similar temperature range

it's a huge issue actually, cutting edge for keeping LNG cryogenic is losing 20-30% over a few weeks. we certainly won't be achieving any better in the vacuum of space any time soon.

[Anonymous No.9567242]

>>9567233
>A reusable Falcon Heavy can put a payload directly into geostationary orbit
Only if it has an upgraded long duration upper stage, did they actually do that or did they just talk about it ?

[Anonymous No.9567246]

>>9567229
SX making a fully reusable rocket using the Raptor? Sure, that may happen. SX making a massive Saturn V sized fully reusable rocket with a $1 million price tag and going to Mars with it? A retarded meme that only retards would listen to.
>>9567233
I don't get this meme that new rockets don't have contracts. Vulcan already has customers for it and even ACES has customers despite being over 5 years away. And yes, the FH will launch a couple more times, but it won't be this amazing replacement vehicle that will replace the expendable F9. It will be a nice PR statement and nothing else.

[Anonymous No.9567250]

>>9567234
Storage on Earth is vastly different to Storage in space

>In a typical 20-day voyage, anywhere from 2–6% of the total volume of LNG originally loaded may be lost
Thats in a tanker without active cooling
They WILL have active cooling, to keep it cold, they won't be losing any to boiloff.

[Anonymous No.9567262]

>>9565240
If space was fake and NASA is staging the ISS than wouldn't they be able to do more since they wouldn't be bound by real economics. It's almost like Flat Earthers claims aren't grounded in reality

[Anonymous No.9567263]

>>9567250
>Storage on Earth is vastly different to Storage in space

yeah, in earth you can remove heat much easier and faster thanks to the atmosphere. in space all the heat accumulates and radiates slowly off every surface

>Thats in a tanker without active cooling

all LNG tankers have active cooling, if they didn't the LNG would boil off within hours.

>They WILL have active cooling, to keep it cold, they won't be losing any to boiloff.

BFR won't, it will have some MLI on the tanks which gives it a few weeks of endurance at most

[Anonymous No.9567271]

do the composite structure of the tanks help at all with boiloff?

[Anonymous No.9567277]

>>9567234
>won't be achieving any better in the vacuum of space

>where in the shade objects radiatively cool down to a few degrees above absolute zero
>where there is no atmosphere to conduct heat into the cryogenic liquid

Also, bullshit on losing 20-30% over a few weeks being cutting edge. In those tanks some LNG is allowed to boil off continuously on purpose to keep the LNG cool via evaporation. The LNG is constantly being used anyway, and is also constantly being put into the tank. In space you can passively cool propellants via infrared radiation to well below their boiling point, at which point vapor pressure reaches 100% and the propellants stop vaporizing. Pick a low enough temperature that the equilibrium pressure doesn't rupture the tanks and you've got cryogenic storage with zero boil off. Hydrogen storage on the other hand is a lot trickier because hydrogen gas leaks through most gaskets like a sieve, and will even seep through many solid metal alloys. LNG does not do this, LOx does not do this.

All that aside, BFR just needs to store propellant in the main tanks for a few days until it is full via refueling tankers, then it needs to store the landing fuel in the header tanks for the months long transit to Mars. In the header tanks the propellants are excellently thermally isolated, and in fact there may be a need for some heaters to be installed to prevent the propellants from freezing. On Mars a separate tank (with a double wall like a thermos and some radiators for good measure) can be constructed to hold bulk amounts of propellants until the rocket is ready to leave, at which point it would fuel up and launch.

[Anonymous No.9567278]

>>9567242
>did they actually do that or did they just talk about it

They did it on the first Heavy launch, they let the stage coast through the Van Allen belts for six hours then relit the engine and burned to completion. More than enough time to perform a GTO transfer, payload insertion to GEO, and burn for a graveyard orbit.

[Anonymous No.9567285]

>>9567246
>SX making a fully reusable rocket using the Raptor? Sure, that may happen. SX making a massive Saturn V sized fully reusable rocket
It won't work on a smaller scale. Making it so big is the only way they can use their established flyback-booster landing technology to land the upper stage. Otherwise they need to develop separate landing thrusters. Besides, the square-cube law favors large rockets, especially for reusability and if you want to store cryogenic propellant in space.

>with a $1 million price tag
That's a consequence of making it fully reusable. You're not throwing away any hardware.

>and going to Mars with it
That's the whole reason SpaceX was founded, and it's pretty straightforward once you have a fully-reusable, propulsive-landing super heavy rocket.

[Anonymous No.9567294]

>>9567285
>and it's pretty straightforward once you have a fully-reusable, propulsive-landing super heavy rocket.
Do SpaceX babies really think that it will be that easy to go to Mars? wew

[Anonymous No.9567298]

>>9567152
I want a space station and I think these, once they start giving rotational gravity, are the most promising options. Make a giant ring or just set like 5 them rotating around some hub of solar panels.

[Anonymous No.9567327]

>>9567298

You could do just one rotating with a counterweight on a tether. Artificial gravity of whatever strength you want in a single launch, without massive in-situ construction costs. You could even cluster multiple modules together to create stations with an arbitrary number of independently operating habitats and connect them with minimal additional hardware if you *really* want an entire ring structure.

[Anonymous No.9567390]

>>9562234
>not a fanboy, im just informed

[Anonymous No.9567580]

>>9560760
Needs more funds.

[Anonymous No.9567591]

>>9566194
Thanks, I couldn't put my finger on where I heard the enveloppe thing

[Anonymous No.9567616]

>>9567278

6 hours isn't anywhere near enough for GEO insertion, it's 12 hours minimum, 24 if you want to do it efficiently.

[Anonymous No.9567680]

>>9560760
Nasa was never going to be sustainable or invest to make space flights cheaper, only one off huge money pits.

[Anonymous No.9567718]

>>9560915
How's this any different from nasa selling shirts at target

[Anonymous No.9567965]

>>9562244
Earth is flat man. Relax.

[Anonymous No.9567995]

http://parkersolarprobe.jhuapl.edu/News-Center/Show-Article.php?articleID=70

>Nasa is taking names to put on their Parker Solar Probe, specifically within a microchip
>There is to identity verification process, just an email verification to ensure you aren't a robot
>tfw all the possibilities of meme names and favorite folks to be sent into space to grace the sun
>tfw aliens will see Dick Butt and Billy Herrington and Strong Bad in one of our probes

What a glorious time to be alive.

[Anonymous No.9568112]

>>9567263
> in earth you can remove heat much easier and faster thanks to the atmosphere.
If the atmosphere was at -200 Celcius, that would be true, it isn't, so you have to use power to reject heat into a hotter environment

Space just needs radiators

>all LNG tankers have active cooling, if they didn't the LNG would boil off within hours.

Delusional lies, they use the minor boiloff as fuel so it isn't an issue.

[Anonymous No.9568320]

>>9567995
>tfw aliens will see Dick Butt and Billy Herrington and Strong Bad in one of our probes
It's far, far too late to worry about that. We've been broadcasting EXACTLY what kind of species we are into space for ages now.

[Anonymous No.9568422]

>ULA is a descendant company of the manufacturer of the Space Shuttle. They certainly are capable of building a reusable vehicle if they wanted to do that and have both patents and even people who could build it.

lol whatta retard

[Anonymous No.9568552]

>>9567263
>>They WILL have active cooling, to keep it cold, they won't be losing any to boiloff.
>BFR won't, it will have some MLI on the tanks which gives it a few weeks of endurance at most
The functional specification requires a 4-9 month coast through deep space, so no, this is fucking stupid.

"It won't be able to do the things they say it will do, because of one thing they would need to do that they won't do!"
"Are you saying there's no way to do it?"
"No, there are well-known ways to do it, but they just won't use any of them."
"Have they said they won't use any of them?"
"No, but they just won't! So there!"

If you look at other orbital propellant depot designs, they don't have elaborate thermal shielding for the liquid oxygen storage, just for the hydrogen storage.

First of all, SpaceX is launching with subcooled propellant, so it has to warm up before it starts boiling off. Secondly, they have fairly high pressure tanks, which raises the boiling point. They're also using very large tanks, which gives them a square-cube law advantage (more volume per unit surface area, and heating is proportional to the surface area, which means less heating per unit fuel). If you double the size of a tank in all dimensions, the surface area and therefore radiation striking the surface is quadrupled, but the quantity of propellant is increased ninefold, better than halving the rate of boil-off. The square-cube law also means they can more easily afford thick insulation on the tanks. It's a re-entry vehicle, and the heat shield is necessarily a highly effective insulator and re-radiator, so that can be turned toward the sun or Earth, and the engines likewise must be heavily insulated from the tank, so those are two features which can be turned to block radiation heating from two sources. The other side can be a clean white that reflects most radiation away.

In short, boil-off is a consideration, but not a major problem.

[Anonymous No.9569324]

>>9562815
There's been no change in NASA's budget other than priorities. ASRA is a sham

[Anonymous No.9569383]

>>9569324
It's just the same old bullshitting thats been done for decades

[Anonymous No.9570390]

>>9568552
>The functional specification requires a 4-9 month coast through deep space, so no, this is fucking stupid.

no it doesn't, because the true purpose of BFR will be shitty suborbital hops and delivering huge amounts of mass to LEO and lunar orbit. the mars shit is typical elon musk marketing hype bullshit: just look at what happened with FH and pretty much everything tesla has done.

[Anonymous No.9570848]

>>9570390
>just look at what happened with FH
The concept became drastically more ambitious before being realized, with flyback boosters and maximum LEO payload approaching the requirement around which SLS was developed?

>and pretty much everything tesla has done.
Built much-loved sportscars and luxury cars, before cranking up the scope of their ambition and building the world's biggest factory for any purpose whatsoever, to enter not only the mainstream car market, but also the grid electricity market, and the semi truck market?

The ambition of BFR isn't getting dialed down.