BrodyThe WatchThe First ShoreRegistered Userregular
Yeah, I feel like pushing all these rockets out this year is amazing, but definitely cuts in to the launches that would have to wait longer for launches.
"I will write your name in the ruin of them. I will paint you across history in the color of their blood."
Yeah, I feel like pushing all these rockets out this year is amazing, but definitely cuts in to the launches that would have to wait longer for launches.
From my understanding, the "standard" wait for a launch is 12 - 24 months, which is reasonable enough
But SpaceX, prior to getting the steamroller going, had a lot of contracts reaching that 24 - 30 month point, so they're pressing hard to eliminate that backlog
But yeah, it's looking like the pace for 2019 - 2020 will be a more "sedate" 16-18 launches / year, barring significant investment from NASA / another customer looking to put a constellation up like Iridium
And of course with Falcon Heavy we should only ever be expecting 2-3 launches a year, which probably wasn't QUITE what SpaceX was envisioning when they designed that behemoth >_>
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Mr_Rose83 Blue Ridge Protects the HolyRegistered Userregular
I think that very fact may be part of why they aren’t pushing to man-rate the Heavy and are effectively skipping over it to get the BFR on the pad. Though it would still be awesome to see them stick a triple-point landing sometime soon….
BrodyThe WatchThe First ShoreRegistered Userregular
Did we talk about one of the Ariane rocket guys complaining about how SpaceX is using government contracts to subsidize rockets and artificially deflate the price, then turn around and say that w/o government contracts they couldn't afford to fly theirs?
"I will write your name in the ruin of them. I will paint you across history in the color of their blood."
Did we talk about one of the Ariane rocket guys complaining about how SpaceX is using government contracts to subsidize rockets and artificially deflate the price, then turn around and say that w/o government contracts they couldn't afford to fly theirs?
I saw that. A wonderful example of the proverbial pot calling the kettle black.
But it's also a good indicator of how healthy (competition-wise) the current international launch industry is.
They're arguing about subsidies in the (stereotypically) same way that agricultural and manufacturing companies do when suddenly they have to compete.
BeNarwhalThe Work Left UnfinishedRegistered Userregular
edited May 2018
SpaceX launch has slipped to June 1st, 04:29 - 05:27 UTC (12:29am - 1:27am EDT, May 31st 9:29pm - 10:27pm PDT)
Unsurprising, given the wicked weather that's been blowing through the Cape recently.
The range is being accommodating, though, which is a bonus - they were scheduled for shutdown June 1st - 9th, but are willing to postpone until SpaceX gets this bird off the pad!
Given that launch time, it is likely that I still will not be around to provide coverage, no matter what day it happens on :P
Did we talk about one of the Ariane rocket guys complaining about how SpaceX is using government contracts to subsidize rockets and artificially deflate the price, then turn around and say that w/o government contracts they couldn't afford to fly theirs?
This is the same thing Airbus does, FWIW. Equally true there, but yeah.
Did we talk about one of the Ariane rocket guys complaining about how SpaceX is using government contracts to subsidize rockets and artificially deflate the price, then turn around and say that w/o government contracts they couldn't afford to fly theirs?
I saw that. A wonderful example of the proverbial pot calling the kettle black.
But it's also a good indicator of how healthy (competition-wise) the current international launch industry is.
They're arguing about subsidies in the (stereotypically) same way that agricultural and manufacturing companies do when suddenly they have to compete.
And frankly things like space launches are always going to have a lot of government money/subsidies because they are some of the biggest possible customers for this kind of service. But it does seem like the market for this is turning into a pretty normal industry mode similar to air travel which is pretty impressive how fast the shift from purely governmental space programs to this happened.
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BeNarwhalThe Work Left UnfinishedRegistered Userregular
Falcon 9 now delayed until June 4th - no times given at yet, but we can generally assume the same time of day (~midnight EDT):
Gerst will launch for his second tour to the ISS on Soyuz MS-09 in 6 June 2018, as commander of the ISS for Expedition 57. He will bring a robot assistant called "CIMON".
BeNarwhalThe Work Left UnfinishedRegistered Userregular
I created this to troll [chat] originally, but it does contain all of the relevant information for tonight's launch and this is technically the correct thread, so >_>
Orbital Launch Detected
You have no one to blame but yourselves!
Coming to [chat] live for the very first time since I created a thread dedicated to this very purpose, it's a SPACEPOST!
Coming up at 04:29 UTC (that's 12:29am Eastern, 9:29pm Pacific) we have a SpaceX Falcon 9 launch! Launching out of Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, the four hour launch window gives the Falcon 9 plenty of opportunity to lift its payload SES-12 into the heavens! It's a previously-flown Block 4 booster, so there won't be a landing attempt, but this big ol' bird is headed to a Geostationary Transfer Orbit, so the full capabilities of this mighty rocket will still be on full display!
Organichu or desc could have saved you from this fate, but they didn't! This was always going to be the end result, [chat]! Kneel before your spacelord!
Here's the rocket vertical on the pad earlier today:
FencingsaxIt is difficult to get a man to understand, when his salary depends upon his not understandingGNU Terry PratchettRegistered Userregular
This... this isn't chat.
Now I'm confused!
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BeNarwhalThe Work Left UnfinishedRegistered Userregular
Oh also I will not be around to provide coverage for tonight's launch - I barely slept last night and will consider it a personal achievement if I'm awake 2 hours from now
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Zilla36021st Century. |She/Her|Trans* Woman In Aviators Firing A Bazooka. ⚛️Registered Userregular
Oh thank god this went off tonight, because as I was driving home going north tonight after watching the game, i was seeing some crazy shit in the sky and was really hoping we weren't being invaded by aliens.
NASA's holding a press briefing in about 45 minutes here to discuss the latest Mars findings. As usual they're being vague about what it is; we're likely getting another fairly routine update, but chances are people in this thread would probably find those interesting anyway.
There's also an embargoed paper attached to this one, so someone got something nifty enough to publish.
NASA's holding a press briefing in about 45 minutes here to discuss the latest Mars findings. As usual they're being vague about what it is; we're likely getting another fairly routine update, but chances are people in this thread would probably find those interesting anyway.
There's also an embargoed paper attached to this one, so someone got something nifty enough to publish.
ED: Wait, need to rewatch some stuff ...
ED2: Okay, new discoveries around some new organic molecules on Mars. Emphasis that organic chemicals do not necessarily equal life.
ED3: The discovery is organic molecules in rocks from an ancient Martian lakebed. Also, methane on Mars - a repeatable, identifiable seasonal methane cycle on Mars.
Oh, I saw warnings about the dust storm building up a day or two ago
Our poor robot friend, working its butt off for so long :bro:
Hang in there, Opportunity!
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BeNarwhalThe Work Left UnfinishedRegistered Userregular
Oh also, this fellow on Youtube has created several of these video simulations, his latest being a comparison between the performance of the Block 4 and Block 5 Falcon 9. So for anyone interested in some of the more technical performance data + how it affects the actual flight, check this out:
Since 2007 the Lunar Orbiter Image Recovery Project has brought back 2000 images from 1500 analog tapes. The first ever picture of an earthrise. As Keith Cowing said “an image taken a quarter of a fucking million miles away in 1966. The Beatles were warming up to play Shea Stadium at the moment it was being taken.”
Since 2007 the Lunar Orbiter Image Recovery Project has brought back 2000 images from 1500 analog tapes. The first ever picture of an earthrise. As Keith Cowing said “an image taken a quarter of a fucking million miles away in 1966. The Beatles were warming up to play Shea Stadium at the moment it was being taken.”
McMoon indeed
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Zilla36021st Century. |She/Her|Trans* Woman In Aviators Firing A Bazooka. ⚛️Registered Userregular
Fast-food lunar photography. It's almost a shame the building is scheduled for demolition.
syndalisGetting ClassyOn the WallRegistered User, Loves Apple Productsregular
I hate to bring politics in here, but this is very much news.
Trump announced the creation of a Space Force, with intentions of building a permanent base on the moon, from which we will launch manned mars missions.
SW-4158-3990-6116
Let's play Mario Kart or something...
I hate to bring politics in here, but this is very much news.
Trump announced the creation of a Space Force, with intentions of building a permanent base on the moon, from which we will launch manned mars missions.
Wait, when did Newt Gingrich officialy join the administration?
Apparently he did, because a few months ago when he told the Joint Chiefs to make this Space Force thing happen that was their reply, and he felt that wasn't good enough, this time he expressly says the Space Force must be "separate but equal to the Air Force," managing to imply the Air Force is the lesser branch of the military while invoking the terminology of racism for good measure.
The last time the brass half heartedly agreed to give Congress an evaluation on how we handle space matters, due in August. Actually creating a new branch of the military would require Congressional action first, and the brass's reaction makes me think they'll slow walk it through the bureaucracy until another president forgets about it.
And while the words "moon" and "base" were used regarding this, so were phrases like "uncontested dominance" and "lethality, not bureaucracy" (credit where credit's due: this last phrase was not from Trump). The primary purpose of this space force is utilizing space for warfare, with a secondary purpose being whatever they mean by "space flight control."
This is not our ticket to Mars. It's more likely our ticket to further diminishing NASA and a fast track to Kessler syndrome. The only way it gets us to Mars is if somebody else's space force gets to Mars first and we have to go bomb them, and at that point forward to eternity we as a species must live with that being the legacy the cosmos will carve on our tombstone.
It pains me to say this, but Elon Musk's half-assed Rapture-on-the-Moon is a more likely ticket to Mars than Trump's separate-but-equal Starfleet, and thinking that almost makes me wish Mars One's reality-show-in-space didn't pan out exactly like I said it would.
Its wierd how much attention Mars One got despite the total lack of launch capacity or at least a Scrooge McDuck money vault to back them.
Mars One had a reality TV huckster at the helm, and encouraged participants to shill themselves out for interviews and sell merchandise (and give the proceeds to the program). It was a publicity pyramid scheme.
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HenroidMexican kicked from Immigration ThreadCentrism is Racism :3Registered Userregular
Today I learned Curiosity Rover has a Twitter account!
Martian haze, all around. The dust storm now circles the whole planet. The measure of atmospheric opacity, or "tau," is over 8.0 here in Gale Crater—the highest I've ever seen. Still safe. Science continues.
Hope the lil rovers are okay these kind of major dust storms are not super common but do happen.
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Zilla36021st Century. |She/Her|Trans* Woman In Aviators Firing A Bazooka. ⚛️Registered Userregular
edited June 2018
Curiosity is RTG powered, so isn't troubled so much by being in the dark.
Considering the low wind speeds and atmospheric pressure, the sheer scale of these storms is both awe-inspiring and kind of scary (for any future human colonists).
“The key difference between Earth and Mars is that Mars’ atmospheric pressure is a lot less,” said William Farrell, a plasma physicist who studies atmospheric breakdown in Mars dust storms at Goddard. “So things get blown, but it’s not with the same intensity.”
Curiosity is RTG powered, so isn't troubled so much by being in the dark.
Considering the low wind speeds and atmospheric pressure, the sheer scale of these storms is both awe-inspiring and kind of scary (for any future human colonists).
“The key difference between Earth and Mars is that Mars’ atmospheric pressure is a lot less,” said William Farrell, a plasma physicist who studies atmospheric breakdown in Mars dust storms at Goddard. “So things get blown, but it’s not with the same intensity.”
Yeah, that's something I always have to actively ignore when reading/watching The Martian, because a crazy Martian dust storm isn't really that bad compared to one on Earth; even if particles are physically moving a hundred miles an hour, the atmosphere is so near a vacuum that even the most vicious wind just doesn't have much to push around. The storms only get so huge because Mars is completely covered in dust and doesn't have any water to pull the particles out of the air or plants to bind dust into soil; all that dust can just blow around for ages with nothing to stop it, so the storms can get massive in a way that Earth storms can't.
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The Monster Baru Cormorant - Seth Dickinson
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From my understanding, the "standard" wait for a launch is 12 - 24 months, which is reasonable enough
But SpaceX, prior to getting the steamroller going, had a lot of contracts reaching that 24 - 30 month point, so they're pressing hard to eliminate that backlog
But yeah, it's looking like the pace for 2019 - 2020 will be a more "sedate" 16-18 launches / year, barring significant investment from NASA / another customer looking to put a constellation up like Iridium
And of course with Falcon Heavy we should only ever be expecting 2-3 launches a year, which probably wasn't QUITE what SpaceX was envisioning when they designed that behemoth >_>
Nintendo Network ID: AzraelRose
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The Monster Baru Cormorant - Seth Dickinson
Steam: Korvalain
But it's also a good indicator of how healthy (competition-wise) the current international launch industry is.
They're arguing about subsidies in the (stereotypically) same way that agricultural and manufacturing companies do when suddenly they have to compete.
Unsurprising, given the wicked weather that's been blowing through the Cape recently.
The range is being accommodating, though, which is a bonus - they were scheduled for shutdown June 1st - 9th, but are willing to postpone until SpaceX gets this bird off the pad!
Given that launch time, it is likely that I still will not be around to provide coverage, no matter what day it happens on :P
This is the same thing Airbus does, FWIW. Equally true there, but yeah.
And frankly things like space launches are always going to have a lot of government money/subsidies because they are some of the biggest possible customers for this kind of service. But it does seem like the market for this is turning into a pretty normal industry mode similar to air travel which is pretty impressive how fast the shift from purely governmental space programs to this happened.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-44349517
You have no one to blame but yourselves!
Coming to [chat] live for the very first time since I created a thread dedicated to this very purpose, it's a SPACEPOST!
Coming up at 04:29 UTC (that's 12:29am Eastern, 9:29pm Pacific) we have a SpaceX Falcon 9 launch! Launching out of Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, the four hour launch window gives the Falcon 9 plenty of opportunity to lift its payload SES-12 into the heavens! It's a previously-flown Block 4 booster, so there won't be a landing attempt, but this big ol' bird is headed to a Geostationary Transfer Orbit, so the full capabilities of this mighty rocket will still be on full display!
Organichu or desc could have saved you from this fate, but they didn't! This was always going to be the end result, [chat]! Kneel before your spacelord!
Here's the rocket vertical on the pad earlier today:
Here's the link to The Press Kit
And here's the livestream, scheduled to go live ~20 minutes prior to liftoff!
Fly safe, [chat]!
Wooooo, rockets!
Now I'm confused!
They have the audio cranked up awesome. There's a very loud cricket... for now!
There's also an embargoed paper attached to this one, so someone got something nifty enough to publish.
ED: Wait, need to rewatch some stuff ...
ED2: Okay, new discoveries around some new organic molecules on Mars. Emphasis that organic chemicals do not necessarily equal life.
ED3: The discovery is organic molecules in rocks from an ancient Martian lakebed. Also, methane on Mars - a repeatable, identifiable seasonal methane cycle on Mars.
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
Oh, I saw warnings about the dust storm building up a day or two ago
Our poor robot friend, working its butt off for so long :bro:
Hang in there, Opportunity!
Also, Scott Manley made a great video looking at the current state of Space Tourism:
http://www.worldofindie.co.uk/?p=682
McMoon indeed
Trump announced the creation of a Space Force, with intentions of building a permanent base on the moon, from which we will launch manned mars missions.
Let's play Mario Kart or something...
Wait, when did Newt Gingrich officialy join the administration?
The last time the brass half heartedly agreed to give Congress an evaluation on how we handle space matters, due in August. Actually creating a new branch of the military would require Congressional action first, and the brass's reaction makes me think they'll slow walk it through the bureaucracy until another president forgets about it.
And while the words "moon" and "base" were used regarding this, so were phrases like "uncontested dominance" and "lethality, not bureaucracy" (credit where credit's due: this last phrase was not from Trump). The primary purpose of this space force is utilizing space for warfare, with a secondary purpose being whatever they mean by "space flight control."
This is not our ticket to Mars. It's more likely our ticket to further diminishing NASA and a fast track to Kessler syndrome. The only way it gets us to Mars is if somebody else's space force gets to Mars first and we have to go bomb them, and at that point forward to eternity we as a species must live with that being the legacy the cosmos will carve on our tombstone.
It pains me to say this, but Elon Musk's half-assed Rapture-on-the-Moon is a more likely ticket to Mars than Trump's separate-but-equal Starfleet, and thinking that almost makes me wish Mars One's reality-show-in-space didn't pan out exactly like I said it would.
Mars One had a reality TV huckster at the helm, and encouraged participants to shill themselves out for interviews and sell merchandise (and give the proceeds to the program). It was a publicity pyramid scheme.
https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=7164
I'm a little amazed at this storm. Has such a thing happened / been observed before?
Considering the low wind speeds and atmospheric pressure, the sheer scale of these storms is both awe-inspiring and kind of scary (for any future human colonists).
https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/the-fact-and-fiction-of-martian-dust-storms
Yeah, that's something I always have to actively ignore when reading/watching The Martian, because a crazy Martian dust storm isn't really that bad compared to one on Earth; even if particles are physically moving a hundred miles an hour, the atmosphere is so near a vacuum that even the most vicious wind just doesn't have much to push around. The storms only get so huge because Mars is completely covered in dust and doesn't have any water to pull the particles out of the air or plants to bind dust into soil; all that dust can just blow around for ages with nothing to stop it, so the storms can get massive in a way that Earth storms can't.