Fundamentally, iron is cheap. Even if you found a solid gold asteroid, you'd be immediately constrained by the distances involved, the initial cost of investment (not to mention being a victim of your success--what any gold you did obtain would do to price of the existing supply of gold for precious metals, electronics, etc.).
Flooding and crashing the gold markets so gold becomes a more industrial metal that is valued for its conductivity, resistance to corrosion, and ductility, not as magic money value thereby making all the goldbugs cry, would be a reward in and of itself.
If you had that asteroid you could undercut the cost but still make out like a bandit until someone else grabbed one. Gold sees a lot of industrial uses, even at it's current price. If you dropped it to 1/10 of it's current price you would see a ton of demand for chemical catalysts and gold plated toilets.
He's a shy overambitious dog-catcher on the wrong side of the law. She's an orphaned psychic mercenary with the power to bend men's minds. They fight crime!
Do we talk about how awful the NASA Human Spaceflight Program is and how it should be burned to the ground, aside from using the OSS as a destination for new space?
Why that's silly, Dyna! Orion and the Space Launch System are a beautiful tandem pairing that will certainly actually fly ever and certainly are not a massive financial boondoggle relying largely on already-outdated technology! What a silly notion, NASA wasting billions of dollars on something that someone else can provide for significantly lower cost! The SLS certainly doesn't just exist to create jobs in key states and congressional districts, saying something like that would be treasonous!
Fortunately, I'm Canadian. :twisted:
The great thing about the SLS is that it's a resurrection of the SLS of the Constellation program that was cancelled and consumed about 10 billion dollars. I don't know if they started utterly from scratch. At best they probably had a set of requirements and a preliminary design review, that they then spent a few hundred million on to review. Oh my god, I fucking hate NASA's human spaceflight program. I have a good impression of the unmanned programs run out of JPL but I don't know if that's only because I've never worked with them.
Yeah, I think that's more on Congress than NASA.
haha, no.
Can you elaborate? Is there a way for NASA to ignore Congress and do it's own thing?
Not really.
Congress sets spending budgets and can put all kinds of restrictions on it. Usually those restrictions come in the form of pork - Constellation and the SLS was chained to legacy contractors and parts from the shuttle program, because those manufacturers have plants in districts of influential congresscritters. Congress can also chain money to specific types of missions or specific missions, even specific objectives if they wanted to. Far more of their meddling (and their most destructive meddling) is of the first type, though, dictating who the money has to go to rather than a project being open to bids.
The military gets some of the same problems - "We need body armor, field kitchens, surgical kits, and fifty Abrams tanks," and Congress answers "Fifty thousand Abrams tanks, got it. Check's in the mail (to the manufacturer's lobbing firm)." And much like NASA, it frequently gets them mired in unending cash furnaces like the F-35 and the littoral combat ships because the money for some new thing is chained to an influential and politically connected manufacturer even before the concept is dreamt up.
Now, that's not to say NASA can't do an end-run around Congress, just that they're hamstrung in doing it. The SLS can continue to burn through cash and NASA can be forced to keep shoveling that money into that particular furnace, but they also can (and do) leverage what leeway they have to promote development of alternatives. They can't straight-up bankroll SpaceX or Blue Origin (because they are straight-up bankrolling bigger companies that seem aware they'll never make as much money building the rocket as they are right now designing it), but they can award them what launch contracts aren't dictated and make facilities available and let things play out for themselves. Sometimes it's kind of sad to think if all the money thrown at Constellation and the SLS had been given to Elon Musk what he could have done with even a tenth of it, but in a way being forced to live on the scraps of Boeing and Lockheed has created more incentive to make their services cheaper, driving innovations that NASA's old guard contractors have always said were impractical or impossible.
Fundamentally, iron is cheap. Even if you found a solid gold asteroid, you'd be immediately constrained by the distances involved, the initial cost of investment (not to mention being a victim of your success--what any gold you did obtain would do to price of the existing supply of gold for precious metals, electronics, etc.).
Flooding and crashing the gold markets so gold becomes a more industrial metal that is valued for its conductivity, resistance to corrosion and ductility, not as magic money value thereby making all the goldbugs cry, would be a reward in and of itself.
Quite possibly, but I'm worried more about certain unnamed Eurozone economies who got fucked over for the crime of trusting the assurances a certain other Eurozone country whose name ends with a 'Y' in determining their economic policy, and crashing gold markets would hurt them (though not as much as if we were still in the age of the gold standard obviously).
If gold was that cheap a shitload of stuff outside would be skinned in gold. It's incredibly resistant to corrosion and easy to work.
Honestly, that would start pushing against dropping prices pretty quick I'd think. Gold is very useful, so I'm curious what that demand curve looks like.
BeNarwhalThe Work Left UnfinishedRegistered Userregular
Hey Space thread!
Sorry I wasn't around to provide launch coverage this morning - life got in the way as it does every now and then
I'm glad to hear things generally went smoothly, and that the primary was successful. We'll wait and see if they provide any information about the secondary mission (the Starlink satellites), the fate of the booster (I'm assuming a large splash), or the fairing recovery efforts!
The boat is apparently named Mr. Steve. It has been mentioned in several places.
My google-fu was weak though, because I could not figure out why. Anyone know why it's named Mr. Steve? I'm sure there's a nerdy reference I'm missing.
The boat is apparently named Mr. Steve. It has been mentioned in several places.
My google-fu was weak though, because I could not figure out why. Anyone know why it's named Mr. Steve? I'm sure there's a nerdy reference I'm missing.
MayabirdPecking at the keyboardRegistered Userregular
But that's Eh! Steve!
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BrodyThe WatchThe First ShoreRegistered Userregular
edited February 2018
Oh, Mr. Steven is not the brave boat that will be catching the booster. That is reserved for Of Course I Still Love You and Just Read The Instructions. Mr. Steven is responsible for catching the fairing in a big net.
Edit: Found a quote.
"According to SeaTran, the company that owns Mr. Steven, the vessel is 205 feet (62 meters) long, can travel up to 32 knots (36.8 mph, or about 59 km/h) and has a deck measuring 136 feet by 27 feet (41 by 8 m). It's not clear why the 2015 watercraft is named Mr. Steven (SeaTran didn't immediately respond to a request for comment), but other vessels in the company's fleet have similar names, including Lady Eve, Mr. Mason, Miss Claire and, amusingly, Greater Scott."
Brody on
"I will write your name in the ruin of them. I will paint you across history in the color of their blood."
Really wish they would get an orbiter out to one of the ice giants. I'd like an up close look at Uranus.
I shouldn't be laughing at this, but that just never gets old.
One day, if we're lucky, we'll get to make some aliens very annoyed and exasperated over how we were ever able to figure out math, much less get into space.
Oh, Mr. Steven is not the brave boat that will be catching the booster. That is reserved for Of Course I Still Love You and Just Read The Instructions. Mr. Steven is responsible for catching the fairing in a big net.
Edit: Found a quote.
"According to SeaTran, the company that owns Mr. Steven, the vessel is 205 feet (62 meters) long, can travel up to 32 knots (36.8 mph, or about 59 km/h) and has a deck measuring 136 feet by 27 feet (41 by 8 m). It's not clear why the 2015 watercraft is named Mr. Steven (SeaTran didn't immediately respond to a request for comment), but other vessels in the company's fleet have similar names, including Lady Eve, Mr. Mason, Miss Claire and, amusingly, Greater Scott."
My favorite thing about all this is how unapologetically nerdy everyone is.
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BrodyThe WatchThe First ShoreRegistered Userregular
I think my coworkers are starting to get annoyed with my Spaces fanboyism
"I will write your name in the ruin of them. I will paint you across history in the color of their blood."
I think my coworkers are starting to get annoyed with my Spaces fanboyism
That's their problem.
Anyway, the Tesla in Spaaaaaace might help predict the future motions of near Earth asteroids. It's hard to predict the paths of small bodies on large time scales because of the effects of much larger gravitational bodies around, the reflectiveness of the bodies themselves, questions about their exact sizes and masses, and so on. That's why it always ends up that an asteroid *might* hit Earth in thirty years.
Here though, we have a very known quantity. We know the exact size, shape, shininess, spin rate, initial velocity, orbit, about everything. As long as we keep track of it, that car could help predict the orbits of asteroids, potentially even giving us warning of a devastating future strike so we're able to do something to avert it.
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BrodyThe WatchThe First ShoreRegistered Userregular
It might help, but its still a 9 (8+sun) body+ problem.
"I will write your name in the ruin of them. I will paint you across history in the color of their blood."
BeNarwhalThe Work Left UnfinishedRegistered Userregular
edited February 2018
Hey Space thread! It's been a hot minute since I last posted in here!
... A couple days, apparently, but it feels like so much more. Anyway, the latest on upcoming space launch news from around the world:
Later Today, the Japanese Space Agency will be launching a H-2A launch vehicle from the Tanegashima Space Center, carrying IGS Optical-6 into Low Earth Orbit. It's a "reconnaissance" (spy) satellite. Anyway, launch is scheduled for 8:34pm Pacific, 11:34pm Eastern, 0434 UTC. If I'm still up at that late hour, I will do my best to bring you what coverage I can of the launch!
Falcon 9 with Hispasat 30W-6 is still slated as "next to go", but with no confirmed new launch date, it may well slip behind our next launch:
Atlas V 541 with one of my favourite upcoming payloads, GOES-S. Launching out of SLC-41 at Cape Canaveral, the Atlas V will carry the satellite directly to its geostationary orbit, where it will be capable of constantly monitoring weather conditions for both North and South America. The launch is currently scheduled for March 1st at 2:02pm Pacific, 5:02pm Eastern, 2202 UTC.
A Soyuz 2-1b will launch out of French Guiana on March 6th on behalf of Arianespace, carrying 4 satellites into Low Earth (one presumes polar) orbits to provide broadband service to developing countries. Current launch time is scheduled as 8:38am Pacific, 11:38am Eastern, 1638 UTC.
Later in March we have a crewed mission launching from Baikonur to the ISS, India launching The Mk2 version of their Geostationary Satellite Launch Vehicle with demonstration payload onboard, China will launch another Long March (3B) rocket to carry a communications satellite to geostationary orbit (hopefully without dropping any stages on their own people this time), an Ariane 5 ECA will carry TWO satellites to GEO, and a Falcon 9 will once again launch out of Vandenberg to deliver more satellites to polar orbits per their ongoing contract with Iridium. I'll share those dates as we get closer to launch and they stop moving left and right so much :P
Anyway, that's the excitement for March! It's looking like a busy month of spaceflight, which is something we can all enjoy
BeNarwhal on
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BrodyThe WatchThe First ShoreRegistered Userregular
Man, I love those grid fins. I'm not sure if they are a new idea, but the way they pack so much control surface into such a small area is brilliant.
"I will write your name in the ruin of them. I will paint you across history in the color of their blood."
Man, I love those grid fins. I'm not sure if they are a new idea, but the way they pack so much control surface into such a small area is brilliant.
They're definitely not--though off the top of my head, SpaceX might be the first to use them on an American spacecraft (I really don't know though, so don't hold me to that).
I doubt the USSR invented them (if I had to guess, they came about in World War II), but in the 1970s they started putting them on medium-range ballistic missiles. The United States uses them on the MOAB "Mother of All Bombs" too. But spacecraft wise, they're very visible on the Soyuz payload fairing, where they're part of the launch escape system (which would suggest they've only been used once with passengers--Soyuz T-10-1).
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BeNarwhalThe Work Left UnfinishedRegistered Userregular
Hey, funky fresh Space thread, I had a post brought to my attention from somewhere on reddit I wouldn't usually be prone to stumbling across, but it raised some valid points and certainly led me to reflect that certain things ought to be clarified.
I am referring to this post in a subreddit that, as you may guess from its name, is not particularly a fan of a certain Elon Musk nor his pioneering private space industry efforts. I am not judging this post from its location, however, I am judging this post on its merits and it has plenty. The language is a bit ... zealous at times, and there are certain things that are being viewed unfavorably that others might be a little more forgiving on, but anyway ... I'll let you judge for yourself, here now is the OP in its entirety:
I'll post it here, cause I don't feel like getting dozens of down-votes from circlejerks on /r/space or wherenot. Enjoy, the list of several common misconceptions / fake news corrected:
1. This mission was never intended to go "to Mars", even though it was repeated multiple times, including the stream and Musk himself. Making martian flyby would put SpaceX in a lot of harsh criticism from planetary scientists, due to non-compliance with planetary protection. So it was never even an option. Getting to the Martian orbit was not possible either, upper stage in its current configuration doesn't have enough power to even survive operational the the orbit of the moon, yet alone: make injection into martian orbit, even if there would be fuel for that (which weren't). The whole story with the flight to the mars as incorrect from the very beginning.
2. Unlike shown in the promotional video - roadster did not separate from the upper stage. It's unknown whether it was intentional or not.
3. Having operational Falcon Heavy did not open any new launch possibilities beyond GTO. Any of the operational heavy launch vehicles and at least some of the current medium LVs with cryogenic uppers stages could lift equal or HEAVIER payload to similar orbit. In fact: Delta IV Heavy could easily lift three and a half of Tesla Roadsters. In fact even Atlas 5 outperforms recoverable Falcon Heavy and it's just a medium launch vehicle. Falcon Heavy is severely crippled but its upper stage, and currently there's no work done on ever implementing Raptor in Falcon family (and even then: Raptor is still a liquid methane engine, which puts it in a disadvantage when compared to liquid hydrogen upper stages, such as Centaur or ESC-A of Ariane 5 - the higher C3 launch the more troublesome it would be).
4. Recovery has not suddenly became not be-all-end-all of spaceflight. To the orbit from today's launch recoverable Falcon Heavy lifts 1495kg, while expendable launches 5265kg. The price for recovery is enormous in high C3 launches.
5. LEO performance of 63.8t is rather... questionable. Both: In terms of whether upper stage can actually withstand such a load and whether there would be any payload to even test it that fits under the small fairing of the rocket.
6. SpaceX initially announced an inaccurate orbit of 0.96 AU x 2.61 AU - orbit revised by JPL is 0.986 AU x 1.167 AU x 1.05° (C3 of 12 km2/s2). Despite of all the hype - rocket did not exceed initially planned trajectory and it is not going to the asteroid belt (fun fact: just 2.5h before SpaceX released new info Musk still posted that it's going to the belt). It's aphelion is almost equal to the one of Mars, however it will still not get anywhere near the red planet.
7. Upper stage composite will survive centuries in its current orbit. However it won't be "billions of years" as said by SpaceX... its remains might though. Over the course of millennia radiation and microscopic particles in the interstellar space will pepper it until nothing of note remains. Car and the upper stage are extremely fragile as far as the large time scales go. Even a gain of sand has a destructive power of a hand grenade with the speeds involved.
8. There won't be any crewed mission to the Moon on Falcon Heavy. Planned flight of Dragon V2 was cancelled yesterday, and Musk announced that currently they have no plans of man-rating Falcon Heavy. It's not a Mars rocket either, no more than Proton or Ariane is.
9. SpaceX quotes $90m price for 8.5t GTO recoverable launch. It does not cost $90m to launch 26.7t to GTO nor 63.8t to LEO. SpaceX pricing is made in a very obscure way, mixing recoverable and expendable prices with performance.
10. It wasn't the first commercial mission beyond Earth orbit. European 4M mission bears that privilege (unless you count AsiaSat lunar gravity assist, but again: it wasn't the goal of the mission, just a successful recovery attempt)
11. Falcon Heavy is not the first rocket able to lift a car, nor the first one able to lift it to Mars. There are multiple existing launch vehicles capable of doing it, Roadster is rather light payload, with a mass of less than 1.4 tonne its nowhere near the big scientific spacecrafts that reach Mars, most notably recent 3.7t European ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter launched with Proton rocket which entered an actual Martian orbit and currently nears the competition of breaking maneuvers using the atmosphere of red planet.
12. SpaceX did not offer any launch for NASA on the first Falcon Heavy flight, neither paid nor free. (info from the NASA Public Affairs Office) The fact that SpaceX VP said that they did to one journalist seems oddly reactionary to the criticism received, very much looks like a statement made up in place to dodge any negative coverage of their launch. They did not expect that Lori Garver would escalate the single sentence globally.
And a bonus points for SLS comparisons:
13. Falcon Heavy is not comparable to SLS and it will not replace it. SLS is beyond-earth-orbit rocket, it covers the area where Falcon Heavy is the weakest. But even to LEO SLS got 6 tonne advantage. If SLS would be about launching payloads to the Moon Falcon Heavy can handle - there would be no need for it, Delta IV Heavy can do basically the same job.
14. Falcon Heavy in no way could replace SLS for building Deep Space Gateway. They would need something like ULA's proposed ACES upper stage and distributed launch. While in the end it likely would be cheaper - that's nowhere near the interests of SpaceX
15. Money spent on SLS would not go to SpaceX if they'd fly Falcon Heavy earlier, or what not. It's a US senate decision to fund this rocket with targetted funds for it. Cancelling SLS would mean cancelling any money NASA gets to build it.
16. No, SpaceX did not just made all the other rockets pointless
I know we have (or I feel like we have) clarified some of these points in the past, but for the sake of argument and also for the sake of any new spaceflight fans brought to this thread in the wake of the Falcon Heavy launch, I thought it my duty to respond to much of this (largely factual) post with a bit of understanding of how spaceflight works, what the Falcon Heavy's real role is, what SpaceX envisions going forward, and the difference in the capability of certain rockets. I didn't know how to approach this at first, but in the end point-by-point seemed easiest, so here I go!
1. They are absolutely right - any claim by either SpaceX or the media that the Tesla Roadster would ever encounter the Red planet, let alone enter an orbit around our barren neighbor, is and was nothing but sensationalism. The rocket nor the payload in no way possesses the capability of such a maneuver, and this post further rightly points out that planetary scientists would be a bit pissed about a non-scientific, non-operational spacecraft occupying valuable orbit space around Mars.
2. The Roadster did not separate from the upper stage, that is indeed the case. Images released by SpaceX in the week leading up to the launch showcased how the Roadster was firmly bolted to its mount, the mount firmly bolted to the second stage. It was never intended to separate from the upper stage, because without a propulsion system of its own, all you'd have is two pieces of space junk floating close together rather than just the one piece of space junk.
3. It is true that the Falcon Heavy and even the Falcon 9 are hampered by the comparatively poor performance of their upper stage. I have heard rumblings of a redesign, especially for Falcon Heavy's sake, but one thing this mission DID prove was the second stage's ability to drift for 6+ hours and then reignite, which is a must-have for direct-to-geosynchronous-orbit insertion missions. The Air Force was satisfied by the demonstration and it does open some opportunities to GEO launches, though once again this post is correct that SpaceX will continue to specialize in LEO (Low Earth Orbit) and GTO (Geostationary Transfer Orbit) missions.
4. Recovery actually may well be the be-all-and-end-all of future spaceflight. The performance cost is indeed significant, but the sheer value of what you recover by landing and reusing your launch vehicles is worth almost any performance cost, so long as refurbishment isn't as expensive and extensive as it was on something like the Space Shuttle (and SpaceX has demonstrated 10 times now that that is certainly NOT the case).
5. It is true that both the strength and rigidity of the upper stage and the sheer size of the fairing are the primary chokepoints in terms of what payloads either Falcon 9 or Falcon Heavy can ACTUALLY lift into orbit. Again, I've heard rumblings of redesign of both for this reason, but the SpaceX fairing is currently on par with the Atlas V's fairing, which isn't the largest but neither is it something to sneeze at. The point of making that claim is to express to future customers that if, in the future, you have a particularly dense but not overly-large payload (like, say, an ingeniously folded space telescope), the Falcon Heavy could theoretically help you do the job!
6. The orbit was in fact revised to 0.986 x 1.671 AU, but they are correct that SpaceX (and Elon in particular) released an image that was later disproven. The final aphelion of the orbit is indeed only just past that of the Red Planet, and it is important to note that this still means the Roadster most likely won't come near either Mars nor Earth anytime soon.
7. Now we're just being buzzkills. Yes, radiation will peel the paint from the upper stage and the Tesla. The tires will degrade and the engine bell will be blown off into dust. Gradually, passing grains of sand, be they interstellar or part of a comet's tail, will indeed chip away at the combination over time. Death is inevitable. The Sun will one day expand and consume the Earth. Existence is suffering. :P
8. They absolutely are not man-rating the Falcon Heavy, that's completely true! The Falcon 9 will be rated for manned flight, and at this point it looks like its manned operations will be entirely in Low Earth Orbit (serving the ISS and / or its successors).
9. I couldn't tell you exactly what a SpaceX launch costs, because I've never tried to buy one. From what I understand, however, they are significantly cheaper than their competitors, particularly with the discount you enjoy if you're willing to fly on previously flown boosters. This point is evident from the fact that SpaceX is a successful private spaceflight company, which before about a decade ago wasn't really a thing!
10. This point is also extremely accurate, and while I did hear it a few times I have no idea where it came from, because it seemed obvious. Private space launch companies have launched several things beyond Earth Orbit, as near as I can tell. And that's not a very impressive claim anyway, given that if you put a 5kg rock on the top of, say, a first-generation Falcon 1, it could have easily blasted that rock beyond Earth's orbit. :P
11. The Tesla Roadster was, indeed, a very light payload. Even for the Falcon 9, even for smaller launch vehicles! What's cool is how far the Falcon Heavy threw it! Of course, once again it is a good point to note that the final performance of the Falcon Heavy in particular is hampered by the current second stage, but here SpaceX has chosen to focus on low cost rather than peak performance.
12. This is true. While the launch was shopped around a bit, it was never offered to NASA because SpaceX was worried their rocket might explode, and didn't want to explode a NASA payload along with it. They already did that with the loss of CRS-7, and NASA really hates it when you blow up their stuff - NASA only gets so much money!
13. SLS and the Falcon 9 are almost designed for opposite purposes, that's right. I wanted an opportunity to touch on this, and I've found it here, which is a bonus: Both the Falcon 9 and the Falcon Heavy are designed for peak performance for launches to LEO, GTO, and GEO. At the moment, it would appear that SpaceX is happy to leave anything beyond Geostationary Orbit to anybody else. It just so happens that 90%+ orbital launches are in the LEO - GEO market, and SpaceX is a private space launch company, so despite Elon's Martian ambitions, he understands where he needs to fly for now to recoup the cost of developing his Martian dream.
14. See above. This is absolutely correct. The Falcon Heavy will almost certainly have no role to play in the building or supplying of the Deep Space Gateway.
15. SpaceX and its launch vehicles are not funded by Congress or by NASA, this is an accurate assertion.
16. No, but it's fun to pretend, isn't it? :P And it was PRETTY COOL to see those two boosters land side-by-side.
Annnnywho, I just thought that was a fun little post to help clarify a few things about the use-case and the capability of the Falcon Heavy, and to maybe dial back down the hype if anyone had gotten a little TOO excited. Space is a shared frontier and there are many organizations focused on myriad goals, and SpaceX is but one player in that market. And now they have a second (technically third, but the Falcon 1 has been retired) pretty neat launch vehicle. That does flips and lands itself. Which is the part that IS a pretty big deal, actually!
As always, if you have any more questions in general, or particularly about launch vehicles and their capabilities, feel free to ask and I'll either have the information or know where to look.
For now, we are T-10 hours to the launch of H-2A out of Tanegashima Space Center in Japan. Fly safe, and keep looking to the stars!
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BrodyThe WatchThe First ShoreRegistered Userregular
edited February 2018
I'd really like to see a detailed breakdown of cost/lift/reliability of all the currently in-use launch systems. We need an engineering communicator in the vein of Tyson for this shit.
edit: Not that I'm saying that our brave Narwhal isn't trying hard, and doing a great job at it.
Brody on
"I will write your name in the ruin of them. I will paint you across history in the color of their blood."
I'd really like to see a detailed breakdown of cost/lift/reliability of all the currently in-use launch systems. We need an engineering communicator in the vein of Tyson for this shit.
edit: Not that I'm saying that our brave Narwhal isn't trying hard, and doing a great job at it.
Ha! I appreciate the kind words, but I'll readily admit I possess neither the necessary data (nor the know-how of where to acquire it) nor the casually brilliant understanding of everything involved to do anything too terribly detailed.
And I can say that so readily because it's something I want too! :P
Posts
Flooding and crashing the gold markets so gold becomes a more industrial metal that is valued for its conductivity, resistance to corrosion, and ductility, not as magic money value thereby making all the goldbugs cry, would be a reward in and of itself.
Not really.
Congress sets spending budgets and can put all kinds of restrictions on it. Usually those restrictions come in the form of pork - Constellation and the SLS was chained to legacy contractors and parts from the shuttle program, because those manufacturers have plants in districts of influential congresscritters. Congress can also chain money to specific types of missions or specific missions, even specific objectives if they wanted to. Far more of their meddling (and their most destructive meddling) is of the first type, though, dictating who the money has to go to rather than a project being open to bids.
The military gets some of the same problems - "We need body armor, field kitchens, surgical kits, and fifty Abrams tanks," and Congress answers "Fifty thousand Abrams tanks, got it. Check's in the mail (to the manufacturer's lobbing firm)." And much like NASA, it frequently gets them mired in unending cash furnaces like the F-35 and the littoral combat ships because the money for some new thing is chained to an influential and politically connected manufacturer even before the concept is dreamt up.
Now, that's not to say NASA can't do an end-run around Congress, just that they're hamstrung in doing it. The SLS can continue to burn through cash and NASA can be forced to keep shoveling that money into that particular furnace, but they also can (and do) leverage what leeway they have to promote development of alternatives. They can't straight-up bankroll SpaceX or Blue Origin (because they are straight-up bankrolling bigger companies that seem aware they'll never make as much money building the rocket as they are right now designing it), but they can award them what launch contracts aren't dictated and make facilities available and let things play out for themselves. Sometimes it's kind of sad to think if all the money thrown at Constellation and the SLS had been given to Elon Musk what he could have done with even a tenth of it, but in a way being forced to live on the scraps of Boeing and Lockheed has created more incentive to make their services cheaper, driving innovations that NASA's old guard contractors have always said were impractical or impossible.
Quite possibly, but I'm worried more about certain unnamed Eurozone economies who got fucked over for the crime of trusting the assurances a certain other Eurozone country whose name ends with a 'Y' in determining their economic policy, and crashing gold markets would hurt them (though not as much as if we were still in the age of the gold standard obviously).
Plus it won't happen.
It would be, like, Aluminum 2.0.
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
Honestly, that would start pushing against dropping prices pretty quick I'd think. Gold is very useful, so I'm curious what that demand curve looks like.
3DS: 0473-8507-2652
Switch: SW-5185-4991-5118
PSN: AbEntropy
Cold gas thrusters and then steerable parachute(s?) once it's slowed down
The Monster Baru Cormorant - Seth Dickinson
Steam: Korvalain
Sorry I wasn't around to provide launch coverage this morning - life got in the way as it does every now and then
I'm glad to hear things generally went smoothly, and that the primary was successful. We'll wait and see if they provide any information about the secondary mission (the Starlink satellites), the fate of the booster (I'm assuming a large splash), or the fairing recovery efforts!
Neat
The Monster Baru Cormorant - Seth Dickinson
Steam: Korvalain
Official date and time at the moment is February 25th, 12:35am Eastern, 0535 UTC. That's 9:35pm Pacific on the 24th for any West Coasters
It will be the 50th Falcon 9 launch, and there WILL apparently be a landing attempt!
The Monster Baru Cormorant - Seth Dickinson
Steam: Korvalain
That's a heavy satellite going a long way, that booster is gonna be coming down hot.
The Monster Baru Cormorant - Seth Dickinson
Steam: Korvalain
If anyone can catch that booster, it's OCISLY
She got that solid steel and concrete deck that you just don't mess with!
The boat is apparently named Mr. Steve. It has been mentioned in several places.
My google-fu was weak though, because I could not figure out why. Anyone know why it's named Mr. Steve? I'm sure there's a nerdy reference I'm missing.
???
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
Edit: Found a quote.
"According to SeaTran, the company that owns Mr. Steven, the vessel is 205 feet (62 meters) long, can travel up to 32 knots (36.8 mph, or about 59 km/h) and has a deck measuring 136 feet by 27 feet (41 by 8 m). It's not clear why the 2015 watercraft is named Mr. Steven (SeaTran didn't immediately respond to a request for comment), but other vessels in the company's fleet have similar names, including Lady Eve, Mr. Mason, Miss Claire and, amusingly, Greater Scott."
The Monster Baru Cormorant - Seth Dickinson
Steam: Korvalain
Of Course I Still Love You breaths a sigh of relief.
These new fairings are a curiosity ...
But oh well, if that's the biggest issue they're dealing with, then they're generally in a good spot.
I just want that 50th launch celebration, darn it!
One day, if we're lucky, we'll get to make some aliens very annoyed and exasperated over how we were ever able to figure out math, much less get into space.
PSN: ShogunGunshow
Origin: ShogunGunshow
My favorite thing about all this is how unapologetically nerdy everyone is.
The Monster Baru Cormorant - Seth Dickinson
Steam: Korvalain
That's their problem.
Anyway, the Tesla in Spaaaaaace might help predict the future motions of near Earth asteroids. It's hard to predict the paths of small bodies on large time scales because of the effects of much larger gravitational bodies around, the reflectiveness of the bodies themselves, questions about their exact sizes and masses, and so on. That's why it always ends up that an asteroid *might* hit Earth in thirty years.
Here though, we have a very known quantity. We know the exact size, shape, shininess, spin rate, initial velocity, orbit, about everything. As long as we keep track of it, that car could help predict the orbits of asteroids, potentially even giving us warning of a devastating future strike so we're able to do something to avert it.
The Monster Baru Cormorant - Seth Dickinson
Steam: Korvalain
... A couple days, apparently, but it feels like so much more. Anyway, the latest on upcoming space launch news from around the world:
Later Today, the Japanese Space Agency will be launching a H-2A launch vehicle from the Tanegashima Space Center, carrying IGS Optical-6 into Low Earth Orbit. It's a "reconnaissance" (spy) satellite. Anyway, launch is scheduled for 8:34pm Pacific, 11:34pm Eastern, 0434 UTC. If I'm still up at that late hour, I will do my best to bring you what coverage I can of the launch!
Falcon 9 with Hispasat 30W-6 is still slated as "next to go", but with no confirmed new launch date, it may well slip behind our next launch:
Atlas V 541 with one of my favourite upcoming payloads, GOES-S. Launching out of SLC-41 at Cape Canaveral, the Atlas V will carry the satellite directly to its geostationary orbit, where it will be capable of constantly monitoring weather conditions for both North and South America. The launch is currently scheduled for March 1st at 2:02pm Pacific, 5:02pm Eastern, 2202 UTC.
A Soyuz 2-1b will launch out of French Guiana on March 6th on behalf of Arianespace, carrying 4 satellites into Low Earth (one presumes polar) orbits to provide broadband service to developing countries. Current launch time is scheduled as 8:38am Pacific, 11:38am Eastern, 1638 UTC.
Later in March we have a crewed mission launching from Baikonur to the ISS, India launching The Mk2 version of their Geostationary Satellite Launch Vehicle with demonstration payload onboard, China will launch another Long March (3B) rocket to carry a communications satellite to geostationary orbit (hopefully without dropping any stages on their own people this time), an Ariane 5 ECA will carry TWO satellites to GEO, and a Falcon 9 will once again launch out of Vandenberg to deliver more satellites to polar orbits per their ongoing contract with Iridium. I'll share those dates as we get closer to launch and they stop moving left and right so much :P
Anyway, that's the excitement for March! It's looking like a busy month of spaceflight, which is something we can all enjoy
The Monster Baru Cormorant - Seth Dickinson
Steam: Korvalain
They're definitely not--though off the top of my head, SpaceX might be the first to use them on an American spacecraft (I really don't know though, so don't hold me to that).
I doubt the USSR invented them (if I had to guess, they came about in World War II), but in the 1970s they started putting them on medium-range ballistic missiles. The United States uses them on the MOAB "Mother of All Bombs" too. But spacecraft wise, they're very visible on the Soyuz payload fairing, where they're part of the launch escape system (which would suggest they've only been used once with passengers--Soyuz T-10-1).
I am referring to this post in a subreddit that, as you may guess from its name, is not particularly a fan of a certain Elon Musk nor his pioneering private space industry efforts. I am not judging this post from its location, however, I am judging this post on its merits and it has plenty. The language is a bit ... zealous at times, and there are certain things that are being viewed unfavorably that others might be a little more forgiving on, but anyway ... I'll let you judge for yourself, here now is the OP in its entirety:
I know we have (or I feel like we have) clarified some of these points in the past, but for the sake of argument and also for the sake of any new spaceflight fans brought to this thread in the wake of the Falcon Heavy launch, I thought it my duty to respond to much of this (largely factual) post with a bit of understanding of how spaceflight works, what the Falcon Heavy's real role is, what SpaceX envisions going forward, and the difference in the capability of certain rockets. I didn't know how to approach this at first, but in the end point-by-point seemed easiest, so here I go!
1. They are absolutely right - any claim by either SpaceX or the media that the Tesla Roadster would ever encounter the Red planet, let alone enter an orbit around our barren neighbor, is and was nothing but sensationalism. The rocket nor the payload in no way possesses the capability of such a maneuver, and this post further rightly points out that planetary scientists would be a bit pissed about a non-scientific, non-operational spacecraft occupying valuable orbit space around Mars.
2. The Roadster did not separate from the upper stage, that is indeed the case. Images released by SpaceX in the week leading up to the launch showcased how the Roadster was firmly bolted to its mount, the mount firmly bolted to the second stage. It was never intended to separate from the upper stage, because without a propulsion system of its own, all you'd have is two pieces of space junk floating close together rather than just the one piece of space junk.
3. It is true that the Falcon Heavy and even the Falcon 9 are hampered by the comparatively poor performance of their upper stage. I have heard rumblings of a redesign, especially for Falcon Heavy's sake, but one thing this mission DID prove was the second stage's ability to drift for 6+ hours and then reignite, which is a must-have for direct-to-geosynchronous-orbit insertion missions. The Air Force was satisfied by the demonstration and it does open some opportunities to GEO launches, though once again this post is correct that SpaceX will continue to specialize in LEO (Low Earth Orbit) and GTO (Geostationary Transfer Orbit) missions.
4. Recovery actually may well be the be-all-and-end-all of future spaceflight. The performance cost is indeed significant, but the sheer value of what you recover by landing and reusing your launch vehicles is worth almost any performance cost, so long as refurbishment isn't as expensive and extensive as it was on something like the Space Shuttle (and SpaceX has demonstrated 10 times now that that is certainly NOT the case).
5. It is true that both the strength and rigidity of the upper stage and the sheer size of the fairing are the primary chokepoints in terms of what payloads either Falcon 9 or Falcon Heavy can ACTUALLY lift into orbit. Again, I've heard rumblings of redesign of both for this reason, but the SpaceX fairing is currently on par with the Atlas V's fairing, which isn't the largest but neither is it something to sneeze at. The point of making that claim is to express to future customers that if, in the future, you have a particularly dense but not overly-large payload (like, say, an ingeniously folded space telescope), the Falcon Heavy could theoretically help you do the job!
6. The orbit was in fact revised to 0.986 x 1.671 AU, but they are correct that SpaceX (and Elon in particular) released an image that was later disproven. The final aphelion of the orbit is indeed only just past that of the Red Planet, and it is important to note that this still means the Roadster most likely won't come near either Mars nor Earth anytime soon.
7. Now we're just being buzzkills. Yes, radiation will peel the paint from the upper stage and the Tesla. The tires will degrade and the engine bell will be blown off into dust. Gradually, passing grains of sand, be they interstellar or part of a comet's tail, will indeed chip away at the combination over time. Death is inevitable. The Sun will one day expand and consume the Earth. Existence is suffering. :P
8. They absolutely are not man-rating the Falcon Heavy, that's completely true! The Falcon 9 will be rated for manned flight, and at this point it looks like its manned operations will be entirely in Low Earth Orbit (serving the ISS and / or its successors).
9. I couldn't tell you exactly what a SpaceX launch costs, because I've never tried to buy one. From what I understand, however, they are significantly cheaper than their competitors, particularly with the discount you enjoy if you're willing to fly on previously flown boosters. This point is evident from the fact that SpaceX is a successful private spaceflight company, which before about a decade ago wasn't really a thing!
10. This point is also extremely accurate, and while I did hear it a few times I have no idea where it came from, because it seemed obvious. Private space launch companies have launched several things beyond Earth Orbit, as near as I can tell. And that's not a very impressive claim anyway, given that if you put a 5kg rock on the top of, say, a first-generation Falcon 1, it could have easily blasted that rock beyond Earth's orbit. :P
11. The Tesla Roadster was, indeed, a very light payload. Even for the Falcon 9, even for smaller launch vehicles! What's cool is how far the Falcon Heavy threw it! Of course, once again it is a good point to note that the final performance of the Falcon Heavy in particular is hampered by the current second stage, but here SpaceX has chosen to focus on low cost rather than peak performance.
12. This is true. While the launch was shopped around a bit, it was never offered to NASA because SpaceX was worried their rocket might explode, and didn't want to explode a NASA payload along with it. They already did that with the loss of CRS-7, and NASA really hates it when you blow up their stuff - NASA only gets so much money!
13. SLS and the Falcon 9 are almost designed for opposite purposes, that's right. I wanted an opportunity to touch on this, and I've found it here, which is a bonus: Both the Falcon 9 and the Falcon Heavy are designed for peak performance for launches to LEO, GTO, and GEO. At the moment, it would appear that SpaceX is happy to leave anything beyond Geostationary Orbit to anybody else. It just so happens that 90%+ orbital launches are in the LEO - GEO market, and SpaceX is a private space launch company, so despite Elon's Martian ambitions, he understands where he needs to fly for now to recoup the cost of developing his Martian dream.
14. See above. This is absolutely correct. The Falcon Heavy will almost certainly have no role to play in the building or supplying of the Deep Space Gateway.
15. SpaceX and its launch vehicles are not funded by Congress or by NASA, this is an accurate assertion.
16. No, but it's fun to pretend, isn't it? :P And it was PRETTY COOL to see those two boosters land side-by-side.
Annnnywho, I just thought that was a fun little post to help clarify a few things about the use-case and the capability of the Falcon Heavy, and to maybe dial back down the hype if anyone had gotten a little TOO excited.
As always, if you have any more questions in general, or particularly about launch vehicles and their capabilities, feel free to ask and I'll either have the information or know where to look.
For now, we are T-10 hours to the launch of H-2A out of Tanegashima Space Center in Japan. Fly safe, and keep looking to the stars!
edit: Not that I'm saying that our brave Narwhal isn't trying hard, and doing a great job at it.
The Monster Baru Cormorant - Seth Dickinson
Steam: Korvalain
Ha! I appreciate the kind words, but I'll readily admit I possess neither the necessary data (nor the know-how of where to acquire it) nor the casually brilliant understanding of everything involved to do anything too terribly detailed.
And I can say that so readily because it's something I want too! :P