What's NASA Up To And Other Space Stuff

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Originally Posted by Being

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Lsbi-bVfk0

Heat shields are what kept the shuttle from meeting expectations. I don't like nuts. I don't like wagering either. But lets discuss heat shields.

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Thanks for the video, that was great. It looks like SpaceX has already improved on the shuttle heat shield strategy, and the Starship vehicle by itself is a better design from the heat shield point of view. I think the chief advantage SpaceX has is they innovate on the fly and very quickly. I seriously have no doubt they will achieve a fully reusable vehicle - it may look different and employ a different than current strategy, and the reuse may not be as rapid as they want, but they'll get there.

It's obvious that guy is a fanboy but he did point out some potential flaws with this shield design, that didn't exist with the shuttle, that can only be flushed out with trial and error. Moving parts needing to be shielded looks to be pretty major. Also, he quickly glossed over the fact (in fact he kinda made it look like an advantage) that a flatter surface pushes the concussion point further from the surface than does a cylindrical shape (his presentation used a point versus concave disc not a cylinder).

All in all I came away with the conclusion that the heat shield will suffer the same fate as on the shuttle and cost and turn around time for reuse will be much more than anticipated. This is why I say more fuel or refuel in orbit before descent. Maybe they will come up with some sort of nuclear powered magnetic device that can use the Earth's magnetic field to slow the vehicle?

Consider NASA and current U.S. space efforts to be Afghanistan in the story below. Privatizing national efforts might not work here any better than there...

Privatization of National Interests

P.S. I have worked with both the companies mentioned in this story and I can confirm their expertise and competence lies not in their ability to get things done but in their ability to generate costly change orders.

Spacex is celebrating launching civilians into space. I'm not convinced that these billionaires engaged in the "space race" are doing anything that will ultimately help humanity. Because they're using loopholes to avoid paying taxes that are needed right now, that could be used to build/rebuild infrastructure on Earth.

When I was younger and tax dollars were spent on NASA, we all benefited from their research. Microwave ovens, dehydrated foods (like Tang!), and many medical products were "discovered", along with computer advancements *including the internet*, and made available to the public.

What's going on now, other than a gross example of how the uber rich are showing off their wealth by blasting into space? It's not like they're using their wealth to pay workers a living wage. Or funding R & D into sustainable living on Earth. Or providing reliable weather data to everyone. Nah, the workers and consumers were "thanked" for making these billionaires obscene riches, so they could play a game in space.

I wish everyone would wake up, and see how they're being used. :(

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Originally Posted by GGT

Spacex is celebrating launching civilians into space. I'm not convinced that these billionaires engaged in the "space race" are doing anything that will ultimately help humanity. Because they're using loopholes to avoid paying taxes that are needed right now, that could be used to build/rebuild infrastructure on Earth.

When I was younger and tax dollars were spent on NASA, we all benefited from their research. Microwave ovens, dehydrated foods (like Tang!), and many medical products were "discovered", along with computer advancements *including the internet*, and made available to the public.

What's going on now, other than a gross example of how the uber rich are showing off their wealth by blasting into space? It's not like they're using their wealth to pay workers a living wage. Or funding R & D into sustainable living on Earth. Or providing reliable weather data to everyone. Nah, the workers and consumers were "thanked" for making these billionaires obscene riches, so they could play a game in space.

I wish everyone would wake up, and see how they're being used. :(

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There are 2 possible customers for space programs:
* Government: Space missions will depend on politics and what makes them popular. Money is spent on making politics, not achieving things for the lowest cost.
* Private: It requires private customers. Most likely billionaires, just like in the early days of aviation. It is true that NASA helped to make it work, but also Internet started as government initiative and later companies were added to the game.

NASA has not done anything valuable after Apollo program to bring humans to space. ISS is just a government office in space and it is not even in a useful orbital plane where it could be used for planetary transfers (trips to other planets). Changing ISS orbital inclination would consume indecent amounts of fuel comparable to going to another distant planet. Space shuttle program destroyed 2 of 5 orbiters, a terrible safety record. And manufacturing centers of NASA were scattered all across the nation, raising the costs of each flight due to the need of transportation, let alone carbon footprint. The original idea of shuttle program had the orbiter on top. But it ended up having the shuttle in its side, a terrible design. This terrible design caused 2 orbiters to be lost.

Also, NASA is subject to media pressure. Challenger was launched due to media pressure. Headlines were about "lazy employees waiting until temperature goes up, taxpayer money paying them" instead of trying to find out why it was unsafe to launch during cold days. Illiterate journalism is a disgrace. Journalism is so illiterate that they call the Entry Interface (EI) as "reentry". Apollo capsules bounced against the atmosphere like a stone bouncing against water in a pond, and in the first entry it bounced and in the second it entered atmosphere to land on water. Space shuttle did not bounce. It used S maneuvers to dissipate energy. If journalism was not so illiterate, they would have contributed to astronaut safety. They would have found that ringed rockets showed combustion leaks in cold days. Launching Challenger was "death by bureaucracy" with govt employees trying to appease media.

Columbia disaster was another case of death by bureaucracy. A piece of foam hit the RCC (reinforced carbon-carbon) panels and made a hole of the size of a pizza where plasma entered and melted the aluminium internal frame. Plasma almost doubled the required melting point of aluminium. They thought that a piece of foam would be soft enough to cause no damage. There was no evidence that foam could create such a hole and destroy a shuttle. so bureaucrats guessed. They confused absence of evidence with evidence of absence. And they got the evidence when shuttle was destroyed. If they had taken safety seriously, they would have launched a rescue mission that would have made a great epic Hollywood movie. But no. This caused great unrest among astronauts as the unwritten pact of taking human safety serious was broken. It is a crisis that never made it to the public.

What was the contribution of private flights to safety? Billionaires are way less tolerant to unsafe flights. Elon musk may have sent a capsule to orbit, but it was government sponsored. The merit of Bezos is that his program was fully private and he crossed the Karman line, and Bezos certified the safety of his rocket by putting his life in the line of fire. Musk has not flown himself. Bezos fully funded his space program and certified safety with his own life. And this space program generated thousands of jobs. It is not just the jobs of those who make the rocket, but also secondary businesses like restaurants and stores and others that make money by selling stuff to employees.

So if you ask me, Elon Musk is the new Boeing, govt sponsored space company. And Bezos is the first real private space entrepreneur. Not having government funding means he must fund it using his own money. To me, Bezos has more merit than Musk in terms of safety. Musk never certified his own capsules. He cannot even make a safe autonomous car.

If they do not want to make life "sustainable" on Earth, they will have to learn. Living on Mars is like living on a polluted vacuum frozen radiation filled chemical plant. Space radiation and perchlorate dust could kill you. Living in Antarctica is like a summer day at the beach. Antarctica has water, oxygen, atmospheric pressure and it is a few hours away from civilization, and its lower temperature is way higher than the warmest tempetarure of Mars. Making life sustainable on Mars will require all the sustainable living habits that we do not have on Earth.

Capitalism distributes wealth via jobs. And private space creates jobs. Poor people are people with income below a threshold, so unemployed are basically poor. By creating jobs aerospace helps to fight poverty. The only thing you need is to make kids be educated in STEM so they can aspire to a STEM job. The "best use of taxes" would be using it to create jobs. Even if people criticize Bezos, he is creating jobs and taking profit comes from his own money. Instead, with SpaceX, profit comes from taxpayers.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/space-...t-is-suspected

Risky space stuff.

According to the boss, SpaceX must launch at least 26 successful payloads next year to break even.

rumors-of-possible-spacex-bankruptcy/ar-AARlKAP?li=BBnb7Kz

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"We face a real risk of bankruptcy if next year we cannot achieve a Starship rate of at least one every two weeks," Musk wrote in the leaked email.

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It's a cargo ship. Does the Earth have that much cargo to shuttle into orbit?

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Originally Posted by Being

According to the boss, SpaceX must launch at least 26 successful payloads next year to break even.
It's a cargo ship. Does the Earth have that much cargo to shuttle into orbit?

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R&D is expensive. Pushing the accelerator to speed up R&D is expensive. And Musk pushes a lot. He wants to go to Mars before dying. And he is somewhat old.

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Originally Posted by Being

According to the boss, SpaceX must launch at least 26 successful payloads next year to break even.

rumors-of-possible-spacex-bankruptcy/ar-AARlKAP?li=BBnb7Kz



It's a cargo ship. Does the Earth have that much cargo to shuttle into orbit?

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If you read a little deeper into Musk's reasoning, its really about Starlink. The current gen1 starlink satellites do not have the capability to handle enough customers to generate the revenue SpaceX needs to keep rocket development going. Indeed, they are ramping up customer terminal production to a very high level, and the customers for those terminals are out there, but the orbital network cannot handle the demand. The gen2 satellites will be able to handle the demand, but they are too big/ not configured to be launched by Falcon 9 - they are designed to be lofted by Starship. The real problem Musk is addressing in his danger bankruptcy email was raptor engine production. They need a TON of raptor engines for even a few functioning starships, and apparently the production facility is having trouble ramping up. That pre-thanksgiving email was all about getting the employees fired up and afraid enough to work their assess off, even through the holiday, to get that production facility working right. It may also have been calculated to leak in order to put pressure on the Federal Government (FAA I believe) which still hasn't finished the environmental review, pre-requisite for approval of Starship orbital operations out of their Texas launch site.

This youtube thumbnail had me a bit concerned, are we sure James Web is just a telescope?

https://img.youtube.com/vi/J72H3Igbof0/0.jpg

Obviously. I hear that at some point every Jew gets a turn on the space laser.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zu3nu6ue2qU

:haha:

Ukraine and space stuff...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1V-lj-jCqe8

So Russia is threatening not to bring our astronaut home. Honestly didn't see that coming. :weird: At least we don't need rides up from Russia anymore. In fact, iirc, didn't they buy a seat on a SpaceX rocket? I wonder if they're still going to do that. And I had no idea Atlas rockets used Russian rocket engines. FFS.

Twitter Link

Finally, the truth of our folly...

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/techn...1686aed2bc163b

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For its study, NOAA used today’s baseline for carbon pollution, which is 1,000 tons of rocket soot per year. Then the team multiplied that figure by 10, which it says is a believable estimate given the recent increase in rocket launches, as well as global plans over the next few decades. At this projected rate, the amount of rocket fuel soot in the stratosphere would raise the temperature in that layer by up to 4 degrees Fahrenheit.

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That which we destroy we will recreate on Mars I guess. We are in fact god.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FXazO0CW...jpg&name=small

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Originally Posted by Aimless

[IMG][/IMG]

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Seems your sig is in conflict with the pretty picture.

Twitter Link

https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/f..._final-5mb.jpg

Anyone catch the live DART coverage today. Loved the still pic series ending in a very close up view of the asteroid's surface. Hope there are good images of the aftermath.

Also, the Webb pic of Neptune was spectacular, no?

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Originally Posted by EyeKhan

Anyone catch the live DART coverage today. Loved the still pic series ending in a very close up view of the asteroid's surface. Hope there are good images of the aftermath.

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Yes, and I think I saw something waving a white flag just before impact. Can't wait to see the footage from the trailing camera. When is it supposed to be available?

DART is a war criminal!

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Originally Posted by Dreadnaught

DART is a war criminal!

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Following up on that, the experiment worked better than expected. Fuck you dinosaurs!

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Prior to DART’s impact, it took Dimorphos 11 hours and 55 minutes to orbit its larger parent asteroid, Didymos. Since DART’s intentional collision with Dimorphos on Sept. 26, astronomers have been using telescopes on Earth to measure how much that time has changed. Now, the investigation team has confirmed the spacecraft’s impact altered Dimorphos’ orbit around Didymos by 32 minutes, shortening the 11 hour and 55-minute orbit to 11 hours and 23 minutes. This measurement has a margin of uncertainty of approximately plus or minus 2 minutes.

Before its encounter, NASA had defined a minimum successful orbit period change of Dimorphos as change of 73 seconds or more. This early data show DART surpassed this minimum benchmark by more than 25 times.

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https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/n...otion-in-space


In other news, looking forward to the Star Ship/Super Heavy first orbital flight hopefully this month, and hoping SLS will actually launch on Nov 14th. And Falcon Heavy's launching today at 940 eastern time - love seeing the dual booster landings.

EDIT:

https://spacenews.com/nasa-predicts-...n-as-december/

Anyone catch the SLS launch? Liftoff was 2am last night so I missed it. With all SLS' problems, all the waste, politics, and lack of innovation, I do love seeing NASA launch a Big Ass Rocket again.

https://www.space.com/nasa-artemis-1...mission-launch

https://www.space.com/artemis-1-orio...t-photos-earth

In other news, SpaceX did a 14 engine static fire with Super Heavy. Apparently the engine thrust tore up the launch pad a bit - flying bits of concrete - and that's just 40% of the rocket's power. That's not good. I'm really interested to see that thing take off - and eventually land! And take off AGAIN. So cool.

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Originally Posted by EyeKhan

I'd bet my left nut it happens within 2 years.

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8 months remaining and counting...

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasas-...rth-size-world

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Originally Posted by Being

8 months remaining and counting...

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They are talking February now for the first Starship/Super Heavy orbital flight. Sounds like they're not going to try a landing, though. Assuming it doesn't blow up on the pad and wreck the launch site, I'd think the follow-up flight would be sooner than later. Fingers crossed...

So that SpaceX Super Heavy launch was cool. Love how it DESTROYED the launch pad, lol. I feel like I learn way more watching SpaceX do their thing. For example, they SHOW you why big rocket launches pour tons of water underneath the rocket when it lights up. I wonder how many iterations they'll shoot off before they get a rocket they can send cargo to orbit with. The next one will probably go orbital and the new launch pad won't get chewed up. But they have to figure out how to land these things before they pay off. And then after that, how to rapidly re-use a giant 33 engine rocket... big job big payoff.

Yeah, but you only have 4 months remaining. :p

So, Starship is a ponzi scheme?

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Originally Posted by Being

So, Starship is a ponzi scheme?

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What?

Been watching them rebuild the launch pad. They are busy little bees - lots of work speedy quick. Can't wait for the next launch with the hot stage separation. That booster's going to blow up first time around I'm betting.

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Originally Posted by EyeKhan

What?

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I was just trying to get your attention. :) There is not much chance of Starship making it to orbit by mid August, let alone landing back on Earth after it reaches orbit. :p Like I said, I'm not a big fan of nuts but, would you consider donating $100 to St. Jude, in my name, in place of your left nut?:D

I'll need your snail mail address to send you my beloved nut.

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Originally Posted by EyeKhan

I'll need your snail mail address to send you my beloved nut.

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Being, Human
1100 South Ocean Boulevard
Palm Beach, Fl 33480

Thank You!

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-02460-5

Black holes... black holes everywhere

First images from ESA's Euclid:

https://www.esa.int/Science_Explorat...ge_of_darkness

Starship made it just past stage separation this time. Was a pretty incredible site that big ass rocket, the cones of exhaust, violet color.

https://phys.org/news/2024-01-discov...ant-space.html