_Augustus_

Got the mirror back from aluminizing today. First light soonTM

So it's actually far more than that and they're just saying marketing nonsense to get you to buy their rocket. Completely correct: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/03/29/nasa_sls_spacex/

TESS is severely limited in the actual number of planets it can reliably detect. It is not a true space observatory like Kepler, nor does it have the same level of funding or attention as Kepler. It's designed to detect as many possible transits as it can, particularly around nearby stars, so ground observatories or other space telescopes can confirm them. That's all.

Bezos really has conned ULA. He has pretty much locked them into buying BE-4 at this point and obtained some funding from them, but New Glenn now delivers more payload anywhere than Vulcan for a lower price and with a wider fairing. Also, BO completely broke their promise to ULA about not taking government contracts - the only place ULA is remotely safe from competition. ULA is a dead man walking.

Aerojet Rocketdyne is practically a swindling operation with the prices they charge for engines, and Atlas VI is a stupid idea. ULA might stay in business a little longer if they buy BO engines - they're doomed anyways.......

I recently attended a lecture on TESS. A couple interesting things you might not know about it: TESS' cameras are little more than very high-end telephoto lenses. They're not particularly big (only 5" aperture) and use only lenses - something seldom seen nowadays on spacecraft, as any lens-based system above about 8" or so is extremely costly, gets heavy fast, and is prone to thermal expansion and other issues. Due to limits on the data it can transmit, TESS doesn't have particularly high-resolution CCDs. As a result, each pixel is something like half an arcminute in size - about as big as Jupiter in the sky. This means that if multiple stars brighter than magnitude 12 are within half an arcminute of each other (e.g. a cluster or binary), TESS cannot actually tell which star is experiencing a transit nor get any meaningful data about said transit. The orientation of TESS' cameras mean that for the entire survey a 24-degree area around the celestial pole it's currently aimed at (first the north and then south pole) will be in the view of one of the cameras. As a result, significantly more planets and more long-period ones will probably be detected in those regions of the sky, since TESS will be looking at them all the time. Because the Falcon 9 is incredibly overpowered for this mission, it may get to RTLS - we'll see...... Reaction wheels. RCS thrusters' exhaust could get on the optics.

Apparently pieces of SLS' SRBs may strike the main engines during launch and cause a RUD. Does NASA know this is a problem? Yes. Will they actually do anything about it? Probably not. https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2018/04/em-1-update-progress-still-behind-schedule/ InB4 EM-1 RUD

Sorry, SpaceX, but that music is way cooler....

Congress is never going to fund a Mars mission at current NASA prices. Even going back to the moon is a stretch.

Here, I added some stuff for you. Europa Clipper hasn't actually been moved to AV; that's just a backup that may happen.

Just human rate FH (it can't be that hard) and have the Dragon and lunar lander rendezvous in HLO, both launched on FH. Alternatively, launch a Starliner on Vulcan or Atlas and have it dock to a fully fueled ACES or Centaur V to bring it to HLO. Solves both the long duration between relights and the safety issue of not having a capsule in lunar orbit to escape to. Alternatively, is simultaneous or nearso launch really that hard? You'd need to upgrade SLC-40 to handle D2 or Falcon Heavy, and I imagine there would be range safety issues, but it's doable. IIRC the USSR looked at doing two Proton launches within a minute of each other for a Mars sample return mission, and Skylab II was supposed to launch less than a day after the station itself originally. The FH upper stage has been proven to be able to last at least 6 hours in orbit and relight again. As many problems as there are with Moon Direct, it still makes more sense than SLS.

NASA can't figure out what they want PPB to be. http://spacenews.com/nasa-considers-acquiring-more-than-one-gateway-propulsion-module/ Is it a station service module or a full-on SEP tug? Make up your minds...... Meanwhile, Zubrin is pushing Moon Direct. I mean, the dude could just wait for BFR, but this idea is still far more compelling than SLS/Orion. http://spacenews.com/op-ed-moon-direct-how-to-build-a-moonbase-in-four-years/ I think this quote sums up DSG:

R7 for starting the Space Race and carrying every Russian manned spacecraft ever. Saturn V, for putting humans on the Moon. Energia, for the modularity, being the origin of the most powerful rocket engine ever built (RD-170), and only slightly less thrust than the Saturn V. Falcon 9/Heavy for what they've done and are going to do soon. BFR hopefully for what it will someday achieve.

Needs a counterweight at the back, but otherwise it's done.

https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/03/nasa-chief-explains-why-agency-wont-buy-a-bunch-of-falcon-heavy-rockets/ Gerst says DSG will be using "large monolithic pieces" that require SLS. What large monolithic pieces? The DSG modules would all fit on FH or New Glenn. Someone in the comments section said this: Sad but true.

Sorry for the long overdue update. I was busy for a while and unable to work on the scope, and I had to redesign the spider. I managed to test focus and balance. I don't have enough in-travel but I can hold the eyepiece inside the focuser and I have a lower-profile one on the way now. The Moon looks great. Will have a base and aluminize the primary soon.

Unless they fly EM-2 on ICPS, which may well happen, or Europa Clipper flies first.

So barring further delays, SLS will launch around Christmas 2019. A present no one asked for........

Since the second MLP is funded, it's been mentioned that EM-2 and Europa Clipper may fly on Block I while the IB pad/VAB area are built.

Hey, look! ICPS is real hardware now!

Pointless if Block I only flies once apart from speeding up EM-1 to EC gap. I think Block I will end up being used for all Orion flights though, just sayin'.....

It's the pad abort vehicle AKA DragonFly.

Still not as dumb as that Congresswoman asking if Curiosity had any photos of the flags the astronauts planted.

The booster corrodes in salt water, so it can't really be re-used.