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RCgothic

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Posts posted by RCgothic

    Coronavirus

    in Science & Spaceflight

    Posted

    The UK trendline is scary. Nearly 60k a day are testing positive, even allowing that we're bad at testing enough and have 1/5th the US population.

     

    The spike from being allowed to mingle at Christmas is still 3-4 days away. New year is more than a week. The spike from schools going back despite all the evidence they shouldn't is two weeks away.

    Our hospitals are *full* of Covid cases to the point where oxygen is starting to be rationed because the hospitals weren't designed to supply so many oxygen patients at once. 

     

    We're in serious danger of a mortality spike as people start dying untreated as the system gets overwhelmed. Sure, Covid only kills 1% (and permanently debilitates another 19%), but that's under ideal conditions. 

    The UK has for months attempted to keep things under control without a proper lockdown. We've had 4 tiers of increasing restrictions, none of which have worked because none of them have halted mingling, none of them a proper lockdown.

    And now the situation has fallen off a cliff because of a new virus strain that could have been avoided if proper restrictions had reduced the virus in circulation and denied it a pool of cases in which to mutate.

     

    Months and months of half-measures only delay stronger measures! 

     

    SpaceX Discussion Thread

    in Science & Spaceflight

    Posted · Edited by RCgothic

    Neither SpaceX nor Blue Origin were first to land a rocket propulsively.

    Blue Origin was founded in 2000.

    SpaceX was founded in 2002.

    Blue Origin started hop tests in 2006.

    SpaceX started launching Falcon 1 in 2006.

    SpaceX first put a payload in orbit in 2008.

    SpaceX started launching Falcon 9 in 2010.

    SpaceX berthed a spacecraft to the ISS in 2012.

    SpaceX started hop tests with Grasshopper in 2012.

    SpaceX upgraded Falcon 9 to v1.1 in 2013.

    SpaceX started hop tests with F9R Dev-1  in 2014.

    Blue Origin started high altitude testing with New Shepherd in 2015.

    Blue Origin first landed New Shepherd from high altitude in 2015.

    SpaceX upgraded Falcon 9 to FT in 2015.

    SpaceX first landed an orbital class booster propulsively in 2015.

    Blue first reflew New Shepherd in 2016.

    SpaceX first reflew Falcon 9 in 2016.

    SpaceX upgraded Falcon 9 to Falcon Heavy in 2018.

    SpaceX upgraded Falcon 9 to Block 5 in 2018.

    SpaceX started hop tests with Starhopper in 2019.

    SpaceX were the first to fly a full flow staged combustion engine in 2019.

    SpaceX flew crew to the ISS in 2020.

    SpaceX started hop tests with SN5 and SN6 in 2020.

    SpaceX started belly flop tests with SN8 in 2020.

    Blue Origin has launched 3 New Shepherd vehicles a total of 13 times and landed 12 times, including 12 consecutive landing successes. NS-3 has 7 launches and landings over 2 years 10 months.

    SpaceX has launched rockets from the Falcon family 106 times with 104.5 successes, 1 in-flight failure and 1 pre-launch failure. Cores have landed successfully 70 out of 80 attempts, including 20 consecutive successes. Both B1049 and B1051 have 7 launches and landings with B1051 taking 1 year 9 months to do so.

    I hope that settles things.

     

    Launcher vehicle design (modular vs bundling)

    in Science & Spaceflight

    Posted

    I don't think modular Saturn really works as a concept. The only common stage was S-IVB, an upper stage on both. S-II as a 1st stage would never get off the launch pad. You need a different 1st stage for each configuration.

    Core+SRBs is a very cheap way to get variable performance.

    Having a common upper and lower core diameter also reduces tooling costs. This is why the "Heavy" configuration of multiple cores also works quite well.

    SpaceX Discussion Thread

    in Science & Spaceflight

    Posted

    1 minute ago, derega16 said:

    This make me realize how awesome it would be if any of shuttle ET adaptation program was persued, like telescope one or wet lab one

    I saw this discussed today on Twitter. The foam shedding situation was described as like "popcorn". Probably not the best idea after all.

    For Questions That Don't Merit Their Own Thread

    in Science & Spaceflight

    Posted

    Random musing I think probably doesn't deserve its own thread:

    Space Shuttle would have been better with Kerolox Main Engines. My reasoning: 

    1. No insulation foam.

    2. RP1 up top would prevent falling ice.

    3. Extreme reusability of Kerolox engines have been demonstrated.

    4. It doesn't need to go BLEO so low ISP isn't a handicap.

    5. Smaller External Tank.

    Yes it would be about 700t heavier on the pad, but it'd still be lighter than Saturn.

    Artemis Discussion Thread

    in Science & Spaceflight

    Posted · Edited by RCgothic

    I've asked on Twitter but I'm not fully clear - are the bid amounts total for the next phase of development? I.e. divided over years it at least *somewhat* matches the proposed funding.

    Or is it an annual dev cost and the proposed funding is therefore a joke?

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