RCgothic
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Posts posted by RCgothic
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6 minutes ago, tater said:
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Payload to GTO is 26.6t, and to Mars is 16.8t. TLI is in between.
6 minutes ago, tater said:Yes, if the payload goes up on FH. If it goes up on two F9's, then that's 32t of spacecraft in LEO.
FH then goes up with nothing but a fairing and a basic docking target, the combined spacecraft autonomously docks to it, and 63t of fuel residuals sends 32t to the moon from LEO easy.
EOR.
I'd like sevenperforce but I'm out for today.
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FH is theoretically about 32t to TLI assuming the 32t makes is own way to LEO, which considering an F9 (ASDS recovery) is about 16t, is a nice multiple.
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Pad not clear, vehicles on scene.
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Looks like there's been a hold for a bit.
Recondenser is now active again. Maybe a recycle to the start of the process again.
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8 minutes ago, sevenperforce said:
How am I already out of reactions
Me too!
Maybe 30 mins away from launch
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9 minutes ago, The Doodling Astronaut said:
There is nothing really wrong with that. SLS doesn't have to be a rocket of many purposes, it's like the Saturn V, it only had one purpose but then found other purposes later onto the program.
Saturn was big enough to complete a lunar mission by itself, and flexible and available enough to be used for other missions such as lofting space stations in a single launch.
SLS is not big enough to complete a lunar mission (with Orion) by itself, and neither flexible enough nor available enough to be used for other purposes.
SLS requires other heavy lift rockets to complete a distributed mission, which begs the question why not distribute the crew portion of the mission.
I reckon 2 medium lift rockets could put up a slightly modified Dragon/Starliner, a propulsion module based on an existing spacecraft bus, and the combined assembly could then be boosted to the moon by a heavy rocket that meets them in LEO with just fuel. It is already planned to send the lander separately.
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It's basically optimised to send a specific spacraft to a specific orbit where that spacecraft can't do anything useful without help and SLS is not flexible enough to be used for other missions.
Most of its LEO mass is fuel, but it could put up about 40-50 tons... But there aren't any monolithic payloads that size. If the payload is fuel, then it's a very expensive and infrequent way to refuel something in LEO.
For BLEO, other than crew flights its lack of availability has seen it stripped of its one assigned cargo mission.
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Still haven't seen proper tank farm activity, so it's probably not going to fly before the hour IMO.
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Flap testing in progress.
Some non-definitive venting by the ditch near the tank farm. If we're still aiming for 9.54am (1594 UTC) we need to see some proper tank farm activity soon.
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It's definitely going down today. Just watched the flight termination system get armed on NSF. Pad is cleared. Currently looks like we're go for Launch in 40 mins or so.
RCS testing in progress.
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1 minute ago, mikegarrison said:
I think the root cause of the SLS problems is pretty much the same root cause of the problems with the Space Shuttle. The government was not willing (or probably able) to spend the kind of money they spent during the Apollo years, and so everything got stretched out. First of all, that just makes it more expensive all by itself. But secondly, it meant they had too much time for mission creep to change the mission after they had already locked in parts of the design. And then they tried to work around the locked-in designs, and that leads to more costs. And then the mission changes again. And now they have even more locked-in design to work around. Lather, Rinse, Repeat.
They are using bits from the Space Shuttle, bits from Aries, bits from here, and bits from there. At some point the primary goal became to find a mission that could use the SLS and Orion, so that all those sunk costs didn't just sink.
In a sense, yes, it's because government. Because every four or eight years a new team came in with a new goal. Because they don't have the kind of 10-year committed funding that Apollo had, but instead have to get their budget reauthorized every two years. But it's not because this is government trying to mess around where it should be private enterprise. First of all, "old space" was mostly private enterprise anyway, working for government contracts. And secondly, much of "new space" is the same thing -- private enterprise working for government contracts.
I think the big problem really is that it's a rocket program looking for a mission, rather than the other way around.
I agree, although not all capabilities get screwed by mission changes.
It would have been possible to go with a more flexible architecture better able to cope with mission changes. I think it would be hard to go wrong by optimising 2-stage to LEO with an optional 3rd stage for earth departure, for instance.
But then politically if a rocket is capable of a changing mission, perhaps that would have put the lunar program at risk of cancellation yet again (although in that case at least the rocket would survive the death of the program for to its universal usefulness).
I'm a little bit split on whether large rockets should yet be the domain of fixed price contacts, but certainly this plus cost contact doesn't seem to have worked very well.
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The pointier nose is interesting, I had thought Elon had said it would get blunter.
Maybe beginner-level Japanese is enough to get me on DearMoon?
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I would love a seat, and I'd fly in 2023 given a chance. Such an incredible experience is surely worth a chance of it being ultimate.
But I'm not a creative type, and not really in a position to be meaningfully supportive of the other passengers, so I'm not eligible alas.
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6 of the 9 engines have their TEA/TEB igniters plumbed to the pad, they can't be air-started.
The other 3 engines share an onboard reservoir. I think the centre engine must ignite for a safe landing. CofG is too low to safely land on one of the outer engines with gimbal. There *may* be some redundancy in the other 2 if there's enough propellant margin (bearing in mind a failure reduces the nominal margin) and the failure is identified really enough to swap to plan B.
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The last time they had an engine out on ascent it caused them to overshoot the droneship. Less thrust means longer to orbit means further downrange. I'm surprised they could still attempt a landing at all, the engine out must have been very late in the first stage burn.
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Maybe with a stubbier aspect ratio they aren't needed?
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Crew-rated as well. I'm really looking forward to seeing Neutron fly!
That looks like 7 engines in the first stage, so they're going to need a bigger first stage engines than Rutherford. Well it also be electric cycle, or a more traditional kerolox gas generator?
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They think that a year may not be a hard limit. They'll find a way to recertify them for flight.
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Slipping towards March 2022 then.
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1. They have enough comms to justify having a director, communications?
2. Ah, cool, a 1st stage mockup in 3 pieces.
3. 23ft is smaller than Starship, which is technically flying.
4. Cool fairing, though I think we've seen one before. Pretty sure Atlas V has a fairing that's more than half that volume, as is FH's new fairing (It'll fly first). Less than half a Starship.
5. The TATC building is a very tall empty building.
6. The rocket garage is a very long empty building.
7. Ok, the road to space is pretty cool.
8. Human spaceflight from LC36, yes please. What capsule?
9. They really do seem to have all the facilities ready, just no rocket. Agreed Q422 means 23.
10. More of these videos please.
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Economically it might not make much difference whether $ are spent on coffee, SLS, or Falcon Heavies, economic stimulus being economic stimulus, but if what you're interested in is Spaceflight Milestones Achieved then there'll be a vast difference in outcomes depending on which you spend money on.
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21 minutes ago, tater said:
What's so sad/annoying/enraging is that it's not like NASA doesn't know this.
That number—the minimum TLI capability for SLS/Orion to be useful for any crew mission at all—is right there. That's the target.
Maybe not for Block 1, Block 1B, etc, but if there is no evolution to "65t to TLI" SLS is a complete waste of time and treasure.
The 38t to TLI that B1B can do is more than enough to get Orion into LLO with a stretched service module. They should have just come straight to this as the baseline version.
Then send the lander on a second launch. 38t doesn't get you 4 people for an extended stay, but it might get you 2 for an extended stay. 38t to TLI is roughly 28t in LLO, nearly twice Apollo.
But there's no plan to upgrade the ESM, and they couldn't build SLSs fast enough to support this anyway.
"But even a long stay isn't a sustainable presence, that's why we need gateway!" they counter-argue despite gateway going to be mostly vacant and not actually anywhere interesting in itself. That's just a half-measures. Go the whole way and make a permanently inhabited surface base. Cheap frequent cargo is what enables sustainable presences. Does SLS do that? No.
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Working an Apollo lander through my spreadsheet (~15t) comes up with about 64t to TLI with Orion, so yeah I agree with your figure.
That'd be 155t to LEO with SLS, which isn't on their upgrade path at all.
Ironically, uprated Saturn V with F1As could probably have done it, but TBH safety is one of the few things you can't really fault SLS Orion on. Saturn V was probably lucky not to lose a crew, nevermind the crew they almost lost on Apollo.
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11 minutes ago, tater said:
I think that they'd need to be throw at least 60-70 tons to TLI to be able to use the Orion capsule on a single stack lunar surface mission. That's not even on the table for SLS, ever. Not Block 2, not advanced Block 2.
^^^Note I am assuming a minimalist landing, Apollo style.
The difference between what 2 people need for a brief excursion and what 4 people need for an extended stay plus a tonne of cargo retun gets quite large, aye.
SpaceX Discussion Thread
in Science & Spaceflight
Posted
I believe it's topped off right up to launch. The tank farm is still going at least.