ThatGuyWithALongUsername

10 FH launches a year out of completely nowhere seems a bit odd lol But for this year, at least, the startistics clearly seem to indicate actual contracted missions. Are we gonna see 3 FH launches this year? And actually why is the F9 launch frequency so... low (for 2020)? Is Starlink just not on here or something?

DANG. They really are making sure LC-39A is the coolest looking launchpad ever, aren't they? Meanwhile in a less polished launch site: This shows that they are still working on the nosecone for SN1, even though it looks more and more likely that SN1 will not fly. I would say it's just for SN2, but isn't the whole point of SN2 is that it has better weld quality than SN1? If this was for SN1, isn't it not good enough?

Why... why not? Don't tell SpaceX. Or Blue Origin, for that matter. But yeah, I understand that it isn't top priority right now. Moving away from dangerous inland launch sites definitely deserves to be the absolute top priority (for launch vehicle development).

I wasn't talking about the COPV's. I heard talk about the exhaust suddenly changing color at the end of the flight and the crush cores on the legs being completely used up possibly meanjing the engine suffered a slight loss of thrust at the end. Not as dramatic as the RUD scenarios you mentioned but maybe itmeant something. Although with skin 3 times thicker than SN1, I don't honestly think they would have had a problem with filling the tanks to flight pressure, so I don't really think there would have been a reason not to fully pressurize them. I'm pretty sure they were at full pressure anyway.

Yes this isn't the first time this has happened and yes it only lasts a couple months (in fact, with a 2-body system, it's impossible to permanently capture a satellite like this- you need at least 3 bodies), but honestly, who cares- it's kinda fun to joke about. Just as a though experiment, though- I wonder what it would take to cheat a bit and... oh, I don't know, nudge a near-earth asteroid in the right direction and give it a small insertion burn on arrival? You know, Asteroid Redirect Mission style But ARM was way too practical. I just want to be stupid and unrealistic here! Ignoring practicality for a minute, the largest Near Earth Asteroid of any kind is 1036 Ganymed (not to be confused with Ganymede), which is only 30-something km in diameter. It's also on a long, elliptical Mars-crossing orbit straight from the edge of the asteroid belt. It's a shame we don't really have access to anything bigger, but that's pretty good- it's bigger than both of Mars's moons, and they're pretty neat and respectable, right? You'd want to place it at a distance- not just to avoid satellite collisions (artificial satellites, not natural-ish ones) but also to lower the energy needed here. Not that it would matter much. There's a lot of energy needed here. It would be... impractical to move an asteroid this large just about anywhere, so we'd want a slow a delta-v trajectory as possible. First thing you'd need to do is slow it down a bunch and circularize its orbit so it can get a low-energy approach to Earth. This asteroid does pass by Earth on occasion- currently the asteroid is set up for a relatively close approach in 2024- so I guess what you'd want to do is nudge the asteroid (ideally at aphelion to maximize Oberth effect, but probably not because this would really only work with high-performance electric propulsion like Ion thruster, except it wouldn't because that's a big ion thruster) so it gets a gravity assist off of Earth precisely tuned to set it up for multiple subsequent Earth gravity assists, kinda like how missions to Mercury often use a bunch of Mercury flybys before attempting orbit insertion. Then you'd try to set it up on an approach that gets it captured temporarily like our good friend 2020 CD3, and once it's here (you can refuel the giant pusher thing you'd need easier) you can nudge it a out of he resonance with the Moon (maybe after a tuned flyby to circularize its orbit) and BAM! new satellite! Of course, good luck figuring out how to do any orbital adjustments on a giant, rotating, and unknown-but-very-large-mass object like that without messing it up (don't want to ruin the natural beauty of it or anything... after all, what we're doing to it is totally natural, right?). Oh, and you also may want to be extra careful with making sure the probe doesn't fail before course correction manuevers. Depending on how off the trajectory is, failure would be... well, it would have worse consequences than your everyday planetary science mission, let's just leave it at that. I was gonna compare it to the Chicxulub Impactor that killed the dinosaurs but estimates on radius vary too much- let's just say it's within variation Just think of it this way- it would be the ultimate asteroid sample-return mission! EDIT: uh... didn't notice the inclination. It doesn't intersect with Earth's orbital plane at all, where did I get that from? That makes it a... *bit* harder. I guess you could do plane change gravity assists using its close approaches to Mars (those *do* happen, mark your calendars for 16 December 2176)? Or maybe you could even have better luck stealing a bigger asteroid from the main belt with a bit of help from Jupiter.

Nice! I've always thought just one moon is boring, surely we can do better than that. I mean, come on, where's Minmus?! I want a Minmus! Welcome to Earth, 2020 CD3. Sorry your stay can't be longer.

Isn't that what people speculated almost happened at the end, though?

I kinda had the feeling this would happen... seemed a bit fishy when Musk was talking about the precision required for orbit and how SN2 was better... SpaceX is always very quick to abandon old ways if something might be better. Remember how short-lived the Falcon 1 was once F9 development got going. The good news is, of course, that they really are building these things ridiculously fast! They spent quite a bit of time working out problems with the fuel tanks on SN1, so SN2 construction could potentially go *even* faster Even without SN1, we could still be only a couple months away from having a fully flight-flight-ready vehicle. Also... what about SN1's nosecone? What's gonna happen to that?

Yes and no. This is not going to orbit, but it IS a flight prototype, supposed to launch to an altitude of 20km. It has the exact same design of the orbital starship (unless that design changes due to rapid development), but it is built to a lower standard of quality and precision since it is not going to reach orbit. This allows them to build these quicker and cheaper, make design changes quicker if they encounter a problem during construction, and build multiple prototypes (parts of SN2 are already under construction, it will be closer to orbital quality if not actual orbital quality- that's kind of unclear and I suspect they're not sure themselves) It's a really unique flight development path, they're doing this with a heavy emphasis on "test-as-you-fly." Even if SN2 is orbital, the design and quality of each build is supposed to keep improving through at least SN20.

...yeah, probably that too The whole "break a record" thing is great for marketing, too

That is much better, honestlly- the smaller the Earth appears out the window, the more awe-inspiring and life-changing the experience. The more powerful the overview effect. The more clear our tiny place in the universe becomes.

Lol the website is down already

It's too early for speculation, but to me it sounds like this was similar to CRS-16, or maybe the comms failed instead?

Mean surface temp of Venus is 462° C... but that isn't the only problem. Sulfuric Acid isn't known for being friendly to spacecraft, and radiation levels are very high as a result of Venus having no magnetic field. The pressure is also immense on the surface- far higher than 1 atm I would love a full-fledged long-distance rover or something like that too, but there's a reason it still hasn't been done despite Venus being the easiest planet to get to. And it DEFINITELY wouldn't fit in a discovery-class budget. We're talking a flagship-size mission here, and without as much interest in Venus as in other destinations for those missions I don't see that happening soon. But I do believe the challenges could eventually be overcome. I womder if a balloon designed to float just *under* the cloud layer (instead of higher up) could be more doable? It could get the first optical maps of Venus, instead of radar, with infrared spectroscopy and stuff like that for composition too! It would also give plenty of long-term data on that part of Venus' atmosphere and wind patterns, too- heck, if it got lucky and passed directly over one, it *could* give insight on the possibly active volcanism! (Heck, pictures from that perspecive would just be really cool, too) This would still have many challenges- it would still have to deal with higher temperature, pressure, radiation and scidity than normal- but not quite as badly as a surface probe would need to and without the need to protect as many complex moving parts as a rover would. Heck, maybe the refridgeration system could pump heat into the balloon. Some challenges are more unique to this concept, though- first off, mission control can't control where it flies, it goes wherever the wind currents go. Second, you'd need to make a balloon that can stay aloft at the right altitude for as long ss possible. But I wonder if it's doable...

I did not say it did. It makes it cooler!

Yeah, this isn't really all that new. We've even visited one before (although it was by surprise): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/243_Ida

Thing is it isn't a lander, just an atmosphere probe. Theoretically the Russians will be sending a lander... but funding is... uh... ...the mission is NET "2026 or 2031." So we'll see (Personally, my vote is for IVO and Trident, but I really wish NASA had the funding to just select all the finalists in these situations. Same goes for New Frontiers missions)

I don't remember exactly who said this but I agree with whoever said that any space mission- as long as it has a visible destination of some kind- must have a camera, regardless of the scientific usefulness of it. After all, it's not like opportunities to get these cool shots are exactly common. Certainly great for making people interested in what you are doing- images have a much better "wow" factor than some numbers and a graph. So yeah, I want cool Jupiter cloud pictures! It's so weird to think about gas giants, and it's hard to process that there isn't really a surface- seeing the endless clouds from that kind of perspective would be awesome and trippy as heck. Really gets across that this is an entire world of endless clouds, for quite a while down, and below that even weirder- but still 3-dimensional. Lots of layers. Bandwidth whatever! I don't care if a bigger antenna's more expensive, PICTURES

Maybe something like a wiper on rails sweeping across a row of solar panels? Would that work? Eventually, the track would get clogged with dust. But, again, there are people here.

Well... this is a very complicated design idea for a niche purpose, but what if we got around the plume interaction by mounting a pair of superdraco-style engine pods near the top of the vehicle, maybe under the front flaps? While a plain superdraco would obviously not be powerful enough, you only need about 110,000 lbf of thrust (490 kN) for a fully fuelled Starship to lift off in lunar gravity. A single Merlin engije would be more than ebough for that, although for this design you would want that power divided into 4 engines. I'm not saying it's a good idea (it would involve SpaceX developing a whole new engine and making various difficult structural design changes to fit them in for a variant of Starship that becomes useless the second a pre-prepared pad is set up) but hey, it would work at least (Fingers crossed that simulations show plume interactions being less of a problem then they may seem) Another thing... maybe the legs are designed this way (with a narrow base) for better shock absorption, potentially letting them shut off the engine early and just fall the last few meters to the lunar surface... how long are they?

Oh, that is a cool find. After some google reverse-image search, this was the March 29, 2004 issue. Years before SpaceX would even launch their first rocket. I don't have a subscription, but it should be available here: https://archive.aviationweek.com/issue/20040329 Interestingly, looking at the previews, it talks about the Falcon I being the workhorse of the fleet, while the larger Falcon 5 being used for heavier payloads and taking on Boeing. Heh. Just compare that "larger" rocket with, say, the Falcon Heavy.

DANG IT

Launch in just over an hour... and I'm right here

It already isn't, based on what we're seeing in Boca Chica.