Jump to content

Spaceception

Members
  • Posts

    3,164
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Reputation

4,245 Excellent

Profile Information

  • About me
    Engineering Student
  • Location
    Setting course for Rocheworld
  • Interests
    Gloria in astra caput
    Lets head to the stars

    Writing, KSP (why else am I here?), Spaceflight (crewed and robotic), Astrobiology and the search for habitable exoplanets, Interplanetary travel and colonization, Interstellar travel, and watching or reading plenty of science fiction and fantasy.

Recent Profile Visitors

77,733 profile views
  1. You're right on most counts, though I imagine short of an apocalypse, a government would want the prestige of following through such an ambitious mission. Especially if it was making itself useful during the cruise - astronomical observation of the solar system and target system, studying the interstellar medium (beyond the sun's influence), or the interstellar medium inside another's stellar influence, having some of the best isolation of nearby radio sources available, and I'm sure mission designers can come up with more. They wouldn't have the probe or mission specialists twiddling their thumbs for decades doing nothing but recording status updates. Yes, we're nowhere near interstellar travel at the moment, but then, so was the British Interplanetary Society when they designed Daedalus just years after Apollo 17. SpaceX can still do research too, and even go a step further than these studies and fund some technology demonstrators, or precursor missions like the Realistic Interstellar Explorer (2000-2002) probe. Maybe they don't get to it, but they can very well pass the baton.
  2. I can't seem to find a reference for this, so I don't know if I'm misremembering it, but I thought Shotwell once mentioned antimatter at a conference. And all the way back in 2017, SpaceX was trying to get a hold of nuclear material - which she just mentioned was hard. Though whatever SpaceX is working on in that regard isn't sufficient for interstellar travel - likely just NTRs and/or reactors, but they're not just sticking to chemical/ion. Shotwell definitely said that she believed there would be a propulsion breakthrough "in my lifetime" to allow interstellar travel. Meaning Proxima b. Whether or not this actually comes to pass is irrelevant, some at SpaceX are definitely thinking well beyond interplanetary travel, even if it's only at a conceptual level. And who knows, if/when Starlink is making them money hand over fist, they'll start putting a bit of actual funding towards it like NIAC to see if they can move the needle on TRLs.
  3. So already planning towards V3 of the vehicle? I wonder how it translates to GTO to orbit. The old users guide assumed 100+ mT, and 21 mT to GTO. Could it send a payload to GEO and still return in 1 launch, or is that just beyond its capability?
  4. Today's flight almost made them ready to pursue orbital testing. So I think that'll be their main goals for the 4th flight - fix attitude control, make sure the pez dispenser works, relight the Raptor engine(s). Recovery and reentry will still be more stretch goals, but I feel like the booster will have a good shot to make a soft landing at least. B11 can avenge SN11!
  5. I love the coming age of big space habitats. No more cramped modules, this is the 21st century, we orbit in style.
  6. And it sounds like they've got elevator music going now
  7. Talking about Starlink (maybe) being able to maintain a signal through reentry. Payload door opening.
  8. Looks like they lost the booster before soft landing, but they got close.
  9. T - 4:30 minutes! It's awesome to hear them talk about Starship production lines. It also sounds like they'll make flight 4 prep more quickly after this launch.
×
×
  • Create New...