Spaceception

I saw the warning, but this thread still seems recent enough to revive. I've been looking at SETI related topics, and just learned about the candidate signal from TYC 1220-91-1. It looks really interesting, since it seems to have originated from a sunlike star up to 1000 light years away, was a strong signal, and broadcast at 4462.3 MHz, or PI * the hydrogen line (1420.4 MHz). A brief bit of searching mostly turned up old forum discussions like this, but has there been any studies, ametuar or professional, to see if there was a message within it, like the Arecibo message? And maybe this is my lack of knowledge about radio showing, but the Arecibo message was arranged in a grid corresponding to the semiprime number 1,679, 73 rows by 23 columns, as a clue for how to look at it - why not a grid like 1420.4 by 3.1415...?

It'll be an awesome moment, the first time we can expect a launch every day. So, S28 static fire, restack, WDR, launch? Not counting regulatory notices and licenses.

I found this interesting youtube channel that records talks about exoplanet science, while looking for a video about KOBE, an ongoing project to find K-dwarfs Orbited By habitable Exoplanets (yay for acronyms). The channel: https://www.youtube.com/@exoplanettalks/videos And more about KOBE https://kobe.caha.es/

Point to point boating, an important first step.

?? Did you skip over the"12m" part that referenced the old ITS? I was just saying that if the old 12m vehicle could put up 300/550t reused/expended, 18m will blow it out of the water.

Now imagine 18m Starship. 12m was capable of 300t fully reused, 550 expended, the same as Sea Dragon... Definitely getting ahead of ourselves there, but to think there might be a monster rocket able to outclass Sea Dragon in the next few decades is nutty.

In its current state, it's outdated. It has a place politically, to maintain overall support for Artemis, but for creating and maintaining a long-term presence on the Moon, SLS isn't the answer, and I hope alternatives are put forward and more importantly, funded and approved by the powers that be. Commercial Lunar Crew when? Now, if SLS/Orion had a much higher cadence, if it was cheaper to fly (cheaper than the shuttle at least)? It would honestly be pretty good, even in this emerging 'NewSpace' launch market of reusable rockets. SLS being able to send humans to the Moon multiple times a year for continous presence, with additional yearly flights for semi-continuous Mars missions, or deep space probes, would be great! But SLS can't do that, it can barely launch once per year. It's okay for a return to the Moon until it can pass the baton imo, but beyond that, it has no future.

SpaceX posting official Starship stuff is an indicator that they're getting close to flight, right?

Is this where Rocketdyne was in 2006 with their integrated powerhead?

Would be nice to know what the cost of these contract are. Still, how many commercial/government contracts does that make for Starship now? HLS Superbird-9 Starlab Astrolab FLEX rover Any others? They bid on launching a cluster of cubesats, but they didn't win that one.

I think this is worth its own topic, I can put this in the questions thread if it isn't. But apparently (I can't find the exact source, other than the Apogee Space video which mentioned it), with the Commercial LEO Destinations program NASA is running to fund a successor to the ISS, one of the 'stretch goals' for contractors is adding artificial gravity. Now, I don't know if any are actually planning that (aside from outside companies like Vast Space), but I've been thinking over the last couple days, what they'll need if they do. Some of the biggest concerns of weightlessness is bone density loss and muscle atrophy, so to counter it, Astronuats either need to exercise regularly, and missions can't last more than a year, or they need artificial gravity. We don't know how low is acceptable yet, or can at least mitigate health issues, but in either case, are there studies or plans on how to interface between a rotating and non rotating section? Not academic, but a Fn+F search on Atomic Rocket's section for artificial gravity didn't turn up anything either. I'm also looking at it from the view of adding comfort and convenience for the Astronauts. It's not hard to imagine, that beyond crew quarters, a gym, rec area, and a low gravity research lab, there may also be a kitchen/cafeteria, bathrooms, and showers. But then the question becomes, what happens to the gray/waste water? And how do you pump clean water back in? Rigid pipes are obviously out of the question, but would collection areas around the circumference of the non-rotating module work, funneling to several different pipes? After that though, how do you make sure the sealant is good enough to prevent cross contaimination? How do you access it for maintainence//cleaning/repair? Would it be 'easier' to just use tanks that can be replaced every time they get full/emptied, carried in and out by Astronauts? Or don't bother with plumbing at all, and continue using zero-g toilets, showers, and kitchens?

I think generally, no. If you want to go to Mars, go to Mars. Send robotic probes and landers/rovers to get an idea of the environment on the way and at the surface, build equipment suited for Mars, build a rocket suited for Mars, don't get distracted with a different goal before you even get started. At the same time, as your setting seems to still have an active Moon program, it never hurts to leverage that for eventual Mars missions, and you're losing a useful foothold if you abandon it, so I said 'yes' in the context of your world. Though time and resources shouldn't be spent shuffling your feet there, so I only said a decade for development before pushing on. And while there wasn't an option for Moon + space stations, I think space stations derived from modules you intend to use for Mars missions would be useful steps in development, like the Gemini program through Apollo 7, before we actually started sending humans to the Moon. Testing each major component, vehicle, and some stages of flight near Earth before doing it for real. I think that's something we would do, especially as the space program is young, and we're still figuring things out. I think Nautilus-X is an interesting concept to look at, since (at a glance) it looks like it's designed off of the ISS, but with upgrades or new capabilities based on things we learned, like inflatable habitats and a rotating centrifuge. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nautilus-X

There's a hoodie with their old colored flames logo that Andy Lapsa was wearing in his EDA interview, but they don't have it on the store. I don't know if it was an exclusive design, or they just stopped selling it when they updated the logo and stuff.

And the video! They're really moving quickly. And according to this video (shared on the Stoke subreddit, I didn't watch it), they're planning for a full hot fire of the engine early next year

Should Axiom be added to this thread/title as well? It wasn't part of the same selection it looks like, but it is part of the program to build commercial replacements to the ISS. Official site, https://www.axiomspace.com/axiom-station Recent promo video Image of the construction and station (looks both crisp and pixel-y, sorry) And there was a video by Apogee a few years back that broke some of these stations down One of the long term goals was artificial gravity. Has there been any mention or details of that by any of the contractors?

It's happening!!

Gonna be on the next ULA infographic.

Is the weather really that bad right now (either at the launch pad or droneship), or is the increased cadence they're trying to reach showing how often weather can scrub potential launches? There's been a lot this month, and I don't know if it's confirmation bias, but it's more than I remember usually happening. This must be why they're pushing for 24 hour pad turnaround, they're going to need to play a lot of catch up when the weather is more cooperative

If they're concerned with delays, they shouldn't listen to Mike Griffin, he basically wants a return to the Constellation program - which was cancelled due to budget overruns and delays, and restart Artemis, which, while also suffering from budget overruns and delays, has the benefit of being far along development at this stage. His idea relies on the Block II SLS to launch twice by 2029, when SLS Block 1b won't be ready until 2028. And he calls for restarting the Lunar lander contract, using the same contractors who are building SLS/Orion, which with their track record likely means delays into the 2030s, and budget overruns in the billions. If Congress wants astronauts to land on the Moon before China, and for that matter, before 2030, it needs to commit to the current plan, especially if they want the US to remain "global leaders" in 2045, considering that China's space program is actively pivoting towards reusable rockets. Something the private industry is also doing in the US, so it would do well on us to maintain that momentum instead of cutting it short. It also assumes China won't suffer delays just like us. Their inital plan is leaner than ours, granted, but it relies on a Long March 5 derivative that isn't set to launch until at least 2027, and in the long term, a rocket that's still in development and won't fly until 2033.

There's a lot more than just SpaceX news in here, but Payload space estimates a full stack for Starship to cost $90 million, including engines and labor. A little bit below that, Aerojets RS-25 is noted to cost $100 million for a new engine. https://arstechnica.com/space/2024/01/rocket-report-a-new-estimate-of-starship-costs-japan-launches-spy-satellite/

I watched this through just after liftoff to Dragon separation. It was a good launch, I like that crewed missions use RTLS, it's my favorite type of landing. And with the Helios tug that Impulse released supposed to debut in a couple years, it'll boost Falcon 9 performance for certain orbits, and a lot more commercial flights might end up becoming RTLS

I thought this might be an interesting discussion. Last year, almost exactly a year ago today (Jan 15th, today's the 17th) there was a release for possible targets of the HWO, an upcoming flagship telescope based on previous proposals for LUVOIR/HabEx looking to survey and categorize Earth-like planets in the habitable zone. According to NASA's page for it (https://science.nasa.gov/astrophysics/programs/habitable-worlds-observatory/) they're looking to survey at least 25 different exoplanets, and to search for biosigniatures on them. After a bit of searching, I found their prospective list of targets to study, and you can read the paper here https://exoplanets.nasa.gov/internal_resources/2645_NASA_ExEP_Target_List_HWO_Documentation_2023.pdf, the list of stars (Table A) begins on page 25. Their list included stars within 25 pc (~81 light years), and are largely sunlike (K, G, and F) with only 3 M type stars. They did consider A type stars, but the separation of the planet and star were found to be too large, so the planet-star brightness ratios and planet magnitudes would be too low. Notably, none of the stars on the list include systems currently on PHL's list for known potentially habitable worlds https://phl.upr.edu/hwc, with the former exception of Tau Ceti (which was removed years ago from the list as none of its planets are confirmed). This is likely because nearly all of those planets known within 25 pc orbit small M type stars, and while 3 are candidates in this list, they're also among the largest and brightest known. Some nearbly systems they're considering within 20 light years include; Alpha Centauri A/B (Rigil Kentaurus/Toliman) Tau Ceti Epsilon Indi 40 Eridani (Keid) Lalande 21185 61 Cygni A/B, and others. Future telescopes that may look for exoplanets around these systems could help narrow down the list for the HWO to survey, as there are quite a few coming online before HWO's NET launch date of the late 2030s/early 2040s, like ELT, and PLATO/ARIEL (the former is aiming to image Earth-like planets, and the latter 2 are specifically for studying Earth-like worlds and atmospheres). Or otherwise could simply broaden our knowledge of potentially habitable worlds as HWO could study systems to discover what other telescopes can't.

"Ironically if it had a payload it would've reached orbit." Hmm, could this be one of the reasons IFT-3 is going to have a payload bay? They're going to have that payload so they don't need to vent the LOX again? IFT-3 is going to work, I can feel it.

Here's today's talk, no tl:dr since I don't have time to watch it right now, and it came out half an hour ago (it's nearly an hour long)

Woah. New Glenn exists. This looks good! A lot of people are thinking that this is flight hardware, and the "not for flight" pieces are just that, and will be replaced soon-ish.