Spaceception

That last one is quite interesting. In another response, he also mentions that he wishes they had anticipated how much LEO missions would grow, and how that would've changed Vulcan's design. Possibly something closer to Falcon 9 than Atlas. Bruno's response in bold. "In another comment you said ULA would like to have anticipated the explosive growth in LEO. How would Vulcan look different in that scenario?" "Would have considered a more LEO-optimized variant of Vulcan. Much lower staging altitude at booster burnout." Taking in both of these statements... Next evolution of ULA's vehicles might be friendlier to reuse? He also talks about how he hopes Vulcan will be used for Cislunar transport, so CL-1000 still seems to be on the back of his mind. And after my thoughts on what a reusable system from ULA might look like, they might incorporate Centaur by having it as a 3rd stage for high energy payloads in 1 launch, like New Glenn's 3 stage design. From his comments, it sounds like they have many upgrades planned for it, including ACES related ones.

There's a Vulcan AMA starting later today on reddit, and taking questions now. I asked him where he thought Vulcan would go in the future, but I figured you all might find it interesting to read, or have questions yourself.

No more "pending regulatory approvals"! I might actually be able to catch the stream. We should see the trucks of methane/oxygen/nitrogen comng in soon, right? I don't think I've seen anything about that.

It's crazy that the payload margins are that thin. Makes sense that they're not shooting for full reuse right now, they can probably get away with mass manufacturing second stages like SpaceX is doing. That said, it would be neat if they could upgrade it to function as a space tug for higher orbit/deep space missions. The industry is starting to get on the reusability train after all, why not the orbital refueling train too? I like how they're trying to make Archimedes the "most boring-unboring engine," can't wait to see the first tests on it.

Is this the first image of the Archimedes engine? In any case, it's a small Neutron update! Always good to see hardware take shape.

Sounds like good news, looking forward to seeing what comes out of it. I actually saw a concept for a reusable Ariane 5 successor (Ariane X) that looks a lot like Stoke's Nova/Bono's Rhombus, but scaled to take over Ariane 5 operations earlier today. A shame it never got developed, but maybe similar concepts could get their chance to see the light of day again? Especially with the pressure the US private industry is creating.

Oh, it's HAPPENING happening. I hope it launches on the 15th, that's probably the only day I have a chance of seeing it live, since I either have work or school most of the week. Next launch attempt I'm hoping for is during my lunch break

Short of an actual license, isn't this one of the best indicators of an upcoming launch? Adding onto all the other notices we've seen like road closures, and maritime warnings over the Gulf and Hawaii, everything is starting to line up. They have to be hearing good things internally from the FWS that they're about to wrap up.

True, but 2025 wasn't going to happen in the first place, and I'm personally leaning towards 2027/28 for Artemis III's earliest landing date. All of SpaceX's testing will need time, reuse, building up Starship's flight rate, refueling in orbit reliably. If anything is substantially delayed, it could be the early 2030s when we land, in which case China has a shot even if they're not making a push. Granted, that is dependent on not having delays themselves/overestimating their own schedule for the world, and it's more likely both will slip but the US still makes it first. I know, I was kind of just joking there since there was an "other" option. Slightly off topic, I honestly feel there's a possibility that India gets humans to the Moon before Russia does, if they can't stop their space program from spiraling and riding on the work of the Soviets.

Other: India surprises everyone with a crewed Lunar mission. Russia doesn't stand a chance, I'd be surprised if they get the pieces of their space station into orbit before 2030. And ESA doesn't have any SHLV development, or crew transport (yet), or Lunar landing development. They're going to collaborate with NASA rather than go it alone. I actually do think of this as a second race. The US are building back up the capability we abandoned decades ago, while China is trying to upstage us by getting there first. But I agree that the endpoint can't be another flags and footprints mission. It will be won by who can establish permanent surface operations first. And in that, I think the US has a stronger chance of succeeding, we have numerous public and private plans for Lunar missions, on top of a quickly expanding launch market that could support it once it gets going. As for who lands "first" this time around? I think that's harder to say. The US has 2 landers in development, while China has 1. But the US also has to develop more complex technology first that would enable long-term missions, while China looks like they're just making a lander that can work for now, like we did during Apollo. So it likely depends on whether or not the US runs into significant roadblocks in development.

This does not paint them in a good light at all., but opens up the possibility of other companies coming in where Boeing once would have. And to me, it also does not make it sound like Starliner has much of a future after they've completed their contract with the ISS.

I think Constellation, as it stood, was probably always going to evolve into something like we see in Artemis today. Even Ares V was looking to switch over to RS-25s before it was cancelled. But it is an interesting question if it could've happened earlier The Aerospace industry was pretty stagnant at the time. Next generation vehicles like Vulcan and Ariane 6 weren't being actively worked on, and evolved variants of existing vehicles were loosely tossed around but didn't get traction, while commercial spaceflight was in its infancy. Furthermore, NASA and the US were reeling from the Columbia tragedy, which did anything but endear the public to a brand new, and expensive program. Constellation was also a slightly bigger Apollo (if with explicity more ambition in shooting for Mars), for a roughly equal total cost, and no ferver within the government or public to support spaceflight like during the space race. NASA rolling along with its usual funding, and eventual redirection to SLS/Orion, then into Artemis was working within this environment, and making use of what was available. So something would have to change to make this happen earlier. Maybe certain politicians/NASA directors are elected/appointed over others who are able to provide more funding and direction. But there aren't really any space race revivals happening around this time. China was in the middle of maturing its space program, and Russia was still recovering its economy. So there would have to be something else to drive public and government support, and you might have to reach further back to create the knock on effects that change the early 2000s. Mars direct stirs up more support, successful Shuttle upgrades bring public interest back, Energia isn't cancelled and survives the USSR's collapse, leaving Russia with a SHLV, and has some inertia to work with, etc.

Stoke Space And Psyche Should have their own threads. Curiosity also doesn't have a link, but this is the most recent thread Although, this longer/older one could be revived too

I watched a video some months back about what STS and everything that encompassed it was intended to look like, very disappointing that it never came to fruition. We didn't even get a full Shuttle upgrade out of it.

Personally, I feel like if the Soviets had a functional Lunar program and had Cosmonauts walking on the surface, the US would not have canceled the Apollo missions for fear of looking like they "ceded" the Moon to the Soviets, and any budget cuts would be quickly reversed. National pride and all that. So the Apollo program would last as long as the Soviets continued landing Cosmonauts on the Moon, we likely wouldn't have a base/long term missions, but Moon landings would've continued well into the 70s at least. Maybe even an instance where Astronauts and Cosmonauts walked on the surface at the same time, though not necessarily an Apollo-Soyuz type moment. I do have other thoughts, but I don't want to break rule 2. However, I wonder if there was a way their space program could've been pared back to siphon funds to a Lunar program, without stepping on ICBM buildup. It likely would've risked short term losses and ridicule as the US started taking a lead earlier in milestones, but maybe the long term accomplishment of proving they can match the US's capabilities would've been attractive? I don't know. This thread actually did hit me with an idea for a Apollo 13/Apollo-Soyuz type story where a Soviet Cosmonaut becomes stranded on the surface, and an Apollo mission, intending to launch soon anyway, is quickly pushed to make a rescue attempt.

How many Christmas/Christmas Eve space missions have there been? Off the top of my head, there's Apollo 8, where Christmas overlapped with the mission, and the launch of JWST, which was on Christmas, I don't know any others. Either way, I'll definitely make some time to watch this live if we're not doing much. I expect a lot of meal prep/afternoon cooking, so hopefully it launches in the middle of that.

I've been reading about that in the last couple weeks, and it's such an interesting timeline that a part of me was wishing could've happened. Getting back to the Moon probably would've been smoother if we had been maintaining/upgrading Apollo hardware. As for the topic itself of the Soviets reaching the Moon first, could there have been any points (either actual or manufactured) where they would've taken a Moonshot program more seriously like the US? Maybe the US has its own Sputnik moment in the early 60s, and beats the Soviets to the punch in a few critical milestones (they were close behind already) that spurs the Soviets on. But a pattern I've noticed in these historical comparisons between US and Soviet programs is how the US overestimated the Soviets and built up programs that exceeded what they were capable of. Such as our response to the Foxbat. And maybe they couldn't beat us to the Moon, but what if they eventually made it after? We abandoned the Apollo program within a few years of the first Moon landing, but could it have gone on for a little longer, or pushed NASA towards architechtures that supported a return to the Moon better if the Soviets had made a successful crewed Lunar flyby or landing? What events would have to happen for that?

I'm curious, if ULA announced a fully reusable rocket, what would you expect out of it? I don't think it'll be a direct Vulcan evolution, but with the trend of new rocket development in the last several years, I think they would stick to methane as a propellent for at least the first stage over hydrogen or kerosene. Engines wise, I actually think they could turn to Ursa Major as an option. Aerojet would likely have too low of a production volume, and too high of a cost, while Blue Origin will probably want to focus their engine production on New Glenn (that said, I wouldn't rule them out completely, and it would make this hypothetical vehicle a kind of Vulcan II). ULA really likes their side boosters to boost payload, but rather than solids, they might go all-in on liquid boosters (either as a redesigned core like DIVH, or a smaller variant), either to propulsively land or fly-back. It would help give more margins for full reuse on larger payloads. There would be engine commonality between the boosters and core. The second stage is probably trickiest to speculate about. Centaur is their workhorse, so I think it would factor somewhere into this. However, due to the low thrust of RL-10, and the fact that the vehicle would stage earlier, losing its efficiency advantage, I find it hard to see Centaur being its upper stage, and more likely being redesgined into an ACES-style dedicated tug. They have several options for an upper stage - a lifting body, basically a top-mounted shuttle or dream chaser with enough fuel to act as an upper stage - or a stage with side mounted engines and a bottom heatshield, like Stoke, or even Dragon V2 (I've seen neat concepts of a reusable F9 2nd stage that looks like it) - or an integrated upper stage and faring with a massive heatshield along the body, like Starship. Payload to orbit would, at minimum, be 20-30 tonnes to remain competitive, though I could easily see it exceeding Vulcan and shooting to 30-40 tonnes, putting it in a similar payload class as Terran R expended or New Glenn. And this could be variable, depending on whether it launches as a single stick or with the twin boosters.

Meant to be refueled in orbit, and they mention it being able to move the Blue Moon lander. A larger, upgraded, NG-dedicated version could move their Artemis lander, either replacing the Lockheed Cislunar transporter, or allowing additional missions. I've said this before, but Blue is developing all the technologies and capabilities ULA wanted for their Cislunar-1000 concept. Now they just need to put it all together, easier said than done.

Reminded me of that meme that asked what if we used 100% of the brain, and then the "we are not the same" meme right after. I didn't bother trying to edit text onto the picture, but here's my janky version.

This is an interesting thread from the creator behind Apogee. Lot of different graphs and examples, I picked a couple. (My thoughts) If SpaceX had never existed, the launch industry would probably be 2-3+ decades behind where it currently is. Few other startups (like Blue Origin and possibly Rocket Lab) would be around because they only got going long after SpaceX had succeeded and shown private spaceflight was worth investing in, and in addition, were founded or joined up by ex-SpaceX employees, so no Firefly, no Relativity, no Stoke. Speculating what this would look like: Kistler would've still gone under, as they started missing milestones for COTS before being terminated in 2007, so it would've been sole-sourced to Orbital ATK. Vulcan is probably still developed, as ULA still would've found value in a single rocket family, and more importantly, Congress would still mandate that they stop using Russian engines. Ariane 6 is likely foregoed or pushed back in favor of advancing Ariane 5. Starliner would still be limping along, though Dream Chaser might've gotten the second contract (or Boeing succeeds in getting it sole-sourced). Hard to know if they would be on schedule, or if they would face crew delays as well. Best case, the gap between the Shuttle and crewed US flights would be a few years longer. Rocket Lab might still develop Neutron (and would put themselves in a similar position as F9 did more than a decade previously in our time), but would be under much less pressure to do so without a strong competitor and the rise of internet constellations. On that note, Kuiper, or similar plans, would likely be delayed years or more without Starlink paving the way. Blue Origin is tricky. With Bezos' funding and no real competitor outside the established corporations, plus the cost of spaceflight being as expensive as ever... would they try to sweep up the industry by developing New Glenn earlier? Would it even be scaled down to be comparable with F9? Artemis is also tricky, SLS/Orion will definitely see continued funding, and without private HLV/SHLV development, the SLS upgrade paths would be seen as more of a necessity. Blue Origin's original Lunar Lander would likely be selected, so we wouldn't get the upgraded version for some time. This is the timeline where we get to see whatever Boeing proposed. With no hard push for reusability and lowering the cost of spaceflight in the current day, and few companies/individuals investing in it, I could see the global response (SMART/Vulcain and SUSIE/LM9/New Space companies) being delayed into the 2030s/40s rather than the 2010s/20s. So we're probably looking at the 2050s when things really get going across the board, instead of the 2030s. Oh, and this has a chance of coming true too

Yeah, that was honestly going through my head before I saw the 2nd booster touch down. Great launch though! Won't be able to watch the rest of the stream though

Well, 3-5 tonnes is well within medium lift. Stoke can handle all small payloads, and a fraction of medium payloads. I was just saying that they have more than enough capacity to handle anything in the smallsat sector, even including limited rideshare, and can take up the smaller end of medium payloads, but not the middle/upper end, I suppose I wasn't very clear. It will be interesting to see how the economics of reuse play out across a range of differently sized vehicles. SpaceX is betting that scaling up will work in their favor, while Stoke is going in the opposite direction (at least for now). New Glenn, if Jarvis works out, and possibly Terran R, will show how Medium/Heavy lift does. And from there, we'll find out the customer/internal cost of launch, overall turnaround/launch rate, individual vehicle turnaround/launch rate, and cost per kg, I wonder if we'll see the aerospace industry begin to converge on designs in the 2030s to the most effective one. With the possible exception of SpaceX, who will try to stick to Starship for Mars.

That's several billion in contracts lined up at this point, right? That's a lot of money to help fund Terran R development.

I think that's less of a risk given they're starting with the 2nd stage and the associated systems to reuse it. And to be fair, I think there's still a path for Terran R to become fully reusable, it's more capable than F9R, and with a similar upgrade path, they could create the margins needed to fully reuse it.