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RyanRising

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Everything posted by RyanRising

  1. I think it's important to post this follow-up tweet to the one above: While NASA's HLS team may be impressed with the access to data SpaceX has provided about their tests, they have not provided similar or satisfactory information to the public about the state of the project. I don't like secrets.
  2. This is really impressive and adds a lot to the experience of exploring planetary surfaces. Thanks a bunch gameslinx! (where are the gnomes? I know there’s one in here somewhere)
  3. Mixture ratio control isn’t necessarily something that’s exclusive to electric or double-shaft pumps - the RD-180, a similar single shaft ORSC engine to the one proposed here, features some degree of mixture ratio control despite that, and I don’t think they were doing any variable gearing nonsense.
  4. I think Shotwell saying point-to-point will work is good reason not to take her word as a good indication of truth or realistic predictions.
  5. It means they made it work. They were able to get the design mass back within margins shortly after the HLS selection, so this isn’t really news.
  6. I know this is kinda off topic, but while you remember right about the dual turbines, each also had their own separate preburner: That said, you are onto something. Pratt and Whitney also thought it would be a fine idea to stick both turbines onto a common preburner: This didn’t end up actually being used as an SSME powerhead, but I have it on good authority that the XLR-129 which led to this proposal also heavily influenced the block upgrades that did fly on later engines, and which are being used as SLSME*s today! *Space Launch System Main Engine, which I just made up. They actually call them RS-25s nowadays.
  7. I think that take is a little more cynical than mine. I don't necessarily think you're wrong, just... oof. I hope Mars is a little more concrete of a thing than crypto.
  8. The thing is, Mars is really, really expensive. They need to make money to pay for Mars, and if they run out of money operating Starship as a white elephant then they're not gonna be able to make that hapen. I have my own doubts about how sincere Musk is with those plans, but even if he's totally being honest about how engaged he is, even as the richest person in the world he can't afford to be operating a superheavy launch vehicle and developing the rest of the program without making money. It's really important that everything is as economical as possible, including launch - so there's a really strong incentive there to make the thing pay for itself. Starship does need to make money if it's gonna be an effective vehicle for those plans.
  9. Yeah, but at the risk of sounding obvious, while it’s a human-rated car, it’s not a human-rated spacecraft.
  10. Well, that might be part of it, but the machinery still looks pretty big when there is a nozzle to put it into context:
  11. I think this is a mandatory review since it missed its window - they’ll almost certainly come out with “yeah, it is.”
  12. Please don't do that. I can't stop you, but preordering creates preverse incentives for game publishers. It encourages the release of games that aren't feature-complete or playtested properly. KSP2 is not immune to this.
  13. ...after release and reviews, of course.
  14. This I do disagree with a little. They put a capable abort system on it this time, thank goodness.
  15. That seems more likely than my “the engine was shutting down after almost too early of a start” idea.
  16. I remember the Galileo atmosphere probe had something like half of its mass just in the heatshield, but it did survive entry. So it’s possible to have something survive entry even at >48 km/s. That being said, just how bad of an idea is it to try to aerobrake an orbiter at a gas giant to save on Δv required for capture from fast transfers?
  17. I’m guessing that the “composite heat shield structure” they’re looking at reusing is not the ablative material, but instead some framing and support to keep the ablative where it needs to be.
  18. This is just speculation on my part, but I’ve suspected for a while if it gets to this point they’ll do a thorough review and analysis of the possible failure modes and risks involved with the propellant sag of leaving the boosters stacked for so long. Through that they’ll conveniently find that the SRBs are good to go for another couple of months.
  19. What's the deal with 9-engined first stages? I see a lot of rocket companies trying to do that, and while it makes sense to only have to develop one engine with two variants rather than two, is 1/9 just a really convenient number for a second stage's ratio of thrust to the first?
  20. It’s happening because WaterfallRestock still lacks a configuration for the RAPIER. You can fix it in several ways: - Disable the StockWaterfallEffects patch for the RAPIER, either by deleting the relevant configuration from this mod or adding :NEEDS[!ReStock] to all the patches within. - Edit the offset and scale of the plume until it looks right to you, first by finding the correct numbers in the Waterfall editor ingame, then either replacing them in the configuration file of this mod or by patching it with another cfg file with :AFTER[StockWaterfallEffects] at the beginning of each relevant patch. Note that both the air-breathing and closed-cycle modes of the engine will require modification in this way. The first options are generally more easy to follow, but I prefer writing the patches to disable or rescale and reposition the SWE plume because they don’t need to be redone whenever I update the mod.
  21. This is an artefact of TAA’s implementation here. You can find a more detailed explanation above your post on this page.
  22. I figured that’s why Kuiper bought nine flights on a rocket that does exist, Atlas V. That should buy them time enough for at least one of the in-dev options to come online.
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