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Gravitics (space station startup)


tater

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Very glad something like this is actually being built. Looking at the actual specifications, this thing is wider than Skylab. It also anticipates StarShip if "Capacity for 50+ tons of interior outfitting" is any indication.

I can't help but imagine this coupled to the Spacecoach concept: simple spacecraft with water walls for radiation protection, clustered electrical water-propelled thrusters for travelling between Luna, Mars and Earth, and partially-open-loop life-support. Hydrogen peroxide can be generated onboard to fuel the attitude control thrusters. You'd need a powerful solar array, but that's not too onerous.

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Am I wrong to be leery of all the 'Space Station Startups'? 

Even if SS gets up and flying this year or next... Is there a demand for this?  Aside from the Billionaire Lookatme crowd - I'd think there would have to be some kind of industrial /commercial need (beyond hostelry) to make even one of these viable. 

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20 minutes ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

Am I wrong to be leery of all the 'Space Station Startups'? 

Even if SS gets up and flying this year or next... Is there a demand for this?  Aside from the Billionaire Lookatme crowd - I'd think there would have to be some kind of industrial /commercial need (beyond hostelry) to make even one of these viable. 

Yep, this is what worries me too.

Hard to say "if you build it, they will come" when people can't just drive or walk to the thing  you're building.

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20 minutes ago, sevenperforce said:

Yep, this is what worries me too.

Hard to say "if you build it, they will come" when people can't just drive or walk to the thing  you're building.

It's a very interesting dilemma.  Should someone get access to research from university / NASA indicating that some kind of LEO manufacturing could be profitable - the initial size of any facility isn't going to scale well.  7m sounds huge for a human spaceflight container - but for some kind of factory?  (Eyeroll).

Also; given launch costs, there are likely to be pressures to combine assets.  So - who really wants tourists poking around the factory floor, even here?

All that aside; someone has to be first - or we're not getting off this rock!

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23 minutes ago, sevenperforce said:

Wouldn't they need to get to 29.4 psi to prove space worthiness?

You'd think they'd want 2 atm (1 over ambient). Maybe a typo?

 

(I'll admit I didn't do the math when I saw it, and I don't think in PSI)

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On 3/8/2023 at 4:41 PM, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

It's a very interesting dilemma.  Should someone get access to research from university / NASA indicating that some kind of LEO manufacturing could be profitable - the initial size of any facility isn't going to scale well.  7m sounds huge for a human spaceflight container - but for some kind of factory?  (Eyeroll).

Also; given launch costs, there are likely to be pressures to combine assets.  So - who really wants tourists poking around the factory floor, even here?

All that aside; someone has to be first - or we're not getting off this rock!

Agree, now most research its easier. NASA states it want to rent in on an commercial  space station, they pay for hotel services and to dock multiple labs to the station. 
That is the obvious money tourists is an bonus, and the long term crew would enjoy spending dinners with very rich space geeks. 
 

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On 3/8/2023 at 6:56 AM, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

Even if SS gets up and flying this year or next... Is there a demand for this?  Aside from the Billionaire Lookatme crowd - I'd think there would have to be some kind of industrial /commercial need (beyond hostelry) to make even one of these viable. 

From a venture capitalist perspective, there are two ways you make a return on your investment in a startup. It either starts making huge profits, or you sell the company to someone else. I'm pretty sure all of these space startups are in the latter category. I don't think anyone investing in these expects them to start making independent space stations. The expectations is that they get bought up by someone like Boeing, Lockheed, or SpaceX for work on a gov't contract. Whoever gets the contract to build the Lunar Gateway, for example, might be looking to buy three or four of these startups just to get access to their talent.

That's not to say that people working at these startups think that way. Many of them might actually believe in the idea of building private space stations. And heck, one or two of these might actually get contracted to build something and could even grow as a company that way. But it's not the sort of hope on which you invest money.

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  • 6 months later...

I also like the fact they are planning on 3 different diameters, making them launch vehicle agnostic. The move to a bespoke diameter for Bigelow must have contributed in some way to their failure (ignore the flat out kooky component of the owner). As soon as it required a vehicles that did not exist, they were on borrowed time—and I'd say the same about one that required Starship.

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2 hours ago, AckSed said:

Though how I loathe the word 'proprietary'.

I don't. Proprietary is why we all have supercomputers in our pockets, fighting it out each year to top the other guy's brand of pocket supercomputer.

 

 

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24 minutes ago, tater said:

I don't. Proprietary is why we all have supercomputers in our pockets, fighting it out each year to top the other guy's brand of pocket supercomputer.

 

 

I notice you wrote "have supercomputers in our pockets" and not that they are ours. Between Google, Apple, AT&T, Verizon, etc. they certainly do not belong to us even if you paid for it, ha

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47 minutes ago, darthgently said:

I notice you wrote "have supercomputers in our pockets" and not that they are ours. Between Google, Apple, AT&T, Verizon, etc. they certainly do not belong to us even if you paid for it, ha

Or literally every other thing we own that is better than what we used to own, or better than our parents owned, or our grandparents.

The supercomputers we all own (also on desktops)—obviously relative to compute capability in the past, say when ISS shielding was developed, not present supercomputers—can be ours, everything is not subscriptive (yet). The more "old school" someone is about their use of such a product, the less any limitations exist. All I get from verizon is lousy comm coverage in my own house.

 

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