Rakaydos

Elon posted that they are going into hex editors to recover corrupted data from during the breakup. I wouldassume that whatever the problem was, none of the sensors saw it coming- they have to model backward from what happened after the accident to develop theorys as to what went wroong.

The incident happening between max Q and max G ( just prior to main engine cut off, where the TWR is highest) and a record breakingly (for this booster, at least) heavy payload in an open trunk, both impy to me that it was a payload issue that killed the second stage booster. Strictly theoretically, of course.

So, it takes 24 months for the MRV to fuel itself The Ares 4 MRV was landed on Sol 0 or -1 of Ares 3's mission. About 570 sols later or so, the Ares 4 MRV is not only topped off but overcharged to get more delta V out of the mission. That math seems off.

Flame isnt coming from the leak, it's re-igniting the main engine exaust around the edges. O2 tank failure?

...and then clustering it like pre-nerf Rocketmax 48s on an eve lander.

If you arrive more light minutes out than your drive's charge time, you dont need stealth. You sit there, watch, and before any of the enemy you can see (who obvously could not know you were coming) can reply even with lightspeed weapons, you tactically jump and go back to watching. Larry niven had at least 3 fleets doing this at once in one of his later Ringworld books.

So, hypothetically something goes catastrophically wrong on a geosynchronus satelite, throwing debris in all direcion, messing up another satelite, and another, setting off a chain reaction that kills every satelite orbiting at the geosynchronus altitude. What would this mean for life on earth? What would it mean for Nasa's DSN and solar system explorations? How important is geosynchronus orbit to our modern world, and how is that likely to change in the near future?

It's also easier to rub two sticks together then to build a factory to assemble plastic and metal parts into a complex configuration that if filled with kerosene and spun produce a flame. I dont know about you, but I prefer buying a lighter over rubbing two sticks together.

The second part of your question answeres your first- the profit in lunar materials is that you can put them into orbit for far less money than launching the equivilant from earth. Part of the reason satelites are so expensive is that they are built of ultralight superoptimized components- but a lunar sweatshop knockoff can be much cruder and heavier, making up for the lost DV with a lower DV requirement. As for how, I would imagine you would launch the cable in spools, rendevous and link them, send them out to L1, and unwind in both directions at once. It would take almost a hundred launches, even with Falcn Heavy... but its not unreasonable.

By that standard, the "Next SpaceX" should be Liftport, if they manage to get that lunar elevator proposal off the ground, as it were. Being able to lift bulk regolith (and later on, luna-manufactured goods) to LEO-grazing orbit is a serius gamechanger for spaceflight.

Mars One may have been a scam, but it shows that there is a public will to colonize. If the price for colonization drops within the reach of ideological groups like Mars One, SpaceX will have a market in keeping them supplied and staffed.

That's currently. But if spaceX's goal IS colonization, contracting with nasa makes a better interm solution than the others (or going solo) because exploration faces many of the same challanges colonization and exploitation do. We'll have to see if they give up their lofty goals in the future, but if "Mars Two" ever gets there, SpaceX is the most likely bus service.

It's only a matter of time before we rename it the Kessler Ring.

If the RCS, Avionics and Docking system (at least on the dumb pod side) are lighter/cheaper than an engine of the efficency of the tug, the tug can make economic sence. Somethign as simple as a ferrus plate on a probe can handle docking, and avionics are getting smaller and lighter all the time.

if the players get it, the monsters should too.

SpaceX agrees.

Moon base would be primarally mining, particularly if you set up a lagrange elevator so you dont have to launch mass into orbit, just lift it to Lagrange.

Earths gravity well is deeper than the moon's. The earth moon balance point (lagrange point) is only 50-60 thousand km from the lunar surface. Depending on the counterweight the cable cpuld stop there (huge counterweight just barely in the earths SoI) or trail on for another 240 thousand km,which is still well short of earth, if it had no counterweight at all.

They jus dont understand the explanation they repeat, and jump to impossible conclusions. (I've seen people claim tht it would make the Falcon 9 obsolete, despite being impractical for a launch engine)

You claim people are believing a hoax, when they simply arnt understanding the part that makes physics not break (or ignoring it as unimportant).

...you're right, I misread the scale of the graph on page 15. it's 300 thousand KM, not 300 km, for an entirely cable based counterweight (the lightest option, requiring the least earth based lift) Fortunately I'm taking my mass numbers from the same document, instead of calculating it myself- so my error doesnt reflect on my lift cost calculation. As for replacing the extra cable with a regolith counterweight, its not nessisary, but it would be cheaper than sending another full set of cables from earth to the moon if you wanted to expand the system capacity.

Actually, it's not geostationary orbit. (there isnt a geostatinary orbit around the moon) It passes through the L1 Lagrange point instead. Because the moon is tidelocked, it remains effectively stationary, pointed directly toward earth the entire month, and the earth's gravity is what holds the structure up. As for putting it in place, I'd imagine you get all the cable in big spools to the L1 point, then start reeling it out in both directions until the moonside spool hits dirt.

It is entirely possible with todays tech- that's the whole point. The price I list is strictly the transportation cost, not materials or labor, but two orders of magnatude difference is a bit much, ever for goverment pork.

Only that the people who believe in physics breaking are missing a footnote about virtual particle interaction in near vacuume, but not actually wrong per se. It's an electric propulsion that doesnt need to bring propellant, that works by pushing off the quantum vacuum. it's the second order effects I mention above (VP interaction in near vacuum) that they gloss over, but are important for energy conservation reasons.

But as k2 has pointed out, the explanations for how they work in vaccume breaks conservation of momentum... unless the "quantum vacuum" being pushed off of can interact with something else before evaporating. so the expplanantios actually point to at leas a low vacuum functionality, and hopefully a limited high vacuum function as well.