Rakaydos

What about ways it might be propellantless without breaking conservation of momentum? http://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/46180/can-a-deformable-object-swim-in-curved-space-time Might a microvave resonator with a shifting energy density perform the same "swimming" effect in earth's curved spacetime?

Hmm... someone on another forum linked me to a differet way of generating momentum change without propellant, but only in curved spacetime. I didnt really follow the technical explanation, but the video of the 2d analogue over a sphere was compelling. http://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/46180/can-a-deformable-object-swim-in-curved-space-time Direct video link Could an asymetric resonator be generating a similar "swimming" motion with moving energy?

Yea, I really meant a "fly-foreward" core that lands on another contenent. After playing around with the idea in sandbox, I've discovered that it's really hard to design a flyback booster without soe kind of noseweight- empty of fuel, the engines are so much heavier than the tanks that your wings look like overly large tailfins.

Oh, sure, reasonable applications are fine. but no hoverboards.

...What about a design where a winged second stage doubes the wing as a hardpoint location for strap on boosters? The strapons do a spaceX return to the launchsite, after geting the winged second stage above most of the atmmosphere with some horizontal veocity; the secondstage is a flyback booster, after getting the third stage mostly to orbit; the third stage achieves stable orbit, then plans a targetted reentry.

Ironman powersuits dont take "that much power" either. We have the motor tech, we dont have the power tech.

Yea, not really. It will get put in the bin of "really cool things we could do if we had a low mass black box infinite powersource.

At this point in the proceedings I'll take that bet. the effect HAS been reproduced, in china and elsewhere... it's the theory that's lagging behind. We dont know why it works, so we dont know what the most powerful configuation is, but we do know it's doing SOMETHING we cant account for.

That's what they said before the first vaccume test. - - - Updated - - - "Dr. White cautioned me yesterday that I need to be more careful in declaring we've observed the first lab based space-time warp signal and rather say we have observed another non-negative results in regards to the current still in-air WFI tests, even though they are the best signals we've seen to date. It appears that whenever we talk about warp-drives in our work in a positive way, the general populace and the press reads way too much into our technical disclosures and progress." -stardrive

The biggest near future gamechanger for a manned lunar presence, in my opinion is if Liftport successfuly follows through with their plan to put a kevlar lunar-L1 lagrange elevator on the moon. While launching from earth is just as hard as ever, landing and launching from the moon is just electricity and a few days of boredom. And once wh have the elevator + a base, we can start mining the moon and shipping the material up to orbit cheaply.

I see it like littering. Yes, the world wont end if we dont clean up our Co2 emissions, but if we dont start picking up our trash, or paying someone to pick up our trash, or making less trash to start with, the world will start to resemble a landfill. And THAT's when the dire predictions start coming into play, the global equivilant of catching bubonic plague from the rats in the trash all around us. We need to do something, or we deserve what we end up with.

operating expences dont get figured into per-launch costs directly- spacex has to estimate a per-launch profit to cover the gap between launches, but it IS profit per launch. If SpaceX was launching 5 rockets per day, their operating overhead would be neglible, and the price-per-launch, even with a modest profit margin, would be the dominant value. For now, its somewhere in between. Fire a few janators and put up a few posters about keeping your workplace clean.

Why does it matter if they own it or not... whoever did own it would charge them as much regardless. If anything having all that in house saves the markup of outsourcing to some other corporations profits.

The bit about falcon being designed for flyback leading to greatet margins for the ascent customer explains the "better structual margins tjan most rockets" numbers yhrown around earlier. So SpaceX isnt being unnecessary redundant while cutting costs, theyre just aiming for a different, more difficult goalpost.

We're comparing it to Falcon Heavy, not Falcon 9. FH is planned to have 2 extra falvon lower stages as liquid fuel boosters, with some discussion of including fuel crossfeed capability. With the LFBs recovering to the pad and the core recovering to the barge it has significant reusability while pushing the same kind of payloads as Vulcan.

All nasa does is say, "we need a launcher that uses existing shuttle tooling, and can lift xx tons to LEO. Whos the lowest bidder?" SpaceX is saying "we can lift x tons to space for cheap. Who's buying?"

Ula's been in buisness since the apollo days. In that time, they have optimized for the government requisition process- the goverment puts out a list of requirements, and whoever can meet those specific requirements for the lowest bid gets to build it. This leads to specialized designs that are just enough for the job at hand, as defined by people who dont design rockets themselves. SpaceX, meanwhile, is taking a Silicon Valley approach- build a better mousetrap and the world will arrive at your door. By setting their own specs, they can build a rocket that makes sence to rocket engineers.

I wonder if they can get FAA approval to "grasshopper" stages from construction to VAB.

But then they couldnt use the same assembily lines for the falcon heavy- which is basically 3 Falcon first stages strapped together.

Oh, nasa was plenty smart. They had an awesome reusable titanium orbiter with supply bids and everything. Then a certian congressman basically told them. "go back to the drawing board, you have half the budget per orbiter you want, and we're only buying 4 orbiters instead of 10" Please elaborate on what you think the difference is. What makes a restartable enging NOT reusable, barring a bad landing? (such as salt water submersion or impact at parachute speeds)

Engines like the SSME that wernt designed for reusability dont like reusability- they take a lot of money and manpower to recertify. Which suited porkbarrel congressmen just fine. The merlin is DESIGNED for reusability. The first stage fires 3 times every launch/recovery cycle with no in-flight checking whatsoever, and it is also designed to be cheap to service. Which suits a moneygrubbing corporation just fine.

if I'm reading the paper correctly, the effects were limited to a catostrophic failure of the turbopump, not something that would carry over to the other merlins. That would fall under my stated "catastrophic failure of an engine" SpaceX's designs are inherently redundant- a failure on a stage recovery flight doesnt force an abort of the primary mission, only of the recovery.

Well, what's the most likely problem if they skip maintanace? "We have catastrophic failure of engine 5... shutting down engine 9 to balance load. Calculating... we can make orbit by burning longer and using the reserve fuel. Aborting stage recovery attempt and allocating the reserve fuel to reaching orbit."

...rain, rain, go away Come again another day Let them reach up and touch space And land in just the proper place.

Or have the colonies become individuals, and have each queen interact with each other queen like people would with other people.