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tater

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Everything posted by tater

  1. yeah, if it's heavy eqp to the lunar or martian surface I suppose dense stuff is possible. Generally spacecraft (as payloads) don't tend to be, though.
  2. This is interesting: https://ntrs.nasa.gov/api/citations/20230013972/downloads/CrewLogistics Lander for Common Hab Architecture.pdf The sorta thing we've talked about here.
  3. With Starship, if the target orbit is LEO, everything above the mass of the vehicle (and reserved props for EDL) is payload. The majority of SS launches will in fact be for refilling ops, many per HLS or Mars flight. Since that's a capability they need to demonstrated sooner rather than later for HLS milestones, it makes sense to get it there soon. There's loads of stuff they need to do to actually refill a ship. There are no very massive payloads for SS, honestly, even with a 9m dia, payloads will in fact be volume, not mass limited. Starlink 2 (3?) will be designed to maximize packing in SS, and will still be nothing like hundreds of tons per launch.
  4. Yeah, a place for humans in near total sunlight, directly adjacent to someplace in permanent shadow (for water ice).
  5. Same questions, then, just about Florida EPA, Florida State house staffers. I'm fine with regulation around this stuff, but having seen regulations for other areas... they tend to not make any sense. My wife lobbies Congress and State legislature for various issues around her surgical specialty—and the 20-somethings she gets to talk to about medical issues are completely clueless (can't talk to our own congress-critters in person unless she comes bearing a steamer trunk full of cash). I would imagine staffers contacted about aviation are equally clueless about that. It seems like a corollary to the Gell-Mann Amnesia Effect.
  6. Most payload mass is gonna be propellant anyway.
  7. They never had any money. You'd read stories someone gave them $30M or something. Bound to fail. In that story they couldn't raise $25M, lol.
  8. 4 months to not issue a permit for something that happens at the cape every 3 days or so at other pads. The "industrial wastewater" part is also funny. Like Boca Chica, the (likely potable) water used becomes industrial after being sprayed on the pad—something that rainwater becomes when it rains on the pad. Stage 2 burns hydrogen—the exhaust is also water. Regulations regarding "industrial wastewater" make plenty of sense—but I have to imagine the initial intent was actually contaminated industrial wastewater, not "water that has touched a launchpad." Heck, even in the active rocket context, some rockets produce loads of nasty hydrocarbons in exhaust, or worse—SRBs, kerolox, or worst, hypergols. Those might need to be mitigated. Hydrolox? There's nothing to mitigate, and water touching the pad is no different than water from the sky touching the pad—except rain is if anything already more contaminated than the water they are likely using. As I have said in other threads, if contaminants in the deluge-runoff are concerning, it's important to compare them to unregulated wastewater in the same area from roads, parking lots, etc—every squall washes brake dust, coolant, lubricants, gas, oil, and engine combustion products into the wildlife refuge. I wonder if the EPA compares deluge systems to that, or if they just pull some number out of their posteriors—or if some innumerate 20-year old Congressional staffer did writing a law.
  9. The point is to find a spot that is in near total sunlight.
  10. ~6.3 m/s at the ground—about like a 6-7 ft drop on Earth.
  11. Every time I read new X-37B news I wish they had scaled it up as their Commercial Crew vehicle. (a sort of better, flight-tested Dream Chaser)
  12. Decades ago the Boeing "Big Onion" had this: This maintains the inherent strength of the ring construction (with bracing, obviously). The downside of this type of bay door for SS would be that it separates through the heatshield. This seems to me to be the lowest mass option—but the heatshield issue is serious. Any system they come up with will require substantial bracing to deal with loads on the vehicle during ascent and descent. It's doable, like everything else it will be a mass trade—large opening will eat into payload mass due to substantial bracing.
  13. Decades ago the Boeing "Big Onion" had this: This maintains the inherent strength of the ring construction (with bracing, obviously). The downside of this type of bay door for SS would be that it separates through the heatshield. This seems to me to be the lowest mass option—but the heatshield issue is serious. Any system they come up with will require substantial bracing to deal with loads on the vehicle during ascent and descent. It's doable, like everything else it will be a mass trade—large opening will eat into payload mass due to substantial bracing.
  14. I think that building an environment where humans would want to live is profoundly difficult. That's ignoring the technical challenge of making "forever" life support. So we're on the same page. I would assume that any group aiming to stay would have a very detailed plan in advance. First live in ships, then use cargo to build the prefab habitats... the latter is where I see robots, both humanoid and vehicles versions (construction eqp). I see no reason why these robots cannot build the same prefab habs humans would build.
  15. At this point, I'd leverage Optimus and send bots ahead to build out infrastructure.
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