Mad Rocket Scientist

We've had a couple questions here about computer programming, both theory and practice. Should we start a general programming help/discussion thread?

I wonder how much this is costing to build. If the raptors are real, that's probably more than 50% of the build cost.

True, but Orion and most other theoretical interplanetary missions include capsules with service modules. I'm wondering if we'll see something beyond even this, like nearly a full orbit to allow the heat in the fuel or structure to be radiated away.

I wonder if it would look somewhat brighter than this, since while the moon is darker than asphalt, our eyes adjust enough that it looks much brighter: With so little else out there to compare too, we might perceive it as much brighter than it is, even with so little light out there.

Looks like the FTS/cableway thing that all the cables and tubes go along. I think it has always been there, just never painted black.

Do the explosions happen during staging only, or just at random times? Using the F3 menu might help determine what parts are the first to collide or fail.

About reentry on Starship: I think it will aerobrake in multiple passes when coming back from cislunar or interplanetary space to help with the peak thermal loading on the steel structure. In the past, this has (IIRC) never been used, since most spacecraft have life support equipment in a service module that has to detach before reentry. The only other vehicles to not have that limitation have been either unmanned (and lighter, making the thermal load much lower) or confined to LEO, where multi-pass reentry doesn't make sense. It's quite frequently used in KSP to reduce peak thermal and aerodynamic loads, and if Starship does use some kind of heat sink cooling (not strictly heat sink, but dumping heat into the fuel counts), this will allow that to work far better, as the radiators will have a chance to remove heat between passes.

Just as long as there's no official support from any authority, a terrible plan that it almost guaranteed to go wrong, and all the people on the mission have convenient romantic partners to angst over.

From NSF user OxCartMusk: https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=47022.0;attach=1536279;image There was a skirt segment extending past the engines before these photos were taken.

Actually, taking a closer look at the image it looks like there are small details on the powerhead area of the engine that makes me think that this is a real engine, and the slight misalignment of the middle engine is from the gimbal not being hooked up yet. However, there's another weird thing, it looks like the curve of the bell is not continuous the entire way to the top. I saw some speculation that that was a dual bell nozzle for better efficiency in both SL and Vac environments, but I think that it is just shielding, since it does not appear to contract to a small enough throat at the top. https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=47022.0;attach=1536232;image

The size of them looks like raptors to me. They might be mockups for test fitting though.

Sounds like you found Sammy the Safety Reaper. (The community has named all the large monsters in the game) You may want to invest in a hull reinforcement module for your seamoth, you need a base with a moonpool and a vehicle upgrade console in it.

Maybe a more interesting question is why the positive square root does work, and so accurately describes the world. See: https://www.dartmouth.edu/~matc/MathDrama/reading/Wigner.html

1283 https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Plaques_referencing_the_13th_century Gotta love wikipedia.

That's completely understandable, it was a fun project anyway.

There was some good estimates on r/SpaceX about reentry cooling: https://old.reddit.com/r/spacex/comments/a9y9r0/an_energy_budget_for_starship_reentry/ Summary: 35GJ of energy going into BFR from 8 km/s reentry, boiling half the estimated landing fuel absorbs ~3.5 GJ, the steel structure can absorb 30GJ (if you're willing to heat it to nearly red hot), and 28-29GJ radiates away. There are some big assumptions being made (magic conduction, no reflection), but it looks like surprisingly little heat capacity in the propellant.

Here you go, a python script that will take any thread and list how many times people have posted in it. https://pastebin.com/BfjCR2EX It requires: http://docs.python-requests.org/en/master/ https://docs.python.org/3/library/contextlib.html https://www.crummy.com/software/BeautifulSoup/ https://docs.python.org/3.7/library/collections.html https://docs.python.org/3.7/library/operator.html Warning, using this on long threads will take a long time, I'd like to try to improve this but I'm not sure how. It also makes a lot of requests to the forums, comparable to one person clicking next page as fast as possible. It shouldn't be an issue if run by hand on smallish threads, but I would be careful if you try to automate running this script. I'll try to figure out some way to save data from the program, then the next time it is run on the same thread, it will just add to that instead of looking through the entire thread.

I don't think it is any worse than on the nozzle, since the gas generator doesn't need to burn extremely fuel or oxidizer rich. Plus, the RS-27A, F-1, and RD-107 engines all use RP-1 and the gas generator cycle.

I've heard good things about Overcooked and Overcooked 2. One to four players, co-op, and kid-friendly. https://store.steampowered.com/app/448510/Overcooked/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/728880/Overcooked_2/ They are on a good sale on steam till Jan 3.

Ooh, those look great! Will these parts work with (or be easily made to work with) Textures Unlimited's black magic PBR? I'm super excited about this project either way.

They have promised to prioritize pedestrians and cyclists in the pod things over cars: But it isn't clear whether that still holds, if they decided the skate isn't necessary for cars. On the car side of things, though, they seem to have implicitly restricted it to Teslas. However, hopefully there will be more electric autonomous cars in the future.

The design seems to be converging with some kind of reusable big dumb booster.

Hmm, it's locked on my end. What browser are you using?