.50calBMG

So there is actually a chance it flies IRL before it flies in ksp2? Wow, never thought I'd see the day.

A human also can't lift anything to orbit, so it's not exactly a fair comparison. The ball and socket joint of the shoulder is pretty weak (I would know, dislocated it twice pole vaulting in highschool), but they won't be using a joint like that. It's gonna be a joint similar to falcon 9, just way beefier.

To me at least, it looked like it was coming from the nozzle extension. IIRC, the C1-1 is just the A4-2N with some 3d printed parts replacing some of the machined ones. Doesn't seem to have effected anything as far as the telemetry goes, and there didn't seem to be any extra RCS firing to compensate either.

Has the RL-10 always wobbled like that?

Yeah, transporting engines on a truck out in the open is such a terrible idea. Clearly nobody would be crazy enough to do that. It would make those engines unreliable and bad. Certainly a scissor lift would be the worst place for a rocket engine. Nobody would ever do that. Seriously, why is this a bad thing? The engines are robust enough to be transported like a regular piece of equipment and still work. If you can treat something as complicated as a rocket engine the same way you would treat an engine going into a truck and it still works, it just proves that the engine can work outside of a lab test environment. If you are depending on an engine to land on another planet after multiple burns, vibrations from adjacent engines, and the stress of reentry, I would hope it can take a ding from safety chain or some dust.

"no"

Yeah, the company named SpaceX, as in Space Exploration Technologies, who is partnered with NASA for missions to everywhere in the solar system, is only interested in one planet. MarsX was taken I guess

I won't argue that they are cheaper than people seem to think (I've seen people say a single RL-10 is about the same cost as an entire falcon 9), but I still believe a falcon 9 with crew dragon is considerably cheaper than an Atlas V N22, considering you get most of the important stuff back. The enclosed DC with folding wings was meant to be cargo only iirc, so it wouldn't have any abort system.

Well, even if we assume starliner doesn't blow out it's thrusters this time due to an error that should have been caught, it will still probably be replaced by dragon just based on price alone. Just the RL-10s alone are almost as much as an entire falcon 9, and those RD-180s can't be cheap either. Even switching to vulcan doesn't help all that much in that regard, every proposed version still uses RL-10s.

Once again, SpaceX proves they are really good at doing "impossible" things. Now I just gotta figure out how to get this dumb grin off my face...

Wow

If it had a heat sheild and landing guidance, probably. SpaceX is pretty good at doing what they say they are going to do, and doing it faster than any other company or organization.

Really hoping all those improvements make that landing work. I'm getting tired of telling my coworkers "yeah, they launched. Yeah, it blew up again"

Have we heard anything regarding propellant? I would think if they were to stay with electric pumps, switching to methalox would be a trivial thing. Deal with different propellant densities by adjusting the rpm of the pumps, maybe a slight change in diameter. I only assume methalox because it's close to kerolox in density, and everyone and their brother seems to be using it now.

Can't wait to see what happened there, almost looked like an off-nominal shutdown during the entry burn.

Well, that's a new background... It will last until Mary posts the sunrise version.

Any word on if they got TFRs for another hop attempt today?

I wonder if they are still going to push for a 2024 landing in the media? That was definitely the nail in the coffin for that happening. What does that mean for the boosters that had to launch within a year?

SLS was required by law to launch in 2016. If there is a deadline, it will find a way to push it back.

If memory serves correctly, it wasn't even a full SRB stack either. It was a left over 4 segment with a dummy fifth segment added on top, and maybe a different nozzle. Added on top of all this that the total impulse of the SLS is greater than STS, but somehow can't launch near as much to orbit (in the currently only funded version) and is more expensive and wasteful per launch is mind boggling.

It really is amazing how close they got on the first try, way better than the early F9 attempts. I was guessing that the flip would be mistimed and they would pancake, but it was about as close to perfect as it could have gotten. I was telling my coworkers that it would probably be 5-6 flights before they landed one, now I think its probably closer to 2-3. once again, SpaceX is really good at doing the impossible. o7

There is also some elasticity to the cable used, so it's not a jerk so much a a gentle pull.

Man, 2020 just keeps going. There's gotta be an off button for it somewhere.

"Norminal insertion" -John I.

Do you have any sense as to how much sample you were able retain after the tag? Is there a way to measure that in the return capsule?