Spaceception

Seriously? I don't see a problem with that. If they're causing trouble, then the moderators will kick them off. If they're just kids playing a game, and interacting on the forums, what's the trouble? Kids getting into space exploration? We can't have that! Also, I remember getting into this game when Jacksepticeye was playing it frequently. I was a teenager. Pewdiepie (a gamer, and the biggest youtuber) has already played at least once, as have several other gaming channels with younger audiences. Are they everywhere right now?

Gwynne Time says a few more years or so. https://aviationweek.com/defense-space/space/spacex-aims-starship-crew-flights-2023 I can't read the rest of the article though I can't wait to see Superheavy development start. That's gotta be soon.

A bit more minor, but SpaceX got a website redesign. https://www.spacex.com/

Actually, that helped lead to the right search! Thanks! That search function mainly had news articles about its impact, but then I wrote "blog Apollo program alternate" (because it was alternate history), and it came up http://spaceflighthistory.blogspot.com/ I wonder why it didn't come up earlier.

So I'm fairly certain there was a blog that explored an extended Apollo program, and longer space race. Does anyone have a link to that? All I'm seeing is results for the show "for all mankind", and various other sites like fandom wiki. Thanks

And when they do, we know they're getting ready!

If we really wanted to cool down Venus, a project like that is already on the planetary level, so it makes sense for any proposals to be on that scale. One way to do it are enormous starshades at the L1 point of Venus between the Sun and Venus, I don't know how wide it'd have to be, but it could be pretty thin, and made from the material of some asteroids. I think it'd take something like a few centuries or so, but it'd cool down to freezing temperatures, and along the way, its atmosphere would condense and fall as snow. We could ship that off and separate it into oxygen and carbon for fuel, air, and graphene, among other things. You can also ship some to Mars to help with its terraforming efforts. Once most of the air is gone and frozen, you can let the planet start heating up again, letting the rest of the air come back. All that infrastructure at the L1 point can be converted to a magnetic field to protect the atmosphere from solar wind. Now there's the problem of day/night. And there's 2 solutions, The first, and I don't have the numbers off the top of my head, is using mass drivers to ship the condensed atmosphere off the planet, that momentum transfer can be used to speed up rotation, though I don't know by how much. You can also collide asteroids in such a way that it also helps to speed up rotation as well, though that'll throw a lot of soot up for awhile (which I imagine you should be able to take care of technologically at this point). Since you need to get water to the surface, and most of the atmosphere off the planet, you'll be doing those anyway, so may as well use it to your advantage. The second way, perhaps as the rotation is still increasing, or if it wasn't enough, is to use a system of sunshades and mirrors to mimic a day/night cycle. While the planet is warming up, you can introduce life to the planet to begin making the air breathable. And there you have it, a tropical paradise in our back yard in a few easy steps.

I can't either. I do kinda wish it was more reusable, but I hope they can do ACES, it's a cool concept. I wonder if there will be a strong partnership with ULA and Blue in the future. Vulcan will be using the BE-4 engines, and LM is teaming up with them to build a human lunar lander. Just seems like they could really expand on that together to develop Cislunar space.

I skimmed it over twice to be sure, but ULA isn't here. I noticed when I came here while watching the Smarter Every Day video.

I'll have to watch this later! Cassini was a cool mission. I'm looking forward to when they go back to Titan and hope they send something to Enceladus at some point (maybe a Europa clipper type mission). I know Dragonfly is one in the works for Titan.

It is. But if I read the Spaceflight now article right, NASA won't want to go fewer than 2 partners, and would prefer all 3 if given the funding. But even still, the fact NASA is directly funding Starship development through this year is really amazing.

This is a cool lander system. And it's interesting that Vulcan will be launching it. If ULA's Cislunar-1000 plan is still on the table, do you think they could use this as a part of it? Artemis and Cislunar-1000 working alongside each other could be cool.

It'll tell you right here what it can do https://www.spacex.com/starship We could launch massive payloads in excess of 100 tons, while all others can't do more than 30 (except Falcon Heavy, another SpaceX rocket), and the only other ones that can are still in development like Starship/Superheavy. This rocket is meant to be fully reusable, and refuelable in space. Honestly, if we're to begin colonizing space in the near/mid-future, this is probably the best and cheapest option we have. And if Mars doesn't work out, they could always shift gears to early O'Neil cylinders and Lunar extraction. Beyond their Mars ambitions, we could pull off larger probe and telescope launches (much more science and exploration) that don't really have to worry about cramming as many experiment into as little of a craft as possible. It would have the ability to send up large modules for space stations, and as mentioned, even for ones which can produce artificial gravity (which would be harder to pull off now). And they could drop off Lunar payloads for NASA or themselves which could open up the ability for a large base.

It's worth noting that even if these sats fail, they'll pick up drag and de-orbit within a few years with no outside interference needed.

Well, we did find at least one candidate a while back around Alpha Centauri B, so I think there must be something there. Though how many, or how far out they could orbit, I don't know. We really should get more exoplanet telescopes up to look.

I like imagining new worlds and scenarios. Like what if we were right about Mars, Venus, and the Moon having life? (Actual idea I'm tossing around) How would we go about colonizing another solar system? What would happen if an entire species was isolated from the rest of the galaxy? Things like that are really interesting for me, and I like thinking about them. Now I just need to write, so if you'll excuse me, I'm going to continue writing out the plan for my novel

Already did! It was pretty good, I think I read it a year ago or something like that. It's on my shelf. But I wonder what the reaction would be to a bunch of them in a fleet

You know, I was just thinking; imagine being the alien race that comes to Earth to take over, but when they arrive we have a whole fleet of spacecraft chock full of nuclear bombs we're using as propulsion. Even if they outnumbered us, I would have to wonder if they'd consider turning back.

"High flying bulkhead" that's a fancy way of saying the front fell off.

I'm thinking of something a lot closer to home: Starlink. No, it's not exactly a mission, but it's the thing I want to see succeed the most anyway. Because while Ss/Sh is something I definitely want to see happen, it won't last for long if they can't fund it; so if we want Starship to be flying a lot, Starlink has to rake in the cash. That's going to make or break any grand ambitions they have for the vehicle. And subsequently any long-term missions to the Moon, Mars, and beyond in the near/mid-future.

Another successful launch! Still waiting on the status of the farings

Many are. I think some can be fairly calm... for a red dwarf at least. Regardless, I think it's a good idea to look for life in places we don't expect it. If it can survive there, it can survive almost anywhere. Then the immediate problem after that is around the Fermi paradox, and perhaps the great filters.

Actually... I think I fixed it. When I tried reinstalling it, I didn't delete it first. So I did that just now, reinstalled my games, and it seemed to have worked. And I'll keep that in mind next time.

I don't have reddit or any other place to go to, so I figured I would just ask here. While I was searching for a savegame for Stellaris in the steam and steamapps files, I accidentally merged the two (stupid touchpad). Now steamapps is in steam, and I don't know how to fix it. Is it fine that way, or did I break something? Do I look for every single file in steamapps, and move it out? Which files are those? I tried reinstalling it, but that didn't do anything either.

How should it be portrayed? I think scientific accuracy is something that more science fiction needs. But another important aspect is the portrayal of people who make those discoveries. And how it happens. So what are some glaring problems with it, and how should it be remedied? Are there examples of acceptable simplification, to avoid boredom? And a question directly related: If nothing else, what do you wish would absolutely just die in common portrayals? I hope that this thread is okay here.