JoeSchmuckatelli

Air National Guard

Derp! Should have thought about this, given the 14-16 foot average height for overpass bridges in the US... It would make no sense for them to reinforce it for road travel anyway. RTLS it is. Which now makes me question the entire purpose of buying the two rigs in the first place. Customers would have to ship payloads, etc and then transfer at sea (I know sea transport isn't entirely problematic - but transfer at sea is something I know about and would not recommend for delicate things). Which now brings up an entirely new issue... Let's say that SX is successful - and SS becomes the new standard. Even if you step down to a 7m or 5m diameter payload - getting the rocks we want to throw at space to the launch site is problematic... Meaning what? Build on site?

So for the moment they are left with expendable or RTLS. But if they want to go for down range recovery I'd assume most of the fuel will be expended by the launch, boost back and landing burns - leaving mostly dry mass, correct? I think that the structure of a oil rig (having the ability to ballast and quite a bit of it being under water) is definitely better than a barge (given not only the weight but also the height of the booster) - but then I look at F9 and think maybe a large barge could work.

Arstechnica article? The only link I see is the one above called Luna Ring Oh wait - you read the regolith article about BO. That is cool! The 20km antenna is the Luna Ring

My first read through I almost missed it - I figured they were talking about how to avoid the 2-weeks of night thing.

From the article: 20-kilometer-diameter antennas would beam the power to receivers on Earth. I'm almost laughing, actually. 20 KM. uh. yeah

Meh - the 'beaming power to earth' thing has so many problems it's not worth spending the time / money on.

Mein Gott - someone who respects his own time and sanity! GG. Well played. Quite interesting. I'm wondering if it is because of how slow it is to move rigs and given the broad range of potential orbit/launch paths whether they decided that the size was good - but not efficient for other reasons.

Fine, Captain-Philosopher-Pants, ignore my 'second evolutionary observer' comment - and yeah, if we are gone and there's noone left to care, there will be no further epochs. I doubt very much that Mars cares what we name its parts, nor Betelgeuse that we worried about it a couple of years ago. That isn't to say that the current epoch won't continue to be subject to natural processes... just that in your 'frinstance, nothing* will be named anything. *and anything and everything will also not be named.

Holy [Redacted excitement due to forum rules]-balls! That, if functional, is awesome-sauce!

You did not specify human as the only 'body' and thus did not preclude a second sentient evolution. Given that possibility, another observer could arise - after our demise - and discover a layer atop ours!

Been thinking about this one. The ripples in mud turned to stone. Typically this happens when sedimentary deposits are covered over by other layers and given enough pressure and time become stone. But I'm wondering if you simply let the mud dry, and then given enough time and radiation and a lack of disturbance that the soft material can become stone without having to be buried. This could work if Mars' thin atmosphere works to allow the surface water to boil off, but subsurface aquifers still exist - and then after a meteor strike the aquifers leak onto the surface creating short lived lakes - and possibly even seas. Given this scenario, it's unlikely surface life (beyond simple microbes) ever existed on Mars.

You know... that is an interesting point. I've been laser focused on them trying to do the propulsive landing testing and proving the big boys can do it (or be caught) that I've not even given a moments thought about them sending stuff deeper into space. I'd guess from a $$ standpoint that if the client is ready for them to toss a rock at the moon for grins, and Booster performs as advertised (lift-wise)... nothing would hold them back from commissioning a Booster as a traditional expendable. The being able to land/catch and reuse isn't really a client-focused thing (when client is conditioned to expect expendable pricing)... but it is a cost-benefit to the company to be able to save money and then out-compete the competition on price. Will be interesting to see what the next few years brings!

If they don't deorbit... I'd like for them to say that it is remaining up there as a fuel depot and they have the ability to test ship to ship with it... otherwise you have a LOT of steel that could survive reentry just floating around. Seems the responsible thing to do - if they aren't using it and don't want Chinese levels of PR problems. Either have a purpose or toss it.

So they throw that honking big thing up into space - move fuel from one part to another and then deorbit for the check in the box?

https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/10/world/mars-nasa-curiosity-rover-ancient-waters-scn/index.html On phone so I can't find the original Curiosity thread - but for those interested, the ripples were found unexpectedly as the Rover is headed up Mt. Sharp.

How does a collapsible dob work? I thought the mirror position had to be fairly precise?

My main concern with KSP 's implementation was how unpredictable the wheels would be. I would spend time in the VAB or SPH building a rover and configuring the wheels (especially after noticing that using symmetry made wheels that were supposed to go in the same direction actually spin in opposite directions), configuring brakes and trying to anticipate what would work best at the destination... Only to have the wheels go bonkers every single time I loaded into the SOI. Just to drive I would have to reconfigure each wheel - and then as @ShadowZonepoints out when the Kerbal got back on the wheels would be bonkers again. The legs sliding thing happened to me as well - but not often. The weirdest one was when I had a 'fuel depot' built (a long, cylindrical tank laid on its side with landing legs set to the Rover height and docking ports on the ends) and a plan of shutting fuel from the mining rig to the depot and from there to orbit via another craft... I returned to the SOI to find my fuel depot floating about 4 Kerbal heights above the surface. Nothing I ever did stopped it - although in one save the thing did wander off into space after my Kerbal banged into it too hard with RCS. But the thing I appreciated in his video was the reminder of how frustrating it was to get an encounter and have it disappear later. Some people have an education that lets them figure out how to fix it (or mods that allow small corrections) but when your knowledge of orbital mechanics is entirely garnered by playing KSP?

I'm totally lost as to what the previous two posters are talking about. Care to explain? @Flavio hc16

I can see that from an aerodynamic perspective - but doubt it would be efficient as a propulsive mechanism. Interesting read, thanks!

Please go back to 2019 and see if you can get them to listen. Rover wheels were possessed in KSP.

ComingSoon2. 0 is far superior. You should have waited!

Now I'm starting to think I need to take the next week and a half off from the forums. I really enjoy the 'new' of a game; coming here for leaked content has been good for hype...but with only days left? If I stay here, all the cool stuff to discover will be leaked.

I'm actually kind of impressed they chose to do a 50% throttle. Proves both that it works and minimizes the potential for damaging the launch table and tower. I'm kind of assuming they have some kind of sensor data from the launch clamps and are inspecting the whole thing and can extrapolate from the test what a full / 90% power burn will do.