Ricktoberfest

I don’t know if that was coincidence or not, but great timing! As much as he annoys me it’s good to have dissenting opinion here. It just annoys me about how he never seems to see any good in all this, no matter what the accomplishment.

Anybody else think it’s weird that we haven’t seen a rant from exoscientist yet? Kinda miss him. He’s apparently been inactive for a couple weeks. I mean it seems that his “engines need to be tested in the ground more” argument has gone up in smoke as there didn’t seem to be any engine outs during the entire test hop

But who will they get to launch astronauts when they ground falcon for having a leg collapse on landing? The Russians?

I guess the question now is will the helium last until the 14th when they have their first chance to land

Did anybody else think it weird that the rcs seemed to be fighting the main engines when the capsule was entering orbit? At least on the animations it looked like rcs were trying to slow the capsule while the main engines were pushing it. Maybe I’m just interpreting the graphics wrong idk.

I don’t el know why but I responded earlier to this and it never posted no, I do not suggest what your strawman argument says. I suggest sending either a properly trained civilian astronaut - or - for NASA to send one of their properly trained astronauts on the dragon EVA mission. I doubt any current astronaut has actually worked on Hubble though so I’m sure whoever would end up going would need training. That’s my point- if you’re going to end up training someone, why insist that they be a NASA astronaut? A civilian who has undergone the training is just as qualified as a NASA astronaut who’s never been on an EVA. Either NASA doesn’t want Hubble to remain in orbit, or they think only NASA should be allowed to interact with it. Gone are the days when you needed 6 degrees in astrophysics to be able to operate a power tool in space. It made sense when missions were crazy expensive and rare. Now with access to (relatively) cheap launches, we can afford to send people who aren’t 1 in a billion to space. That’s what the inspiration mission was inter to show. Regular people can do the same work as the rocket scientist astronauts with the appropriate training. It’s all computers running every aspect of the spacecraft. Even so called manual modes and abort modes are run by computers. There is no direct command to the RCS that allow maneuvering without a computer any more- hence no need for the highly trained pilot to manually land the capsule. If the computers all fail while in orbit, the mission is already lost. Unless you think “the Martian” was correct and blowing a hole in your spacecraft or space suit to vent atmosphere to deorbit would actually work (never mind how to survive re-entry)

How many of the original repair astronauts had previously done repair work while on EVA? Although it might be difficult, there’s no reason civilians can’t be trained in the same way NASA astronauts are trained to do this. They just don’t want to admit that you don’t have to be a rocket scientist to be an astronaut. Astronauts (nasa) have this reputation of being near geniuses. If your local plumber could do a repair in space, then why do we over-train astronauts and pay them for decades for 1 or 2 missions? It used to make sense when they actually had to pilot a spacecraft. Now it’s just silly.

His posts have always been a little crazy. Oftentimes it’s misunderstanding the situation, or humor that gets taken wrong. There are things he has said and done that are disappointing, but he’s human. People change over time so what he believed 10 years ago isn’t the same as now. Media does like to try and take down whoever happens to be popular at that moment.

The way I see it going would be for Blue or somebody to buy the rights to Falcon simply as a shortcut for their own rocket. It’s more about the information they’ve learned landing 250 rockets than about the design of it. Im pretty sure that info would be worth a few million. And yes- they would most definitely not keep prices as low.

I think if SpaceX went bankrupt to that extent there’s someone out there willing to buy the rights to falcon 9, at least for the foreseeable future until they all get on the reusable bandwagon.

I had an idea and it’s probably dumb but here goes. Instead of a bladder to hold the liquid fuel, what about a bladder that holds a harmless gas inside the tank. To force liquid out of the tank you inflate the bladder with gas. The gas is contained in the bladder so only liquid is forced out of the tank by the pressure of the gas. In the receiving tank there could also be a gas bladder that starts full, but when you want to receive gas you open it up and push the gas into the full tanks bladder to pressurize it. The empty tank bladder deflates, creates volume and reduces pressure, while the full tank bladder inflates, decreases volume for the liquid, and pressurizes the tank as it empties so liquid is forced out. Just something stupid that popped into my head reading about the liquid bladders used currently for the ISS.

If billions of monkeys typing on typewriters will eventually write…

Can’t seem to find any info except a week old Reddit post; are the starlink v2 sats deorbiting? I would have thought there’d be more talk about it but haven’t seen anything since someone said they noticed them decaying.

“Failed”

I keep seeing this layout, but I wonder if it would be better if the load were attached to the inside of the clamshell door? Then they just have to slide off guide rail instead of at a weird angle. Bad part would be the door would have to be able to support the load during high G launch

Hmm, for some reason when I search “spacex upskirt video” I don’t find any landing pad videos.

Anyone seen this yet?

Yes but I doubt they could switch from one to the other mid burn. Either they plan to hover or they plan not to. They’re not gonna bring down extra fuel if they don’t have to. if they could hover to make themselves more accurate I would have expected something of the sort during the initial testing. They definitely landed the prototypes off center ( I think the first one even had a leg off the pad). They also had all the fuel they needed to hover if they chose to.

I think people over estimate the ability to hover. The ability is there but I don’t think we’ll see it used. We’ve all seen the landings of the prototypes. They don’t hover. Why? Because it takes too much fuel. (Yes I know there’s a weight difference between the prototype and an actual rocket - doesn’t change the fuel requirements). The only prototype that hovered was hopper, and that’s all it did. I doubt they can switch from a suicide burn into a hover at the last seconds. It has to be planned ahead of time. blue origin can get away with hovering because their payload is light and their goal is to get just barely into space. Also it’s built into the flight profile.

In other words, if you’re gonna be a conspiracy theorist, you should join a forum that doesn’t include actual rocket scientists and intellectuals. Maybe r/politics is more your style.

Several of those assertions are false, but even so, They make him human-not evil. There is a huge step between being a jerk or an ass and being hitler type evil. like I said, I’m not glossing over the fact that he can be weird and also do stupid things, but there’s no need to lie and make up stories if you don’t like him.

I’m not a Musk fan boi, but I do find it really weird how some people just can’t understand that being rich doesn’t make you evil. They seem to spend their time trying to tear down anything he accomplishes, no matter what it is. Is he a little crazy? - sure does he accomplish amazing things that cost you nothing (or next to nothing if you consider the small amount of funding nasa has given him) and create progress for the entire world? - also sure. making up conspiracy theories to tear him down is just ridiculous. There are plenty of reasons to like or not like him, making stuff up is what 3rd graders do. Now if you have any evidence of any of that, then fine- let’s looks at it. But just deciding because someone is rich they must also be evil is wrong.

It’s not what he’s asking, it’s the way he’s asking, like he’s spoiling for a fight. He seems to think he’s so much smarter than actual rocket scientists and seems ver confrontational in how he “asks” questions. those are the signs of a troll. It’s ok to ask legitimate questions.

it’s easy to google: oilsands tailings pond ducks numbers of ducks range from a dozen to 1600 seemingly depending on what the initial bias against the oilsands is in the reporting. as it relates to spacex though, it would be a huge PR bust- even for seagulls to be roasted live on camera. On the other hand they could probably try and spin this as the booster saving those poor birds on the landing zone. (Even though it’s not likely true)

Losing the booster may have saved them from the Sierra club though. We had a dozen ducks die due to an equipment failure and it took years and millions of dollars to “correct” the issue (propane noisemaker ran out of gas).