darthgently

I’m shocked this topic didn’t get TOTM oct 2024. Which one did?

Possible Moon scenario (in my mind): All SpaceX HLS stay on surface as permanent base, all astronaut return from surface is via other smaller landers brought down autonomously

HLS tidbits Tom Bickmore: ”Inside the HLS prototype there are 5 bedrooms (ISS style, but horizontal), and a picture showing that you can fit 20 in one ring around the ship. Being inside makes it SO clear that it's stupid big, and there will be no lack of space with any size crew. They only have 2 floors so far: One with very laid out life support, all clear to see (& in use). The main one with the bedrooms, a storage area, 4 control seats, and a 40ft ceiling.”

Yes, looks like all liquid and no SRBs, as it should be. Orange insulated tanks makes me think hydrolox

Maybe it was a comment at the video but someone said something about firing it as in ceramics

Danger Will Robinson! Move away from Dr. Smith!

I always liked this Shuttle launch concept better

If that is clay and to be fired at those thicknesses it would have to be heated extremely slowly, like on the order of weeks, or months, to keep it from cracking. Actually, at those thicknesses, it is about guaranteed to crack no matter how slow you heat it. It will crack quite a bit from simply air drying. One can however keep filling the cracks, letting it dry, lather, rinse, repeat. Unless you have a lot of green energy high, or even bisque, firing stuff that massive is going to be very not-green. Glass working temperatures going on there

Sorry if I didn’t make it clear: this would be for developing the technology, R&D and such. Under no circumstances other than practice, training, and testing would it make financial sense to wrangle a 20 meter rock

Musk stated that 1 second is 50 control loop iterations, which is a looong time. And coincidentally is about the same ballpark frequency of the physics frame in KSP on many machines

Who says it has to be returned to earth? Well, Bezos, and many others, would like to move heavy industry to space for environmental reasons. Seems like a pretty big market just to get that done

WRT mining, it would be interesting to start trying to wrangle some of these near earth asteroids when they become temporary moons of the Earth. Seems like a good place to start anyway. Start with the tiny ones, and move up. Probably too late for the 20 meterish one currently looping around our planet until late November https://www.astronomy.com/science/earth-gets-a-new-mini-moon-this-weekend/

Yeah, he was very rough and raw with the initial assumptions. And kind of rushed past the multiple engine out margins You jinxed it, lol

Have you looked into this at all before posting? That was planned venting/safing of excess fumes from the quick disconnect port that happened to benignly ignite from landing plume. No different than a drill rig burning off fumes. The flow rate was low, planned, and safe by all accounts

I’m just going to put this here https://www.thefp.com/p/tim-urban-daughter-spacex-elon-musk-nasa

It would be cool if the F9 design could be licensed like the FN-FAL to allies, ITAR notwithstanding. Once SpaceX reaches the point where that would make sense

I see most payload launched from Earth to become increasingly one-way trips with propulsive landings for empty reusable vehicles and some cargo. For human return on Starship, if propulsive landing is deemed too dangerous, they could sky dive from the belly flopping craft after terminal velocity is reached, lol. Though going from microgravity to a sky dive landing is not likely something one’s doctor would recommend, it would be very Kerbal and sure to be a crowd pleaser

That is a lot of words just to make the blanket wetter. You aren’t getting it. A few humans on the Moon has much less real world implication than lowering cost to orbit 1000x+. What has more implication; a few astronauts on the Moon or most heavy industry moved off world, multiple orbiting habitats, and most humans vacationing in space or on the Moon at some point in their lives? It is all about cost to orbit. Apollo was a grand and amazing thing, but mostly symbolic, and compared to humanity off world en masse was a very expensive dog and pony show. The low cost to orbit that reusable rocketry ushers in has staggering implications in comparison. Apollo showed that something greater than Apollo was possible if we spent even more unimaginable amounts of money, while reusable rocketry will make that something greater actually happen. Implications.

I am immune to your wet (though soft) blanket. This is the major piece of a feasible freight train to orbit. And done in the face of so much negativity. I give SpaceX a big W with zero “buts” or “not enoughs”

Perhaps the steps at the engineering school were a lesson in disguise: Consider the user in all your designs

Was it possibly normal venting of methane that ignited from aero heating? I think I got that from Scott Manley, can’t remember for sure The precision on catch is amazing. Those detonation waves on launch are awesome

You poor misguided featherless biped. Everyone knows cats invented the internet mostly to have warm keyboards to sleep on

Positively disruptive

Excellent video from across the Rio Grande in Mexico maybe? check out the shockwaves and the sunlight bent by heat at the landing. Though I do wish some of these cell phone vids weren’t cut off before the sonic booms crackles arrive. It’s like missing dessert

Any guesstimates on how far down range hot staging occurred? It happened around 69km altitude but am curious. I’m thinking that the average slope was at least 2:1 if not higher