SunlitZelkova

Same country as Joe and probably Superfluous but I did that (liquid nitrogen) too. Maybe it’s regional lol.

I don’t think this matters, insofar as deciding what is relevant to discussion and what isn’t. Starship is intended to land humans on Mars in the 2030s. I myself believe the relationship between *the country SpaceX is located in* and *the country in the process of building a modular space station called Tiangong* are so grave that before talking about Starship on Mars we need to “talk” about the possibility of Boca Chica going up in a 5 megaton mushroom cloud, but I don’t bring that up because it doesn’t contribute to the discussion. Just as discussing the possibility of nuclear war doesn’t add to the discussion of Starship, I don’t think detailed analysis of Russian economics is relevant to the ROSS. As far as what contributes and what doesn’t, I think it goes like this- Is the issue “small” enough that it can easily be solved and make a change in spaceflight AND directly relates to spaceflight and not some other issue? Then it contributes. An example of this is how people have mentioned the retirement of Senator Shelby from Alabama as a possibly stepping stone towards the retirement of SLS. That’s a thing that is now happening and might make a contribution to spaceflight. Those comments have been made before, and slide despite technically being politics. Is the issue gargantuan? Then it does not contribute to the discussion. Why bring up geopolitics or economics when even professional analysts themselves have no idea how to solve these problems? To share these issues with no plausible solution available is either a complaint (if there is no intent to attract replies) or blatant off topic (if the intent is to initiate a political or economic discussion). If there was no “no politics” rule here, I can’t help but think the actual space discussion would pale in comparison to the political and economic arguments that would spring up in this thread. It needs to be kept mild for a reason. I think that is partially because of a lack of interest in Russian spaceflight rather than the program supposedly being tied to economics. If it had the level of following and available information we do with SpaceX, we would have discussions about Russian spaceflight with the depth and passion we get with SpaceX and Rocketlab. That’s on the poor organization of the program too though obviously. But anyways, if you can’t discuss it without getting into politics you just don’t discuss it. That’s why the ISRO thread is nearly silent instead of being a discussion about the economics of India and why they can’t do more in space. And why the JAXA thread is sparse instead of a discussion about population decline and economic stagnation and how that affects spaceflight. That is practically what most of the threads in this section of the forum are; sharing tweets with news and then offering a little comment on them. Occasionally offering technical analysis spanning 3-4 posts. If there is no news, you just don’t talk about it. We don’t discuss SpaceX’s labor policies or the commercial viability of Starship. Those types of discussions usually start out in a “negative” post not unlike the ones you usually make in response to news about ROSS, devolve into personal comments and politics, and then get ruled OT following a thread lock. Now I would like to make something clear. I am not saying your opinions aren’t valid or “negative thoughts should be kept to one’s self”. I am just saying they don’t belong on the forum, or at least ones beyond “mild” small remarks don’t belong here. It seems like a double standard, and it arguably is (insofar “as politics are not allowed”, comments about the way Congress funds SLS should be removed and ruled OT as well, along with “pork” comments, just as discussion about whathaveyou in the CNSA and Russian threads are, yet they slide), but that’s how things roll here.

… In Iran, “thumbs up” means something to the effect of “that was awful”.

I disagree. We regularly discuss how Artemis might go, or how SLS might go, or how ESA’s human space flight ambitions might go, without bringing up the mess of American and European economics and domestic politics (beyond a few casual remarks aimed at the pork farmers). In addition, it is possible to discuss the outside economic situation without turning it into clear OT. Discussion in simple terms and keeping it plainly in the context of space funding is possible. To do this, posts should also not be inflammatory. “The Russian economy isn’t doing too well, they may not be able to afford their new space station”, is fine, but comments like “the crewed Russian space program will probably cease to exist” are going to trigger people. It’s on the same level of someone saying “Starship has an untenable reentry heat shield concept”. It isn’t constructive, it is the opening of a flame war*. He responds which in turn causes your far more detailed and clearly OT reply. *I’m not sure if you saw the discussion surrounding it but it was pretty messy and ultimately ruled borderline OT. Mods intervened at one point or two.

Saying things like “we decided to focus on low Earth orbit and now we are going back to the Moon”. The original intention was to do stuff in LEO and more experimental deep space stuff via Apollo Applications. Then it was the space shuttle and a space station, but Nixon nixed the station. Then it was Space Station Freedom and maybe a return to the Moon in the early decades of the 21st century, but Challenger happened and no one cared about the station enough to get it built. Then came SEI which was like the 80s station-Moon plan 2.0 but no one cared to fund it yet again. Finally Freedom died and became the ISS, but Columbia happened. That gave us Constellation- yet another program, after SEI, to claim all was well in American space exploration and we were taking the next glorious step. Obviously it didn’t work out and here we are again. This time around is different though, mainly because of the advent of commercial space. I think it is important to recognize the problems of the past. The inherent design flaws of the Shuttle, the contractor shenanigans that led to Apollo 1, and the complacency with the heat shield that led to Columbia are rarely mentioned in NASA PR. This attitude is how we end up with ICPS bathing astronauts in the Van Allen belts however many times over. ——— Perhaps the post-Columbia post-Shuttle proposal (what ended up as Constellation) could have been better if the Moon people had looked at the history of the ISS and studied it to understand how difficult it is to pitch a project to NASA. Instead Constellation was more or less Apollo 2.0, which doomed it from the start. Instead of informing the public why they failed us with proposal after proposal wasting valuable funds and time, the entire history of NASA is glossed over as an all-innovative, almost sacred path towards the stars. Now I suppose I’m sure the average space fan and even the public is well aware of these errors. But NASA doesn’t seem to be, and that is concerning. Its not entirely their fault though. Pork farmers are equally part of the problem.

With that particular example, I would probably only say it at the start of explaining something and thus say it clearly to make sure I am heard. But I am definitely guilty of asking for a “table fir two”.

It was dangerous and wasteful. But it looked cool and was still reasonably capable. I don’t think it was bad, it did do things like build the ISS. But it could have been done better, and alternatives to it with more safety and versatility existed. If I sounded hostile to it in earlier posts, it is because I think it is important to recognize it had problems and that mistakes were made. NASA PR tends to treat everything as this great fantastic journey that was destined to happen this way and was an incredible faultless accomplishment, and I dislike that.

The mods every time a group of five or so members (including myself) veer off into Earth politics while trying to walk the line between OT and space/science policy. As much as those space policy (funding? regulatory? I don’t know what to call it but it can’t fall under politics as defined by the forum rules because those types of discussions seem to slide often across this section of the forum) discussions are fun and enlightening, it would be nice to get updates on ROSS without the economic spiel and back and forth that seems to automatically generate below it each time.

The number of people who watch a thing and then complain about it or shun it is vastly lower than the number of people that make up “society”.

Rogozin is just that much of a threat to SpaceX. Need to keep him in *that place* instead of building innovative trampolines that threaten Starship’s commercial viability. This isn’t that odd actually. I think reconnaissance ships (actual reconnaissance ships, not hydrographic vessels) were deployed in “oceanography” squadrons in the VMF. Checking just now, it looks like they continue to do so in the present day VMF RF.

I don’t think this is likely in *the physical world*, because there would be past evidence of it. If there was something out there, even if we didn’t know what caused it we would see signs of it. I would be more concerned about biological and sociological factors. What happens when a technologically advanced species marks 10,000 years? Or 1,000,000 years? Are intelligent species capable of surviving for that long, or will some behavioral or other mental effect begin to take hold after time and doom the species? One somewhat unrelated example of this is the possibility that no intelligent species whatsoever is fit for interstellar space travel. Sooner or later fighting breaks out on the ship just as it does sooner or later on the home planet and it is destroyed before it can reach the destination. On the other hand, rats or mice with robotic caretakers would have no problems because their behavior is well understood and they don’t freak out like humans can.

Source? I checked into costs in 2021 and CGI often is more expensive than live action effects. This is why in Tenet they crashed a real 747 into a hangar instead of animating it. I think the reason we see more CGI is because studios throw more money at the content they produce, rather than CGI being cheaper. Like how Germany is going to be getting lots more goodies for the Bundeswehr because they want them, not because they are cheaper.

My thing with evolving into a new species was more akin to how we are not Permian cynodonts anymore: so much time has passed humans* will not be humans anymore naturally. This would take millions of years. It isn’t something done to a species, it just happens. My inbreeding depression scenario assumes that eventually there won’t be enough genetic diversity to sustain a healthy population and that it will wither and die. This would also take millions of years. Disease is a reasonable possibility, more so than destructive war alone I think. Disease did contribute to the collapse of Native American tribes after all. I could see a “superpandemic” killing say, at least 50% of the population, plus another 25% killed in the ensuing chaos and conflict, which in turn paves the way for an inbreeding depression thousands of years later. That’s not an arbitrary number, that’s roughly the degree of population loss experienced by the Coast Tsimshian Native Americans in British Columbia upon European contact and the ensuing epidemic (57%). Germany lost 15% of its population in the rather politically motivated WWI, if a pandemic disrupted food and other material supply chains and triggers wars for survival how many more might die? Meanwhile despite intermarrying with Europeans Native American populations still have lower genetic diversity compared to others. There isn’t any problem at the moment but what about 10,000 years from now? Perhaps there wouldn’t be such issues in real life for Native Americans via further intermarrying, but our scenario has humans/an intelligent species on its own with no outlet for an increase in genetic diversity. As you say, scary stuff. *Just using them as an example but this could apply to any intelligent interstellar species.

Inbreeding depression/genetic bottleneck. Or outbreeding depression. I am skeptical any intelligent species-caused event could bring about true extinction. Just as nuclear war never posed a threat to humanity as a whole ‘cuz South America, Africa, and Australia, the likelihood of an extinction event would be even lower once planetary/stellar dispersal occurs. The inbreeding/outbreeding depression would take a very, very, long time to manifest itself. It’s such a huge timeframe that the other more likely possibility is that the species evolves into a new one. Depends on to what extent these populations were introduced to the new lands. Are they roaming free in their own new ecosystem like Hawaiian hamsters or are they dependent upon care from the intelligent species? Unlikely. Intelligence needs very specific circumstances to occur. Agreed, if an extinction event has to happen I would think it would be the genetic events I mentioned but I think it is unlikely. That said, a species becoming a new one would technically qualify as “extinction” too. Disclaimer: I am by no means a genetics expert, if there are any here please enlighten us further!

I suggest we get back to the spaceplanes. Apologies for taking space history to politics. I think @kerbiloid ‘s claims of what he did are what he did. He merely said that for Starship to work it would need to be redesigned as a spaceplane, not actually advocating Starship itself. Starship is technically envisioned as a Mars spacecraft, so it would be better off as a generic semi-expendable SHLV rather than a spaceplane should the current design fail.

I am a little bit skeptical of such a conclusion. Apollo unfortunately coincided with the greatest level of public protest and anti-government opinion ever (so far) in the US. The Space Shuttle arose in era where *we* (our elected representatives) learned our lessons regarding control of the narrative and the general situation was good enough that no one needed to really question things to the extent they did in the 60s*. IMO, if the Shuttle had been built in the 60s, we would have seen the costs and cancelled it in favor of cheap expendable rockets. If Apollo had occurred in the 80s, we would have seen science opportunities and went on to build a lunar base. That said though, my point was not that the Shuttle was something malicious done to spaceflight, but that ignorance allowed it to happen. You do bring up a good point though. In my Apollo-space station fantasy program, does public support for spaceflight stay high? I would think high enough to get some kind of ISS-like station built, IMO. People take what they can get, and it would be embarrassing for American science to abandon crewed space while the Soviets did Salyut-Mir. *60s protests would have been much smaller without the threat of being sent to die in a war, and 80s protests would have been larger with the threat of being sent to die

Non-combat means non-military… Someone is working on Dream Chaser, and while it is nice, I have to wonder what advantage it has over Dragon.

People keep boats there too. When it is nice, it is probably great fun flying and sailing around the state. When disaster comes, they simply can’t afford to take their boat or plane and flee when they have a house, car, and other terrestrial possessions to take care of. There are pictures out there of recreational docks too, and the boats are completely trashed, either thrown on land or sunk. US Navy P-8s and US Coast Guard SH-60s did relocate as far away as California though. Makes me wonder how good the civilian weather information system is compared to the military one. While I sit thinking it is going to be sunny on Monday, is the local ANGB base battening down the hatches for a storm? It doesn’t look like anyone bothered to tie down the aircraft pictured (even though that may not have made a difference). On the other hand, weather prediction at sea- civilian and military- is so good that ships can often sail around storms. Which leads me to a question of my own- is maritime meteorology more difficult than meteorology focused on land?

I disagree. If anything profit from continually maintaining ICBMs has kept spaceflight going, while it was the development of ballistic missiles in the first place that facilitated space exploration in space. GIRD-09, the first Soviet liquid fuel rocket from 1933, was built with the official goal of mimicking the effects of a 122mm artillery shell. Whoops. I forgot what boon means lol. We might be better off in some ways, worse off in others. Without a spaceplane choking NASA funding, a post-Skylab space station could be built sooner. Perhaps the Apollo CSM/Saturn IB combo could have gone on to be as prolific as Soyuz and Soyuz. On the other hand, a return to the Moon would be more difficult to get going. SEI would probably still die for the reasons it did IRL- no one saw any need for a Moon base. With no Columbia disaster, there would be no need for Constellation. And with no Constellation, there is no need for SLS. So a more efficient ISS would be the only thing in crewed spaceflight until 2026, when China tests its super heavy lift crew rocket for lunar flight, and the US is finally forced to go back to the Moon for hysterical national security reasons. China’s space program is focused on matching the achievements of other countries, so they would likely go there regardless of whether Constellation/SLS exist or not. Assuming an uncrewed Progress-type cargo derivative of the CSM was built by the US, there would be no need for Commercial Payload Services or Commercial Crew. SpaceX might still exist so long as Musk has his Mars dreams, but it would not have NASA funding or support. With no Artemis, I don’t know if Starship would take longer or not.

Why is it on top of a TEL? I spy Hangzhou and Fujian!

Those would be threatened by tsunamis and rising sea levels, respectively.

They are mainly legal and sociological. I myself was interested in this concept when thinking about it in relation to space colonization feasibility. Also, there may be issues in the strength and survivability of such structures against extreme events like storms and earthquakes, but I couldn’t find anything more about it.

@steve9728 Welcome back (to the forum)! Wow. About a year ago or so I said that China might beat the US to the first Mars sample return by a couple months or weeks because both came back in 2031. But the NASA-ESA schedule has slipped to 2033, so as long as no delays occur, China will bring the first ever samples back from Mars in 2031, a full two years ahead of the US. There are caveats of course. A cheaper private mission could be launched on expendable Starship, perhaps in the 2026 window. I say expendable because I don’t expect Starship to land on Mars before 2030, so long as it is taking ~two years or so to get to orbit and there won’t be any lunar flight until 2025 at the earliest. This private spacecraft could be big, and thus a 5M (Soviet MSR proposal with the N1) all-up style lander. A counter to this would be that the Starship community is mainly interested in human spaceflight, and I’m not sure of the willingness of a private organization to “steal the thunder” from NASA and ESA. I am not aware of any eccentric billionaires interested in funding their own MSR mission. China’s mission might slip. After all, Tianwen-1 was supposed to launch in 2018 originally I think. I think this would be a good thing though. The US will try to find scapegoats, and the easiest would be SLS- JPL and the private sector are pretty blameless. Those billions could have gone to MSR in 2031, yet it went into SLS. This would probably kick off a “Mars Race”- not a real Mars race, I wouldn’t expect a Chinese crewed Mars landing until the 2040s at the earliest- but initiated by the US to land the first humans on Mars, perhaps another “before this decade is out” type goal of landing before 2040. Artemis’ government built habs would probably be abandoned, Artemis would become a science program and facilitator of commercial activities on the Moon. NASA would send astronauts there still but primarily focus on Mars. Downside is crushed souls at NASA and ESA come June 2031. Oh, by the way, despite no real race, the initiation of a crewed American Mars program would definitely kick off a Chinese program, just with no necessity of beating the US. China won’t want to be left behind. Exciting! Nothing says “Happy Halloween!” like a core stage slowly decaying towards an unknown crashing point. Spooky! It is not intended for crew launches. That will remain the job of Long March 2F, Long March 7, and the future Long March 5 derived crewed variants. Tengyun might be intended for crewed missions, I don’t remember. It is more akin to the Soviet Spiral spaceplane, lofted by a hypersonic carrier aircraft and then separating and launching into orbit.

Fingers crossed the Artemis donut will return at Krispy Kreme! Oh, and I guess hopefully SLS launches successfully too.

It is not connected to the sample return lander per se, they are just going to drop it.