AckSed

YT link to podcast of Zubrin interview. Useful because of the automatic transcript (go to "Show more" in the description and click "Transcript":

Lockheed Martin slowly getting ready for Artemis with LVSAT: https://spacenews.com/lockheed-martin-unveils-solar-power-array-for-artemis-program/

New Hazegrayart, and it's a doozy:

https://www.livescience.com/space/space-exploration/students-homemade-rocket-soars-faster-and-farther-into-space-than-any-other-amateur-spacecraft-smashing-20-year-records Students fired off a rocket of their own design (with its own in-house thermal protection paint for hypersonic speed) and it reached 143.3km above Earth's surface.

Ah, the West Side Story method.

Okay, actually having listened to that Zubrin clip, he's supposing a market in used Starships (or Starship clones) will spring up. If the $10 million cost $20 million price comes true and the mature human-rated Starships could carry 100 people, and be sold used for $2 million, that is a co-op price per person of $20,000. This might not be too batty, as V3 of the Superheavy is, if Eager Space is right, "as close to SSTO as practical" to make a V3 Starship work, by passing more of the work reaching orbit onto the 'Ship. So you and your pals might bodge together a pressure-fed booster for your first stage and latch, tape and glue the Starship on top in an abomination of rocketry that would make Kerbals flinch. If you plan on reusing, maybe you could rent a fuelling, landing and handling spot at one of the launch & catch towers at 'a' Starbase. Now that's rocketpunk.

Click-based echolocation can be trained in a 10-week course: https://hackaday.com/2024/11/26/humans-can-learn-echolocation-too/

Landspace's methalox Zhuque-2E launched recently:

It's rather like the fact that Europa Clipper would not exist without John Culbertson pushing for it, because he is a science geek: https://arstechnica.com/space/2024/10/were-finally-going-to-the-solar-systems-most-intriguing-but-unexplored-frontier/ 'They' have these qualities 'we' have heard about, so there must be an angle that matches, to complete the image. They can't care about it, because look at all the other things they've done. The new hires at SpaceX come in believing that Mars is a cover for making rockets, but discover that both Musk and Shotwell are serious about it.

I don't think it's healthy for them, for sure: it's a FB conversation of a few old uni friends I occasionally mark "Read", only dipping in when I've braced myself enough and the last response isn't too cynical and matter-of-fact, "We're so smart, they're sleep-walking into this, why don't they see?" or words to that effect. And round and round they go, posing their cynicism as rebellion. I've stopped going to the monthly catch-ups.

This particular circle of friends is invested in their opposition, their hate. I have found myself keeping very quiet whenever space innovation (which is inevitably SpaceX) comes up.

The key thing I'm interested in here: Zubrin's refutation of the meme-complex that the Mars colony, and the entire motivation for SpaceX (and Blue Origin's aspirations of an O'Neill cylinder), is a way for all the billionaires to leave Earth and the proles behind to our fate. Which is straight out of Ben Elton's satirical Stark. Granted, I haven't seen it lately, but it was entrenched in my circle of friends just a year ago, because (the feeling went) there must be a motive that lines up for all this effort. Now it's switched to, "Work in the mines for the megacorps on Mars and die."

About an axis, my bad.

Thinking out loud here, and trying to say why this is still troubling me: we - humans - do not have an internal component that can spin freely about an axis and that tries to apply a counter-force to the outside frame. We have levers attached to hinges. Sure, the momentum transfer of bringing one arm in can impart a force that rotates. But can we impart a net positive rotation or will swinging our arm out again exert an equal force that exactly matches and brings us back to the start? In both cases, either the drill of your example, a set of gyroscopes or our muscles do use external energy (electricity or stored chemicals), so it may not match to my classical Newtonian intuition. Which is why I want to see it tried.

In this context rotation is moving along about an axis with a start point and desired end point, while spin is uncontrolled, continuous rotation.

To further pin it down, we're assuming that this works by shifting their centre of mass, and rotation can be cancelled out by moving back again in exactly the same way.

We need to define the experimental setup. We have: One (1) human in a spacesuit; Floating in microgravity (Lagrange point for preference); At rest with zero movement; In full vacuum. We assume: Absent any external force, with no air to push against, the astronaut can, by moving their arms, torso and/or legs in some combination, impart a rotational movement and thus change their orientation. The question we're asking is: is this true?

We're approaching "reverse sprinkler" in the intersection of intuitive/counterintuitive.

Given the recent Scott Manley vid on New Shepard, my mind has been poisoned. I cannot avoid seeing this raising, and lowering, and raising once more as... suggestive.

More details here (English) with picture of the ruined test building: https://japannews.yomiuri.co.jp/society/general-news/20241126-224488/ Seems they were testing a second stage that also had problems (blew up) last year. Epsilon S is an interesting rocket. It's an Electron-class launcher that can launch a fair bit (1,400kg) into LEO with very few personnel needed. The first stage is the SRB on the new H3: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epsilon_(rocket)

Huh. Just watched the Everyday Astronaut compilation of Flight 6, and the bent comms tower was bent before it lifted off, not after.

Don Pettit is 1) known for performing interesting little science experiments every single time he's gone to space 2) on the ISS right now (as the oldest current NASA astronaut!) 3) is on reddit and X (https://x.com/astro_Pettit). He'd definitely be up for it.

Med kits, tinned food, even a cassette tape have been discovered in the storage lockers of the Skylab Astronaut Trainer, untouched for 50 years: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/skylab-time-capsule-revealed-50-year-old-artifacts-discovered/ar-AA1qyjoM

Well yes, but also no. The force of an arm or leg moving in free space is insignificant compared to the power and precision of a gyroscope/reaction wheel. Granted, our primate ancestry makes us OK at brachiating from one handhold to the next in microgravity, or using footholds to anchor a weightless body. The real trick would be adding a cybernetic prehensile tail, for three points of contact and leaving hands free. A brachiating service robot is an appealing idea.

Since Flight 5, two different Lunar Rovers have signed up with SpaceX for delivery by Starship: https://payloadspace.com/starship-hired-to-fly-two-lunar-rovers/ When I saw the official stream it was delayed a bit - something like 5 seconds after EA's live stream. It might have ended early if they discovered the communication problem with the tower at that moment and decided to ditch then, out of caution.