AckSed
-
Posts
356 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Content Type
Profiles
Forums
Developer Articles
KSP2 Release Notes
Bug Reports
Posts posted by AckSed
-
-
Comm outage. Think it hit a boulder and tumbled?
-
Heard on stream: they're using the lasers on one NASA instrument to act as doppler LIDAR, due to the lander's lasers not working. Had to upload a software patch.
-
I wonder what the pricetag of those are? Could we have Orbital Reef for $400 million? Super-Mega Freedom Station with four of the 3.0 for a billion or two? Even a single 3.0 would exceed the volume of the ISS more than 5 times over (915 metres cubed vs. 5378 metres cubed). That is large.
For comparison my current terraced 2-storey, 3-bedroom house in the UK is 12-14 metres tall, 10m long and 7m wide. If we ripped it out of the ground and stuck it inside (handwaving the internal support tube) it wouldn't even come close to touching the sides.
This is the beginning of a space-factory.
Edit: Using SpinCalc, if you spun the 3.0 up to 4.2 rpm, you would just about get Mars gravity of 0.38g on the inside. Mars settlement sim as well.
-
Fascinating article from 2022 on the IM-1 comms: https://blog.jatan.space/p/moon-monday-issue-93
Long story short, they're not using NASA's Deep Space Network, but renting time on other commercial ground stations around the world. They tested it (with NASA's help) by connecting to the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter.
-
My good fellow is probably thinking of the problems Skylab astronauts had. But there probably would be a handhold, well, at hand at all times if the designers were halfway competent.
If not, I'd make up a folding version of one of those grabby sticks used for picking up litter and wear it on my belt. Hell, make two and I can be the king of the swingers.
Spoiler
-
Carbon. Luna is remarkably low in carbon and the first few settlements might cause a brief 'carbon rush' to set up 'dry ice' cartels at the permanently-shadowed craters in the South Pole.
Then people would be outright shipping in compressed blocks of artificial graphite for chemical feedstocks, electrodes for electrolysis of magnesium and aluminium, carbon dioxide foaming agent for silica insulation, methane rocket fuel and so on. Or polyethylene, as it can count as radiation protection... and then be cracked for its carbon and hydrogen.
There might then be a carbon Prohibition from shipping away Earth's 'natural' carbon, even though it's not true and the Earth could definitely use a lot less of it, and the cartels are also sneaking in their own because the crater CO2 is running dry.
Then Prohibition collapses just as asteroid mining and production is set up, leaving the cartels and the former 'carbon crackers' now dependent on the influx of carbonaceous asteroids. Or worse, left behind altogether.
-
Varda finally gets to come home: https://spacenews.com/varda-gets-reentry-license-for-space-manufacturing-capsule/
-
Axiom's lunar EVA suits being put through their paces: https://www.nasa.gov/image-article/axiom-space-tests-lunar-spacesuit-at-nasas-johnson-space-center/
-
I wonder if it's Australia's aviation authorities taking on this, or they've finally convinced the FAA to drop it, so to speak.
-
This has become the Hazegrayart thread. Not complaining, just remarking - they're good at digging out the strange and somewhat plausible.
On that note, absolutely check out that video's description for a 40-page article on reusable booster concepts.
Edit: There's a two-stage HTHL spacecraft that's called... POBTATO. POBTATO! Its second stage is a flying wing and it didn't rely on mid-air refueling, so I suppose they just leaned into its wide shape.
-
Can't say it's not inspiring to see a new rocket being raised, even if it's not a 'real' one.
-
I did notice they just lowered it on, with the arms making small adjustments to set it down near-exactly. Checking to see what the damage was?
-
The ESA stream for Axiom-3's splashdown shows how they egress the Dragon capsule after landing and being winched aboard: there's a little slide!
I never knew the seats rotate down for landing and egress, either. Further, there's space for 3-4 people to assist the astronauts.
-
It came out in 1982. So, let's see:
https://oldcomputers.net/grid1101.html
QuoteGRiD-OS is no slouch - the suite includes:
-GRiDManager - communication and utility functions that allowed it to access GRiDCentral online file storage, software download and data services
-GRiDPrint - control format and appearance of text files
-GRiDWrite - full-screen text editor
-GRiDPlan - electronic worksheets
-GRiDFile - database facilities
-GRiDPlot - converts data to graphs
-GRiDBASIC - programming language
-GRiDTerm - terminal software to allow it to connect to mainframe data services
So it was basic, but out-of-the-box it had BASIC and spreadsheet, and graphing software, and a personal database. You could autocomplete commands by using the CODE key. It could connect to GENIE over POTS thanks to its built-in 300/1200 baud modem. It had a bright EL screen, 256K bytes DRAM, 384K bytes bubble memory, an arithmetic co-processor. It was 4.6kg mass and a briefcase form-factor, when IBM's later 5155 Portable was a 13.6kg monster the size and weight of a sewing machine.
Later it would gain a DOS 3.0 ROM, and an integral floppy drive, allowing it to run Visicalc and Lotus 1-2-3.
So when the engineer who worked there and later started Palm Computing states that that was the original reason it didn't take off with businessmen, I think that was what was said to them at the time.
-
Wait a sec... Bennu's samples have a crust of phosphates. Asteroids like Bennu make up a large proportion of all asteroids. And Earth's atmosphere is under bombardment all the time from meteorites and micro-meteorites.
How much phosphorous is deposited on Earth yearly by these? It's probably miniscule, but over a million years? Two? Fifty? How did almost all mammalian and reptilian life on Earth come to have biological scaffolds utilising phosphates?
-
It's about time. Good to see flight hardware.
-
One of the first laptops, the GRiD Compass, was unpopular with the businessmen it was aimed at because typing scared them:
QuoteGRiD was designed for business executives in the early 1980's, but its keyboard was perceived a threat to those same executives. They didn't have any terminal or other keyboard device in their office, and so were uncomfortable with a PC. They were afraid of typing, thought they might appear inept, and even felt it was a demotion to type (in those years, secretaries took dictation and typed memos for business executives). This contradiction slowed GRiD adoption - at least in that targeted market segment.
Of course, it then went on to be a military darling (hence why it's in Aliens: Extended Cut as the sentry gun controller) and flew on the Shuttle. So they made out alright, despite it costing over $8100 at launch.
-
Five percent of Roman/Greek scroll burned in the eruption of Vesuvius is finally read... and it's a treatise on the philosophy of pleasure:
https://scrollprize.org/grandprize
Hopefully coming soon, the rest of it, as well as 600 other scrolls they also found. And there are almost certainly be more to be excavated.
Edit: this is also a good description of how to run a project like this.
-
Dream Chaser has passed its vibration testing:
https://phys.org/news/2024-02-rattle-chaser-spaceplane-vibration.html
-
My limited search-fu wants to find the results of research conducted on Skylab, specifically the M553 sphere-forming and M555 GaAs semiconductor crystal growth experiments run in the M512 Materials Processing Facility. I'd also like to see the results from the M518 Multipurpose Electric Furnace System. Lots of stuff that could and should be dug out again in this up-and-coming era of heavy lift.
I found the '73 guidebook detailing what was going up, which let me narrow down the names, but nothing afterwards. Does anyone have leads?
-
3 hours ago, Nuke said:
Stacking rockets like cordwood, i like it.
Made of steel, built in the open air by welders in hardhats... Robert Truax would appreciate it.
Huh, expendable Starship currently matches half the proposed Sea Dragon, in potentially lofting 250 metric tons of mass to LEO.
-
Towerless vertical-axis wind turbine that replaces the traditional rigid tower with pre-stressed blades and tensioned centre supports could make energy from offshore wind as cheap as $55/MWh:
https://energy.sandia.gov/programs/renewable-energy/wind-power/offshore-design-optimization/arcus
tl;dr only 18% of offshore wind farm cost is in the actual physical structure. If you make it lighter (over 50%) and easier to install (vertical-axis turbines can use simpler floating anchorings and can be towed, fully-assembled, from port), costs plummet. You can also use a larger generator in a housing on the base to capture more energy.
-
Speaking of robotic arms, this was part of the cargo:
-
They don't have to be on the main body at all: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blohm_%26_Voss_BV_141
Yes, this flew.
NASA CLPS Program
in Science & Spaceflight
Posted
Let's hope turning the antennae on and off solves it.