AckSed

Launch one ground-breaking solar probe, get (more) Venus science free: https://science.nasa.gov/science-research/heliophysics/final-venus-flyby-for-nasas-parker-solar-probe-queues-closest-sun-pass/

Rocket Lab thinks it should be getting into that US defence money bidding: https://spacenews.com/rocket-lab-confirms-plan-to-bid-for-pentagon-launch-contracts-with-new-medium-rocket/ The main takeaway here is that Beck thinks they can launch Neutron by December 2025. I think they have a shot.

I don't know. It might, to a point... if I knew exactly how heavy the current structure was, and we see Raptor 3s being produced at scale. Activate data-mining... I'll bring up the Ars article: https://arstechnica.com/space/2024/04/elon-musk-just-gave-another-mars-speech-this-time-the-vision-seems-tangible/ We do know that a kilo of saved mass on a second stage like Starship directly translates to payload. Going by the rule of thumb in the Eager Space video "Why Starship Loves Stainless Steel", six kilos saved on the booster translates to 1 kilo of payload. Raptor 3, taking into account the reduced support equipment like heatshields, will apparently save 38 metric tons on the booster. Plug in that 6:1 ratio and it's an extra 6.3 tons of payload. Not great, but it's something. With three SL R3s on Starship, you save a further (2875 - 1720) * 3 = 1155 *3 = 3.46 tons. In total, that's 9.76 tons of extra payload. Which might be washed out by the stretched tanks and the 3 extra Vac R3 in Version 3, but not entirely. I'm nowhere near awake enough to calculate how much mass fractions improve with stretched tanks, but all things considered... it might help the most? You'll note that Superheavy has barely grown, while Starship has grown the most in proportion, more than doubling the thrust and almost doubling the propellant. Last year at the IAC 2023, Musk dropped three pieces of info: SpaceX is shifting more of the delta-V burden to Starship; Propellant ratio between Superheavy and Starship trending towards 2:1; Staging time is trending towards 100 seconds. This is because the lofted trajectory Superheavy takes to enable RTLS means even more of the work in getting to orbit is being pushed off on Starship; it is staging earlier and has a lot of thrust. All info taken from ES's "Starship Optimization - New Rocket, New Tradeoffs". In the back-of-the-envelope analysis he made, he notes that if you want the staging to be that early, you can either carry less propellant, or burn it faster. It seems this year SpaceX is leaning towards the "Full Stretch", because there's always room for more propellant, and with more engines and more thrust, you gain engine-out capability and the ability to stage earlier and travel faster. Again, I'm not awake enough to properly calculate how much benefit this will be to payload.

In "Performance of recycled waste glass sand as partial replacement of sand in concrete": https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S095006181933257X

Oh yeah, there'd also be organic contaminants in the form of food residue, glue and paper/plastic labels, and metal, which is already mag-separated here, but for mortar or cement you wouldn't really care.

I've always thought that Starship HLS is 'pay for lander, gain a free moon base'.

Artemis II is... going. https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2024/10/sls-update/

Our intern worked one day and night to make this animation.

I am not an authoritative source. I will say it again. I am not an authoritative source. I have a third-class degree in Internet Computing that's 15 years out of date. I only know what I have read on the Internet, tasted and sniffed it to see if it's reasonably plausible, then regurgitated it to a small audience so I can be excited over it with like-minded people. That's why I'm here. Asking whether it wouldn't or would work was secondary. I was trying to engage you, ask the opinion of a smarter person than I and maybe see if you had any insights, read any past research like from the Shuttle era. (And maybe head off any combatitiveness. Hate that stuff.)

A question for Exoscientist, because that alt. Shuttle brought it to mind: how would you design the payload bay doors of Starship? Assume that, no matter what, the stretched version with heatshield will be built; I don't think SpaceX's course will be changed no matter the merit of an expendable version. What shape would it be? Double door vs. single-door? Where would you put the hinge(s)? I imagine the double-door with longitudinal split might retain some of the stiffness.

ESA asking Italian Spanish company, Pangea Aerospace, to design Kronos, a 2MN, possibly full-flow staged-combustion engine for them. For reference, they are the company that are developing a small aerospike: https://europeanspaceflight.com/esa-taps-pangea-aerospace-to-design-very-high-thrust-engine/ I hope they can do it, but making a Raptor- or BE-4-class rocket engine is a big ask. Bringing in a welter of smaller companies, and that The Exploration Company is also planning a similar engine also seems like a mistake.

Skyrora planning to exclusively use satellites for telemetry, completes test using Viasat's L-band ELERA network: https://www.adsadvance.co.uk/skyrora-viasat-and-cgi-achieve-uk-first-with-test-of-inrange.html

It is not fired with heat. It is literally fired out of a launcher. (English, everybody!) This is essentially adobe walls with carefully-controlled particle size and a touch of mineral binder.

New Hazegrayart: Space Station Freedom:

ACS3 solar sail may have a slight bend in one of its booms. It shouldn't affect its performance: https://blogs.nasa.gov/smallsatellites/2024/10/22/update-on-nasas-advanced-composite-solar-sail-system/

Mostly, there's no difference. Irregular grain size is the biggest issue, and that can be screened out. Here's someone making sand out of glass:

Fire ze mudballs to build a wall: https://arstechnica.com/science/2024/10/impact-printing-is-a-cement-free-alternative-to-3d-printed-structures/ It looks coarse and poorly textured, but the partially-dried clay can be shaved off with ease, and indeed there is another machine that does this.

And on that note, new Eager Space vid: tl;dw In the case of on-the-pad/just-past-launch failure, every 9 engines on your rocket, your overall reliability rises. Adding a tenth drops it down again, but not back to simply having 1.

Artemis I discovered that radiation dose in the van Allen belt (the inner, proton-rich one) can be affected by attitude i.e. which way you are pointed: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-07927-7

Side note: going back to Starship's reentry, did anyone catch sight of some sort of bracket on the leeward side? Had a hole in it. It wasn't even in the path of the plasma, yet it was still glowing red-hot down to the start of the belly-flop. Goes to show reentry's harsh.

Signal acquired!

Nominal orbit

Second burn and the telemetry is doing the KSP thing where the path unspools out to deep space.

On our way. No oxygen leaks I can see

Temperature anomaly on second stage, investigating.