AckSed

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.

I answered 'Yes' because although I think you can go to Mars in one shot, the advantage of building the Mars infrastructure on Luna means you can have practice with pressure vessels, partial gravity, life-support, ISRU, learning to mine in space-suits... Plus, the energy needed to lift, say, a spacecraft off the Moon is much smaller, and can use ISRU propellant e.g. aluminium/oxygen.

Solar farms planted with wildflowers and native grasses saw increases in insect and plant biodiversity across the board, and the increased bee population even helped pollinate nearby soybeans: https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ad0f72

After one payload specialist on the Shuttle said if his experiment didn't work he "wasn't coming home", commanders began locking the hatch: https://arstechnica.com/space/2024/01/solving-a-nasa-mystery-why-did-space-shuttle-commanders-lock-the-hatch/ Key takeaways here: The Shuttle's hatch doubled as an escape system, and so it could be opened with a single lever. That it still worked while the crew were in orbit, and would have spaced the whole crew if opened, is alarming to say the least. 'Do not do this thing' is only mostly fine when everyone has the same level of training. Screening everyone for "the right stuff" will not be feasible with greater access to space. Mental health in a high-stress environment must be addressed yesterday. Designing safety systems to be safe when someone panics is damn hard.

It had an unique landing pattern, so maybe it's on its side? https://arstechnica.com/space/2024/01/japans-moon-sniper-mission-aims-for-precise-lunar-landing/

Looks like Starship will need to pack some heavy-duty mining equipment... but we knew that.

CalTech's space-based solar power experiments satellite concludes its mission: https://www.caltech.edu/about/news/space-solar-power-project-ends-first-in-space-mission-with-successes-and-lessons Short version: the deployable ultralight structure had some new glitches that needed some figuring out so it could deploy, the wireless power transfer degraded a bit and non-space-rated gallium arsenide solar cells are surprisingly consistent. It's all good data. Side note: I prick my ears up every time I hear about Momentus' MET water thrusters on their tugs, as it's a key technology for the Spacecoach water-fuelled low-cost spacecraft concept.

Says not, so it really is a 3-and-a-half stage.

Autophagous (self-consuming) rockets are somewhat interesting to military planners, as there's none of the mass penalty of a casing to contain the pressure. They just need a bit more work:

More on that super-deformed rocket. It's called the Gravity-1 and is a 3-and-a-half stage solid rocket constellation launcher with an optional kerelox kick stage. It's capable of "5-6 tons" of lift, though I didn't catch any mention of the orbit. Their price to orbit is "$5000-$6000 dollars per kilogram" and they are targeting launches within 5 hours. Honestly, this seems like a successful implementation of the same impulse (pun not intended) that led to Space Services Inc's Percheron turning into Conestoga. The difference here is they have a great deal more support, experience and in-production hardware to draw on.

A lot of paddling beneath the majestic swan, got it. Even cooler! I find it fascinating that the removal tool, though it's made of a special grade of steel, is similar to an obscure hand-tool that used the pressure from a screwthread to drill through steel... and it uses a quarter-inch Stanley socket.

Just look at the stupendous precision of OSIRIS-APEX's interception orbit. Just... look at it: Side question: how's opening the capsule going?

Funny you should say that. A vacuum can be sustained inside an aerogel pressure vessel, and with a bit of engineering of the materials, scaling up to a dirigible should be theoretically possible: "Approaching air buoyancy in aero/cryogel vacuum vessels" Journal of Materials Science 57, 2022

NASA gifts a Phase 1 grant to a new way of cooling I haven't ever considered - bling! https://www.nasa.gov/general/electro-luminescently-cooled-zero-boil-off-propellant-depots/ By using all the normal approaches (vacuum insulation, thermal shields), and then plating the non-sunward side of a fuel depot in LEDs, you just might be able to achieve zero boil-off storage of H2, thanks to a little quirk of physics.

I think methane could work, but there could be a side-benefit to hydrogen that Stoke is depending on: its low density means large tanks, which means that the second stage is also low-density and slows down much more quickly upon re-entry. I don't know where the constraints are any more than I know how good methane is for cooling, but Rocket Lab's Peter Beck has stated that small launchers can be incredibly tight on mass margins. It might be a series of requirements: IF hydrogen AND low-density second stage EQUALS low consumption of fuel for cooling heatshield PLUS lighter heatshield AND high vacuum specific impulse... THEN hydrogen.

Back in 2016, I heard about a Finnish scientist generating protein from single-celled hydrogen-oxidising bacteria via water, carbon dioxide, electricity and mineral supplements. If it worked, it could reduce the use of arable land to almost nothing. Well, it's here. Ice-cream containing this is now on sale in Singapore, and has been since June: https://plantbasednews.org/lifestyle/food/solein-ice-cream-singapore/ It's not just ice-cream, this is a multi-purpose ingredient that can boost the protein of any vegetarian food: pasta, sauces, meat substitutes and so on. The promo event had an entire menu based on it. Further, the company, Solar Foods, is building a plant to grow about 120 tonnes per year of the powder in Finland, where renewable energy is cheap and available... and it's ready to come online in 2024. 120 tonnes doesn't sound like much, but they say this will be sent round the world for product development, in preparation for the next factory.

What makes an RCS thruster good is closely correlated to what makes a rocket engine good, but the engineering requirements of simplicity, storability, fast start from cold and repeatability change that. Low specific impulse can be forgiven if the rest of the hardware is simple and lightweight. Cold-gas is used, even though it's not that powerful or efficient, because it fulfils all those requirements. If we talk about solid propellant, monopropellant, bipropellant, arcjets and resistojets, we'll be here all day. Instead, if you want to dive deep into about 5,000 different substances used on one satellite or another: On the selection of propellants for cold/warm gas propulsion systems

There is a whole forest of ways to power a small RCS thruster. Vast, though, is looking to use ethane and nitrous oxide for its space station RCS, which I think is clever: nitrous oxide is reasonably safe, storable, and decomposes like peroxide when passed over a catalyst bed to create hot oxygen and nitrogen.

Asteroid-mining startup discovers that factories in space are hard. News at 11: https://www.astroforge.io/updates/2023-update Though in this case, half their troubles stemmed from not being able to find their satellite, then book enough time on ground stations when things went wrong. Take note: heaters need magnetic shielding or they mess with sensors. Which then ensures the spacecraft can't point its antenna.

In that stream, Bill Weber states that Firefly is trying to be "the number one in responsive spaceflight". So it's adjacent, but presumably the fact of having a small private company lets them move faster.

The cloth (?) covers are new to me. Have we seen this before?

When you try to do a 'skateboard' chassis with lead-acid batteries and fibreglass.

Hey, do you like spaghetti? I like spaghetti. (Internal structure of the Super Heavy's propellant system.): https://ringwatchers.com/article/booster-prop-distribution