Exoscientist

It's just rumors now. It's discussed on this forum: https://thespaceport.us/forum/topic/42839-blue-origin-updates/?p=534107 Bob Clark

Blue Origin's New Shepard rocket made history as the first rocket to do a vertical landing after a flight to suborbital space. It is intended only as a suborbital rocket. However, by using triple cores of the New Shepard with a small upper stage, a la the Delta IV Heavy, you actually get an orbital rocket: Triple Cored New Shepard as an orbital vehicle. http://exoscientist.blogspot.com/2016/01/triple-cored-new-shepard-as-orbital.html Bob Clark

From Chris Bergin: Bob Clark

Not Kerbal, but a nice simulation of this last F9 flight here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b8vzt1PLG5U In the video, the mass of the stage and other flight specs are indicated on the left throughout the flight. The amount of propellant left over could be 25 mT to 30 mT at landing, based on the total mass indicated at landing and the estimated dry weight of the stage. This amount of propellant left over could serve as ballast to allow hovering on landing. In other words, if accurate, for this flight, suicide-burn or hover-slam wasn't used. Bob Clark

Any fully liquid fueled rocket can be made reusable as the F9 is by returning the first stage to the launch site. So ULA can do this both to the Atlas V and Delta IV to match SpaceX. And the same is true for the launchers of the Russians, Chinese, and Japanese. The only one left out will be ESA with the Ariane 5 and Ariane 6 launchers which can not lift off without the solid rocket side boosters. The situation is especially bad for ESA because they expected to still fly the Ariane 5 for heavy launches. But with the F9 upgrade its payload to LEO in expendable mode is 21 metric tons which matches the Ariane 5 but at 1/3rd the cost. Bob Clark

This image seems to show there was significant tilt just before landing that had to be cancelled: From: http://www.theverge.com/2015/12/22/10649560/spacex-falcon-9-landing-launch-photos Anyone know how much of an angle there was just before touchdown? Note that hovering makes it easier to cancel out such angles of tilt. Bob Clark

The payload on this launch was only about 2,000 kg, much less than the 13,000 kg max for the reusable F9. Actually with the F9 upgrade, it's an even smaller fraction of the max payload. Then on this flight they could have saved an extra amount of reserve propellant in the first stage for landing. And at about the 3 min, 14 sec point in the post-flight telecon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LgNekVW0pps Elon says this launch at MECO was going slower than will other RTLS flights, at approx. 5,000 km/hr compared to 8,000 km/hr for following flights. That's quite a significant difference that would result in a large amount of left over propellant compared to the following flights. Then this could have been used for ballast on landing to the extent it may have been able to hover. Bob Clark

Clones! Bob Clark

My opinion, SpaceX will not be able land the F9 first stage reliably and consistently until they give it hovering ability. The argument has been made that giving the F9 hovering capability would reduce its payload. However, some simple and low cost modifications using existing technology, no advanced tech required, would allow hovering and actually increase the payload: Hovering capability for the reusable Falcon 9, page 3: hovering ability can increase the payload of a RLV. http://exoscientist.blogspot.com/2015/12/hovering-capability-for-reusable-falcon.html Bob Clark

The Boys from Brazil (1978) - YouTube. Bob Clark

Yes, "The Island" was a remake of "The Clonus Horror". Another problem is who gets cloned? Cloning Albert Einstein might be great, but how many? What if someone scratched some skin cells from Michael Jordan in order to clone him? And suppose someone wanted to clone Hitler or Stalin? Bob Clark

Chinese Firm Chief Executive Says Human Cloning Already Possible. Xu thinks Boyalife could totally clone humans if everyone got suddenly cool about cloning humans. Danielle Wiener-Bronner Fusion 12/07/2015 07:51 am ET http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/china-human-cloning_5664ac88e4b08e945fefdf9f Everyone has a visceral negative reaction but what are the pros and cons? One "pro" scenario is being able to clone replacement body parts without rejection. Oddly, a "con" scenario can be envisioned on that very same basis: The Clonus Horror (Robert S. Fiveson, 1979). http://www.veoh.com/watch/v93109918qyAN757Y Bob Clark

Thank you very much, Mr. Musk. See: The Coming SSTO's: Falcon 9 v1.1 first stage as SSTO, Page 2. http://exoscientist.blogspot.com/2013/11/the-coming-sstos-falcon-9-v11-first.html Bob Clark

[quote name='wumpus']The ability to produce prototypes, update, and produce another is astonishing. The ability to produce molds for "real production" is probably the biggest draw. There is also the idea of printing connectors for off the shelf carbon fiber (or composite, fiberglass, or even PVC) tubes. Here is a similar link for "printing" the custom parts for a titanium bicycle (read: thousands of dollars) with a few grams of custom parts: [URL]http://www.bicycles.net.au/2014/08/future-3d-print-own-titanium-bicycle/[/URL] Note that it might even work better to 3d print the connectors onto the tubes instead of connecting three or more connectors and welding them in place. Obviously once you get about half your tubes together, you can't fit more than one tube into each connector once it is in place. Don't expect much of a revolution from just this. You have been able to buy a custom welded aluminum frame such as above, complete with some sort of body for less than the price of a car (assembly of the whole thing extra$$$): google "kit cars" for examples. It [I]might [/I]be possible to build a strong frame this way, then print some sort of skeleton that fitted to the frame to support the "body" (as seen by outside people) presumably directly connecting some sort of cut flatish off the shelf composite panel for the body. 3D printing would be most important for the iterated design needed to find a way to get the whole thing to work together, then presumably for the molds that hold the off the shelf parts together. A more interesting idea is a "rapid prototyped/manufactured" airplane. You can buy cars and bikes relatively cheap. Airplanes are another story. There are additional advantages to competent mechanics without the proper (A&R?) licensing: apparently the "manufacturer" can perform maintenance on the aircraft with significantly less paperwork/licenses*. This changes the costs considerably. * I am not a lawyer and this is not legal advice.[/QUOTE] 3D-printing of metals is already done in professional installations, which suggest they should be able to 3D-print an electric engine. Doing it for a amateur home installation would be harder, but might be doable. Bob Clark

[quote name='Shania_L']3D printing may well replace casting for 'heavy-ish' industry purposes, but the major problem you have is the ability to produce a surface with a smooth enough finish to be gas/liquid tight against an adjacent component, ie cylinder block / cylinder head. You will still require a machining process to skim the surfaces to accurate tolerances. 3D printing however is perfect for 'bolt-on' components like brackets and other components with open tolerances that have enough leeway to mate on rough surfaces.[/QUOTE] Agreed. That's why I think it will be easier to 3D-print an electric engine. Bob Clark

[quote name='PB666']You could 3d print fred flintstones car, lol.[/QUOTE] Already done, essentially, by these 3D-printed cars without an engine. Bob Clark

3-D-printed car could hit streets next year. Chris Woodyard, USA TODAY 4:48 p.m. EST November 12, 2015 [url]http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/cars/2015/11/10/3d-printed-car-local-motors-swim/75530830/[/url] Several companies have come out with what they call "3D-printed" cars, but none have 3d-printed the most important part, the engine. This would be difficult to do with an internal combustion engine, with its high temperatures, multiple moving parts, and high tolerances. But it shouldn't be too difficult with an electric engine. In fact considering there are now miniature 3D-printers on the market for the home, an amateur could be the first to produce an entire, scale-size, 3d-printed car. And then it could be scaled up to produce a full-size working fully 3d-printed automobile. This would revolutionize the industry. Bob Clark

Pluto has blue hazes and surface water ice. Laurel Kornfeld October 9th, 2015 http://www.spaceflightinsider.com/missions/solar-system/pluto-has-blue-hazes-and-surface-water-ice/ The ice on the surface is interesting IF there is internal heat, then possibly you could have subsurface liquid water. The blue haze in the atmosphere is interesting because it suggests complex organics in the atmosphere. The complex organics in the atmosphere quite likely could be communicated to the subsurface. Then you could have subsurface complex organics and liquid water, IF Pluto has internal heating. Ice volcanoes spotted on Pluto, suggest internal heat source. By Eric Hand 9 November 2015 3:30 pm http://news.sciencemag.org/space/2015/11/ice-volcanoes-spotted-pluto-suggest-internal-heat-source We gotta do a lander mission there! Bob Clark

You would think they would. But nowhere have I seen this mentioned in regards to a possible rescue of Columbia. Bob Clark

I don't agree. In at least one of the shuttle manual captures, it had to be done by hand specifically because the robot arm could not capture the satellite, due to its large rotation. The manual capture was able to handle a larger rotation than the robot arm. Doing the manual capture though without a robot arm would require the shuttle to maneuver closer to the satellite than by using the robot arm. The astronauts might be able to put together a rod to reach out and snag a satellite that had hooks placed around it to make capture easier and at a longer distance for safety. BTW, this Columbia mission carried Spacehab. It had close to the pressurized volume as the shuttle, at about 62 cubic meters. I wonder if the CAIB considered the extra air that was contained in Spacehab. Bob Clark

There were at least two instances where the shuttle maneuvered over to a satellite in space and spacesuited astronauts manually gabbed the satellite and pulled it into the payload bay: http://articles.latimes.com/1992-05-14/news/mn-3026_1_cargo-bay http://www.nytimes.com/1997/11/25/us/astronauts-make-a-good-grab-and-bring-satellite-back-in.html Bob Clark

Actually saving the astronauts would be higher priority. Bob Clark - - - Updated - - - The Arstechnica article only gives the time constraint for the CO2 cartridges. It doesn't say how long the O2 or food or water would last. It rather implies though by conserving those they could be made to last until the Atlantis launch. Catching the supply canister from the unmanned cargo ship would be an issue. Having the robot arm would have definitely made that easier. But you don't need much to do the launch of the cargo canister. It could just be a pressurized canister. The shuttle would use its reaction jets to maneuver to it. As I said it could be just a few kilos. A tethered astronaut would have to reach it, and catch it. Not a pleasant task, but not impossible. Bob Clark

According to the Arstechnica article linked earlier in the thread, the most critical need was for the air scrubbers to remove the CO2. That's what put the survival limit at 30 days. As you remember from the scene in "Apollo 13" where CO2 scrubbers for the command module had to be jury-rigged from those on the lunar module, the air scubbers actually only weigh a few kilos. The food and water could have extended much longer assuming they knew right away that had to conserve consumables. BTW, since this is in regards to "The Martian", for you chemistry heads out there, are there some foods, liquids, or common materials that might be on the shuttles that could have filtered out the CO2 in air other than the lithium canisters? For instance perhaps the solubility of CO2 in water is different than in O2 and there could have been a way to separate out the CO2 from the air that way. Bob Clark - - - Updated - - - Why edit? Was that not that an actual launch? Bob Clark

That is not correct. There were at least 4 launches to orbit during the proposed 30 day timeframe before Columbia would have run out of air scrubbers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2003_in_spaceflight The Pegasus listed there is especially relevant since being airlaunched and using all solid stages should have shorter prep time. In fact the Pegasus could be launched within 7 days of notice, assuming the payload was available. The Minotaur 1 also has this capability: Launch on Need, Part 2: Seven-Day Satellites for the Department of Defense. "So what sort of launch on need missions have been defined? The Department of Defense Operationally Responsive Space (ORS) office has set a goal of being able to launch a satellite within seven days. Assuming ORS has stockpiled a couple of satellites for a bad day, Orbital Sciences (News - Alert) Corporation has several launch platforms it has demonstrated can do the job, including the Minotaur family and the air-launched Pegasus. "Using a combination of surplus Minuteman missile and new-build solid rocket motors, Orbital's four stage Minotaur I has put 33 small satellites into orbit. The rocket can put up to 580 kilograms into low Earth orbit (LEO) and the TacSat-2 launch demonstrated the ability to go from payload load to launch in less than six days, plus the ability to keep the vehicle in a launch-ready mode for an extending period of time -- you have to have the rocket on hand rather than waiting six months to build and ship from the factory." http://satellite.tmcnet.com/topics/satellite/articles/201224-launch-need-part-2-seven-day-satellites-the.htm Bob Clark

The point is a rescue mission was ruled out because Atlantis couldn't be readied in time. But with resupply missions launched to Columbia, the stay time of Columbia in orbit could have been extended to allow Atlantis time to be launched. Bob Clark