Kryten

They're as mass-produced as they're going to be able to get in the GEO ring, with the limits of the slot allocation system. Mass-produced satellites have been common for schemes in other orbital regimes, and in the vast majority of cases (Iridium, Orbcomm, Globalstar, ICO, Teledesic) have led to the purveyors going bankrupt. Only O3B has found any success in this sector, and their 12 satellites per design barely qualify as mass-production.

You're acting like the US is the entire story here-that they got competed out of the commercial launch market until recently is a footnote for most of us. Nibb31 is not American, and he's talking about the international commercial market of Arianespace, ILS and co.

Commercial satellites are already produced in considerable volume to standard designs; just take a look here or here for some currently-produced examples.

Last update was that Simorgh would become operational 'in the next year' in October; the next Iranian year hasn't even started yet. If we do see a launch soon, it'll be Safir or the Sejil-based vehicle.

That's not an accurate or in any way useful way to talk or think about a business, especially a large business.

Arianespace are literally launching as fast as they can, and they've currently got more Ariane 5 launches scheduled for this year than any previous.

Russia and ULA do not have a leg up if reusability proves economic, Blue has done far more work in it than any of them have. The Russians can barely afford to keep existing programmes right now, anyway.

The Aitken basin is the one prioritised by scientists, that's the whole reason it's in the NF programme. Apollo site selections were based on far more primitive knowledge of lunar geology than we have now, and were heavily constrained by non-science factors.

He's not trying to enter the current marketplace, he's trying for new markets like space tourism and propellant delivery.

We don't know for certain, but everything we know about Chang'e 4 points to it being preparation for a far side sample return mission, and for that the Aitken basin is the obvious target.

It should probably be noted that, while the rest of those should definitely be doable, the comet surface sample return mission is something of an aspirational target. Equipment to return cometary material at cryogenic temperatures is still pretty low TRL, and it would take a very innovative and well-organised team to pull it off anytime soon. So, CSSR is removed because probably not doable right now, Aitken Basin sample return can be ruled out for now as the Chinese will probably do it anyway with Chang'e 6, Titan/Enceladus is out because I'm pretty sure it would end up breaking the bank for NF, Saturn probe and VISE would be very short-term missions with limited data return, and Venus surface is better suited to Discovery right now; looks like my vote is Trojan Tour and Rendezvous.

NASA's ordered at least six flights for CRS-2, so... The basic shape is from NASA's HL-20 design from the 80s, it predates farscape by over a decade.

The Atlas V CCB is 3.81m diameter and barely fits on the largest cargo aircraft in common use (An-124 Ruslan). Second stage would be fine with a outsize cargo vehicle like super guppy or beluga, but they don't have the weight or length capabilities of something like the Ruslan. 4m+ is also pushing it for rail; Proton's core is 4.1m, and to transport that they have to shut down the opposite line. Anything much above 4m needs barge transport.

'By 2020'. We're supposed to get a lot more detail sometime this year.

It's flying out of LC-36 at the cape. They might be able to stay hush-hush when they're on a private site in the middle of nowhere in west Texas, but it's not an option when they're on a public range.

They built it in a big facility at the Progress plant near Moscow, then ran some checks, completely disassembled it, and sent it on rail to Baikonur as basically a kit. Then the whole thing was put back together in the assembly hall.

This is a pretty disingenuous position to take. Blue isn't just some suborbital vehicle company, and this is not the end goal; it's the next step in the iterative chain of Charon->Goddard->PM-2, and just happens to be one they think they can make some money with. We know the next step is orbit, and by then Blue will have the kind of extensive experience with vehicle refurbishment and general reusable vehicle operations that would take years to get with the SpaceX approach. The result will be a vehicle designed from the start for VTVL reusability, not a jury-rigged one.

If they really did just have to replace the igniters and inspect the vehicle, as the accompanying letter claims; and DC-X shows this is plausible for this regime; then VG are in BIG trouble.

Orion is to use a modified version of the shuttle suit, MACES. It's got a lot more volume available than the commercial crew vehicles, and needs more capability given it's going to be a lot further from any available help.

Zenit was transported by rail as is Russian practice, and has flown it's last anyway. Indian launchers as far as I can tell are produced relatively close to the launch site and don't see significant transport.

The only suits NASA have in their inventory are designed for Shuttle operations, and they're very bulky; partially because they had to support bailing out in a contingency, partly because they just had a lot of room to work on shuttle flight deck and so little incentive to slim them down.

Atlas+Delta are usually transported on a ro-ro boat called Delta Mariner, Atlas can also be air transported. All current Chinese and Russian designs are transported by rail, with the next-gen Chinese CZ-5 and 7 to be transported by specialised crane-equipped cargo ships. SLS is to be transported by the same barge they used for shuttle external tanks, NK transports theirs by rail, SK transported their Naro rocket by air, Iran transports their Safir by road, I couldn't find for the Israelis but presumably it's by road given the geography involved, and Arianespace does all their transport by ship. That should be just about everyone.

That's still a New Frontiers mission at the very minimum. Nobody is going to hand off on another NF mission for a KBO when there are plenty of other targets we now know less about. Sedna has an interesting orbit yes, but there's very little chance this would make a meaningful difference to the body itself.

One of those is a mockup, yes but the other is the nearly finished second Buran, 1.02 Ptichka.

How? You're basically describing a naval vessel, how is a pirate supposed to get their hands on one of those? Look at naval piracy; both historically and in most modern cases, the ships involved are barely-modified small cargo vessels.