Wjolcz

Nowadays journalism. That's why I don't watch TV and don't read online articles. It's all just clickbait drama. It's actually how it works. There's one person who writes the article and another who writes the title. Yes, in collage I was taught how to create clickbaits. No joke.

Same. However, as some already have said, I think small scale (within a solar system) panspermia is very much possible. Earth got likely bombarded right around when life was forming so it wouldn't surprise me if life on Mars and Europa, and possibly other bodies, was similar to what we have on Earth or at least share a common ancestor. Either that or there are only so many ways life can arise. After all, everything that is alive now on Earth comes fron LUCA. But then maybe it doesn't and these progenotes just swapped RNA a lot. Anywho... Hopefully NASA and other space agencies get cash boosts for more research. I wouldn't mind knowing the answer during my lifetime.

Looked like a landing.

Sure you can. Just flip the planet's axis 90° so the pole faces one of the Lagrange points and then put a satellite there. It won't last very long since the planet's pole won't face the star all the time but it would stay over the pole for a while. BTW does anyone know if you can have a tidally locked planet that spins kind of like Uranus but the pole faces the star all the time? I'd imagine it would be very volcanic or at least behave like Triton with all the surface cracks and geysers.

Sounds like a fun ride. Probably the last one too.

Sure, building this thing is hard. But at this point I'm really wondering if BFR won't launch a bigger telescope with one big solid mirror not long after JWST is operational. I don't hate JWST. It's just that perhaps building a bigger rocket and then launching a simpler telescope of the same size would be simpler, faster and a lot cheaper.

Do we know if, apart from the engines, NG is being built/worked on right now? Or are they focusing on testing New Shepard for and after it's finished they will start making NG?

RTLS on Vandenberg this time? Looked to me like that landing pad was finished.

Who knows? It's the military.

There's even illumination of the Moon. I understand solar activity since it could mess with the radio, but moon illumination?

This is the new plane on a conveyor belt thread.

Is it me or are all these space companies popping up like crazy recently?

I hope some day the launches and landings will be so common we won't even care. Will they be able to apply all that knowledge to NG? If they decide to ever manufacture their own orbital capsules they will have some of the testing/tech/procedures already done.

Natural hydrogen frequency?

Well, maybe they could try touching it down on water. I wouldn't risk damaging the barge if I was them, but then the stage is always aimed at the water in case the hoverslam fails.

Exactly. They got really good at building and landing their boosters. Pre-block 5 F9 was very reliable considering that it flew so often.

Recycling in what sense? Because I don't see recycling a stage after an in-flight abort test. Especially if the Dragon has to perform it during Max Q.

AFAIK they don't have any block 4s left.

LEGO!

Or maybe make science science. Not research points generators.

Pretty sure it will use BFR too. Just for that extra margin of fuel. I'd rather be falling down in a fully fueled death trap than an empty one.

Won't they have to test it at Max Q? Unless the booster has some sort of nose cone on it the interstage will probably get ripped into pieces so they will either have to modify the first stage to handle that or perform extensive inspection afterwards to make sure it can fly again. Or just sacrifice that one booster. I'm sure they have that kind of money anyway. And since the stages are soon to be rapidly reused SpaceX will probably make up for that one in no time. Pretty sure this was the old plan. Using block 4 or 5 would probably be cheaper, easier and quicker than modifying it like that.

It's white now? Why does it keep changing colours? Couldn't BFR have at least some sort of escape pods/seats for the crew and passangers? That would probably make it safer than regular airliners. At least in an event of catastrophic failure. When an airliner crashes everybody dies. If BFR was about to crash it would shoot everybody out and then crash. It wouldn't be pleasant but better than certain death. Also, I just realized they don't have any block 5s left. In-flight abort test will have to be performed on a block 5 which probably means RIP that stage

I keep forgetting that having enough gimbal makes you fly however you want.

I've been wondering this myself. I only see 2 solutions (or one if you combine them): RCS and some sort of airbrakes on the nose being activated just after the reentry when the air is still not dense enough to counteract the flip manouvre + moving weight. Considering that most of the weight is on the bottom half of the spaceship it might as well stabilize itself well enough. Maybe the wings and split flaps are enough to keep it from stalling during reentry. Or maybe the flight profile will look like this: the ship reenters just like the shuttle did, dives and pulls up until it's going vertically up, let the gravity do the work and bring the ship back down then fire up the engines and land. I'm pretty sure exactly this is what is showed in their Martian landing simulation. Let me find it real quick. Edit: Yep. You can see it going down, gaining lift and then up again. I can imagine the final approach will probably be much steeper on Earth since the atmosphere is denser.