CatastrophicFailure

I think they do have some pretty good sized solar panels. If the angle’s just right...

^^^^^^ What he they said. Also, @Delay, I realize it may be small comfort, but you’re doing the hardest part right now. Secondary/High School, I’m assuming? Once you get out into college and the real world, and can start setting some of your own rules, it gets easier. So get through this, and you can get through anything.

@Delay, @Earthlinger makes some good points, but to reiterate there are resources availabile to you out there, you’re not alone in this, and you do not have to suffer in a vacuum. Back in my day we didn’t, so I was just “that weird kid who never talked.” Still pretty much am. But today such challenges have names, and that means you can fight them.

I think it's more a case of "so ugly the ground repels it." Like @Corona688 said, and we've all been there. Unfortunately there's no reaction for "Raise a glass and pat on the back, and huzzah for backups!"

Huh. I did not know that... Today, in KSP, I made.... wait for it.... . . . . . . . waaaait for it . . . . . . . An Air Ship. Surprisingly enough, it flies about exactly almost as well as a tall ship does not, despite being entirely made out of wings: Something's a bit off about that pilot, too... I was aiming for Tinkerbell... ...you know what they say about making a copy of a copy... It may not fly well, but it crashes pretty good. And what it lacks in aeronautical prowess, it makes up for in... um... I dunno, tenacity, maybe? ...some say it's still going to this day... those who do are wrong, it exploded, then ran out of fuel, then exploded some more. Bonus crashy stuff, because everyone likes crashes! Except for poor, um... Whatsherface, there... Oh, wait, she's not in this one. Carry on...

Now let’s just hope it doesn’t become a permanent fixture... ಠ_ಠ

Aside: in all fairness to Gemini, ejection seats would possibly work until they were high enough to abort with the upper stage/SM, or at least separate the capsule and have a chance to deploy the chutes...

This one goes out to @Just Jim, I hear it’s a tad bit chilly down there... Perhaps y’all should be on the lookout for a pale-haired introvert with a massive guilt complex and impeccable fashion sense...

Fair enough point, but If the rub becomes “what do we do with all this heat?” Instead of “how the heck do we keep these people alive in the first place?” That seems like a much more straightforward engineering challenge. Maybe they could have a barbecue. Mmmmm, space barbecue... That still puts it leaps and bounds ahead of anything NASA has planned for Mars...

If the BFR operates as economically as is hoped, that changes a lot of things. Like schlepping all that useful water into space... @IncongruousGoat Nuclear submarines can easily go six months and more with only lots of water and lots of power as resources, and I think they just use scrubbers. With the kind of lift and loft capacity the BFR promises to bring, maybe the life support solution model is below instead of above. Id be very curious how much water a person needs per day to live in a “vacuum,” but math make brain hurt.

Interesting... what about just going full nuclear submarine? Assuming the BFS could carry a big enough solar array, or small nuclear reactor (a hundred and some tonnes to Mars, after all) how much water would it need to haul as well to electrolyze into O2 for a crew of, Oh, say 10 for easy numbers’ sake? A hundred and some tonnes of payload, after all. That seems to me like a big part of the life support solution.

Well, it is Jeb in the seat... ...it is Jeb, isn’t it?

On this note, what would be needed to chemically separate CO2 into carbon & oxygen?

Despite Atlas’s record, seems the prudent thing would be to put it inside. Of course, the Kerbal in me wants to mash the spacebar right like it is. (⊙_◎)

Um... did you check the half life? Maybe it decayed...

This is what I mean. You're assuming they haven't addressed these concerns already, just because they haven't shared the details with you.

Beat me to it. It is prudent to maintain a certain level of “sanity” (in the biological sense, too) while sending our first feelers out onto these alien worlds, but sooner or later, we’re going to have to dirty the place up a bit to make ourselves at home. There will no doubt be new regulations along the way, and what ends up rolling out to the BFR pad may be very different than what we’ve been shown so far, but we only know what we’ve been shown. We don’t have a complete picture of SpaceX’s engineering on the thing, and they can be every bit as secretive as, say, Blue Origin, when they want. I think it’s a bit disingenuous to handwave that away as “handwaving.” Musk is a smart guy, and he’s surrounded himself with other smart people, so I’m fairly sure they’re actively addressing the question of, “ok, how do we turn the dang thing around?” Their goal is to have the BFR be more economical than the Falcon 9. Whether they can certainly remains to be seen, but if they do, it will be nothing short of revolutionary. I think all the “handwaved” stuff will rapidly fall into line after that.

Did he take the lens cap off?

Don’t ask me where, but I’m positive I recall someone from SpaceX saying they’re fairly certain they can do the flip with aerodynamic surfaces alone. Big speed brake on the back, maybe? Deployable canards, akin to the slats they keep wayward backwards stock cars from going airborne? In more ways than one, these videos aren’t showing us the complete picture. I’m sure the internal ones SpaceX has are much better. like BulgariaSat *cough cough*

That’s why they wear space diapers. Bigelow wants to put a BA-330 on the station for testing, so throw some berth space in and use that to up the capacity. Assuming the life support can handle it, of course. Sort of a chicken-or-egg thing, no sense having a higher crew capacity if they can’t fit in the ferry, no sense making room in the ferry if there’s no berths on the station....

Interesting article Here (courtesy of my lovely wife) that actually answers some of my own questions, if speculatively. I never considered the thermal expansion/contraction of a thing that size, they estimate a 45-meter F9 core could change in size by several inches when fully fueled, due to thermal... stuff. Now stick three of them together, each just a little different, with really strong struts. Yeah... kinda makes sense why even fueling the beast is a learning experiment. But still, a pox upon my own reason and logic!

I think not. The entire reason for the ridiculous RTLS “keep going the wrong way then turn around to burn off fuel” maneuver is because it’s impossible to separate safety from a full or nearly full ET. There’s no seperatrons, the shuttle used its RCS, so even in an RTLS abort, to get away from the tank with any hope of safety the stack had to be in space and the tank around 2% full. The shuttle could theoretically keep going on SRB’s with all three main engines out after a point, but it was comsidered a guaranteed LOCV because of the tank issue after SRB burnout. Check out the Wikipedia page on shuttle abort modes for lots of good info... and exactly how deadly they all were, especially before Challenger.

I most definitely concur. Heh. All this time I was reading it as PickledHostage. I swear, this thread must have set some kinda forum growth record...

This. Are they flushing out gremlins at this point or chasing real problems. The delays seem to be getting longer, which is more than a little... disconcerting.