CatastrophicFailure

I realize that’s just a bad-S rendering and all, but would that even be possible? Have cryofuels ever been used in the rain like that? The ice buildup would be enormous...

To (finally) answer your question, pretty much everything has worked. Eventually. After sufficient exposure to expletives, brute force, and explosions. Lots of explosions. Space is hard.

Welcome to home ownership. Sort of. You’ll never be bored again. I’m still waiting for a real hoverboard.

Year 13, Day 188... Strange... Once again I have that peculiar feeling, as if days, weeks, even months have gone by, but reality for us was somehow stopped... Time is very strange here, sometimes feeling as if it's dragged along by something as stubborn as it is insane... But, moving on, and Bob's your uncle! Well, not really, since Bob is a spacecraft and thinking too much on the matter leads to all sorts of uncomfortable realizations. But once again, here's Bob. Bob is carrying an extra heavy load this time, so to really test the the system's envelope, the abort ring is deliberately activated after booster burnout. This means we can't re-use it once the booster is fished out of the ocean, but it adds and extra few hundred m/s to compensate for the extra weight. Lodvin, Hellenna, and Negy are in good spirits despite the jolt. And given what the planning team didn't tell them before launch, they'll need all the good spirits they can get. Since Bob has a decided lack of spirits, good or otherwise. Can't bring alcohol on a mission, after all. Though before long they might all need a drink... Bob rendezvouses with our troubled station, and hold position... Then it's all hands on deck, or more specifically, Hellenna's hands on deck, since no one else is trusted with the space wrench. We don't really trust Hellenna with it that much, either, but someone had to draw the short straw... The solution to our continuing misalignment troubles is, once again, MOAR BATTERIES! Since they're fairly non-explosive and we always seem to need more, anyway. This spaces the construction ports out enough that the other two greenhouses should fit now. If not, Hellenna also brought a space hammer. Once that's squared... or, more specifically, rounded away, Hellenna moves on to the machinery stack. She gets by with a little help from her friend... after threatening to sing out of tune 'til Negy gave up and got out. These processor modules are heavy, and need two Kerbals to move around, even though they technically don't weigh anything right now. Space is strange like that. The entire assembly has to briefly separate from the station for a nail-biting game of musical modules to get everything into place. Procedure took longer than planned as it took some time for the two to realize they cannot actually bite their nails through their helmets. Once that's done, Bob backs off and 40 tonnes of slightly broken spacecraft makes an automated approach... And once again, the dock doesn't work. So it's wash, rinse, repeat, and then explode. Speaking of explode, that's exactly what the crew did when we told them they couldn't come back yet. This is why spirits, good or otherwise, don't mix well with space missions. Not wise to have flammable liquids around exploding crew members. More on this later, we more rockets to launch.

Which makes the cynic in me wonder if maybe someone did think of it, and it promptly got buried cuz it just might work.... @Ultimate Steve brings up a good point too. HowEVer, just pulling this out of my, er, thin air, IIRC somewhere it was considered using Dragon 2 to reboost the Space Station. Dunno how the load compares, or if I’m just imagining it altogether...

I could throw it up on Twitter, but I’m a nobody, can’t even guess if the right people would see it. Couple of suggestions: At the beginning, replace “temporarily replace SLS” with augment, supplement, complement, something along those lines. Sounds less, I dunno, confrontational, and we all know certain Congresscritters will be automatically hostile to anything that implies replacing SLS at all. Also, you said: “...and no new mold miles.” Is miles the correct word there or did it autocorrect from lines? Very impressive proposal you’ve got there. Part of me says, “it’s NASA! They’ve probably thought of that already. They’ve got a room of guys somewhere just thinking crap up and another room of guys backing them up...” but another part reminds that part that when the semi got stuck under the bridge and the professionals couldn’t figure out how to remove it, it was a passerby who suggested just letting the air out of the tires...

Poop.

Competition is good. Not having to settle for [expletive] Comcast Internet = awesome. Getting to choose between SpaceX and Amazon as the replacement? Mind=blown

Hmm... odd that there's no black interstage, I wonder what precipitated the change there?

Nevermind, it appears the Falcon Heavy has been upstaged... ... at least for tonight... Son of a gun... he stole my line. But also...

Rumor has it... the doors are opening....

Haven’t seen the video but I’ve been following the discussion on Twitter. My understanding was, the idea was considered but rejected, both due to the difficulty of building an adapter between the FH US and the ICPS and all the pad plumbing such would require, and also that it wouldn’t allow Orion to brake into Münar orbit, just a flyby. Im a bit confused on that last part, honestly. Would the FH US burn all the way to depletion and still need a kick from the Delta stage to get the payload in orbit? This is the planned profile with SLS anyway, right? Would the ICPS really need that much more of its own fuel just to make orbit? ETA: tho, seeing the big ol’ ULA badge on a Falcon was a bit of a whut. moment...

This guy. Has a sense. Of humor. ...we all hope...

So here’s a random thing. I can’t get this page to load in Safari or Chrome, just the the “problem occurred, reloading” error. Anyone else? I’m on mobile, too...

This page has been too quiet. I think it’s well overdue for a “MOAR?”

Confidence still high enough for the 7th despite the static fire delay that they’re putting out NOTAMs? ohpleasephpleaseohplease...

Oh good, he’s no longer “Jung Musk.” Interesting to have such a problem, tho, I wonder why that wasn’t an issue with the test stand plumbing?

...

Yup. AKAIK, it’s still in the hangar, not sure if the TEL is in there yet.

Er... you know what day it is, right? Id be very wary of anything we hear from Jung Musk today...

Ah, SpaceX... where now, even the foibles of the TEL are fawned over with baited breath...