Canopus

It isn't though. It sits right on our doorstep and thats what makes it one of the most important bodies in our solar system But they are at the bottom of earths steep gravity well and bringing them on mass into orbit is complicated and expensive. When you can bring the bulk of raw materials you need from the moon, it's not going to hurt you to bring the small rest from the earth.

I‘m on #teammoon, it‘s closer therefore safer for the foreseeable future, it‘s got resources to base an economy around while also benefiting the earth thanks to it‘s proximity. If you want to have something permanent in space that may drive an eventual expansion beyond, you want a cislunar industry. There won‘t be an exodus to mars anyway even if it got anything you need to live, simply because it is much more unpleasant than any of the empty places on earth. Bonus point: you can stand on the surface of the moon and admire our blue planet.

I don‘t think they will ask anyone to fly to the moon. Shackleton might be a name for a manned lunar Lander they propose, or even just the name for their recovery ship

@satnet easily the best answer.

@sh1pman It’s great that no one was harmed, on the other hand, they had years of testing, this problem appearing now seems like it could be a big setback.

Interesting that now both Boeing and SpaceX had a failure in their liquid propellant fueled LES system. Might have all went a little faster with the good old Solids.

Yeah should have switched to the situational view much earlier. People just sitting around the control room is really not that interesting. Edit: changing to telemetry isn‘t working either it seems

wrong thread?

I so hope that it's not just a two person surface mission. I really think this accelerated plan is a bad idea.

@jadebenn i'm sure Block 2 was supposed to have the Liquid Pyrios Boosters with F-1 engines, and have an even Larger upper stage using J-2x but that version seems to have been abandoned very early on. Edit: I looked again and later version of block two just appear to use advanced SRBs and the normal EUS, so it might just be the fifth RS-25 thats makes the difference. Edit 2: looking further i found this: showing only four engines.

@Gargamel i might be a bit pessimistic but i don't think a single human with no prior knowledge of any kind society could come up with much more than any other great ape. But it took tens of thousand of years for those basic needs to be reliably covered. And is only possible through information transfer. I think we just got lucky when we developed the ability to speak.

Depends on what you mean when you say caveman, you probably couldn‘t teach the square cube law to some people living today. Fact is what allows us to be smart today is communication and society not some inherently bigger and better brain or something.

You also have to consider that all Human advancement come through century of improving on already existing ideas. If you release a kid into the wild without any human interaction and education, it won‘t just come up with the square cube law, it won‘t be much more than just another Animal.

Is this the new Spruce Goose?

I‘m afraid that they‘ll do it in time but the accelerated schedule leads to an Apollo clone with short surface stays, for two people. Then we have like two or three landings an are back to square one. I would actually have preferred the slower approach with the first landing at the end of the 20s.

@tater Sorry i wasn‘t trying to imply SLS is meant for LEO, just that FH is supposed to put Satellites into geosynchronous orbits not launch heavy payloads. Could have worded that a little better.

The point is that SLS is not supposed to put 5 ton sats into GEO. FH is. It is definitely not designed to put superheavy payloads into LEO.

EM-1 never was. Em-2 was supposed to be manned flyby, but that has changed too.

FH could do EM-1, with the SM burn. from everything i have read, the 70 ton number for FH is not realistic, it doesn‘t seem to take structural and CoM issues into account.

@tater the Ares I issue stems from the long design of the vehicle does it not Putting a single GEO sat into space, very impressive, sorry but Falcon Heavy will never be an SLS replacement, not by volume or mass capacity. New Glenn, maybe Delta IV heavy, Vulcan or even Starship if that ever goes somewhere. but not FH.

both shoot stuff out the back to make things go the other directions. I don't see how liquid fuel is inherently better.

"It looks like you are trying to land on the Moon. Would you like help?"

https://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/20190002126.pdf about replacing the legacy SLS Shuttle boosters with new ones based on Omega that are both cheaper and overall better performing.

Wow what a shame, i was really looking forward to this

I used to get a lot of intravenous injections leading to me basically only being able to use one hand for Weeks at a time and Mechjeb really helped me to continue playing KSP.