Mitchz95

I'm trying to put this into practice, but it doesn't seem to be working. My goal is to come up with a weapon that can reliably punch through the M-2x2 Panel (which almost everyone uses for armor plating). The panel has a mass of 0.3 tonnes and an impact tolerance of 80m/s. So it should therefore require an impact momentum of 24tm/s. My missiles consist of a single Pocket I-Beam (with two Seperatrons attached), which has a mass of 0.19 tonnes and an impact tolerance of 80m/s. 24/0.19 = 127m/s, so that's the minimum speed I should accelerate them to, correct? In practice, though, the missiles always either bounce right off the panel, get somehow stuck inside it, or simply explode themselves. In all instances the "armor" is completely undamaged. What am I doing wrong? EDIT: I also tried it with the standard I-Beam, which has a mass of 0.38 tonnes. Same thing. How'd you do it? Mine always lose the target as soon as I stage them off.

I'm sure they knew what would happen and did it anyway. No such thing as bad publicity, right? Moho, Eve, Kerbin, Duna, Jool, Laythe, Eeloo?

Eh, I think they just suffer from opposite problems. SpaceX moves rapidly, taking on new goals and hastily modifying things to work better. Every rocket is prototyping some new technology that can make the next ones better, and every mission is a clear step toward one or several future milestones. Usually, it works. Sometimes, like CRS-7 and AMOS-6, it doesn't. NASA takes things slowly, with extensive flight rules that say what they can and cannot do. They're slow to innovate, which makes things more consistently reliable, but sometimes that same approach makes them slow to respond to a looming problem. Usually, it works. Sometimes, like Challenger and Columbia, it doesn't. But to your other point, yeah, I agree. They need to slow down and start finishing their projects before moving on to the next ones. ... On a related topic, I'm starting to get more concerned that this moonshot will widen the rift between SpaceX and NASA. SpaceX is already seen as the rock stars of the space industry, making rapid progress and doing stuff that wouldn't be out of place in a sci-fi movie, while NASA takes its time and works on a rocket/spacecraft duo that's quickly becoming a lemon. If SLS ends up being cancelled, justified or not, right as SpaceX does another Apollo 8, it would be a huge PR blow for NASA. Worst-case scenario, NASA could actually drop SpaceX and hope the upstarts will just go away. So now SpaceX is dead, ULA tears up the Vulcan because it's no longer needed to be competitive, and we're right back where we started. (Well, there's still Blue Origin, but they don't have anywhere near the star power SpaceX does.)

Falcon Heavy? ITS? Spacesuits?

There are 100–400 billion stars in the galaxy... surely nobody would mind it we claimed one for ourselves?

The system is less than a billion years old, isn't it? That's not a lot of time for life to evolve.

If the average action movie doesn't feel the need to stay 100% within real physics, I don't see why sci-fi needs to either. As long as it's immersive and has a decent story, I'm happy to watch it,. Tag your spoilers, good sir!

Seven rocky planets, all roughly the same size, all within spitting distance of one another, and three of which are in the habitable zone? Sounds like the kind of place where an interplanetary civilization would thrive.

Hmm...

Wait, this is a re-used first stage!? I may have to take a day off work to watch this one...

Maybe a dumb question, but why are there windows for static fires?

I actually prefer the blue, although orange probably is more practical.

"... not who we are."

Anyone want to place bets that this will be the last expendable SpaceX launch, ever? (Well, deliberately expendable...)

Looks like dead-center! Amazing.

Stay on target... Stay on target...

I don't think I've ever been this nervous before a launch before. Even though I know it'll probably be okay, return-to-flight is always high-stakes and another failure would be absolutely devastating. I wonder what the hosts are supposed to say if things go wrong.

So... anyone want to take bets they'll get through this year without losing any? Also, are they going to be landing on the launch pad or the drone ship?

12:54 pm EST. 60% chance of favorable conditions.

http://arstechnica.com/science/2017/01/spacex-details-its-plans-for-landing-three-falcon-heavy-boosters-at-once/ Interesting... it looks like they plan to bring back all three FH boosers on land.

You know, that's not bad. I could get behind that one.

Hmm... could we make some kind of blimp hybrid? A plane with moderate amounts of lifting gas incorporated into the design to make it lighter? That way some of the lift is always available, meaning lower speeds would be needed to stay in the air. And it's not like aerodynamics would be much of a problem in that thin atmosphere...

Related to this, I hate it when people use the word "moon" to describe a small planet. For example, in Star Trek Voyager, 1,000 kilograms of antimatter is said to be "enough to destroy a small moon". People, Ganymede is bigger than Mercury! Moons aren't necessarily smaller than planets!

EDIT: Dammit... Also, launch has been moved to Monday. Not sure what time yet.