StrandedonEarth

Render looks fairly realistic, until they tacked on the TIE* plumes... * - Triple Ion Engines

Well, some people seem to think planning a Mars colony is the wrong goal. But that goal is resulting in this potentially amazing vehicle, so how can it be wrong? Never say never, because that's a mighty long time. With the resources of the Solar System at our disposal and the means to make use of it (I realize this will take a very long time just for that), eventually, hopefully, we'll figure out how to make a self-sustaining colony somewhere, that could provide lessons useful elsewhere. If and when we establish outposts on Mars and the Belt, it may be that none are self-sustaining on their own, but may be able to eke out an existence helping each other if a global catastrophe befalls Mother Earth. I realize that's far-future thinking, because none of that appears remotely possible in the near term. But it has to start somewhere, and the vessel that could enable it to all happen is being developed now. Pessimists figure it'll never work, and put little effort into trying. Optimists keep trying until it either it works, a showstopper emerges, or die they trying. Of course, history is littered failed optimists, but once in a while one succeeds at the impossible and changes the world.

Musk will probably go to space when he can go all the way to Duna Mars, not before. In the meantime, HUZZAH! To Sir Branson and his crew

Bird is away! Methinks Sir Richard will want to buy Starlink antennas for his birds...

Hopefully it'll end up like cd/dvd players, before they became obsolete. Once (if ever) the dev and factories are paid off, price should go way down (depending on required labor input, I suppose. Alien juggernaut FTW!).

Keep slamming it with iceteroids from the Kuiper belt to simultaneously spin it up and cool it down, while delivering more H2 it probably needs.

Makes me wonder, what kind of crowds do launches draw? IIRC Shuttle was always huge, and the first launches of F9, then F9Crew. While I imagine the routine launch crowds are smaller now, I'm sure F9H will always be huge. So how big are these crowds? 20k? 50k? 100k? I would expect the first SH/SS orbital attempt to reach Woodstock proportions, if not for the somewhat remote location...

I wish I could head down there too. Would be a hell of a road trip!

Yeah, that’s what I thought too. It makes sense to build the factory at Mcgregor near the test stands, as well as sidestepping opposition to building more than absolutely necessary in the BC/RGV wetlands. The Mcgregor factory will likely be a highly automated Alien Juggernaut-class factory churning out R2s (Threepio would be so jealous) while the older less-automated California plant does the more custom RVac and experimental builds.

It all makes me wonder: If someone wanted to redesign the RS-25 for the lowest manufacturing cost, how would it turn out? Assume that means that it stays hydrolox, despite that probably not being the best choice for SSTO, unless wetlabbing it… How low could the incremental price go, ignoring dev and factory cost? Would there be much performance hit? If only the entire thing could be done with additive manufacturing. Not a silver bullet; slow, I know, but still faster than some methods. Maybe returning a hydrolox SSTO wouldn’t be so hard; it may be so ‘fluffy’ that it slows down fast enough to not melt without a lot of protection. Did NASA ever do any experiments with ET reentries, seeking how long they could delay the breakup? Probably not because they wanted as much destruction of the tank as possible.

My 5 cents (Cdn exchange rate, inflation, etc): On topic: Nothing wrong with crowdsourcing. There may be a pearl in one of those oysters. Going down the rabbit hole:

It just means it should wait until we have a spare mine-ufactory with an asteroid in tow to build the sunshield. Then wait another 800 years while we figure out the other issues.

I seem to recall a metric where the speed required to generate sufficient lift for aerodynamic flight exceeded orbital velocity. Given that the atmosphere can expand and contract somewhat due to solar events, that line would be variable.

The biggest problem I heard with Venus is the extremely slow rotation. So, solar shade to block insolation, once the atmosphere finally freezes out, how to spin it up? Hit it with ice asteroids at extremely oblique angles? Magnetically? (Gets the core spinning too!) How much mass do we need to hit it with to spin it up? Note: the above techniques are simple once we have mass production of space-grade robotic mining infrastructure, cheap access to space, etc E: And once robots are doing all the work with next to no human intervention, the cost will be next to nothing.

I thought they were close to the fineness limit. FH may have less issue with that due to reinforcing for Heavy mode.

Cowabungalopolis?

Castles made of sand Slip into the sea Eventually As to the OP, um, Megalopolis? Alienopolis? Bugolopolis?

And one day someone is going to hack out a kill code that will brick all the IoT-enabled appliances. I didn’t even know my new fridge had wifi until it arrived. Still not sure why it has it, aside from “cuz it can”

Let’s get ready to RUUUMMMMBBLLLLLLLLLEEEEEEEE!!!!

Wow.... which makes legs that much more complicated, which really drives towards catching.... and the wider ring of engines is made more possible by dropping the legs in favor of catching... Chicken? or Egg?

Well, I do see one potential benefit of an SSTO, especially with the RS-25's or RS-68's appetite for LH2: wet labs. The large volume of hydrogen tanks is an advantage in that case, and not trying to re-enter the beast makes things much simpler. Sure, wet labs always seems to be too complicated, but I think the better approach is to design a hab that can function as a tank for awhile, versus trying to figure out how to convert a tank into hab space. But I digress, and that may be impractical for a tank the size of an LH2 SSTO tank. The engines can always be removed and dropped back dirtside. Of course, if/when orbital manufacturing/recycling becomes a thing, SSTO tanks could quickly find a new life in space. But even then it could still be easier/better to convert than recycle.

Just picked up Stellaris last weekend. After the first aborted run of poking around and getting the basic idea, I restarted with a will and ended up having to send my overbuilt fleet on a suicide mission so they wouldn't drain out all my energy credit reserves. I had no idea that was where all my power was going as I was frantically building generator districts that I didn't have the population to run. Now I'm thinking I need to attack one of my neighbours...

Branson to Bezos: GAME ON!

While I'm not an expert, I don't think an SH explosion would be quite as bad as you think. Yes, it'll be a bloody big fireball, but that's all it'll be: a fireball. The liquid propellants will mix a little and burn, but it is very unlikely to detonate (supersonic flame propagation) and produce the destructive shockwave seen in Boca Chica, Beirut, Utah, and other places... I don't want to sound like I'm downplaying how destructive it could be, but it could be worse... Bear in mind that the Boca Chica explosion of SN4 was caused by a ground equipment interface problem, allowing large amounts of methane to leak, vaporize, and mix with the air before finding the flare stack, creating a fuel-air bomb. An unlikely event during "routine" ops (rocketry should never be routine), and could happen with any vehicle of any size.