YNM

Not a question, but definitely a rabbit hole of interesting things : narrowly avoiding accidental burns, trying to reanimate animals, and Raytheon making microwave ovens (and still remains on one nuclear ship)...

Given the original EIS for Boca Chica, and in absence of any revisions to it (none that I can find so far), SS/SH orbital launch is technically not something they could do from the place. So I think for the 1st SH launch we can expect some explosion.

This. They probably realized that there isn't a lot of cargo to support their intended launch cadence, given most 'commercial' cargo still have limited national backing and/or they're really small that it'd make the payload capacity looks wasteful. Kind of wondering how SS/SH will work out in this regard, now yes SS is manned-oriented but it'll still be pretty long time before that. (granted the development is to come much faster comparing to anything manned that came before it, time vs. milestones wise.)

Planet Druidia would like to contest the claim.

How much and how long do we need though ? Also how long are we staying before giving the greenlight to trash another planet ? Or just serve them freshly raw. You'd also need judges... then courtrooms, then since they need a lot of contact, in-person or remote, we might need some phone sanitizers...

Wondering if the hold-down had any effect... The engine nozzle did went glowing red and there were clearly fuel flowing out but it looked weird.

Hmm...

Was thinking if maybe they could do some earlier prototyping using the trunk of Dragon... As I understand it SS refueling is to be done from the engine end, right ?

Actually interesting to note that in the Boca Chica EIS the role that Boca Chica can play is to "Allow SpaceX to launch the Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy orbital launch vehicles, and a variety of reusable suborbital launch vehicles". Not sure if this has since been changed to allow for experimental orbital launch vehicles (ie. Starship / Superheavy completing one full orbit) but I think the less-than-one-orbit situation still fits the planning description...

Or LM-9 based architecture...

Well it's still a lot of energy to be beaming things with. Giant microwave magnetron in the sky, disrupting everyone's wi-fi, starlink and mobile internet...

OK yeah probably since Boca Chica is a reserve under the NPS. But for other stuff normally FAA has the final word. The Record of Decision for Boca Chica is signed fully in FAA's power and the accompanying programmatic agreement with other related agencies' power (in Boca Chica's case it was Texas State Historic Preservation, National Park Service and Advisory Council on Historic Preservation). EPA is barely involved - US Fish and Wildlife Service is under the Department of the Interior. EPA probably only keeps a copy of everything but that's about it. This map is interesting though :

EIS is more than just environment environment. Much the same that FRA reviews railway EIS, FAA reviews air-related EIS.

Well, fingers crossed...

*coughs* But anyway. Maybe a bit of a late reply, but they actually conducted Environmental Impact Study for the whole thing back in 2014, and FAA approved all of it. Includes a word from the US Fish and Wildlife Service.

Maybe (the atmo will deffo scatter things around as we're sending photons down, not up), but my off-comment weren't really on actual weapons-grade lasers. Basically if you want to harvest solar power in orbit and send it to the ground then unless you plan on covering large parts of Earth's sky with a mirror that shines the surface with mirrored sunlight you'll have to concentrate the light influx you just harvested. And even back on Earth we already seen enough of birds fried in the sky from solar concentrator plants, for something orbital the intensity is probably much, much larger. (apparently for ground application it's been solved by making sure you're not making more than 5000 W/sq m (illustration) - 4 times the normal insolation - but for space application I think that's too small.) idk though. Maybe if it doesn't directly glints off to you then because of the lack of strong radiation from elsewhere maybe you wouldn't notice unless you're in the path. Still kinda scary to think we have stuff that's sending a lot of power up and down.

Given that the construction project I interned in had a few 2x1 m, 100 mm thick concrete panels just sitting outside that's cracked (out of a few dozens more those that don't), and SpaceX has probably made more Raptor engines than there were concrete panels when I was there, I think their methods are fine. Steel is a much tougher material than concrete anyway. Would have said no but if we end up having a rocket design that requires much less knowledge and specialties to manufacture than we have had to I'd say we're successful. Mass-produced rockets would be like mass-produced cars but for space I guess. <snip>

idk, since they're steel IMO it's a lot better than moving giant concrete panels around, like this - they're heavier, yet a lot more fragile (brittle).

Great, they're developing death rays too... XD

The two EDS is interesting. Wonder if that means HTV-X to Gateway will also do something similar, or if they have a much more powerful upper stage in the design stage or such. To be fair with NRHO you can use the less dV intensive transfers as well.

Their last development update post 2 months ago. Planned launch is in 2022 so still some time to go.

*slow clap* But yeah, there're many ways to do many things, and there're definitely more than 50 shades of grey.

Geostationary ? Geosynchronous ? Well NRHO is supposed to be less 'difficult' to maintain than most LLOs (apart from the frozen orbits I suppose). Also AFAIK most ion engine usage has been to do the last orbital entry into proper GEO from GTO as well as longitude movements rather than stationkeeping... but idk. Tidal effects and perturbations are definitely a thing everywhere.

... And I thought naming your chocolate after the country was bad enough.

I mean stationkeeping in NRHO is supposed to be small to nonexistent... Continuous stationkeeping (esp. prograde boosting) is only really useful in LEO.