YNM

... that'll soon have some structures in it anyway....

Yeah, it would be really nice to finally be exempt from all the income taxes too I suppose. Still, since USACE have a project to actually keep the shoreline by doing stuff to it it's not that bad to convert some area behind it for launch pads.

ok that sounds like a whole lot more than a patch XD

Yeah but RocketLab also have to get permission from NZCAA, surely ? (and given it's a carrier rocket it wouldn't surprise me if they also have to involve NZRAF...) And something similar should be going on with the hypothetical Mexico-launched rockets, with AFAC and FAM ? Also, how close is it that it's considered to still be a safe distance from a rocket launch ? 3 mi ? Cape Canaveral (at least the launch pads that are still used for orbital launches) is quite a whole lot further away from any settlement than that... So if some of the restricted area were to extend to Mexico, whose jurisdiction does it become ?

I mean... it's not their jurisdiction anymore ? Like FAA has no jurisdiction over Mexican airspace, right ?

I have some issues with said coastline being merely 3 miles away from the coastline of a completely different country altogether though. ... That's already receding anyway because of raised sea level. It's not as pristine as one might like to think. I say you better use them and fortify them.

Plain contradiction already, just from the wording. There's a reason tractor-trailers work, because the rear follows the front's motion, even if the only machine driving the whole thing is located on the front. You need something that'd either be completely separated or is already completely separated and you can impart force on it. (there's a reason the road under said tractor-trailer doesn't follow the vehicle at all.)

I like how ocean splashdown is 70% vs 30% for on-land impact... just like the average sea : land ratio... XD So yeah, fingers cross, will see if any of us wins a jackpot !

Fingers crossed they'd get to fly this up, and maybe push the urgency further to provide a third IDA/IDSS adapter...

I hope the depicted event doesn't happen to someone (nor has it happened to me... I think) but it's a delight to watch the animation. So far he has only released one more similar thing just before it. My friends were actually in google street view from like 6 years ago. Sadly I sat too far from the road where the car was passing... Their faces (heads, really) were all blurred but the clothing was a pretty dead giveaway of who we were...

I will say... SN8 I think had the start-up in consequently rather than at the same time ? Or is that due to the fuel starvation and whatever they changed inside is what makes this possible ?

Yeah, wrong shape to start with. (FYI crude oil tanks in ships aren't cylinders, they're often just rectangular or rectangular with the tips slanted, so octagonal ? idk. Only knew it since they asked us to design a port as an assignment.) Yeah... godspeed to whichever company/entity it is.

Have the opposite here. They've been putting discounts on new vehicles, and the gov't has actually lowered the new vehicle tax. Honestly I want to have a truck (HGV/Class 8) driving license... Would at least help me know what it's like to drive on the roads in very large vehicles, if I ever end up designing roads at work. Or trains. Those are often electric. Better yet if it's actually your work in the crane... Trucks have had bunk beds in them, why not heavy equipment and machinery ?

Yeah, idk what those steel tanks are. If we have to agree to disagree I'll leave it as is - honestly I wish we have more than just Starship for HLS, if anything I'll say Starship doesn't work at it's best on the Lunar environment and I wish for actual tests on Mars. I've said numerous times I particularly like the Dynetics idea since it means easy surface access - a characteristic you need when you have to access it so frequently. Seeing Starship being solely chosen for HLS was honestly a surprise given the access challenges, but when you don't fund your space program enough to achieve the goals you set forth to it I guess it's OK to rely on philanthropy (that still have the chance being done to avoid getting too much personal income on the balance...)

Because their vehicle is ultimately designed not just for Trans-Lunar Injection, but for Trans-Mars Injection ? And for Mars operations rather than lunar operations, which is more massive than the Moon and you need more dV operating around it ? They don't have a specific lunar crew design, but they already have a crew capsule design. Wouldn't surprise me if they just nicked the pressurized parts and put it inside Starship, on the very top.

Except that this is a lander, which means you have to make them land and lift off again on their own from the lunar surface. Maybe when we have ISRU* it'll change (which is why I still think their design is a good contender for future autonomous station - surface cargo transfer) but we don't have that for the first landing under current plans. * not sure what ISRU works on the Moon. There's methane on Mars, if their design ever make it for a far-future Mars station - surface transfer vehicle.

And they somehow have negative mass in the overall design ? That's even less acceptable. It's like wanting to have a house and already having all the furniture you want to put in but they can't fit through the doors or something. Better make the house first then buy the furniture that'd actually fit through.

Where ?

So no prototype at all is better, is that what you're saying ? Wonder why we spent all that time qualifying stuff for buildings, and still have a requirement to test otherwise untested stuff.

I'm more concerned that you only have 3 miles beyond the landing area before you hit a different country entirely. Spreading debris over Texas isn't entirely new. Probably wouldn't re-enter and land on their current landing spot. Or even if they do at least one flight first landing on the water.

Arguably at this point SpaceX is the major partner in Artemis, not NASA. Crew and cargo on both IDSS. Think no one foresaw that given there were happy with cargo on CBM instead. Probably warrants a 3rd IDSS adapter, maybe styled after the new airlock, that can be put on the nadir CBM when they need it. A prototype is working better than a bunch of drawings signed off by the engineers. There's a good reason things only make it's way into the building code a decade or two after it has start to see widespread adoption - they probably have ironed out all the kinks and you really can just follow the instructions.

If anything in this case the American version is the one without distinction for the ground-level floor. Will say that the size probably contributes to the extra danger this time as well... Didn't Atlas also have it's only stage end up in orbit for the Mercury missions ?

Yeah. It is an iterative process, sadly being done by the nature itself, we use iteration often enough in computing but this is not our computer and we don't know all the variables.

I mean it will, much like what you'd see in KSP (the perigee and apogee will switch around) - but the pass that would mean re-entry simply has to have the perigee low enough to encounter atmosphere that's thick enough to turn the apogee inwards and make it the same as the perigee. We have no idea which orbit will do it since with every pass the apogee and perigee is changed.