YNM

You can probably do kaomoji instead ? cat ➞ =^._.^= cat_alive ➞ (=^･ω･^=) cat_dead ➞ (=✖ᆽ✖=)

It's clearly written underneath it, just not in Latin-derived characters (or Greek-derived for that matter). (for the convenience of mobile users, it's 「ヨーッスノットマイン」). English and their weird pronunciations. Though at least they aren't running out of sound combinations to use I suppose.

And as the backbone for the rest really. No one else have that much funds to throw around for space stuff. The next best thing is on the whim of a billionaire. The next best thing again is one where they don't really need a breakneck speed to do it (but trust me once they get going it'll be normalized at a breakneck speed). With the amount of parties it's involved with now it's difficult to try and undo most of the ongoing work. Although there's always room to keep Gateway as the continuation of the ISS and that's about it for the Moon mission, and then throw most of the stuff there as 'prepping for Mars'. I have to admit that tying international partners in prevents legislators from any color to stop it on a whim. It was a good move.

Probably not, but 'all they need to add' (famous last words, to some) is an electric motor and some batteries to keep the turbopumps running, plus some valve to turn off the gas generators (or bypass shunt for whatever main cycle they end up using). To my knowledge current turbopumps require an external means of power to start up in the first place right ? An electric motor for turbopump startup doesn't sound too much out of the world, it's how we power up turbojet and turbofan engines (as well as normal engines in general), although most of the time it's just powered by the tank pressure to start for now. Engine startup before liftoff will use GSE power, for landing it'll use onboard batteries (and throughout the landing sequence as well). Say, if they put in 7 engines (6 around a circle + center engine), assuming the 6*640 kN that works out to ~550 kN per engine for maximum liftoff thrust, for landing you need ~250 kN (9*25 kN), that's around a half of a single engine thrust. 40% thrusting should be easy with electric turbopumps ?

Perhaps a dedicated electric turbopump just for landing ? For liftoff up to separation they can use gas generators or whatever.

Orbits are not "dragged". What you are changing is your velocity vector, which in turn changes your angular momentum (also a vector) around the parent body. Why changing to a polar orbit is hard, despite the 'speed' barely changes ? It's because it's a vector and not a scalar, and with triangles you get to spend as much as ~1.42 times (√2) your circular orbital velocity magnitude (the scalar value). To give some idea, the circular orbital speed around Kerbin is about 2200 m/s, and that means you need to spend ~3100 m/s to change from an equatorial orbit (0° inclination) to an orbit with 90° inclination - about as much as needed to lift a payload into LKO itself. I would say that something that allows you to change your maneuver dV nodes down to the m/s of the velocity vector change is more than enough. I've used them often enough with MechJeb. There are many times when I go and do the 'lazy' way, but often to pre-place a satellite to the right inclination once entering a new SOI (or just before it) it's indispensable to be able to command a maneuver node down to the last digit. It's realistic too if you think of TCMs of space probes. Also useful I think is to change the patched conics view between relative-to-body and the standard 'dragged' view, which gives you a much clearer idea of what's going to happen around the new parent body once you enter their SOI. What would be nice is if the maneuver nodes can count for burn losses... but this is an equally hard problem IRL and I don't expect the devs to do the same work down to the nit and grit of someone from a space agency would do. Large TCMs around the parent star are fine I guess.

Late April for arrival at KSC (assuming good static fire). I will be extremely surprised if Artemis 1 launches this year. I'd be surprised as well, but good news will always be a good news, and a successful launch is always good news.

Not actually of Artemis itself, nor is it from NASA officially (it does feature a worker associated with NASA), but the attempts from 2013 for lunar landing software :

Artemis. They don't have enough money to try and build their own station anyway, but they're more than willing to spend money on developing technology that'd benefit them back on the ground. Right now the largest problem is the population decline so there's a large drive to automate everything - remote space activities are one of the few things that align with this (and if you notice they've been doing exactly that). Same with above. They don't have the funds - or the willingness to fund - anymore, esp. post 3.11, and they don't have the personnel. tl;dr Japanese manned space program would have to rely on other manned space program really. It make no sense for them to send their populace anywhere else as it's dwindling back on Earth. The unmanned robotic ones however has largely been extremely innovative and groundbreaking, esp. considering the relatively small budget. Private ventures is one aspect that the government is trying to foster, but I'd argue if they were interested from the start they'd have jumped on the ship already, ie. Maezawa and dearMoon. EDIT : Found this document that actually gives the timeline of all the projects in JAXA's planning that has already been fixed. In other news, HTV-X is progressing nicely :

Everyone be pursuing reusable first stage now... Although I wonder about the timeline given that'd mean that H3 has only like a decade of use. I think the airplane thing isn't completely new however. They've been researching quiet SST and hypersonic airplane as well, so it probably would come in handy.

It's fairly empty when it's only about to land. Large movement is what I expected. Plus they fired all three engines right from when it was parallel to the ground, and had only the engine thrust mostly to maneuver. That's only 1 engine out of 3... Touching might've been light on the forces since the side walls are still supporting some weight.

Huh. Interesting. If it's solids again that'd pretty much lock the fate of SLS as a white elephant rocket, maybe launching a crew to the lunar station once every year, and additional surface payload pre-positioning when they need it. Although there's one solace to be had. If they really move forward and move the ISS cooperation to a lunar station I suppose the HLO station makes sense as the other national participants probably wouldn't be able to put much to LLO either.

I mean, Saturn V was built by Boeing, North American Aviation, Douglas and the CSM/LM by Rockwell and Grumman. NASA didn't actually manufacture it themselves. They were all pretty much a large company by that time, with all the post-war aviation industry in boom. The only thing different this time is that while SV was an entirely new thing built almost from the ground-up, SLS is trying to train and suit an old dog for new job, the only thing properly new being the Orion capsule. Using existing tech (from 4 decades ago at retirement, mind you) would've made sense when it was only a few years out of use, but a whole decade is too long.

5-segment boosters have been proposed since a long time ago. Although I suppose Block 2 is pretty much the same thing. Block 2 is only 45 tons to TLI still however so it's 15 tonnes short of the 60 tonnes ideally needed (30 tonnes for lander and/or extra cargo with the crew). I question if their timeline could be significantly accelerated. One thing for sure is that whatever they end up making can have the launch cadence for EOR-type mission rather than half-arsed LOR.

As much as this would've been a fairly capable launcher I'm glad we didn't follow through with that one. I honestly wonder what would be the 'easiest' way out for NASA to uprate SLS so it'd actually be useful to send a cargo to land once a la Apollo. Extra SRB segment ?

Apart from the KSP pic I think I've seen the habs on the left before somewhere... wasn't it to do with Bezos/BO kinda thingy ? I'm more surprised on the "Invest" buttons.

Mainly the former, I think. Although if the 8 tonnes-class LEO missions (and corresponding GTO mass of ~2 tonnes) remains growing stronger as it had from the 80s then ULA should be concerned as I can only see Vulcan doing something like Ariane 5 dual-payload missions most of the time, which means increased wait times. It's really interesting looking at space payloads because they're dictated by the rockets too.

Well, SpaceX is in here, so...

You'd need a spacecraft that have the payload capability then to launch and to re-enter the experiments (and the humans).

Even if they do it'd fall more on 'tourism' than actual scientists. This is why I was wondering if any slot is even left among the major space programs, the only thing I can come up is either the ISS commercialization effort or the rich oil nations, or both.

Yeah, though I suppose you could do that if you have a station nearby. Human operators is useful because the form factor and operation sequence is much less strict than if it's entirely robotic, that's all. Same thing with down here.

They were putting a furnace on zero-G flights. We also haven't seen much for like plant and animal growth + breeding. Plus other 'mundane' things, usually to do with crystals or with thermodynamics. ISS, the modules that are built in the start of the millenium, will have to retire though. That's the part I was wondering.

Japan's H-series rocket (H-I, H-II, H-IIA, H-IIB, H3) is actually named after the initialism of Hydrogen, which is the fuel they use. The other line of rockets (the fully-self-developed SRB ones) take a series of letters.

Who's going to pay them to go to the ISS though ? NASA already have two contractors, Roscosmos is having their own, then CSA, ESA and JAXA just fills the slot of NASA astronauts really. Others who have a large enough program is developing their own manned launcher (ISRO and CNSA if they ever get in the treaty). Probably some rich oil country, if they're interested... Most likely to a private station, maybe that Axiom module thing would heed their own astronauts ?