YNM

Thankfully the version in the story fell on a cold, dead (on the surface) planet.

I'd say that history from such a long time ago will remain entwined between being a reality that happened and being an interpretation from the public, both in the past times and the recent times, of the events. I mean, let alone histories from a long time ago - even things that are happening right now more than often have the exact same treatment. It doesn't mean we shouldn't completely not seek any part of reality of the past at all - archaeological work is still important - but we have to remember the reality we live in as well, because some of these histories and their interpretation sometimes are the sole reason the world is currently the way it is. And yeah sure some of them are bad things, and in fact historical justifications are often sought after to legitimize a present situation, but there are present peace and truce as well that are founded by the less-than-real histories of the past. While it would be nice to fully grasp that no part of humanity is ever going to be perfect (and it will never be perfect), not everyone is ready for it, because no one is perfect. I only have these other two to show, at least the current side of revealing history and how people react to it.

Ah, yeah. Long March 3B does use hypergolics. Also, nightshot, so yeah now I get how they did that. Probably a fairly fast shutter speed and certain launch trench placement.

Are those lightning in the background ? Also, are the redder fires from like the gas-generators or something ?

Livestream link up :

Would giving it catnip restores the life points ?

Do you not remember the first few modules delivered to space for the ISS ? These were just the bare minimum. None of these were berthed - they were all docked. Also NASA is getting used to having to send cargo with only IDSS/IDA as the access, given one of the CRS vehicles.

What, autonomous ? We're still quite a way from that. Yeah, they'll just use IDSS/IDA to connect all the modules.

In those years they have mostly flying boats still... If something goes bad you can always land anywhere. Maybe more like airship safety than airplane safety in 1935. (Hindenburg was 1937)

Well you can't do it for a new station without Shuttle, that's what I was saying. CBM will be limited to the ISS.

And CBMs aren't hitting each other... There's a reason we'll never see CBMs again after Shuttle due to the loss of the arms (although berthing is still possible for ISS but I question you can do it entirely unmanned). There's actually one APAS being used to connect the ROS with USOS, and I can't see how the other two PMAs would be of a different design. However I'll say that the currently used IDSS/IDA on the crew capsule itself are definitely not the heavy type. Not sure about the APAS to IDA/IDSS adapters itself, there's a chance it's not the heavy type as well. But yeah in a way we already have one of the docking ports connecting a station together.

Where do you think the current line-up of US crew vehicles are docked to ? They're allowed to re-boost the station as well. At least it's a good thing that it was practically nothing... Although I'd have to wonder why they didn't realize it before the engines were started, given the lengthy hold-up (or maybe it is due to the lengthy hold-up ?).

Yeah, I have no idea what the OP is trying to ask, even. Unless if they're planning to break physics - let alone physics, just the association of what your "spaceship" is. The ISS only includes all the stuff that's currently attached to it, it doesn't include the LVs and the used-up supply vehicles and their manufacturing plant here down on the surface of the Earth. the Earth only includes the physical body and (potentially) the objects where it falls into the immediate surrounding, possibly also the Moon if we're talking "Earth planet system", but it doesn't include the Sun. The Sun only covers all the plasma that's on it, and probably all the planets and other bodies that orbits around it if we're talking "solar system", but it doesn't include other stars (ie. Proxima Centauri).

The 350T version is exactly what's used on the ISS. The ISS is 400 tonnes in mass.

I suppose it's not really useful for space travel though, unless we're talking stuff like the pressurized compartment or the electrical system etc. For the engines and the manoeuvres it's more useful to count it against the number of occurrences it happens. Airplane-level seems to need like another decade or more...

Are the thrust for landing on the Moon that much ? Yeah, and it's a good thing they tested the thing (finally !). Only problem now is that even if they can swap the engines they'd need to run up and makes in all the fuel etc. again. Even doing a retest within next month is going to be the fastest they've been moving so far, but I really hope they'd finally gear up. 67 seconds vs. 480 seconds is waay too short. Unless if the only data they need is "oh look it can turn on, dunno how we'd do guidance".

Sadly not actually in the quoted article, the article just says that NASA "will allow reuse of Capsule and Booster starting with Crew-2" but there's nothing that says it's what is in the manifest of Crew-2. Don't get me wrong, I myself hope that the propulsive landings of Dragon V2 will be used by NASA as well. It'd provide the precedent for Starship.

Yeah, if they ended up being chosen for HLS then I can see the Orion spacecraft being pushed back to Earth by Starship. That'd be even less propellant needed on the Orion SM.

Merlin was first tested in space from 2010. Merlin has only been propulsively landed back on Earth since 2015, and that's not the ones that goes to space. NASA hasn't accepted to use re-used boosters yet, although they're open to the idea. We'll see when a reused booster will be manifested for a crew launch on F9. Plus, Starship hasn't even had the thermal protection system tested at all. 2030 is the fastest time IMO, but mid-2030s is much more likely.

I'm not sure what the Promised Elon Time is rn but I'd wager we'll see them mid-2030s starting to launch customers from Earth and back.

Merlin has flown for 12 years (Falcon 1 also used them), and the design had started since at least 2002. And the problem so far hasn't been with the engine itself, but the fuel management (fuel plumbing is extremely hard). Or at least we haven't tested the engine in-flight enough times until there is an issue that arose solely on the engine itself. Like I said, it'll take them a whole decade since the first full-profile unmanned mission happened.

Man-rating is one where even a 99% success record can look bad enough. They'll still have to prove themselves for years (I'd wager a whole decade) once the whole stack works unmanned-ly.

Yeah, but the idea is there, you can turn spine-crushing landing into less-than-spine-crushing-but-still-awful landing. And it'll help their progress.

*looks at Shuttle where it's literally death if anything goes wrong while the SRBs are on, yet the first flight was immediately manned* Soyuz capsules have landing SRBs on them. Also, they are now being contracted to investigate Starship as lunar HLS solution. That means that in a way they're providing for man-rating the thing, at least solely for in-orbit operations. I'm not saying that man-rating this thing for launch and land on Earth will be easy. But we still have a decade in front of us. Let's not forget that F9 first flew in 2010, and they were only man-rated in 2020 after a whole decade of unmanned use. There's still time to 2030s. They'll just have to prove themselves with the unmanned version. I'm not believing in Promised Elon Time folks. I only believe in Proven Elon Time, and we have that for F9/Dragon.