Northstar1989 Posted October 12, 2016 Share Posted October 12, 2016 2 hours ago, Diche Bach said: What are your long term thoughts on Tesla Derek? Is it going to saturate its market, and go belly up? Even restricting the consideration to the plug-in car market, Tesla doesn't seem to be that competitive compared to models like Prius, eh? Is there any 'movement' toward the expansion of suitable infrastructure beyond the handful of major urban areas so that these machines can become interstate-capable? I vaguely recall an article a year or so ago about the rate of increase in super-charger stations; memory is quite fuzzy but it seems like even in major metro areas they are still rather scarce? And last question: has anyone actually done the math to see if an average Tesla (or any plugin car) used over the course of its entire lifetime in a 'normal' pattern actually has less sum environmental impact (meaning carbon emissions at least, but ideally EVERYTHING involved in the building, use and maintenance of the vehicle) than a comparable petrol vehicle? Ultimately an "electric car" is powered by whatever fuel the local power grid gets its electricity from, and in the U.S. my understanding is that, at this point, most of that is natural gas, with small amounts of coal, nuclear, and hydrodynamic, and tiny fractions of other (solar, biofuel, aeolian etc.). I'm disappointed in humanity and science that these big calculations seemingly have yet to be done and so many have fallen for the "electric green = good / petrol black = bad" rhetoric. Depending on the cost and resource-burden to build the infrastructure to make battery-powered vehicles a viable alternative to oil, and with all possible forms of pollution considered (not simply the carbon fetish), it may well be that anything other than status quo is MORE of environmental burden. You can't seiously be suggesting the Long Smokestack Theory, can you? That theory has been proven wrong so many times and in so many ways it's not funny. Conventional cars are far less environmentally friendly than battery-electrics, hands down, even when you produce the electricity 100% from coal, simply because of how much more efficient utility-scale power plants are. That's an incredibly off-topic discussion not even tangentially related to SpaceX's goals of space exploration though, so I'm not going to bother to discuss it any further. Regards, Northstar Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
insert_name Posted October 13, 2016 Share Posted October 13, 2016 (edited) Looks likely the return to flight may be even later due to hurricane damage to the payload processing facility . SpaceX remains optimistic as usual however, hopefully they will be right. Link Edited October 13, 2016 by insert_name Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Northstar1989 Posted October 13, 2016 Share Posted October 13, 2016 (edited) 37 minutes ago, insert_name said: Looks likely the return to flight may be even later due to hurricane damage to the payload processing facility . SpaceX remains optimistic as usual however, hopefully they will be right. Link Well, more time to dedicate to their analysis of the recent launch-failure, and present their conclusions and the steps they will take to prevent such issues from happening again in the future should only act to help rebuild confidence in their company. People understand that hurricanes mess things up- so I doubt this additional delay will hurt them too much... I'm more concerned about ULA's seemingly unrelenting media campaign to discredit SpaceX (their CEO has been writing letters to the Pentagon, and making media statements, claiming the military should launch all its payloads with them because their rockets are more reliable, even if far more expensive, and claiming the bidding process needs to be revamped to quote "form a level playing field". Says the company that has had a monopoly on defense launches for decades, and still has many powerful allies in DC ...) than I am about a hurricane-induced delay. ULA seems to have a real stick up their butts about SpaceX, probably because it forced them to actually compete on all those lucrative defense satellite contracts... Regards, Northstar Edited October 13, 2016 by Northstar1989 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Technical Ben Posted October 13, 2016 Share Posted October 13, 2016 (edited) 16 hours ago, shynung said: Most of them are low content, sprinkled with some Venn diagrams, tables, and comparison pictures. But they do send the message clearly. Ouch. I was not looking for a message. If I go to a store, and get told a message, turning on the gadget/device usually either fives me a working or a failed result. I was hoping for a working system to be presented, in those first 5 or so slides... I saw a "message" too. Edited October 13, 2016 by Technical Ben Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Elthy Posted October 13, 2016 Share Posted October 13, 2016 Regarding fuel transfer in space: How much harder is it to transfer cryogenics in space than e.g. water? Afaik the hard part about cryogenics on earth are 1. the "hot" atmosphere and 2. water freezing on the plumbing, both arent a problem in space. Of course you would e.g. need different seal materials, but those are tested on earth, too. The more i think about it, cryogenics could be way easier in space than on earth... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Northstar1989 Posted October 13, 2016 Share Posted October 13, 2016 (edited) 1 hour ago, Elthy said: Regarding fuel transfer in space: How much harder is it to transfer cryogenics in space than e.g. water? Afaik the hard part about cryogenics on earth are 1. the "hot" atmosphere and 2. water freezing on the plumbing, both arent a problem in space. Of course you would e.g. need different seal materials, but those are tested on earth, too. The more i think about it, cryogenics could be way easier in space than on earth... The problem with cryogenics in space is static electricity buildup... Anyways, on an entirely different note, if Musk can achieve $140k/ton to Mars, that would be $140/kg to the Martian surface! Even though I think that's still a bit too high for large-scale Mars colonization without government financial assistance, that would have to mean an even lower launch-cost to LEO, enough to potentially revolutionize our use of space... For instance anything under $300/kg to LEO should allow profitable mining of Iridium ore from Iridium-rich asteroids brought to Low Earth Orbit (a small probe with very high-ISP engines could bring in such an asteroid over the course of a few years). You wouldn't even have to refine the ore in orbit- at $300/kg to LEO and a sale price for Iridium of over $20,000/kg (or even higher for Rhodium) you could profitably just recover the raw ore with a reusable capsule. Assuming each kg of capsule mass allowed you to recover at least 10 kg of ore with an unpressurized, propulsively-landed capsule, then at $300/kg to LEO you could recover more than 640 kg of ore for each kg of Iridium obtained from refining it... This only scratches the tip of the iceberg, so to speak. With launch-costs that low, I'm sure there are a LOT of new uses of space that would become profitable... Regards, Northstar Edited October 13, 2016 by Northstar1989 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aethon Posted October 13, 2016 Author Share Posted October 13, 2016 Shake test for the Orion Service Module. http://www.nasa.gov/feature/nasa-shakes-up-orion-test-article-for-the-journey-to-mars Preparations being made to stress test SLS hardware. http://www.nasa.gov/exploration/systems/sls/pressure-on-for-sls-hardware-in-upcoming-test Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
magnemoe Posted October 13, 2016 Share Posted October 13, 2016 13 hours ago, Northstar1989 said: Well, more time to dedicate to their analysis of the recent launch-failure, and present their conclusions and the steps they will take to prevent such issues from happening again in the future should only act to help rebuild confidence in their company. People understand that hurricanes mess things up- so I doubt this additional delay will hurt them too much... I'm more concerned about ULA's seemingly unrelenting media campaign to discredit SpaceX (their CEO has been writing letters to the Pentagon, and making media statements, claiming the military should launch all its payloads with them because their rockets are more reliable, even if far more expensive, and claiming the bidding process needs to be revamped to quote "form a level playing field". Says the company that has had a monopoly on defense launches for decades, and still has many powerful allies in DC ...) than I am about a hurricane-induced delay. ULA seems to have a real stick up their butts about SpaceX, probably because it forced them to actually compete on all those lucrative defense satellite contracts... Regards, Northstar This, if you have problems you pray hard for external delays, you say I will have it done in two days and the customer schedules an new test in a week. Real life / real time setting, I have to send an mail with some files soon Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NSEP Posted October 14, 2016 Share Posted October 14, 2016 Cool that the SLS program is still ongoing, if SpaceX flops and cant go to Mars, NASA will deffinitly take over. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Streetwind Posted October 14, 2016 Share Posted October 14, 2016 (edited) Return to flight now moved from November to December, according to Elon speaking at the DoD. But, hoping for launches from the Cape and from Vandenberg in parallel. Also, a used booster reflight perhaps also in December, depending on how things go (I doubt they would return to flight with that). Leading hypothesis, albeit not yet confirmed, for the pad explosion: solid oxygen buildup in the carbon fiber wrapping of the pressure vessel. As the oxygen tank was pressurized, carbon and oxygen spontaneously ignited. (Sadly, the reddit post discussing this was removed, for reasons unknown to me. It had a great explanation of where such solid oxygen buildup could come from, which I didn't have time to peruse in detail yesterday evening. Curses!) Edited October 14, 2016 by Streetwind Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Elthy Posted October 14, 2016 Share Posted October 14, 2016 (edited) The moderators even said they cant comment on the reason it was deleted, which is realy strange. Maybe the author of the post was under strict NDA or something. Anyway its in a cache, so ill copy it here in a moment: Addressing the anomaly: “We are close to figuring it out. It might have been formation of solid oxygen in the carbon over-wrap of one of the bottles in the upper stage tanks. If it was liquid it would have been squeezed out but under pressure it could have ignited with the carbon. This is the leading theory right now, but it is subject to confirmation. The other thing we discovered is that we can exactly replicate what happened on the launch pad if someone shoots the rocket. We don’t think that is likely this time around, but we are definitely going to have to take precautions against that in the future. We looked at who would want to blow up a SpaceX rocket. That turned out to be a long list. I think it is unlikely this time, but it is something we need to recognize as a real possibility in the future.” Addressing return to flight: “The plan is to get back to launch in early December and that will be from pad 39A at the Cape and we will be launching around the same time from Vandenberg as well. Pad 40 will probably be back in action around March or April next year. Probably around May or so is when we will launch Falcon Heavy. We are going to re-fly the first returned core December or January. We have test fired one of the returned cores 8 times and it looks good. That is promising for testing re-flight.” Other interesting points: 3D printing works fine for super-dracos, but too much work is needed to make it feasible on Raptors. Elon envisions Mars as a direct democracy, not a representative democracy. Still wants communication satellite constellation to provide revenue for Mars. In talking about the IAC, “Crazy people are a lot faster to the mic than scientists.” These are my personal accounts of what I heard from Elon live and the rough transcript is from a recording of the event. I do not know much other than what I heard but I wanted to share with you guys. Enjoy. Edited October 14, 2016 by Elthy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Diche Bach Posted October 14, 2016 Share Posted October 14, 2016 "shoots the rocket," as in, someone hit it with a bullet from a firearm? One would think that would be detectable in footage. As far as competition and "someone" having it in for SpaceX, that is presumably what they signed up for. Deal with it, and make the other guy squirm, or get out of the business . . . Quote Elon envisions Mars as a direct democracy, not a representative democracy. Still wants communication satellite constellation to provide revenue for Mars REALLY!? And what if an autocratic competitor organization . . . mmm, like say . . . the People's Republic of China happen to show up and express an alternate vision? Sorry, am I sneering at Elon again? I'll show myself out; not the sort of things SpaceX cheerleaders wanna hear I suppose . . . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Diche Bach Posted October 14, 2016 Share Posted October 14, 2016 On 10/12/2016 at 4:03 PM, Northstar1989 said: You can't seiously be suggesting the Long Smokestack Theory, can you? That theory has been proven wrong so many times and in so many ways it's not funny. Conventional cars are far less environmentally friendly than battery-electrics, hands down, even when you produce the electricity 100% from coal, simply because of how much more efficient utility-scale power plants are. That's an incredibly off-topic discussion not even tangentially related to SpaceX's goals of space exploration though, so I'm not going to bother to discuss it any further. Regards, Northstar No idea what the "Long Smokestack Theory" is; but if the idea is to try to empirically determine exactly how much pollutant impact any given technology imposes over the entire life course of the technology, and not simply to focus on its emissions of a small number of gases then it does sound like a theory I'm interested in. If it has been proven so many times already, could you go ahead and prove it for me again? Define "environmentally friendly." Everybody uses this term as if it is as clear as say "heat" or "electricity," but I'm willing to bet no one even knows what it means any more, even if they ever did. So if conventional cars are "far less environmentally friendly than battery-electrics, hands down, even when you produce the electricity 100% from coal, simply because of how much more efficient utility-scale power plants are" then why have they bothered to shut down most coal burning power plants?" I am skeptical of the "science" that has led to the concerns over anthropogenic climate change, and I'm skeptical that a car that is made of--I can only guess what kind of toxic materials in order to have a sufficient battery--is in fact, and not simply in argument "more environmentally friendly" than a car made from materials (and by processes) which have been under scrutiny and methodological refinement for decades, simply because the latter burns petrol or diesel inside a combustion engine and the former relies on electricity from a natural gas powered electrical grid. Being skeptical is as far as I know a good thing, though with respect to these topics it often seems to be received as heresy . . . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Northstar1989 Posted October 14, 2016 Share Posted October 14, 2016 (edited) 39 minutes ago, Diche Bach said: No idea what the "Long Smokestack Theory" is; but if the idea is to try to empirically determine exactly how much pollutant impact any given technology imposes over the entire life course of the technology, and not simply to focus on its emissions of a small number of gases then it does sound like a theory I'm interested in. If it has been proven so many times already, could you go ahead and prove it for me again? Define "environmentally friendly." Everybody uses this term as if it is as clear as say "heat" or "electricity," but I'm willing to bet no one even knows what it means any more, even if they ever did. So if conventional cars are "far less environmentally friendly than battery-electrics, hands down, even when you produce the electricity 100% from coal, simply because of how much more efficient utility-scale power plants are" then why have they bothered to shut down most coal burning power plants?" I am skeptical of the "science" that has led to the concerns over anthropogenic climate change, and I'm skeptical that a car that is made of--I can only guess what kind of toxic materials in order to have a sufficient battery--is in fact, and not simply in argument "more environmentally friendly" than a car made from materials (and by processes) which have been under scrutiny and methodological refinement for decades, simply because the latter burns petrol or diesel inside a combustion engine and the former relies on electricity from a natural gas powered electrical grid. Being skeptical is as far as I know a good thing, though with respect to these topics it often seems to be received as heresy . . . Long Smokestack Theory is the repeatedly disproved hypothesis that electric cars actually produce just as much or more pollution than gasoline cars, just with the pollution displaced to power plants. It ranks as basically somewhere between crackpot theory and oil industry misinformation/propaganda, and I will not waste time disproving it fir you wgen it's bern disproved over and over and over by experts in economics, ecology, and other related fields. There is no evidence to support it- it is jyst a theory some people *want* to be true, and so choose to believe despute all evidence to the contrary. Global Warming is also not up for debate. No credible scientists deny anthropogenic climate change. And debating it would violate forum rules on discussing politics... If you choose to deny global warming, then you are taking a stance based on belief rather than facts, and creating your own reality. In that case, there is no hope for ever convincing you of the truth of the matter anyways. That is all I will say about it. Skepticism is healthy, but the level of publicly-available information about these subjects is so high that choosing to deny the widely-accepted scientific facts on a gut feeling is no longer skepticism, it's living in an imaginary world where science has no validity and facts are relative. Facts are facts, and the mainstream is under no obligation to indulge every crackpot theory that denies those facts on flimsy evidence. It's quite appropriate, and indeed a good thing, for denying widely accepted facts based on gut feelings to be treated as heresy. It saves the public a lot of effort dealing with people who can never be convinced by any amount of evidence, and who disrupt having a serious conversation about how to deal with the world's problems. These discussions are off-topic anyways. While having a serious discussion about the costs and benefits of different forms of electricity generation or the environmental impact of electric car batteries has a place on this forum, and these are legitimate issues, this thread is not the place for any of them. Keep the discussion SpaceX related only, please (as you can see from earlier, I take a pretty wide view of what is relevant- but electric cars and climate change clearly are not.) Regards, Northstar Edited October 14, 2016 by Northstar1989 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Streetwind Posted October 14, 2016 Share Posted October 14, 2016 (edited) Guys, please! This thread is about a company, rocketry and interplanetary spaceflight, not electric vehicle environmental impacts or climate change. Even if the CEO of said company is also deeply involved with a different one that builds electric cars, it's still not anywhere near on topic. Put it in its own thread, and I'll gladly contribute constructively. But not here. Normally I'd just let it blow over, but there's probably not one single thread on the entire KSP forum that goes off topic more often than this one. Sometimes it feels like we can't go one full page nowadays before a discussion drifts off to somewhere completely unrelated. It really gets in the way. A lot. So please: whenever the urge strikes you to write about something that's not related to SpaceX, I implore you to just don't write it. Bite your fingers if you must. Delete everything you wrote. Write a PM instead. Just don't do it! Think of Shia LaBoeuf and his famous video, and invert it like a mathematical fraction. Just don't do it! Don't! No! Bad! Down, boy! Don't do it! Edited October 14, 2016 by Streetwind Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Northstar1989 Posted October 14, 2016 Share Posted October 14, 2016 1 minute ago, Streetwind said: Guys, please! This thread is about a company, rocketry and interplanetary spaceflight, not electric vehicle environmental impacts or climate change. Even if the CEO of said company is also deeply involved with a different one that builds electric cars, it's still not anywhere near on topic. Normally I'd just let it blow over, but there's probably not one single thread on the entire KSP forum that goes off topic more often than this one. Sometimes it feels like we can't go one full page nowadays before a discussion drifts off to somewhere completely unrelated. It really gets in the way. A lot. So please: whenever the urge strikes you to write about something that's not related to SpaceX, I implore you to just don't write it. Bite your fingers if you must. Delete everything you wrote. Write a PM instead. Just don't do it! Think of Shia LaBoeuf and his famous video, and invert it like a mathematical fraction. Just don't do it! Don't! No! Bad! Down, boy! Don't do it! My thoughts exactly. Did you read my entire reply? I emphasize that these discussions are off-topic at the end and that I will not participate in any further discussion of such topics. Regards, Northstar Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Streetwind Posted October 14, 2016 Share Posted October 14, 2016 (edited) I started writing my post before you edited that part in. But honestly, I'm hoping to address anyone and everyone who cares to read my plea, not just one or two people. Someone perchance having a bit of a bad conscience, huh? Huh? (I'm kidding) Anyway, to return to the topic for real: 2 hours ago, Elthy said: The moderators even said they cant comment on the reason it was deleted, which is realy strange. Maybe the author of the post was under strict NDA or something. Anyway its in a cache, so ill copy it here in a moment: Does that cache maybe also have the replying comment that breaks down just how the whole solid oxygen forming thing could go down? I'd love to actually read through that, instead of just giving it a quick glance before heading off to bed. Edited October 14, 2016 by Streetwind Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CatastrophicFailure Posted October 14, 2016 Share Posted October 14, 2016 1 hour ago, Diche Bach said: "shoots the rocket," as in, someone hit it with a bullet from a firearm? One would think that would be detectable in footage. Not as much as one might think. Despite what the movies tell us, real bullets don't actually spark on aluminum, and a failure of the He tank due to a sudden .50 cal hole might go down too fast for a typical 30 FPS camera to see. Especially since they used a bullet made of solid oxygen supplied by space aliens in collusion with the lizard men under orders from Cyborg Elvis. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Northstar1989 Posted October 14, 2016 Share Posted October 14, 2016 4 minutes ago, Streetwind said: I started writing my post before you edited that part in. But honestly, I'm hoping to address anyone and everyone who cares to read my plea, not just one or two people. Someone perchance having a bit of a bad conscience, huh? Huh? (I'm kidding) Ummm, I wrote my posts on pieces yo avoid login timeout. Even so, I believe that part was there since the first iteration posted... Not 100% sure though. My memory's a little fuzzy today. Regards, Northstar Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bluegillbronco2 Posted October 14, 2016 Share Posted October 14, 2016 7 hours ago, NSEP said: Cool that the SLS program is still ongoing, if SpaceX flops and cant go to Mars, NASA will deffinitly take over. Well NASA was always going to Mars anyway. They just haven't told us HOW yet. SLS /Orion is great and all but I dont think NASA will send people on a 9 month journey in a capsule... I hope they have some sort of larger spacecraft and Orion would be just a way to get people there. But the same goes for Spacex... I dont think they could send a crew to mars with just a Dragon.... its just too long of a trip in too tight of a space. Luckily Elon has his ITS to take care of that problem. But what about food/water/waste/oxygen. How to you carry enough supplies for 4 people in a small capsule? But I am positive we will find a way. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wumpus Posted October 14, 2016 Share Posted October 14, 2016 26 minutes ago, Bluegillbronco2 said: Well NASA was always going to Mars anyway. They just haven't told us HOW yet. SLS /Orion is great and all but I dont think NASA will send people on a 9 month journey in a capsule... I hope they have some sort of larger spacecraft and Orion would be just a way to get people there. But the same goes for Spacex... I dont think they could send a crew to mars with just a Dragon.... its just too long of a trip in too tight of a space. Luckily Elon has his ITS to take care of that problem. But what about food/water/waste/oxygen. How to you carry enough supplies for 4 people in a small capsule? But I am positive we will find a way. http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/20090012109.pdf As of 2009, that's NASA's plan for Mars (they've canned the nuclear option, but haven't updated the whole thing yet). It isn't an issue about "going to Mars", it is an issue of getting more than one president to stick to a plan (if we wait for NASA, there is the real chance we have to wait for the tech to exist to build the thing in 8 years or less) and convincing Congress to go into space (this is a harder nut to crack, but perhaps giving SLS a real mission will convince them). I'll agree that a capsule isn't going to happen (with today's tech). Even with hibernation (how far away would that be?), it just seems too small for a several month's journey. Every suggestion I've taken seriously expects an ISS-sized transport vessel (and similar for a Mars base). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vanamonde Posted October 14, 2016 Share Posted October 14, 2016 This has gone quite far off-topic. Please get it back on-topic or we'll have to start chopping things out of the thread or even close it, and nobody, including we moderators, likes it when we do that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DerekL1963 Posted October 14, 2016 Share Posted October 14, 2016 11 hours ago, Elthy said: The moderators even said they cant comment on the reason it was deleted, which is realy strange. Maybe the author of the post was under strict NDA or something. The word from reliable sources is that though the poster had access to the transcript and reason to believe it could be released, it was not actually formally cleared for release. That being said, that's the second unconfirmed "official" explanation I've heard in the last few days. The other was Gwynne Shotwell explaining that the problem was "was harmonic vibration during helium loading". Very odd. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
goldenpeach Posted October 14, 2016 Share Posted October 14, 2016 13 hours ago, Elthy said: The moderators even said they cant comment on the reason it was deleted, which is realy strange No it is not, that just mean he have a NDA on the action taken. (we have such a NDA on this forum too: we can't comment on an action taken(well, apart with the member concerned ) nor can we comment on why we didn't take an action. (basically, what happen in the moderation team, stay in the moderation team :P) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Northstar1989 Posted October 15, 2016 Share Posted October 15, 2016 There's ANOTHER project planned after New Glenn??? What do we know about it so far? Regards, Northstar Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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