totm nov 2023 SpaceX Discussion Thread

[magnemoe]

19 minutes ago, IncongruousGoat said:

Nope. Not the ITS, anyways. You can get water, and therefore hydrogen and oxygen, but there's no source of carbon. In fact, as far as I can tell, there isn't an ounce of usable carbon, elemental or otherwise, on the entire Moon.

Yes, weird if its no carbon sources who is easy to use. 
Thinking about it all the carbon we use is organic, either biomass, this includes fossil one. 

You might find water some places off the poles, was some talk of lava tunnels, but this would not be huge amounts. That is nice for an Moon base but not for heavier use 

For moon landings I guess an specialized craft running on hydrogen and oxygen would work better. Dock with the ITS, move over cargo and passengers, land and return later to dock again. 

Edited June 18, 2017 by magnemoe

[tater]

Lunar surface tourism requires a destination. All destinations for people in space need to be constructed. For tourists, such places need to require no real technical skills, honestly. I think that surface travel would be highly limited to "adventurers" until there was some sort of infrastructure. A place to visit, a dedicated lander that can move passengers to the living quarters without EVA required (rover that docs, then takes them to facility and docks). Many who would be tourists would want EVA, but that would require some training for emergency procedures, etc., and would be constrained/curated by the staff, I'd think. Do some training, then go out in a pressurized rover to a spot worthy of pictures, do a short EVA, then back into the rover.

I don't see ITS as fit for purpose, really. If you want to land 100 people, and the entire trip is just a couple weeks, then you'd optimize for that. The 100+ tons of cargo would not need to be taken, nor perhaps all the engines---you'd need the minimum required for safe propulsive landing back on Earth, no more.

[CatastrophicFailure]

There seems to be a "simple" solution here, to me. Someone just needs the vision to bring together a NewSpace trifecta. SpaceX will provide transport to/from LMO, Blue Origin will provide a reusable LH/O lunar lander, and Bigelow will provide the destination. All this hawrdare are already on the respective  companies' to-do list. A single ITS flight (expendable) could easily plunk multiple BA-330's on the surface, with an ISRU setup. 

Once all this hardware actually exists in a commercial state, I honk it'll just need the right person to bring it all together. Maybe Bezos, maybe someone else. 

[tater]

ISRU on the moon is non-trivial. It is in effect a mining operation. Assuming polar, ice mining, perhaps it is not quite so bad, but it's far more complex than sucking in Martian atmosphere, and dripping out fuel and oxidizer.

I'm not sure what I think of a BA330 as a tourist destination. It's more like an adventurer destination. Honestly, a lunar surface facility for visitors needs more windows. Given shielding requirements, it might be like this:

Note that the hill on the right could be very far away, as long as the eaves overhang is right. The idea is to minimize the LOS to space.

Yes, you could have windows that are just screens... no, that's not the same thing as a real window, IMHO.

 

 

 

[Mad Rocket Scientist]

Soon^TM

(About ITS plan update)

[CatastrophicFailure]

Well, poop. 

Although this could be interesting...

 

[blowfish]

A Lunar landing would probably be useful as a validation of many of the ITS's critical systems without the waiting involved in a Mars mission.  Probably possible with refueling in low lunar orbit and a somewhat reduced cargo load.

[Scotius]

Oh man... two launches in two days - practically back-to-back. That would be something

[TheEpicSquared]

15 minutes ago, Scotius said:

Oh man... two launches in two days - practically back-to-back. That would be something

That could actually happen for once though, since they're launching from different pads and therefore wouldn't be affected by pad refurbishments from the first flight.

In all honestly, I expect the Iridium mission to be delayed a day or two ('cause that's what always happens with SpaceX), but 2 launches in 2-4 days is still quite remarkable.  

[tater]

34 minutes ago, blowfish said:

A Lunar landing would probably be useful as a validation of many of the ITS's critical systems without the waiting involved in a Mars mission.  Probably possible with refueling in low lunar orbit and a somewhat reduced cargo load.

Yeah, minus most of the crew mass, and with virtually none of the cargo, it could do a lunar return. It's just a matter of total tonnage beyond dry mass than it could land. 

[Skylon]

2 hours ago, CatastrophicFailure said:

Well, poop. 

Although this could be interesting...

 

 was going to launch on my birthday. Oh well, it is close enough  

Two launches in two days sounds very interesting. On the same pad? 

Edited June 18, 2017 by Skylon

[andrewas]

On opposite coasts, Iridium is going up from Vandenberg. 

[RedKraken]

Proposed ITS lunar payloads : 38t direct with return to earth.

 

Much more with a lunar tanker paired with the ITS. You can leave your return fuel (~110t) in low lunar orbit rather than take it to the surface..

Another take on ITS lunar refueling.

[NSEP]

 

[CatastrophicFailure]

That's a bit out of date, tho... (first launch Q1 of 2017, pfft ). Might it even predate the revelation that a separate, unique core stage is required, with various structural modifications that might include what's nescessary for the full 50 tons?

[Streetwind]

Yes, we've had various new bits of information since that video's release that addressed several of the points made.

 

On the topic of a possible double launch the coming weekend... my main takeaway from that is the fact that SpaceX has now apparently expanded to a second independent launch and recovery team. I've actually been wondering for quite a long while when they would go that step, considering their launch cadence goals, and the fact that they will soon have three active pads and building a fourth. Looking good!

[Scotius]

3 hours ago, CatastrophicFailure said:

That's a bit out of date, tho... (first launch Q1 of 2017, pfft ). Might it even predate the revelation that a separate, unique core stage is required, with various structural modifications that might include what's nescessary for the full 50 tons?

Falcon 9 Full Strenght?

[Rakaydos]

12 minutes ago, Scotius said:

Falcon 9 Full Strenght?

The Heavy Core.

[CatastrophicFailure]

18 minutes ago, Scotius said:

Falcon 9 Full Strenght?

Extra Prescrption Strength, now without a prescription.*

*for external use only

[cubinator]

20 minutes ago, Rakaydos said:

The Heavy Core.

The Space Core.

[ChainiaC]

Spaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaace!!!!

[magnemoe]

3 hours ago, CatastrophicFailure said:

That's a bit out of date, tho... (first launch Q1 of 2017, pfft ). Might it even predate the revelation that a separate, unique core stage is required, with various structural modifications that might include what's nescessary for the full 50 tons?

As I understand the FH core stage has modifications to handle the boosters and probably the heavier cargo. 
One issue other pointed out was shear load during horizontal assembly,
another is how much load the upper stage can handle, this is more important than the first stage capacity who anyway has to handle the 90 ton upper stage. 
For the upper stage an heavier payload would increase the load on the payload adapter 5 times but only 1.5 times for first stage 
 

[StupidAndy]

is there a time of the launch? specific time?

EDIT: never mind, I just looked at Wikipedia, its 2:10 EDT or 1:10 CST

Edited June 19, 2017 by StupidAndy

[CatastrophicFailure]

I'm on mobile and can't post these proper but !!!!!!

 

Dem photobombz doe! 

(from SpaceX twitter)

[wumpus]

19 hours ago, magnemoe said:

As I understand the FH core stage has modifications to handle the boosters and probably the heavier cargo. 
One issue other pointed out was shear load during horizontal assembly,
another is how much load the upper stage can handle, this is more important than the first stage capacity who anyway has to handle the 90 ton upper stage. 
For the upper stage an heavier payload would increase the load on the payload adapter 5 times but only 1.5 times for first stage 

I'm sure it's premature, but is there any indication of Raptor/Mars Colonial Ship being integrated vertically or horizontally?