totm nov 2023 SpaceX Discussion Thread

[CatastrophicFailure]

4 hours ago, Beamer said:

I never really get this obsession with specific inanimate objects,

(I respect, but...) I just do not understand this mentality from some people. We, as humans, are more than just the sum of our parts. Were are not merely creatures of biology or the cold logic of machines, we are something more. That extends to giving things value beyond the sum of their parts, too. The Hubble is not merely a tool, it is an indelible piece of history, now, both for it's scientific and cultural contributions. Seeing a mock-up is just not the same thing as seeing in the flesh. If When I go to the Smithsonian, I want to see the actual Wright Flyer, the Shuttle Discovery, the Spirit of St. Louis. I want to see the actual thing that did the thing, not just a copy of it, because that thing has meaning because it did the thing. And Hubble belongs in there right along with all those other pieces of history. 

No, it probably would not be worth the effort to recover it with Shuttle-era hardware, and requisite expense. But Starship is not that, it has the potential to radically change paradigms in ways most people still don't entirely grok. Starship could, theoretically, return Hubble for relative pocket change. Yes, that's all entirely speculatory at this point, but so what? What's wrong with asking "what if?" That's another concept that is uniquely human and has led to some rather wonderous things. The Voyagers and Pioneers are too far out, the Veneras are probably half-melted (current politics notwithstanding), and whilst Opportunity absolutely should be on that list (bring him home!), that's a much, much longer pole. Hubble is unique in that it is both extremely significant and extremely accessible. There are problems to be solved with a recovery mission but they are all solvable problems, at least technically.

[StrandedonEarth]

5 hours ago, Beamer said:

I never really get this obsession with specific inanimate objects,

Some people have it, and some don't.

If nothing else, it makes a perfect target for a tech demonstration mission. A Starship could launch with a partial load of Starlinks, along with a Mission Robotic Vehicle equipped with a Dextre robot. It releases the Starlinks and then makes rendezvous with Hubble. After releasing the MRV, the Starship either returns to the surface or loiters nearby. Dextre preps Hubble for stowing aboard the next available Starship, by removing solar panels and securing any loose bits. After stowing Hubble, the MRV could maneuver to the next assignment while Starship brings Hubble back to Terra Firma.

Some trillionaire would help fund such a mission, if only to have the ultimate conversation piece in their private collection, loaned out to whichever museum....

Digressing down the rabbit hole....

Spoiler

And before someone starts up about the ultra-rich and their toys, remember that such largesse creates jobs (often supporting entire industries) and drive innovation in their quest for the latest and greatest. Not that I think anybody should be earning seven figures a year in cash (looking at entertainers and pro athletes); such windfalls should support a cause. Non=liquid assets (ownership shares) are another matter entirely without a clear, fair, equitable, me-too solution 

 

8 minutes ago, CatastrophicFailure said:

whilst Opportunity absolutely should be on that list (bring him home!)

Edited February 26, 2022 by StrandedonEarth

[Beamer]

7 minutes ago, CatastrophicFailure said:

When I go to the Smithsonian, I want to see the actual Wright Flyer, the Shuttle Discovery, the Spirit of St. Louis.

I suspected someone would bring that up at some point, but that comparison just really doesn't fly. The Wright Flyer was built to land back on earth, and it did. The Shuttle was built to land back on earth, and it did. Likewise for the Spirit. What people are proposing is to heave up the Titanic, not to put a big plane on a truck and drive it a few hundred km. It's an entirely different order of magnitude in terms of effort and resources.

10 minutes ago, CatastrophicFailure said:

because that thing has meaning because it did the thing.

The thing did nothing. There was a huge team of thousands of people who did a lot of work, and we have the results of that work right here at our fingertips, without the need for an orbital fishing mission - because that's how it was designed. The thing only has meaning if people don't recognize that work, and giving the thing meaning with proposals like this reduces the actual meaning of all the work and effort that went into it. Given the choice I sincerely doubt anyone who actually did work on Hubble would choose bringing it back over putting up a Hubble v2.0. And yes, that IS what the choice would be, it's not a "we can do both" issue, because...

13 minutes ago, CatastrophicFailure said:

Starship could, theoretically, return Hubble for relative pocket change.

I think you underestimate the costs. But even if not, if some space nerdy billionaire (I'm not dropping any names) says "I want to go get Hubble back to earth", I'm not going to tell anyone how to spend their fortune. But then what? They'd likely want to keep it, or recoup the costs by selling it back to the original owners. So, ignoring the legals issues of that which I have no doubt would be horribly thorny, it's either going to end up in some rich guy's basement which defeats the purpose of serving as some perceived symbol for the people, or (if done 'right') being paid for out of NASA (and perhaps ESA's) pockets, reducing their ability to support new science missions.

 

[tater]

33 minutes ago, Beamer said:

I suspected someone would bring that up at some point, but that comparison just really doesn't fly. The Wright Flyer was built to land back on earth, and it did. The Shuttle was built to land back on earth, and it did. Likewise for the Spirit. What people are proposing is to heave up the Titanic, not to put a big plane on a truck and drive it a few hundred km. It's an entirely different order of magnitude in terms of effort and resources.

The Skylab at the Smithsonian is a flight article that did not fly, right?

I'm not overly concerned with getting Hubble in a museum any time soon, but it's an interesting artifact, as are some of the first satellites that remain in orbit. Instead of deorbiting them, I think the more important should be saved as museum pieces. Easiest way would be a safe disposal orbit until such time that retrieving them is not too complicated. Note that Bezos spent probbaly a lot of money to recover the Apollo engines off the sea floor. I can't find estimates, but it had to cost millions.

People spend personal millions (10, even 100s of M$) on art, even art I consider pretty crappy.

Athletes are paid a lot of money for reasons that are completely inexplicable to me. People buy sportsball teams for huge sums.

If recovering Hubble were suggested as a GOVERNMENT project, yeah, let it burn up. Why? Because it would likely be some Shuttle level cost, and then some. Billions. Not worth that sort of taxpayer money.

We're in the SpaceX thread, however, and the suggestion was Starship. If Starship operational costs are even off by an order of magnitude, a Starship mission to Hubble would cost $10M-$20M. Custom hardware would add to that, and it might take a cargo and a crew vehicle, doubling the cost. if it cost $100M, it would be well within the amount of money wealthy people spend literally all the time on toys, art, etc.

If it costs what they guess it might, we're maybe talking about less than 10s of millions. Well within the budget of many museums to acquire.

Edited February 26, 2022 by tater

[CatastrophicFailure]

46 minutes ago, Beamer said:

What people are proposing is to heave up the Titanic, not to put a big plane on a truck and drive it a few hundred km. It's an entirely different order of magnitude in terms of effort and resources.

Breaking up the Spruce Goose and moving it hundreds of kilometers would have been nigh-impossible around the time it was built. When it was moved, it was fairly simple, because technology changed. 

49 minutes ago, Beamer said:

Given the choice I sincerely doubt anyone who actually did work on Hubble would choose bringing it back over putting up a Hubble v2.0. And yes, that IS what the choice would be, it's not a "we can do both" issue, because...

See, this is where our ways of thinking diverge. I sincerely doubt anyone who worked on Hubble would not want it recovered, if it were possible. And yes, it is a “we can do both” issue, because…

23 minutes ago, tater said:

If Starship operational costs are even off by an order of magnitude,

This is the thing people don’t grok about Starship. It’s still revolutionary, it’s still a paradigm changer even if it’s numbers are off by orderS of magnitude. It really and truly has the potential to (eventually) make recovering Hubble not unlike calling a house-moving company today to come and move your house. 
 

 

55 minutes ago, Beamer said:

it's either going to end up in some rich guy's basement which defeats the purpose of serving as some perceived symbol for the people, or (if done 'right') being paid for out of NASA (and perhaps ESA's) pockets, reducing their ability to support new science missions.

The optics of “keeping it” if Musk or Bezos were to fund the recovery alone preclude any chance of that happening. It’s not reducing NASA’s budget if it’s specifically included by the congressional purse-masters, as it would likely be in such a scenario. Which is also even more likely if the cost of such a thing is “only” in the 10s of millions. Hubble’s life expectancy even today could be all the way out til 2040, that’s almost two decades of paradigms shifting to make it seem less daunting a proposition. On a timeframe like that, it likely wouldn’t even be the first such thing returned from space. 

[SunlitZelkova]

2 hours ago, Beamer said:

I suspected someone would bring that up at some point, but that comparison just really doesn't fly. The Wright Flyer was built to land back on earth, and it did. The Shuttle was built to land back on earth, and it did. Likewise for the Spirit. What people are proposing is to heave up the Titanic, not to put a big plane on a truck and drive it a few hundred km. It's an entirely different order of magnitude in terms of effort and resources.

The thing did nothing. There was a huge team of thousands of people who did a lot of work, and we have the results of that work right here at our fingertips, without the need for an orbital fishing mission - because that's how it was designed. The thing only has meaning if people don't recognize that work, and giving the thing meaning with proposals like this reduces the actual meaning of all the work and effort that went into it. Given the choice I sincerely doubt anyone who actually did work on Hubble would choose bringing it back over putting up a Hubble v2.0. And yes, that IS what the choice would be, it's not a "we can do both" issue, because...

I think you underestimate the costs. But even if not, if some space nerdy billionaire (I'm not dropping any names) says "I want to go get Hubble back to earth", I'm not going to tell anyone how to spend their fortune. But then what? They'd likely want to keep it, or recoup the costs by selling it back to the original owners. So, ignoring the legals issues of that which I have no doubt would be horribly thorny, it's either going to end up in some rich guy's basement which defeats the purpose of serving as some perceived symbol for the people, or (if done 'right') being paid for out of NASA (and perhaps ESA's) pockets, reducing their ability to support new science missions.

 

That's a little like saying we don't need to preserve all of those aircraft because we have pictures of them, and the fruits of those aircraft (improved understanding of flight dynamics, faster transport, or in the case of warplanes, continuing to live in our societies that have been defended) are "already here".

Preserving those aircraft does not degrade our appreciation, respect, and acknowledgement of those things, it improves it.

In fact, preserving Hubble would help people to know about the efforts of all those people too. Having it in a museum and seeing the thing itself can impress upon one the effort that went in to such a sophisticated device, not to mention providing an opportunity to educate them on how it worked and space based astronomy in general. In contrast, while many people know Hubble exists, I doubt the average person really appreciates the effort that went into it, nor knows how it works, let alone bothers to think about the people who worked so hard on it.

The mission I talked about was private, not NASA funded (although it would require NASA support, which would need to be paid for by the sponsor of the mission). I don't think there is any reason not to do this, the reasons you are giving remind me of the desperate arguments of why Starship or private space as a whole are unsustainable. I don't mean that as an insult or attack, but simply to state this: as far as personal opinion goes, it is fine to oppose such a mission, but there is no logical reason why it wouldn't work or should not be done.

[cubinator]

The reason to bring back something like Hubble and see the real thing is similar to the reason to send people into space instead of being content with pictures and data from probes. I want to feel the power of a rocket on my body, the way no IMU's data reading graph can show me. I want to be outside of Earth, not just see what that looks like. I want to interact with the Moon rather than a fascimile of its surface. I want to watch the blue sunset and retrograde moon of Mars around me. 

Preserving our space probes is a great way to preserve our history, too. Thousands of years from now, the people who used Hubble will be gone, and people will want to know how we took our first steps into space and discovered the vastness of the universe. An actual space probe would let them learn a lot more than a model or picture.

[tater]

I've held ancient Egyptian artifacts in my hands. I've handled stone tools (many of those here on the ground in NM, plus much older ones in museum collections). they are not special, not the very first ax, or point, or cast sculpture. Mundane artifacts, but made by fellow humans, and hence of interest. Hubble is a not mundane object, but still has historical value—as the Apollo sites do, and Luna 2, or Lunokhod 1, etc. Vanguard 1 is still in orbit, that's worth saving as well. They could also stay in space, but more people would see them back on Earth if any were collected and returned some day.

[Beccab]

 

Flight ready Raptor 2 are starting to come to Starbase!

[RyanRising]

27 minutes ago, Beccab said:

 

Flight ready Raptor 2 are starting to come to Starbase!

This is the same Raptor 2 (#5) that was present at that recent presentation as well as some parade today. Doesn’t look like anything too significant to me.

[mikegarrison]

Hubble is in a nearly circular orbit a little more than 500 km up, in the same plane as Kennedy Space Center's latitude (28.5 degrees). None of the Starlinks appear to be in orbits that are anything like that, so the idea of "just grab it while you are up there delivering Starlinks" seems more than a little unlikely.

[Beamer]

Dang, I seem to have picked at an open nerve, sorry about that I'm going to assume that none of you have really thought through this idea of retrieving Hubble because frankly, the alternative explanations are a lot more unpleasant.

Let me spell it out for you: this is a mission that would require extensive, days long, possibly weeks long EVA activities by multiple astronauts handling an 11 ton metal monolith in 0g, performing welding and cutting operations, and probably handling dangerous and pressurized materials in the process. I'm not aware of any nuclear material on Hubble but even without that there is plenty of stuff that can go woosh, crack or boom. It's not like Starship can fly up to it, open its 'beak' and just scoop it up and fly back down. No matter how cheap you can make your Starship launch costs, the costs for this operation would be expressed in the potential loss of human lives, not millions of dollars. And before you say "what about robot arms", nope, sorry, not a chance. Even finishing the SCM, which was the safest and easiest solution they could come up with and is already well prepared and for all intents and purposes half finished would require a crewed mission to complete.

Being an astronaut isn't a safe occupation even at the best of times. The days of dare-devil test pilots is long past, this isn't George Clooney cowboying around with a jet-pack, those people are scientists and top engineers who do the work for the advancement of science and knowledge, and you're proposing we ask them to risk their lives in the name of commerce and sentiment. It's like you're standing next to the fireman who just saved your entire family from your burning house and even remembered to bring the kitten and dog, and you're insisting they run back into the inferno to retrieve your high school chess trophy because it means so much to you. I find it immoral and indecent to even entertain the notion of asking that.

This is the last post I'm going to make about this because I think my opinion is clear, and you know what they say about arguing on the internets. All I can ask is that you take a moment to really think through what you're proposing here, what the potential rewards would be, and offset that against the potential costs. If you've made that balance and still think it's a good idea, we are clearly not cut from the same cloth and we'll just have to agree to disagree.

 

[mikegarrison]

1 hour ago, Beamer said:

I'm not aware of any nuclear material on Hubble

Any metal that sits in orbit long enough is going to be mildly radioactive. It gets hit by cosmic rays that bust off little pieces of the atoms and make a few of them unstable.

As for the risks involved, people deep-dive wrecks for treasure, bring up ship and airplane wrecks, etc. People take risks for things that interest them enough (or just for fame and money).

[tater]

2 hours ago, mikegarrison said:

Hubble is in a nearly circular orbit a little more than 500 km up, in the same plane as Kennedy Space Center's latitude (28.5 degrees). None of the Starlinks appear to be in orbits that are anything like that, so the idea of "just grab it while you are up there delivering Starlinks" seems more than a little unlikely.

It would require SS having been landed many times, and then it likely requires a vehicle with a very specific mount added, flying up empty think. It would be a bespoke mission, definitely not a drop off X then grab Hubble. Like I said, it might require 2 Starships, one with crew for EVA to secure it.

 

46 minutes ago, Beamer said:

Let me spell it out for you: this is a mission that would require extensive, days long, possibly weeks long EVA activities by multiple astronauts handling an 11 ton metal monolith in 0g, performing welding and cutting operations, and probably handling dangerous and pressurized materials in the process. I'm not aware of any nuclear material on Hubble but even without that there is plenty of stuff that can go woosh, crack or boom. It's not like Starship can fly up to it, open its 'beak' and just scoop it up and fly back down. No matter how cheap you can make your Starship launch costs, the costs for this operation would be expressed in the potential loss of human lives, not millions of dollars. And before you say "what about robot arms", nope, sorry, not a chance. Even finishing the SCM, which was the safest and easiest solution they could come up with and is already well prepared and for all intents and purposes half finished would require a crewed mission to complete.

I think it certainly requires a crew mission (which to me implies 2 vehicles) and it also requires a robot arm (that's what Shuttle did to grasp it).

Potential cost in human lives? It's an EVA. Assuming they are capable of doing EVAs, they have a plan, and do the EVA, it's not particularly dangerous compared to other EVAs. Any such mission is predicated on SS functioning roughly as advertised, so is SS is safe for humans, that part is a given. SpaceX clearly wants EVA to be a thing, they are already working on that. I don't see the risk as an issue. Anyone involved will be doing it because they want to.

I don't see a huge reason to do it, but if SS works (a huge if), it's not that big a cost.

[Beccab]

1 hour ago, Beamer said:

performing welding and cutting operations

That doesn't seem correct, as Hubble's solar panels have already been replaced twice in orbit -  here you can see the third set being installed in 2002 after the previous one was removed. No need for welding

[StrandedonEarth]

4 hours ago, mikegarrison said:

Hubble is in a nearly circular orbit a little more than 500 km up, in the same plane as Kennedy Space Center's latitude (28.5 degrees). None of the Starlinks appear to be in orbits that are anything like that, so the idea of "just grab it while you are up there delivering Starlinks" seems more than a little unlikely.

At this point, true. By the time the tech is in place for such a retrieval to be seriously considered, Starlink will be basically complete. Having some in lower-inclination, higher altitude orbits seems plausible, to add capacity in the more populous tropical regions

Edited February 27, 2022 by StrandedonEarth

[CatastrophicFailure]

3 hours ago, Beccab said:

That doesn't seem correct, as Hubble's solar panels have already been replaced twice in orbit -  here you can see the third set being installed in 2002 after the previous one was removed. No need for welding

This. Hubble has been serviced multiple times, including activities far in excess of how it was actually designed to be serviced (like replacing the solar panels, IIRC).

5 hours ago, Beamer said:

It's like you're standing next to the fireman who just saved your entire family from your burning house and even remembered to bring the kitten and dog, and you're insisting they run back into the inferno to retrieve your high school chess trophy because it means so much to you. I find it immoral and indecent to even entertain the notion of asking that.

For all your talk of emotional attachment, you’ve certainly attached a lot of emotion to this. A recovery service wouldn’t be all that different from any of the other servicing missions, other than using a different vehicle. Yes, there are problems to solve but they are all solvable problems.

5 hours ago, Beamer said:

Dang, I seem to have picked at an open nerve, sorry about that I'm going to assume that none of you have really thought through this idea of retrieving Hubble because frankly, the alternative explanations are a lot more unpleasant.

We shall have to agree to disagree, then. 

[Shpaget]

Hubble was designed to be brought back down on a Shuttle and displayed at Smithsonian. However, since it outlived the Shuttle, during the last servicing mission in 2009 the so called Soft Capture Mechanism was installed, specifically meant for easier capture by future generation spacecraft and safe deorbit.

[tater]

Equating a (voluntary) mission to retrieve a historical artifact from space with asking a firefighter to go back into a burning building for a HS trophy is... hyperbolic.

It is exactly like asking deep sea industrial divers to dive into deep ocean, not to fix an oil rig that supplies fuel for many humans, but to... pick some historical junk off the ocean floor. Like Apollo 11 F-1 engines. If said divers say, "Um, I work on important infrastructure, I'm not risking my life for your vanity project!" then they look for another diver until they find one who is happy to do it.

 

Edited February 28, 2022 by tater

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

Um... If done, won't it be a drone using the soft capture anyway? 

(presumes launch costs go way down and people are scooping up space junk and historic relics - otherwise about the only way I see it happening is after some paid for deployment) 

[tater]

Launch is March 3. Weather 90% go.

[tater]

 

 

[RealKerbal3x]

 

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

Any updates on the Oil Rigs being transformed?

[RealKerbal3x]

4 minutes ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

Any updates on the Oil Rigs being transformed?

I believe at least one of them has had its deck cleared of unnecessary equipment, but they seem to be at a low priority right now.