Space In General

Exorcet
I don't see separation as something inherent. While the Moon provides a lot of opportunity for cultures to diverge, living there requires constant contact with Earth. The earlier in the colonization period, the stronger the dependence. 150 years might not be enough time to allow for the development of self sufficiency.
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A small colony could create a rush where 'everyone' wants to build or add to the infrastructure of the Moon. Especially if it's perceived as a foundation for a new economy.
 
R1600Turbo
Eh, I wouldn't say they've passed Space X up quite yet. When they can get a rocket almost to orbit and land it, then we'll talk. Not to mention that if Space X hadn't been grounded for the last 4 months, they probably would have landed one already.
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They shaved a lot of other space mission requirement from their flight profile as well. By not travelling downrange at all, just straight up and then straight back down, they avoid re-entry speeds and need no heat shielding on their capsule. At this time, their flight profile amount to nothing more than a very large amusement park ride that needs a LOT of tickets!

The fact remains, though, that they landed their booster on its own engine, and they did it first.

As for speculating about what SpaceX might have done, that's like saying, "Oh, yeah? Well, if my dad was here he coulda beat up your dad!. Nyah!"
 
And maybe this is the way to go. First have that rocket land in one piece and then try to shoot it into orbit, have it return and land.
 
Dennisch
And maybe this is the way to go. First have that rocket land in one piece and then try to shoot it into orbit, have it return and land.
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Space X has been doing that for a while with the Grasshopper.
wfooshee
As for speculating about what SpaceX might have done, that's like saying, "Oh, yeah? Well, if my dad was here he coulda beat up your dad!. Nyah!"
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Just sayin'. More than likely would have happened. Not to mention the margin for error landing a first stage on a barge in the middle of the ocean is much greater. I'm just no impressed to be honest.
 
Well, the last one I saw was smack dab in the middle of the barge..... Yet it fell and experience the same "rapid unscheduled disassembly" as the previous try at landing one.

The grasshopper never carried a payload or even went to any kind of altitude. A Cessna at cruise would have been safe from it. Blue Origin carried a payload to 60+ miles, released it and returned, landing under its own power. they recovered a reusable booster. First. (Assuming they can actually reuse it......)
 
wfooshee
Yet it fell and experience the same "rapid unscheduled disassembly" as the previous try at landing one.
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Both with technical issues that have been corrected.
wfooshee
Blue Origin carried a payload to 60+ miles, released it and returned, landing under its own power. they recovered a reusable booster. First. (Assuming they can actually reuse it......)
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I'm not sure I consider an empty capsule a payload. And do we have actual video of the separation and not some animation they decided to cut into the footage?

Maybe it's just me but launching a multi-stage rocket with actual cargo on board to suborbital altitude and then landing the very large first stage back to earth from above supersonic speeds is largely more impressive.

Edit: A great comment from a facebook article:

The media has been over-hyping this 'battle'. They are doing two completely different things. If SpaceX wanted to send a rocket straight up then land it, they could have done it ages ago. It's vastly more difficult to land a rocket that's been launched sideways over the ocean first.
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R1600Turbo
Both with technical issues that have been corrected.
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They hope, but haven't shown, yet.

R1600Turbo
I'm not sure I consider an empty capsule a payload. And do we have actual video of the separation and not some animation they decided to cut into the footage?
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Anything a booster carries up is payload. As for the separation, the capsule was there at launch, it wasn't when the booster landed, and we saw the capsule's landing. I can do the math and come up with separation having occurred. :)


R1600Turbo
Maybe it's just me but launching a multi-stage rocket with actual cargo on board to suborbital altitude and then landing the very large first stage back to earth from above supersonic speeds would be largely more impressive.
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Minor correction......

As for the Facebook quote, I said myself in my first reply to this event that Blue Origin's current mission profile amounts to nothing more than a very large amusement park ride. It may be, though, that a success at a simpler profile is becomes easier to build on.

You lauded SpaceX for landing a rocket first, with the grasshopper. So what? It did even less than Blue Origin, which actually carried something to space and came back. I'm not sure how Grasshopper counts as "first" for a reusable booster recovery when it's not a booster. It's not even the first rocket-powered landing! OK, it's the first reusable rocket that landed on its engine thrust. As long as you don't want to carry anything, and don't need more than 3000 feet of altitude, then it counts. That's how you do things, with proof-of-concept steps. But actually carrying something 60 miles up and returning to land on its own engines also counts, and is a bigger step.

Maybe Blue Origins has something by not working immediately to multi-stage orbital insertion before proving the booster recovery concept.
 
wfooshee
Minor correction......
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*Is more impressive. To me.

Again, my opinion is that what Space X is doing is more impressive. Until Blue Origin can land a multi-stage booster from supersonic speeds several miles down range, just not impressed.
 
Nearly mach 4...... That's supersonic, isn't it?

I'm not saying that SpaceX isn't a more ambitious project, and it's true that Blue Origin's profile is not very useful for actually delivering anything at this point. They need another stage, and they need to head downrange. But it's a perfect intermediate step to prove the ability to land the booster.

The fact remains that they DID land their booster, from space, after delivering a payload, with its own rockets, and it's intact.

I've been very careful to point out that it's nothing at all like reaching orbit, but I'm not stuck on that so much that I'm unable to acknowledge the accomplishment. It absolutely is much more significant than Grasshopper!
 
Again, I'm sure if SpaceX wanted to land a booster going straight up into the air they would have done it a long time ago.

Agree to disagree I guess.
 
From today's edition of spaceweather.com:

MAGNETIC STORM ON COMET CATALINA: Earth isn't the only place with geomagnetic storms. Comets can have them, too. Such a storm appears to be in progress right now in the sinuous ion tail of Comet Catalina (C/2013 US10). Note the blobs of plasma circled in this Dec. 11th photo taken by Michael Jäger of Jauerling, Austria:



These blobs are a sign of stormy space weather. Observers of comets frequently witness plasma blobs and 'disconnection events' in response to CMEs and gusts of solar wind. In extreme cases, a comet's tail can be completely torn off.

The underlying physics is akin to terrestrial geomagnetic storms. When magnetic fields around a comet bump into oppositely-directed magnetic fields in a CME, those fields can link together or "reconnect." The resulting burst of magnetic energy can make waves, blobs, or even ruptures in the comet's tail. When CMEs hit Earth, a similar process takes place in the planet's magnetosphere powering, among other things, the aurora borealis.

Comet Catalina is brightening in the eastern pre-dawn sky, not yet visible to the naked eye, but an easy target for backyard telescopes.
 
That's beautiful, on the Space X thing, one of my former Professors actually now works for Space X...too bad he didn't specialized in structures.
 
The BBC has 2 channels covering this, can't decide so I'm flicking between the two!

The Horizon documentary a few days ago about the lead up to this was excellent.
 
Tim Peak Tweet.JPG


:lol:

Tim's wife was so shy on the phone to him.
 
Dennisch
Just imagine if the US could swap the military and NASA budget.

We would be flying to Alpha Centauri instead of Mars.
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On the prison ship that our North Korean captors would have built following the invasion!
 

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