Space In General
- Thread starter BubbleBelly542
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- 5,657
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Ah.
I can’t even microwave mine, because they explode. Tried more than once of course, until my Mom yelled at me for destroying whatever this whole set is called that she gave me from… I can’t remember, but they’re so old, you can’t microwave them.
Science
I can’t even microwave mine, because they explode. Tried more than once of course, until my Mom yelled at me for destroying whatever this whole set is called that she gave me from… I can’t remember, but they’re so old, you can’t microwave them.
Science
- 5,074
- Panama City, FL
SpaceX Falcon 9 is grounded pending investigation of the 2nd-stage failure last Thursday, in which the second stage engine blew up instead of re-igniting to circularize the orbit. The Starlink satellites will be lost to re-entry, as they do not have enough thrust to raise themselves into their intended orbit from where they are, and "where they are" is experiencing atmospheric drag, enough to drop them by 3 miles with each orbit. Elon Musk said they are uploading a control program to make an effort at raising them, but also said it's probably not going to work; they simply don't have enough thrust. The satellites will eventually burn up as their orbits decay further.
- 952
- United Kingdom
Anyone feel spaced out on this thread?
- 5,074
- Panama City, FL
Boeing (actually NASA, I suppose) has abandoned efforts to bring the 2 astronauts back on the Starliner, due to safety concerns after numerous issues, including helium leaks and malfunctioning thrusters. The astronauts that it carried up in June, originally slated for 8 days on the ISS, are now trapped until Februrary, when Space-X's Crew 9 returns. 8 days being 8 months for those two...
Crew 9 will launch no earlier than late September, carrying 2 crew instead of four, to make room for the stranded Starliner astronauts on the return trip. It's also carrying empty Space-X space suits, as the Boeing suits are not compatible with the Dragon capsule.
The Starliner with return to Earth autonomously and empty sometime in September.
Crew 9 will launch no earlier than late September, carrying 2 crew instead of four, to make room for the stranded Starliner astronauts on the return trip. It's also carrying empty Space-X space suits, as the Boeing suits are not compatible with the Dragon capsule.
The Starliner with return to Earth autonomously and empty sometime in September.
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- 2,934
- Columbus, Ohio
- 5,074
- Panama City, FL
Well, Space-X lost a booster in the wee hours of yesterday morning! Landing leg collapsed as it touched down on the barge. First landing failure after 268 consecutive successful landings.
spacenews.com
Falcon 9 booster lost in rare unsuccessful landing
A Falcon 9 booster tipped over in a fiery landing after an Aug. 28 launch, the first unsuccessful booster landing in three and a half years by SpaceX.
spacenews.com
- 2,934
- Columbus, Ohio
Starliner return date set for next week
An ignominious, uncrewed end to Boeing's misfire
"If it's Boeing, I'm not going." -Astronauts, probably
There's going to be a lot of analysis going on about this failure in the coming months. Spacecraft failing to do what they're designed to do is one thing when we're talking a satellite or a probe, but leaving actual people stranded is another, much more severe matter entirely.
- 5,074
- Panama City, FL
Even if they were to somehow miraculously fix everything they've found, for future missions they have a lot of work to do to prove it actually works. Unmanned flights, maybe unmanned supply runs to the ISS, even another unmanned moon and back. Is the cost going to be remotely worth it to Boeing? Can they even begin to cover the losses, or is it just... done?
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- Columbus, Ohio
- 87,104
- Rule 12
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Starlink becoming "existential threat" to ground-based astronomy across all wavelengths:
Elon Musk's Starlink satellites 'blocking' view of the universe
Radio waves from the satellites are "blinding" radio telescopes and hurting research, say scientists.
www.bbc.co.uk
- 525
- south of the border
Tut Tut.....thats bad ! ...............Have you tried calling him on his walkie-talkie ?Starlink becoming "existential threat" to ground-based astronomy across all wavelengths:
Elon Musk's Starlink satellites 'blocking' view of the universe
Radio waves from the satellites are "blinding" radio telescopes and hurting research, say scientists.www.bbc.co.uk
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- 2,934
- Columbus, Ohio
This is a concern that was raised early last year when the light pollution from the satellites' reflective shells was beginning to make it difficult for observatories to do their thing, and it's only going to get much worse as other companies start shooting their own clusters up there in the coming years to compete with Starlink.Starlink becoming "existential threat" to ground-based astronomy across all wavelengths:
Elon Musk's Starlink satellites 'blocking' view of the universe
Radio waves from the satellites are "blinding" radio telescopes and hurting research, say scientists.www.bbc.co.uk
Of course the Muskovites' response at the time was "well they're not designed to be in orbit for very long, soooooo...", which is both a non-answer and a fundamental misunderstanding of the problem at hand.
- 2,934
- Columbus, Ohio
SpaceX capsule begins rescue mission to return stranded astronauts
A capsule heads to the International Space Station, where two crew are spending months longer than planned.
www.bbc.com
Well Boeing, not only did you waste a ton of money (both the government's and your own) on something that didn't work correctly despite having about 60 years of research to work off of, you also probably gave Elon something to smugface about for the next few months, so double shame on you. Though personally I'm just glad the astronauts at least got onto the space station safely.
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Literally incredible
- 2,934
- Columbus, Ohio
Pretty damn impressive, I will admit. Though at the same time, my mind can't help but drift towards how dangerous it's going to be should they get it wrong and miss even by a little bit.
- 2,934
- Columbus, Ohio
That didn't involve dropping a gigantic tank of explosive fuel onto what's basically a pinpoint in a relatively crowded area though. Miscalculating by even a couple feet, a reaction thruster firing or not firing at the wrong time, the catching arms not working correctly, and you've got a huge fiery crater and a heavily damaged space facility.
inCloud
(Banned)
- 3,598
- Argentina
- Kannon33r
Idea is to burn fuel during flight, landing requires way less than launch (saw 2% somewhere, but could be wrong).
- 38,924
- Application hell
- MP-Omnis
Not really a huge crater, just would make a huge gaseous fireball of an explosion. If you recall, after the first orbital-scale test launch, the rocket's thrust basically destroyed the whole launchpad. They rebuilt it in a few months for the orbital flight. Then they rebuilt the entire launch pad again, adding the flame trench this time. It only took them 7 months to go from brainstorm to the chopsticks being fully installed on Mechazilla.
Legs constitute mass that could be instead used for fuel/payload. Additionally, if you can catch your booster on the tower, then it's already in place where it needs to be to load the next starship onto said booster.
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So do retrorockets. That's pretty much why they've not been used except to bring people (and sometimes stuff) back from other bodies in the past, until a guy with all the money to burn decided that's what he wanted to do because it looks cool.
In both cases, the only advantage I can see over splashing it or some bigass parachutes is the reduction in airframe stress from that last couple of inches down to the floor, and a reduction in the turnaround time as below.
It would seem like a terrible idea to do that. The device would need to be inspected, stripped, repaired (if necessary), and rebuilt before strapping anything else to the top of it for another go.
Per the above, it - just like landing the things on barges - looks and sounds cool, and is very much an incredibly impressive feat from the teams of people bullied and crunched into doing it. I don't get why you'd want to do it this way apart from it looking and sounding cool and getting all the clicks.
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- MP-Omnis
Well, admittedly, I don't know what the objections were from the engineers who opposed the idea in brainstorm phase. But the promise is supposed to be that landing at the launch tower decreases the turnaround time for these steps. The way they've oriented Starbase seems like they just have everything rigged up to allow for making pad/tower transfer as "Lean Design" as possible.
If they need to launch something even harder into space, I can't imagine they would have a hard time making a fully-expendable booster. Maybe even a Falcon Heavy sort of arrangement.
Super Duper Heavy?
