** The Official Space Flight Thread - The Space Station and Beyond **

[Chuk_Chuk]

Yep and 10s of billions in devlopment. Stupid Congress(they dictate what NASA has to build) and presidents who have changed the program and rocket numoruse times.
And with an expected launch cost of 500m-1bn and maybe 2 or 3 a year. Not that they have any funding passed the first launch. Collapse waste of money.
Keep the jobs program, but at least let NASA design it themselves and just dictate where it has to be built.

I pity the guys at NASA. The lack of control and the reliance on bunch of people that care so little about them is unfortunate.

Any idea of the ESA has there own plan for reusable rockets?

edit: kind of i guess https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ariane_6

edit 2: found this gem on pistonheads

 

[Amp34]

Proof of alien life doesn't destroy religion :s

And destruction of religion won’t create world peace. What proof of alien life may do is move the “us and them” mantra away from others on earth and towards the Aliens...

Yesterday’s launch was interesting, but nothing much more than we’ve really seen before. The best bit was the landing of both boosters simultaneously.

I’m waiting for the BFR launch. Now that will be something. Quite realistically the space equivalent of a commercial airliner (although i don’t believe it will ever be used as a commercial passenger system to transport people from one city to another).

Edit: as for the argument about “better spent elsewhere”, a significant amount of the money will be being spent on technology subsequently used on earth by everyone. Development of systems to collect, process and recycle water for moon/mars based would certainly have massive boosts for clean water systems on earth for example.

 

[RSR]

https://www.instagram.com/p/Be6VZEzgAEk/

 

[Delvis]

Sweet.

Shame the feed didn't go on for longer

 

[Malt_Vinegar]

Will we be getting updates on its return orbits (I understand it will be on an Earth/Mars orbital path), would be great to see some shots from its later parts of the journey if only to see how the payload survives the ravages of space for an extended period!

 

[Glaucus]

Will we be getting updates on its return orbits (I understand it will be on an Earth/Mars orbital path), would be great to see some shots from its later parts of the journey if only to see how the payload survives the ravages of space for an extended period!

Nope, batteries only lasted for 12hours and no solar panels. So that is all we will see now.
And it's orbiting the sun, so won't come close to earth hardly ever.

 

[Delvis]

Nope, batteries only lasted for 12hours and no solar panels. So that is all we will see now.
And it's orbiting the sun, so won't come close to earth hardly ever.

It is strange why it doesn't have solar panels on it, bit of a wasted opportunity?

 

[Rroff]

It is strange why it doesn't have solar panels on it, bit of a wasted opportunity?

I wondered why they didn't do something like that - seems a wasted opportunity - though I guess for stuff like this they wouldn't want to go to all the trouble and expense of something like an RTG, etc.

 

[Glaucus]

It is strange why it doesn't have solar panels on it, bit of a wasted opportunity?

To expensive. Would have to buy receiver time, then you need to add a dish, then you need to point the dish so then you need thrusters, then you need to know where to point the dish so you need star tracking equipment etc (most like would need access to NASA's deep space network). It's not in LEO, where you can just use a normal aerial to receive data.

 

[Delvis]

To expensive. Would have to buy receiver time, then you need to add a dish, then you need to point the dish so then you need thrusters, then you need to know where to point the dish so you need star tracking equipment etc (most like would need access to NASA's deep space network). It's not in LEO, where you can just use a normal aerial to receive data.

Makes sense.

Doubt it's too expensive for Mr.Tesla though

 

[jpaul]

Maybe they did not expect it to get that far, SpaceX has shareholders too ?

I scanned some of the Dod report on SpaceX quality processes
https://media.defense.gov/2017/Dec/29/2001862093/-1/-1/1/DODIG-2018-045.PDF
before the government will trust SpaceX with the hopes of a nation on a manned mission they have some issues. (NASA has some big boots)

...At SpaceX, we found an inadequately protected Merlin engine on the test stand. The Merlin engine exhaust ports and vent tubes should have been protected with specific protective covers. However, we found several ventilation ports either unprotected or covered with strips of metallic tape. Furthermore, we found bottles of soda and personal items in FOD-controlled areas. We also found inaccurate tool control logs and toolboxes with undocumented and broken tools, and toolboxes missing required tools.

privatisation we know all about that ....

 

[Malt_Vinegar]

Yet, they made it work...

Looks a lot like nit-picking, they are not running manned missions so one might argue the level of scrutiny is not yet required. I am sure they will be able to resolve what look like basic procedural issues to meet DoD requirements going forward.

 

[Rroff]

Makes sense.

Doubt it's too expensive for Mr.Tesla though

The fact it is in an orbit I guess adds some complexity as well - if it was generally moving away like Voyager, etc. in theory would reduce the needs for alignment when transmitting data back to earth. That said while I've not looked into it at the kind of distances they've talked about for it I'd have thought it would be possible to send back images from time to time using frequency ranges with minimal background noise and utilisation on earth that could be received with only a moderate sized installation and no specialised equipment.

 

[Malt_Vinegar]

You can pick up weather satellites with a handheld scanner and PC with an audio port..

 

[Rroff]

You can pick up weather satellites with a handheld scanner and PC with an audio port..

Potentially talking about 10,000x the distance I believe (might be wrong as I'm just guessing) which will make it more complicated but what Glaucus is talking about sounds overkill for simple passive sending information back rather than complex two way exchanges.

 

[Glaucus]

Maybe they did not expect it to get that far, SpaceX has shareholders too ?

I scanned some of the Dod report on SpaceX quality processes
https://media.defense.gov/2017/Dec/29/2001862093/-1/-1/1/DODIG-2018-045.PDF
before the government will trust SpaceX with the hopes of a nation on a manned mission they have some issues. (NASA has some big boots)

privatisation we know all about that ....

If you think that is bad, then NASA is a 1000x worse. You should look up all three big acciendents and look at the failures.
Nothing to do with privatisation.
They are also asking Boeing and SpaceX for their rockets and capsules to be stupidly safez many times.safer than any astronaut ever launched.

Weather stations aren't even in the same ball park. At leo 600km ish, some are in geo stationery 36000km. Mars minimum.distance 55million km. Asteroid belt 400million km from earth.
If you look at Mars assets then they have to use the deep space network, so no it's not overkill.signals at millions of km are extremely weak, which is why you need directional on spacecraft and a massive receiver on earth.

Also SpaceX is a private company no shareholders in the normal sense
Although Google and other companies/individuals have invested.

Edit - ok you don't need a dish. The Mars rover can send data to earth (x-band) but stupidly slow and still requires the deep space network. As time is limited on the networktheyy send through the Mars satilites as they are more powerful and can send data much faster. But point still stands it's a pretty expensive and waste of resource for no real gains. It would also have meant equipping the car with useful experiments.

 

[Delvis]

If you think that is bad, then NASA is a 1000x worse. You should look up all three big acciendents and look at the failures.
Nothing to do with privatisation.
They are also asking Boeing and SpaceX for their rockets and capsules to be stupidly safez many times.safer than any astronaut ever launched.

Weather stations aren't even in the same ball park. At leo 600km ish, some are in geo stationery 36000km. Mars minimum.distance 55million km. Asteroid belt 400million km from earth.
If you look at Mars assets then they have to use the deep space network, so no it's not overkill.signals at millions of km are extremely weak, which is why you need directional on spacecraft and a massive receiver on earth.

Also SpaceX is a private company no shareholders in the normal sense
Although Google and other companies/individuals have invested.

Edit - ok you don't need a dish. The Mars rover can send data to earth (x-band) but stupidly slow and still requires the deep space network. As time is limited on the networktheyy send through the Mars satilites as they are more powerful and can send data much faster. But point still stands it's a pretty expensive and waste of resource for no real gains. It would also have meant equipping the car with useful experiments.

You mean experiments like, how useful the suit in the car is whilst it's in space?

 

[Glaucus]

You mean experiments like, how useful the suit in the car is whilst it's in space?

i know you included a smiley so a bit of a joke, but this has been asked many times around the internet, why aren't they testing it. But it's a flight suit, not a spacewalk suit, only designed to keep them alive in case of a depressurisation on ascent/landing. So doesn't need to cope with full sun exposure, longterm life support etc.

 

[Delvis]

i know you included a smiley so a bit of a joke, but this has been asked many times around the internet, why aren't they testing it. But it's a flight suit, not a spacewalk suit, only designed to keep them alive in case of a depressurisation on ascent/landing. So doesn't need to cope with full sun exposure, longterm life support etc.

I did wonder actually, I'm surprised a spacesuit could actually be that ''small', but in all seriousness I've not even read up on it.

Good to know though

 

[Glaucus]

I did wonder actually, I'm surprised a spacesuit could actually be that ''small', but in all seriousness I've not even read up on it.

Good to know though

If you remember the pumpkin suits on the shuttle in the later years, it's equivalent to them. Or the Russian sokol suit. Even compared to them its still looks amazing.