The comments on several forums are being censored and disappearing. It was a good run but it appears to be over. The SpaceX fan club has hijacked it all.
A few are still going up but that is likely to end. They will continue to be posted here as they appear but may not stay on the original forums for very long:
Hope it was worth it to him. He has significantly raised his risk of cancer and permanently damaged his body with this mission.
Until a Near Sea Level Radiation 1 Gravity environment (NSLR1G) is established as a requirement for space stations, Lunar Cyclers, and Spaceships, Human Space Flight Beyond Low Earth Orbit (HSF-BLEO) is going nowhere.
The path to meeting that requirement are “Fat Workshops” placed in lunar orbit and robot landers filling them with lunar-ice-derived water. When these shielded habitats are ready then Human Space Flight Beyond Earth Orbit (HSF-BEO) can begin with a permanent human presence in cislunar space.
A very interesting design but not for any space launch applications. As a commercial passenger carrier with a passenger pod designed to separate from the carrier aircraft in the event of allow the passengers to survive…..I think this is technology the Stratolaunch aircraft should be testing, Along with that, I would say using liquid hydrogen is also a technology that should be tested. The volume in the two fuselages might be enough LH2 storage to give it sufficient range. An end to airline disasters would be a worthy goal.
I don’t know how spending money on LEO stations can be justified, especially if they are going to be “commercial” since there is no ROI with these money holes. It has always been a sad fact that the Space Shuttles, with extra life support pallets, could stay up as long as needed. Entire lab modules could be swapped from one shuttle to another if necessary. The ISS was never anything but a huge waste of time and resources and should be deorbited as soon as practical.
The Moon is the place to establish a permanent human presence. A “true” space station, with a massive cosmic ray shield using water derived from lunar ice and tether generated artificial gravity is the next step. Even if it takes several years to fill up “Fat Workshops” using robot landers, having these shielded habitats avialable will allow astronauts to go on year long deployments without career-ending dosing or debilitation.
The logical progression is robot lunar landers filling up these upper stage wet workshops in Frozen Low Lunar Orbit (FLLO) with lunar water and only when they have full shields sending human missions.
Not great news for those of us who want the space station to nowhere to end so those resources can be focused on a lunar return.
I expect the possibility of a Super Heavy detonating is just too much for anyone to sign off on. I doubt anyone in the FAA will risk being blamed for the equivalent of a nuclear weapon going off in Boca Chica.
I expect the possibility of a Super Heavy detonating is just too much for anyone to sign off on. I doubt anyone in the FAA will risk being blamed for the equivalent of a nuclear weapon going off in Boca Chica.
The time to avoid “the menace of space debris” was when megaconstellations were first proposed. When the people with oversight responsibility failed to stop tens of thousands of pieces of space junk from going up a disaster was inevitable.
The only possible reason to accept the risk of a megaconstellation would be to solve the biggest challenge facing human civilization; climate change. Space Solar Power is the only appropriate role of a megaconstellation. Low latency for gamers has to be the worst possible reason to allow this menace to civilization.
“-to explore the Moon and Mars, address climate change,-“
Well, two out of three ain’t bad…Mars, like LEO, is a dead end.
The Moon should be the focus of the space agency, as a way to solve climate change by using lunar resources to enable space solar power. A significant percentage of the DOD budget, at least 10 percent (70 billion dollars) should be directed at a program of monthly launches of 150 ton+ payload SHLV’s. The primary goal of the space agency should be to industrialize the Moon and accomplish energy delivery to Earth allowing a western standard of living for 10 billion by the end of the century.
The 100 billion minimum budget should be matched by international contributions and another 50 billion by industry. In fact, by making industrial concerns aware of future restrictions on the use of fossil fuel energy, they will likely, with very little enticement, contribute more than that. With a quarter of a trillion dollar annual budget, just for starters, the solution to climate change will finally be “addressed.”
The new Military Industrial Complex swindle….proliferation of a satellite cold war. Much like the cold war that peaked in the 80’s, and made me and millions of others fairly certain civilization was about to end, instead of 64,000 nuclear weapons (1986) we will have over 90,000 satellites in megaconstellations within ten years. They are not nuclear weapons but, unfortunately, they vastly increase the risk of a nuclear exchange with the present stockpile, which is more than sufficient to incinerate every large city on Earth and precipitate a nuclear winter and death by starvation of the majority of the world’s population.
Way too many engines. Poor design. They would do better to try and build fewer and larger engines. The chopstick recovery is also something they should never have entertained. The whole multiple small engine philosophy is a farce. It is simply trying to go cheap by not building bigger engines. Much of what SpaceX has accomplished has been over-hyped and the Starship is likely the hubris that will undo them. Not optimistic.
Perhaps signing off on a vehicle that may explode with the power of a nuclear weapon made by a company that actually believes in blowing up test articles is a little too much for anyone with oversight to take responsibility for.
Separating the vehicle into two boosters and the orbiter, with fewer larger engines, might have allowed it to be possibly launched from an offshore platform. Elon might want to rethink the chopsticks also.
Not optimistic. In fact…skeptical.
I would suggest this company look into the Medusa concept using nuclear devices to push a “spinnaker” equipped spaceship. What is needed is a low mass device several thousand feet in diameter that can withstand the plasma pulse generated by a directed energy device of the kind researched by the Strategic Defense Initiative program of the Reagan Years. There is perhaps a “sweet spot” in the physics that will allow such a sail to efficiently utilize the energies and enable human missions to the outer solar system. Testing such designs in scaled down form in space may be the niche this company is looking for. The more compact the sail can be folded and stored, and sections of it joined together, would all make such a system more practical and perhaps make Gama a revolutionary and history making company.
Ice on the Moon 