“Rocket Cargo” for Space Force? Bizarre and one of those programs that is just plain stupid DOD waste. Space Force should have been disbanded by Joe Biden. It was Trump’s way of giving the military the middle finger, whom he considered “suckers and losers.” Creating a service where none of it’s members go in harm’s way, yet receive all the prestige and benefits of those that do. Classic bone spur. Which, by the way, should be the nickname for their star trek service insignia.
If Space Force had at the bare minimum been given command of the Minuteman launch silos, something could be said for it. But as it is, they sit in front of a screen controlling satellites and drive home for dinner with the family every night. If they had stated their goal was to have humans in space doing something…but they have not. They have nothing meriting their status. They will forever be known as a creation of Trump. Biden should have disbanded them and on the same day recreated them as “Space Corps” and given them some mission that would merit them being a separate service.”
Everytime one of you troll me with that dogwhistle you show the world what a bunch of toxic creeps the Musk fanboys are. Garbage.
Hug Doug ✓ᵛᵉʳᶦᶠᶦᵉᵈ SLSFanboy What do you find so offensive about being called by your actual name?
SLSFanboy Hug Doug ✓ᵛᵉʳᶦᶠᶦᵉᵈ My username is SLSFanboy and that dogwhistle has been used for years to harass and bully someone. You are one of the most vicious and insulting of all of those trying to silence free speech. You know very well because of that, that question is insulting, sarcastic, condescending; it is sick and disgusting all by itself. You know what you are.
Christopher James Huff SLSFanboy You are Gary Michael Church and SLSFanboy is only the latest of a long, long list of sockpuppets you have used over the years to harass and bully virtually everyone in every space-related online forum or comment section you could find, repeatedly creating new ones to circumvent the inevitable bans and continue your abuse. Maybe if you’d conducted yourself as a decent human being, your name wouldn’t be something to be ashamed of.
SLSFanboy Christopher James Huff What a disgusting creep you are. Classic fanboy accusing someone of being exactly what Musk worshipers are. You and Hug Doug and a couple dozen others. The Musk cyberthugs that tolerate no ideology except their own twisted Orwellian Cult.
Starship 2.0 is big enough to have cosmic ray water shields. Need 5 meters of water for “the Parker Minimum.” Of course that is thousands of tons of water and most NewSpace fanboys react in shock and outrage at such talk. And using the Starship that way would in effect be a “wet workshop” which also makes NewSpace fans froth at the mouth in rage.
I like it.
So go tell some cancer researchers you want to spend 200 billion dollars of their funding on a space station to crystallize proteins and see how that goes.
I commented a couple days ago that we landed using the simplest, most reliable devices possible; hypergolic pressure fed rockets with ablative thrust chambers. Two of them; one variable thrust for landing and a second one on an ascent/abort stage even simpler.
I think that is what we will land with next time also. Maybe bigger and slightly more complicated, maybe a single stage with multiple engines. But as I also commented, that we have no cryocooler hardware yet tells me that using cryogens might not happen. This is not a good situation.
Very skeptical that spacex is going to land that giant multiple refueled tower on the Moon. Not for a very long time anyway.
“Specifically, the high-quality engines-“
The SLS engines were reusable, but cost more to reuse than to expend. The SRB’s have to be sent to Utah on a train in sections so they never should have been selected of course. The RS-25’s were a little too cutting edge and had to be rebuilt like dragster engines after every flight. This was mitigated during the program but they were still high maintenance. But very powerful and efficient which made the Shuttle, in fact, a Saturn V class launch system. But as I frequently reiterate, it wasted most of it’s lift on a 737 size glider.
The Starship is a more powerful variation of the Space Shuttle, except VTVL instead of VTHL, and it lands the external tank back instead of expending it. That is the only difference between the Shuttle and the Starship. And Starship, like the Shuttle, wastes a huge amount of lift on bringing part of the upper stage, the entire upper stage in fact, back to Earth. It also has no escape system- a critical red flag.
The SLS ended up with shuttle components and we would not spend the money to recover them for reuse because both SRB’s and engines are not really suited to reuse for the reasons I stated. SpaceX supporters habitually make this situation out to be some kind of conspiracy and the end of the world with the great John-Galtish savior Musk as our only hope. So tired of it.
In hindsight the most desirable design feature for the Shuttle was pressure-fed liquid boosters, which, sadly, were a little too expensive and could not meet budget requirements. This would have made reusing the boosters very economical, and prevented the loss of the Challenger. The most undesirable feature was the side-mounting of the Orbiter, which led to the loss of the Columbia. Recovering the engines separately in a module was studied for a Shuttle C cargo version and this would have allowed a much lighter version of the Orbiter to be stacked on top of the core tank- and prevented the loss of the Columbia. Again, in hindsight, the biggest mistake of all was not having an escape tower/crew capsule combination. A mistake that keeps happening.
Starship is a new Shuttle with a different set of problems and, in my opinion, just as likely to fail.
In my opinion no corporation can afford to maintain a LEO space station without massive government sponsorship. Not enough stupid billionaires are willing to pay hundreds of millions to vomit and float in a radiation bath. That pretty much explains why, as I said, spacex fanboys defend the ISS to the bitter end despite it being an example of the “super-pork” they so despise. They have written literally libraries of death-to-SLS comments over the years trying, in effect, to stop America from going back to the Moon, simply because they want that money for their hero. And that is why they will never say anything about ending the ISS despite it being useless and long past due for decommissioning. It is a cult.
“Space is never going to be meaningfully explored or settled by humans via government”
And that worldview is why NewSpace is the worst thing that has ever happened to space exploration. It is “anti-space” because the truth is actually the opposite.
Cheap transportation to do what Vlad? There is nothing out there you cannot get on Earth except for one thing; carbon free energy. Gerard K. O’Neill, a physicist, understood how the scientific method works and came up with how to colonize space. All of his conclusions are still valid. As I keep saying, O’Neill was the true prophet of space colonization, not the false prophet now being followed by so many.
“NASA issued a $776 million modification for the contract Feb. 28 for the three flights, bringing the total value of the contract to $3.51 billion.”
Unfortunately, the best course of action is to deorbit the ISS and focus on the Moon. Immediately.
Where to send the toxic dragon if there is no ISS? Just billionaut tourist trips?
They will quickly run out of uber-rich adventurers when it becomes common knowledge that vomiting while floating in a radiation bath is the adventure. After a few get their faux astronaut wings the novelty will fade.
It is the nature of the toxic crowd that thinks they own this forum. The standard technique of borderline sociopaths is to first trivialize the issue, then mock the solution, then denigrate the person who they cannot silence. Exactly.
“Of course to you, this is not a matter of economic analysis so much as it is a matter of religious faith.”
What a petty insulter you are. Like Trump and his wind turbines. Sad.
Because of Climate Change, it would have to be the “cheapest” in terms of preventing human suffering. But being a worshiper of Mammon, you cannot even understand how that works.
Not how we went to the Moon. And it is not going cheap, but creating an industry to support a settlement that matters. Going cheap is more likely to result in failure.
Space Solar Power is the only industry for the foreseeable future that will enable colonization. And that is going to require a state sponsored public works project. You have it completely backwards.
“The Shuttle was designed by bureaucrats-“
No…it was actually designed by engineers, but they had certain requirements imposed on them, like SRB’s from Utah.
Because they had to be rail-transported they were nowhere near as powerful as the monolithic monsters like the AJ-260 that Aeroject tested in the everglades.They had to be shipped to the cape in segments, assembled, stacked, launched, recovered from the ocean, disassembled, inspected, and then rail-transported back to Utah to be reloaded. SRB’s were not a good idea to start with but if the really big ones had been used it might have been economical. Liquid fuel boosters would have been stacked, fueled, launched, recovered from the ocean, and inspected, all on site very quickly, and could also have been used in cross-feed schemes.
Then there was the Orbiter, which the Air Force wanted to have a huge cargo bay and wing. Due to the limited power of the SRB’s, This meant that to meet even the minimal payload target there could not be any kind of escape system. As it was it actually could lift quite a bit but most of that was wasted on a 737 size glider that was never going anywhere except LEO. The basic idea, which I keep mentioning, is “a Saturn V class vehicle that sacrifices a big tank on the altar of the rocket equation and reuses everything else”, was, and is, an excellent concept.
“The deliberately hyper-expensive ways government pursues it will never allow more than token efforts.”
No…Saturn V worked well because they spent what was required. The Shuttle failed because they went cheap. If the Shuttle had been configured like the SLS, except with pressure-fed liquid boosters, and a separately recovered SSME module, it never would have killed anyone and would still be flying. So it is more about NOT going cheap. See how that works?
The Panama Canal and Hoover Dam were public works projects. That is the difference between what O’Neill envisioned and “entrepreneurship saving the world.” The energy industry is getting plenty rich right now and the result is runaway climate change and a slow motion catastrophe.
“People” are going to get screwed over by this greed on a planetary scale. Space Solar is about the only way to provide a western standard of living to 10 billion people by the end of the century AND solve climate change.
So…”getting rich” is not what anybody with a functioning moral compass cares about.
That is not true at all. Misleading and disingenuous.
The reason humankind is not expanding into the solar system is there is no industry to support habitation. This was the vision of Gerard K. O’Neill. Space Solar Power is the economic engine that will enable space colonies. There is no other industry in the foreseeable future that will get humankind into space.
There is the true prophet of space colonization and there is the false prophet most follow now.
Thank you for some sanity for a change.
I would say that SS might work as a second stage. It will never be human-rated without some kind of escape system and because that is not even being entertained that tells me something.
But all those tanker launches? Not practical at all. I would guess Elon thinks it is all great fun and the only thing that MUST work is his money machine- which is Starlink. And that has a good possibility of turning out to be the next Enron.
“Current space radiation guidelines pertain only to missions in LEO and are not considered relevant for missions beyond LEO. The acceptable levels of risk for space exploration beyond LEO have not been defined at this time and need to be dealt with before sending manned missions to colonize the moon or to deep space, such as a mission to Mars” https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4206856/
Honestly? This expectation that the profit motive is going to make us a multi-planet species is the worst thing that has ever happened to space exploration. Simply because so many have now bought into the NewSpace cult it is expected that everything will pay for itself. It is history repeating. That was how they advertised the Shuttle- it would pay for itself by being the national launch vehicle.
Well…according to Mars fans the methane and oxygen will be manufactured from the Martian atmosphere and this has been dogma since Zubrin made his case. Which, if you agree with O’Neill that no natural bodies other than Earth are suitable for colonization, is no case at all.
The Martian atmosphere seems to be the great resource because of aerobraking and propellant manufacture. But the very gravity well that retains that tenuous atmosphere is a huge problem that vastly outweighs the advantages. Icey bodies like Ceres and various moons of the gas and ice giants have very shallow gravity wells and are largely MADE of propellants and many have vast oceans beneath their surfaces. Those are the places to explore with submarines. Mars is a rock.
So…I expect the damnation of SLS will be a chorus here loud enough to shake the roof of heaven. Except…the expected shiny miracle is not what everyone seems to think it is. The large number of “tanker” launches alone are a huge project that makes launching SLS look simple. Starship is essentially just a Space Shuttle that lands the external tank back and has a somewhat larger payload. That’s it.
The way to reduce costs is to buy more flights. It is not like we are only going 4 times. Future SLS iterations can replace the SRB’s with reusables and place the core RS-25’s in a recoverable module. And then you have what the shuttle was meant to be; a Saturn V class launch vehicle that sacrifices a big tank on the altar of the rocket equation and reuses everything else. I cannot say this enough…it was, and is, an excellent concept.
What the spacex fanboys are doing with this endless crusade against SLS is the worst thing that has ever happened to space exploration. Worse than both shuttle disasters. It is anti-space.
Does not bode well for Human Space Flight Beyond Earth Orbit.
We put people on the Moon over half a century ago using pressure fed hypergolic engines with ablative thrust chambers- the absolute simplest and most reliable devices practical; one with variable thrust for landing and one even simpler for ascent, or abort if needed. Neil Armstrong even wanted no electrical system on the ascent engine- just a lever.
I would guess NASA will not assign a program manager because Starship is not something they would be allowed to “manage”, and…compare it to what we landed with originally. Using cryogens without any cryo-cooler hardware to date seems to me to also be an elephant in the room.
And that guy talking about “Our ultimate goal is putting people on Mars,” was, in my opinion, not…reality. We are not going to Mars until we have some massively shielded nuclear propelled “true” spaceships. And by the time we have some of those I would predict that Ceres will be the first destination. Mars is too deep of a gravity well and not much likelihood of an ocean, while Ceres is the opposite. It is as simple as that.
I know I have a fundamental disagreement with most of the people commenting here about the requirements for interplanetary travel. What I mean by a “true” spaceship is that it has a near sea level radiation one gravity environment crew compartment. If not, then it is a space- “craft,” not a space-ship. The massive cosmic ray water shield and tether generated artificial gravity system is NOT going to be propelled by chemical energy. Only nuclear energy will work.
And the Moon is where we get the water shielding and assemble, test, and launch, those nuclear spaceships.
“FDR is not the best example on how to deal with a monster.”
My first reply was moderated into oblivion because I used a bad word.
It is common for conservatives to denigrate FDR, and for “the Libs” to idolize him.
As a progressive, I more than idolize him. The New Deal is near the center of my worldview.
The short version goes like this: Free Markets inevitably concentrate wealth and maximize inequality, and eventually crash societies. Like in 1929. Keynesian economics regulate the free market and provide social safety nets. These programs that guarantee the welfare of the citizenry, regardless of what those who have great wealth want, are supported by progressive taxation. Which means the wealthiest pay the most. This is called “Embedded Liberalism.”
Neoliberalism is an ideology that makes the Free Market the god of this world. It is really just a way the wealthy become demi-gods by manipulating the masses into thinking that is the way it should be. They propagandize those two key functions, Regulation and Progressive Taxation, as oppression and theft. When you hear the conservative talking heads blather about “Freedom”, you can usually replace that word with “Greed” and what they are talking about becomes crystal clear (it almost always has to do with money).
When I read unflattering assessments of FDR I usually attribute them to a decade short of a full century of neoliberal influence. Paid for by those who used to pay a 91 percent tax rate.
This has EVERYTHING to do with the subject being discussed. The fossil fuel industry has brainwashed a whole generation, courtesy of the Koch brothers. And another bad actor has also steered the collective consciousness away from Space Solar.
The ISS needs to end; the Moon, and the only viable space industry, is waiting.
I greatly appreciate the opportunity to express my views here. Thank you, Jeff Foust.
Ice on the Moon 