Space
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Space
Saturn V
Orion reentry, that's plasma
>>937980
Watching that while listening to this seemed fitting.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNM9eyIsbvc
>>938067
The raw power is overwhelming. Rockets are cool as fuck.
>>938069
Was that an accidental ignition or just a test?
>>937980
Does anyone have the gif a a black hole tearing a star apart?
>>938609
Sauce? Holy shit!
>>938069
Awesome, where is this from?
>>938764
It's literally the filename, you illiterate mongoloid
>>938777
It's a test of the first stage of the Saturn V at Marshall Space Flight Center.
Here's a video of the stand itself:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iil7-ARqqg4
>>938764
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YH3c1QZzRK4
>>937980
With music
>>940888
>>941026
I think saturn is my favorite planet
>>941095
yup
This actually gunna be a space thread, or just another rocket thread?
>>941171
who knows
>>941248
>>941095
It's not even just the rings, either. Everything about both it and its moons is just interesting and beautiful.
I'm gonna post rockets and there's nothing you can do to stop me!
>>944734
>>944740
>>944745
>>944748
>>938592
It´s a test.
>>944748
pfft that's nothing compared to us brits
>>945019
>meme gear
>>945036
woah
>>938609
>knowing you will never be on another planet walking under the light of a foreign star
>>944734
>that fucking creaking
>>944740
>that low pitched THRUMMM as the vehicle rotates
>>944745
>that steady crescendo until all other sound is annihilated
>those car alarms going off
>>944748
>that everything
>EVERYTHING
Oh my god, I think my penis is just going to explode from all the blood in it right now.
>>944748
Okay, this webm just has unreasonably high audio quality. Whoever encoded this has my undying admiration and gratitude.
>>945933
>>945956
Thanks anons
>>945957
You encoded it directly from the movie, right? Not from like a Youtube rip or anything?
>>945960
I downloaded it from youtube, then encoded it with ffmpeg.
So I actually didn't really do anything :^)
>>945983
Really? Cause I found the highest quality Youtube video of that scene, but your audio seems slightly better, so I thought maybe you got it directly from the movie. Maybe I'm just imagining the difference, though.
>>942506
read about Uranus
it's much more interesting
http://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2016/02/uranus-is-the-best-planet/458724/
>>946051
I'm not saying the other planets aren't also interesting. And I'm sure if we actually sent a dedicated probe to Uranus, we'd uncover all sorts of new stuff that might make Uranus more interesting even than Saturn. But right now, we know SO MUCH cool stuff about Saturn, on account of Cassini. The hexagonal polar storm, the geysers on Enceladus, the methane lakes on Titan…. We've got time lapse videos of gravitational eddies in the planet's rings due to its shepherd moons, close up photos of the equatorial ridge on Iapetus, and even few pictures from the very surface of Titan itself, thanks to Huygens. It's hard not to love Saturn best, when we have so much preestablished intimacy with it. Uranus just can't compete, at least not until we've explored it more thoroughly than with a single flyby with a probe built in the 1970s.
>>946110
>>946113
>>946122
>>946123
>>946125
>>946341
SO CLOSE
niggers
>>943413
But isn't Sun expanding or something?
>>938609
>female astronaut
Go FUCK yourself
>>948386
… Is there a problem?
>>938032
Fucking Russian Engineering
>>948249
You know, even at full speed, this capsule didn't seem to be accelerating fast enough to me, when Spacex first released the video.
Would an abort system like this even have better than a coinflip chance of saving the crew in the event of a critical vehicle failure event? If the fuel vessel breached and the fuel began to conflagrate, wouldn't the resulting explosion envelop the crew capsule before it had a chance to accelerate out of the danger radius?
>>938071
Man, imagine seeing that in an Apollo capsule at trans-lunar speeds.
>tfw you are become shooting star
>>940888
needs more digeridoo
>>940906
i'm not sure anon but i sure do enjoy them anyways
>>941171
oh jesus it hurts the brain
to think every one of those galaxies is as significant as a single grain of sand on the beach... i just can't even
>>944740
>1:23
>this is what scientologists actually believe
>>944751
the reality of the shuttle's size and complexity is just absurd. it's like "hey, let's just put this building-sized object into space, no problem".
>>945036
the most powerful machine ever built by humans.
but naaah that's so lame, let's fund some more wars instead.
>>948576
The way I reconcile it in my mind is I basicly just think, "Okay, well, aircraft carriers are probably roughly that big… and I've seen rocket engines test fired while mounted on the ground… so just imagine you're test firing a rocket engine mounted on an aircraft carrier while pointing the aircraft carrier up in the air."
Of course, sometimes that just makes things seem even MORE absurd. I mean… aircraft carriers rarely find themselves in freefall, you know?
>>948589
I tried googling "Saturn V aircraft carrier comparison" and "Saturn V aircraft carrier size" but apparently rockets and aircraft carriers are not two objects that people often compare to each other, because I found no relevant image results.
>>948600
The aircraft carrier Intrepid was once used to convey the space shuttle Enterprise.
Also, you must not have been googling very hard, because I found this.
>http://www.craftsmanshipmuseum.com/images/Tomp0088.jpg
>>948602
>The aircraft carrier Intrepid was once used to convey the space shuttle Enterprise.
Do you think that's the most expensive vehicle that's ever sat on Intrepid's landing deck?
>>946341
I'm no rocket scientist but it makes very little sense as to why you'd come back down like that rather than just using a parachute. it basically means that you have to carry extra fuel up with you each time, which means more weight you have to overcome on the initial take off.
It's neat looking but it seems ill advised from an engineering stand point.
>>948626
>I'm no rocket scientist
I could just say, "Well then stop talking like you think you know what you're talking about," but I really love this subject, so I'd rather explain why you're wrong, since then you'll learn something about it too, and maybe fall as in love with it as I am.
>but it makes very little sense as to why you'd come back down like that rather than just using a parachute.
A parachute adds a large amount of mass to your payload. Every tiny amount of mass you add to your payload must be accompanied by a much larger amount of fuel in order to reach the same orbital altitude, because the key factor that determines how high of an orbital altitude you can reach is the percentage of your rocket's total mass that is made up of fuel.
>it basically means that you have to carry extra fuel up with you each time, which means more weight you have to overcome on the initial take off.
Yes, but after the upper stage (which carries the payload) has been jettisoned into orbit, the lower stage (which falls back to earth) has almost no payload mass. It's mass is almost nothing but the remaining fuel. And, as I mentioned above, the only thing that matters when determining how much "zoom" you can get out of your rocket is the PERCENTAGE of your mass that's made up of fuel. So really, you only need a very small amount of extra fuel – much, MUCH less than you would need if you used parachutes – to perform the landing.
>>937980
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WjNssEVlB6M
i actually find this video so inspiring
>>948654
a parachute is gonna add as much weight as a giant metal tube filled with enough fuel to slow said giant metal tube down for a soft landing?
That doesn't seem right.
The Tsiolkovsky rocket equation is the single most beautiful theorem in all of physics and engineering. It's derived from the simplest physical principle in existence – Newton's third law.
When a tiny amount of mass, dm, is ejected from the tail of a rocket with a speed, v0, then the rest of the rocket, with mass m, is accelerated forward by a small change in speed, dv. Then, by the law of equal and opposite reactions, the momentum of the ejected mass, v0*dm, must be equal and opposite to the change in momentum of the rest of the rocket, m*dv.
So, m*dv = -v0*dm.
Or, equivalently, dv = -v0/m*dm.
This allows us to determine how much speed a rocket can gain, Δv, as a function of its initial and final mass, m1 and m2, by simply integrating both sides!
Δv = ∫_{0}^{Δv} dv = -v0*∫_{m1}^{m2} 1/m*dm = v0*(log(m1)–log(m2)) = v0*log(m1/m2).
>>948666
Once the upper stage has been jettisoned into orbit, the rest of the rocket is basicly an empty metal tube. It has a HUGE m1/m2, because even a little bit of fuel in the tank is going to weigh more than the empty tank itself. And a huge m1/m2 corresponds to a huge Δv, which means you can soft-land that rocket with just that little bit of fuel.
But if you want to use parachutes, then you're increasing the m2 of the first stage, because now the first stage has to lift both the upper stage AND the parachutes for the lower stage. And if you increase m2, you have to increase m1, in order to reach the same Δv, and thus reach the same orbital altitude. So let's say you need an m1/m2 of 10, in order to reach a given Δv. That means for every pound of parachutes you add, you need to add NINE pounds of fuel, just to get the same amount of "zoom" out of the first stage.
>>948666
And BOY are you going to need a lot of parachutes. If you were just planning on landing the rocket in the water, you wouldn't need very many. But you can't do that, because salt water severely corrodes rocket engines, requiring expensive refurbishing that will wipe out your savings from reusability. You need to land the rocket on a solid surface. And that's going to require WAY more parachute mass, because you need to slow that giant hunk of metal down to a very, VERY slow speed, in order to avoid smashing into that surface and fucking destroying it. You'll need tons upon tons upon tons of parachute cloth, which will correspond to hundreds upon hundreds of tons of extra fuel.
>>948666
Additionally, because you need to land on a solid surface, you need to have a drone ship out there to catch the damned thing as it comes down. But if you use parachutes, you can't even aim for the ship! The ship has to move around and try to get directly under you as you come down, which is WAY harder than just aiming yourself.
So really, using parachutes is just a terrible idea in every single conceivable respect.
>>948666
Oh, and don't forget that, in addition to needing your parachutes to be fucking gigantic in order to slow the rocket down so that it can land on this moving solid surface without blowing up, your parachutes will ALSO need decades upon decades of research and development just to figure out how to deploy them at hypersonic speeds without them simply ripping to shreds. For small parachutes, like those used on the space shuttle SRBs, this wasn't a problem, but for a gigantic sailcloth parachute like you're proposing, it's going to be one of the largest engineering hurdles ever faced by material scientists.
>>948691
>>948695
>>948697
Why are you talking about the paracute thing as though it would use the same rocket body and not just be engineered to have a small light capsule?
Also, you seem to be over looking the benefit that a parachute/ shuttle like glider configuration would have over this: No insanely dangerous vertical landing in a giant explosive tube that goes off like a fucking pipe bomb if you're off by a few degrees.
But this is all a moot point because space X is a massively expensive boondoggle that won't go anywhere.
>>941141
Best movie i've ever seen.
>>946100
Came here to appreciate Saturn.
I approve this post.
There's so much great shit about it.
>>948865
fuck you. love as a transcendental quantum force?
fuck that.
>>948879
you need a rocket
>>948835
Trust me when I say, I have done the actual math on this, and a rocket would need to be many times larger to accommodate parachute descent than it would need to be to just conserve a small amount of extra fuel for a powered landing.
>But this is all a moot point because space X is a massively expensive boondoggle that won't go anywhere.
Oh wow, why am I even responding to you? I thought you were being serious.
>>948952
Privatized space travel isn't gonna take off until there is some sort of way to really make a profit off of it.
Exactly what is space X gonna make money on that people already aren't making money on like launching satellites.
It's like that idea of mining asteroids. Neat idea but massively impractical without a huge infrastructure built around it.
>>949024
>Exactly what is space X gonna make money on that people already aren't making money on like launching satellites.
Are you saying that there are not clients who are willing to spend money on putting satellites into orbit? Are you saying that those clients will not choose Spacex as their launch provider?
>>949049
Why would they? There are already a bunch of existing companies that do it at lower costs with older rockets.
I'm just asking what it is that space x is doing that isn't already done? Why do we care about them so much?
>>948360
Does "red giant stage" sound like the sun has not expanded or something?
>>948386
faggot
>>948626
>>948654
Because a parachute isn't accurate enough.
--You cannot design a booster that is salt-water resistant--from an engineering standpoint it's not impossible but definitely infeasible. (the space shuttle SRB was able to fall into water because it is not a complex turbo-pump rocket engine like most liquid-fuel engine, and even still it needed to be completely refurbished after retrieval)
--This means you must design a booster that can accurately hit either a barge in the ocean or a landing pad.
--Thus you give the rocket a little bit of extra fuel to land itself. You really don't need much, because the booster itself is very light; it's just a couple of metal shells.
The empty mass of the Falcon 9 first stage is about 25,000kg, vs. 500,000kg launch mass for the full stack. The same engine that was pushing 500,000kg into the sky is now pushing 5% the mass. Thus you don't need nearly as much propellant--I mean after first stage sep it might require 2% of total fuel to completely reverse trajectory and return to the launchpad. Add another 1-2% fuel to stage a controlled landing.
>>949143
where it then misses and blows up.
>>949056
Lol. The Falcon rockets are by far the cheapest launch vehicles in their payload classes. SpaceX is already outcompeting the old dinosaurs like Lockheed and Boeing. (only problem is those old aerospace companies have a LOT of friends in Congress)
The key to SpaceX's success is the Merlin engine. It is the cheapest, lightest, most reliable rocket engine ever produced, and it's highly reusable. It's a miracle of engineering. And SpaceX fucking hammers those things out all year like a goddamn assembly line. Compare that to the "reusable" space shuttle RS-25--talk about a boondoggle!
I think your hostility may be a result of your preference for higher-concept space technology, lifting bodies and single-stage-to-orbit etc. But the truth is with our current level of technology, SpaceX is producing the cheapest and most reliable launch system in the world.
NASA will be using SpaceX rockets for the next 10 years at least until they get their super-heavy lifter going. And even then SpaceX will remain the cheapest and most effective way of getting humans and significant payload into space.
If you're talking about microsatellites and small-scale payload, here's another rocket doing it very well: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SPARK_(rocket)
>>949056
>Why would they? There are already a bunch of existing companies that do it at lower costs with older rockets.
… Spacex's entire goal right now is to achieve the lowest costs in the business. Full reusability is the mechanism by which they hope to achieve this. Are you sugesting that you do not think they will succeed?
>>949149
Dawg, a rocket has a chance of blowing up on the launchpad. Stop being a troll. You just land them in a place without people.
Did you graduate from high school?
>>949156
That kinda defeats the purpose when they're supposed to be reusable.
>>949153
so space x is just a better rocket? Neat.
But thats not really privatized space travel.
Stop arguing about stupid bullshit and post webms you fucking spergs
>>949179
>>948626
If the goal is a single use rocket, then yes, powered descent is stupid and a waste of fuel. But if you want to reuse your rocket, keeping it out of salt water is probably a good idea.
re: cost, not having to build a new one each time is going to let SpaceX cut current costs by anywhere from 90% to 99% (or phrased another way, 10x to 100x cheaper). i.e. it's current ~$100m per launch, they'll be able to get to ~$10m and probably lower.
>>949179
>>949181
I remember the first time I saw a launch like this on TV. The fastest aircraft I knew of at that point was fighter jets. I don't know a fighter jet's top speed, but I know it has to be over around 1500 mph. That speed boggles my mind. Then I'm watching this shuttle launch, and the announcer says they're at around 6000 MPH. My head almost exploded. THEN, he said that over the next several minutes, the craft would have to DOUBLE THAT SPEED. I couldn't even.
>space thread
>OP posts space gif
>rest of the thread is rocket launch webms
ggwp thread. ggwp
>>949702
what's wrong with rockets?
>>949702
It's not like space itself make for good webm material
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4RDJV-_h5JI&feature=youtu.be&
Thread theme.
>>943413
>reforming Pangaea
I don't see why this would happen.
>>948725
Love that little pause as it kicks its foot out of the way
>>948580
it's actually so petty that we spend sooo fucking much on making sure some kebab retards in the middle east get fucked rather than exploring our solar system and beyond.
fuck man, if i was president i'd push for men on mars before 2020 and a self-sufficient moon base before 2030
BUT NO MUH MILITARY
i'm mad
>>948534
maybe, perhaps they're still working on that.
b>>949736
That's a good point. I thought the continents were the way they are today because they separated from Pangaea. If anything they'd meet up again on the other side of the planet, not back where they started.
>>948582
Yeah good luck with that
>>949713
fucking awesome video. just chillin in the capsule, orbiting the moon.
>>949811
current success record after three launches and attempted recoveries: 1 out of 3
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZCBE8ocOkAQ
>>949451
I'm amazed how many explosions that sound bit can go with. lol
>>937980
The Final Frontier
>>937980
Dumping OC
>>950020
>>950028
>>950038
>>950048
>>950055
>>950058
Is anyone even lurking?
>>950059
>>950064
hmmm
>>950071
>>950079
I will stop here
>>950086
Don't stop anon, those were really cool
>>950264
4u
>>950264
>>950276
>>948602
Cute that they put the VentureStar on there
What a shame
Did we really go to the moon?
>>948654
Look I appreciate that you're interested in spaceflight, that being said, what you're saying is essentially wrong.
A parachute carried by the lower stage and extra fuel carried by the lower stage are the same from the standpoint of how much weight the lower stage can loft. It is considered payload mass for the lower stage, the fact that it is fuel doesn't matter.
The reason that propulsive landing is used is that
a) parachutes are finicky, and landing such a large object might not even be possible
b) it would come down hard, even in water, and probably damage if not destroy it's fairly fragile turbo pump
c) even if it survived, the water would fuck it up
It's also worth mentioning that you don't need to carry that much fuel because the atmosphere keeps you at terminal velocity so instead of going upwards where you need to accelerate to thousands of miles per hour, you only need a few hundred miles per hour of delta V on the way down. Furthermore, since most of your mass was expelled on the way up, it's pretty light.
-student in aerospace
Ps. don't praise the space shuttle so much friends, it was honestly a bad design from the start and fucked our space program quite badly, including killing 14 people (by far the worst track record of any space ship)
>>938067
who else made their own sound effects when watching this?
>>938592
it was just a prank
>>948386
Are you retarded?
>>948611
Not even close
>>944745
My audio is clipping horribly.
>tfw you realize you'll never hear the space shuttle in true fidelity
>>950547
Yes, but my point is you need a LOT of fucking parachutes to slow even an empty fuel tank down enough to not destroy it, whereas, thanks to the Tsiolkovsky rocket equation, you only need a little tiny bit of fuel.
>>948626
A parachute large enough to slow something that big, moving that fast would be prohibitively large and heavy. Further, the stresses on it would be tremendous because of the speeds involved. Also, as some other anon pointed out, a parachute would likely be nowhere near accurate enough to land on that small of a footprint
testing *taps microphone*
>>948534
These are the first of multistage rockets. They're created to land on a nearly empty tank, not land carrying a full payload. Regardless, the Dragon capsule has it's own abort system in place designed to shutter the crew away in the event of a catastrophic launch failure.
These things go fucking FAST. The Challenger disintegrated in under two seconds, because just after a minute, it was close to it's max q (the point where it's under the most aerodynamic pressure) at over 1,500 mph. There's a good breakdown of it here. http://spaceflightnow.com/challenger/timeline/
My point is, this procedure I'd never going to be used in an emergency. Once you clear the tower, you've going over 100mph. When things go wrong during a launch, it's either not a problem, or a catastrophic failure. The only good way to make sure your crew survive is to be able to break them away from the failing mass of explosives and metal as best you can, as fast as you can.
>>945983
thats how the end of the world will look like
>>944745
And that's from three miles away.
>>950635
The audio isn't actually clipping, it really sounds like that because sound itself is being ripped apart so violently or something.
I read an account of a guy who watched one of these launches who had been to a lot of concerts, who was usually used to standing right next to huge speakers blasting out sound. He said even that didn't really compare to a launch where every atom in his body felt like it was going to be shaken apart
>>948534
The crew of Challenger were reportedly alive until their capsule struck the ocean surface. So yes, it could potentially save the crew.
>>944734
Man, I just got a new pair of Sennheiser headphones and the sound in that made them worth every penny.
This comes from an era when the USA did awesome shit, rather than drown in SJW-mandated mommy-state bullshit.
>>949153
>But the truth is with our current level of technology, SpaceX is producing the cheapest and most reliable launch system in the world.
Factually incorrect.
SpaceX is squeezing the best performance possible to-date out of chemical fuels. That is correct.
It is in no way a feasible mass transit system to space. To do that will require fundamental breakthroughs in physics, or, the use of nuclear power.
A useful system to exploit the Solar System must generate a 1:1 thrust-to-weight ratio, have between 30 and 300 km/sec of delta-v, and all while in a mass fraction of 30 percent or less.
That takes nuclear power. That's the beginning and end of this discussion.
Sorry.
>>938069
theres a gantry like this at redstone where they tested shuttle mains. wonder if this is it
>>951686
Ruh-roh. We got a singularitarian in the house. Hide your textbooks! Hide your degrees! This guy's got VISIONS.
>>951712
>Hide your textbooks! Hide your degrees!
Heh.
Well, all right then, smart guy, how do YOU propose we exploit the Solar System?
Historically, large-scale transport systems have required an ISP equivalent to 3000 seconds or higher to be viable.
Space travel introduces a few new parameters, but nothing too difficult to overcome with the technology we possess. The only thing keeping us from unlocking the extremely large resources all around use are a high-thrust, high-isp, reaction drive.
Due to the relationship between mass, momentum, and energy, a high-isp, high-thrust drive (one that can deliver 30-300 km/sec delta-v in a mass fraction of only thirty percent) is a nuclear powered drive.
Because only nuclear energy is energetic enough to reach those numbers.
This isn't 'visionary', scientists knew about this sixty years ago while they were developing the Apollo stunt to "Put a man on the Moon!"
Some day, someone will have the guts to do it, and they will be the ones to form the next great civilization.
Also, what the hell does this have to do with the concept of the singularity? It has nothing to do with that silliness.
>>951966
>Historically, large-scale transport systems have required an ISP equivalent to 3000 seconds or higher to be viable.
>"Historically"
>proceeds to name a stupidly high ISP that no launch system has literally ever attained
>claims that nothing less than that is "viable"
Oho man, you're just a card.
>Also, what the hell does this have to do with the concept of the singularity? It has nothing to do with that silliness.
You're the same type of person as a singularitarian. Someone whose eyes are perpetually fixed thirty to sixty years into the future, with no regard for what technologies are actually feasible or viable in the present.
>>951691
Not sure, they probably used different test stands for those.
For reference, this is the specific test stand used in that video:
http://heroicrelics.org/msfc/test-stand-s-ic/index.html
>>952100
but nuclear rockets are feasible and viable now. Look at NERVA - it was meeting and exceeding all of it's design goals. It was only shut down because Congress saw it as an implicit dedication to a manned Mars mission, which they didn't want to cough up the funding for.
Not even the "singularitarian" that you're responding to. The fact is that this technology is not '30 - 60 years' in the future. It's available right now.
>>952154
>Look at NERVA
>ISP (vacuum): 850 seconds (8.3 km/s)
>ISP (sea level): 380 seconds (3.7 km/s)
Bro, that moron said 3000 seconds. He's fucking high.
>>952207
>>>952154
>>Look at NERVA
>>ISP (vacuum): 850 seconds (8.3 km/s)
>>ISP (sea level): 380 seconds (3.7 km/s)
>Bro, that moron said 3000 seconds. He's fucking high.
NERVA was a toy and a waste of time.
External pulsed nuclear propulsion, or Project Orion, is the only sensible way to use nuclear power for rocketry.
Some links:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Orion_%28nuclear_propulsion%29
http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/19760065935.pdf
http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/19930009659.pdf
And yes, I did say 3000 seconds, which, to be honest, is very low for an external pulsed plasma drive.
And no, I'm not high, I'm just well informed. NASA has no interest in rockets that actually WORK. They are a huge government bureaucracy these days. The only thing NASA cares about it making sure the budget comes every year.
So, I will re-iterate: Until we get serious about our rocketry, nothing will change in regards exploitation of the Solar System.
Barring huge fundamental breakthroughs, the only way we're getting there is nuclear power.
Period.
>>952360
Project Orion was literally illegal, and remains literally illegal. Don't blame NASA for shutting that program down. Blame the fucking UN.
Bro, I am not saying 3000 seconds is impossible, but you literally called ANYTHING LESS THAN THAT "unviable".
We've been getting into space with 1/10 that impulse for sixty years, and we could be doing just fine with 1/10 that impulse, if NASA had any fucking funding. We could have been on Mars by the time I was born, with, yes, chemical rockets. They are not the fundamental barrier to space exploration that you are raving that they are.
>>950547
>Ps. don't praise the space shuttle so much friends, it was honestly a bad design from the start and fucked our space program quite badly, including killing 14 people (by far the worst track record of any space ship)
I wouldn't say it was bad necessarily but they definitely tried too much too soon.
There were far more simple solutions to the same problems they were tackling but they went for a lopsided mechanical marvel instead.
Makes me wonder what skylon will be capable of if it ever actually gets built.
>>952623
>>951686
>To do that will require fundamental breakthroughs in physics
We already made that breakthrough, just have to make it betterer now (Carbon nanotubes so this is now not a theoretical problem but a mechanical one)
>That takes nuclear power. That's the beginning and end of this discussion.
I wish the Outer Space Treaty wasn't a thing and we could just do this.
>already have all the designs laid out
muh orion
>>952461
>Bro, I am not saying 3000 seconds is impossible, but you literally called ANYTHING LESS THAN THAT "unviable".
I'm sorry, you misunderstand. I am not explaining this well.
http://web.mit.edu/16.unified/www/FALL/thermodynamics/notes/node85.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Specific_impulse
Note that the lowest commercial vehicle listed uses engines with an ISP of 6000.
ISP is roughly equivalent to specific fuel consumption, and trust me, in the real world, for large transport systems, 3000 is probably being generous for a viable system.
Putting up robot probes and tinfoil spaceships is not exploiting the resources of the Solar System. It's exploration at best. It's the difference between a Lewis and Clark expedition, and the trans-continental railroad.
Chemical fuels are barely sufficient for Lewis and Clark. Barely. We need a system to be the Transcontinental Railroad of the Solar System.
>>952661
>We already made that breakthrough, just have to make it betterer now (Carbon nanotubes so this is now not a theoretical problem but a mechanical one)
I assume you are referring to the Space Elevator. While that is an important and useful system, it does nothing to solve the entire issue. At best, a Space Elevator (handwaving a mountain of issues) can get you a few dozen kilometers of delta-v.
Is that useful? Heck yeah it is, especially because it gets you in and out of deep gravity wells, which is close to the toughest thing to do. (Of course, wells are damn nice for propulsion, the Oberth Effect is literally cheating.)
But.
Is a Space Elevator a system that can be used to open up the Solar System? Not really.
Robert Forward's old 'Web between the Worlds" concept is the best approach to this I've seen, and yes, with modern computations for exploiting minimum-energy orbits, I could see a Space Elevator combined with the Interplanetary Transport Network as being an ultra-low-cost system roughly analogous to pipelines today.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interplanetary_Transport_Network
But this does nothing for people. Space is rad-hard. People will need high-speed, well-shielded vessels. Humans can't spend eight years loitering in a paper-thin shell of magnesium alloy just to get to the Moon.
>muh orion
(sigh)
The Orion concepts are sixty years old. Amazingly enough, I suspect we could do better now.
http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/20140012884.pdf
Oh look!
We can.
All it takes is the courage to fucking do it. To be frank, I emphatically disagree with the mission parameters outlined in that paper, but it's nice to see the gutless bureaucrats at NASA haven't completely strangled the next frontier.
>>953144
>I assume you are referring to the Space Elevator. While that is an important and useful system, it does nothing to solve the entire issue. At best, a Space Elevator (handwaving a mountain of issues) can get you a few dozen kilometers of delta-v.
>a few dozen kilometers of delta-v
Not even close, you can bring a space elevator out far enough that simply stepping off it brings you to escape velocity. That is a HUGE deal. It's hard to overstate how big a deal a space elevator is for space related ventures.
>But this does nothing for people. Space is rad-hard. People will need high-speed, well-shielded vessels. Humans can't spend eight years loitering in a paper-thin shell of magnesium alloy just to get to the Moon.
Space being rad-hard isn't much of a problem, all you need is a swimming pool or so around living areas to shield crew/passengers from the radiation, right?
The biggest problem I think is going to be creating big enough tube/ring sections that spin to counteract the effects low-gravity have on people (it fucks them up too hard at the moment).
>The Orion concepts are sixty years old. Amazingly enough, I suspect we could do better now.
The entire concept of Orion is amazing and makes me kinda laugh everytime when the scientifically BEST way to move around the universe is to explode shaped nuclear charges behind you and just ride the shockwaves.
>All it takes is the courage to fucking do it.
Don't forget money. Moneymoneymoney. And public interest, I guess, but that's just a means to getting money. Outer Space Treaty needs to be amended too, there's literally no reason to have a rule against putting nukes in orbit. Nobody would ever even PUT their nuclear arsenal in orbit.
Do you have any data on how much space is required for a sort of 'farming section' to create enough food to feed a single person? Having modular food sections that can just attach on and are almost completely automated seems really cool.
>>953151
>Moneymoneymoney
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/sci/tech/401227.stm
One asteroid has more metal in it than we have ever mined on Earth to date, including a quite pessimistic estimate of twenty trillion in gold.
433 Eros is a fairly big rock, but it's got millions of buddies.
One asteroid has enough resources to abolish scarcity as we know it. Think about that.
Abundance undreamed-of. So why are we not going to get it? Because it will upset the status quo?
That answer embarrasses me.
>>953182
>Because it will upset the status quo?
Maybe so, the overabundance would probably cause the prices to drop heavily.
There's also the entire cost of launching a rocket, no doubt private investors have looked into this, but there might be proper attempts using cheap SpaceX rockets in the future
>>953125
>Note that the lowest commercial vehicle listed uses engines with an ISP of 6000.
… No. The only one listed above 3000 on the propulsion performance graph is the CF6, and the only two listed above 3000 on the examples list are the VASIMR and the DS4G. So, in other words, an aircraft engine and two ion engines – nothing even remotely viable as a heavy lifter.
Can you autists please take your arguments somewhere else? All it's doing is getting us closer to the bump limit and filling up the thread with endless autism.
>>953536
This please
>>948865
Nah it shits the bed half way through and really falls flat on its face.
>>943413
>Star formation will result in supernovae
Nope. Maybe after a few billion years.
>>938609
I have such a hardon for O'Neill cylinders...
>>948865
I just hate how it was hyped as hard sci-fi and was actually on the opposite end of the spectrum.
>>954603
Well that sucks
>>955381
Elite Dangerous. You can literally explore the entire Milky Way Galaxy on a 1:1 ratio, including landing on planets (w/o atmosphere), dropping into asteroid belts on a whim, etc. Legit simulator, not for casual players (unless you just want to play Arena mode which is basically Call of Duty in space)
>>949783
>yfw new program to send men to the moon again got axed because it was "too expensive"
>>956594
Ah cool, thanks.
>tfw we're sending probes to Europa in your lifetime
>>956594
>landing on planets
That's paid DLC, literally paying for limited planetary landings in a space simulator.
Games like this (and No Mans Sky) all suffer from the same problem, people brag that "you can LITERALLY EXPLORE THE MILKY WAY" "IT'S 1:1!!" when in reality it's just Procedural generated content, something that's been around for decades.
>>953182
It's nice to speculate about rocks floating in space. The one things that news media (and armchair pseudo-intellectual scientists such as yourself) fail to mention is that it costs an average of $10k to send one pound-mass into space. Realize that a pound of gold is about $1k.
That's just the craft itself. Engineering how to send back a much more massive load back to earth is a feat unto itself. Go back to your video games and boilerplate sci-fi, faggot.
>>954603
I'm no rocket scientist, but wouldn't like small rockets on the side of the rocket help stabilize to prevent things like this?
>>956805
1. Weight
2. No amount of stabilization will save you from a fucked up landing leg.
>>948386
Spot the yank.
>>948386
Frustrated gamma-virgin spotted. Go kill yourself
Does anyone know where this is from?
>>956805
They do. They have nitrogen thrusters on the sides for pitch, roll, and yaw control, but they aren't powerful enough to compensate for a loose landing leg.
>>957076
Sounding rocket from a few months ago
http://www.nasa.gov/centers/armstrong/features/rocket_demonstrates_new_capability.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AEwKOeCj0jU
>>948533
That's how it's supposed to work.
>>949702
Rocket webms are 200% okay in a space thread.
t. OP
>>940906
gotcha senpai
>>958292
>>953182
Are you an idiot? Think about it, if gold is suddenly so abudant that literally everyone can have it what is it worth? Who would buy it? It just means that the price of gold would crash which would hurt more than a few economies.
Over-abundant materials are only useful if they have some core use for survival, like food
>>938609
That smile always get me
>>938592
You don't 'accidentally' start ignition on a rocket, anon
No sound but still awesome
>>944745
>you will never bear witness to the pure extreme sound of another space shuttle launch in person
>>950291
I will dump more in the next few days
>>945036
This is so beautiful that I shed a tear.
>>958589
Even if the odds are literally a million to one, I'm still basing my entire life plan on being able to look out that window one day. The likelihood of success, tiny as it might be, multiplied by my desire to achieve it, is still greater than the equivalent product for any other profession. I know I'm virtually guaranteed to fail, but I don't even care.
Anybody else in here naval aviation? Or are you all just basement dwellers, not even trying because you're daunted by the odds?
>>950524
Yes, anon. We did.
>>958927
Aerospace undergrad here
Would consider naval aviation if a job in the space industry doesn't pan out
Same aspirations as you, also willing to throw myself at a million to one chance
Good luck, maybe we'll end up on a mission together someday
>>958927
>>959294
Good luck anons. Have this
>>959655
>>959657
>>959660
>>948249
>ejection/abort booster
thats a god damn lander if i ever saw one.
>first half of thread is nothing but rocket launches
>second half are smart people arguing/debating and shit
Post planets and space please. I am just a simple kind of man, who cant into math or physics. But I can admire stuff when it's IINNNN SPAAAAAACE
Also I don't have any space .webm's so I am going to cop out and post this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ToXaNUjNfS4
Rolllll
>>955080
>not posting the version with the 'Cosmos' theme song in the background
Go fuck yourself.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wupToqz1e2g
;_;
>>964202
Amazing how that's basically a 36-story building shooting through the air at six thousand miles an hour
>>964222
Look up the Saturn C-8, shit your pants.
It was designed to fire directly to the moon.
>>949811
landing them on the ground is easy, the hard part is doing it on a barge
>>964194
That fucking killed me. I'm dead. Inform my next of kin.
>>948386
Kill yourself, dude
Anyone have any more? I love these threads.
>>944751
Love it. Space shuttles are really fascinating.
>>956708
>in reality it's just Procedural generated content,
yeah? so? shits dank as fuck that we dont need to map out and design every detail for us to make ENTIRE PLANETS WITH FLORA AND FAUNA
Just need a bit of math.
im speaaking of no mans sky though. elite dangerous is boring as fuck and having to pay to land on boring broken atmosphere free asteroids was a pretty dick move if you ask me. especially compared to what has been shown by the no mans sky guys
>>958552
everything would be so abundant litterally everyone could have it. i.e. everyone has the shit they need at very little to no cost.
do you know how easy it would be to make enough food for everybody? the only issue is nobody wants to make shit for free.
>>958870
Hate to be that guy but I really need source on this music.
>>948567
that's not a didgeridoo
that's actual space sounds, Nasa took electromagnetic waves made by planets and translated it into sound we can hear.
Thanks for posting these, it's been one of the best /wsg/ threads
>>946043
What movie?
>>946113
>that shaking when the sound reaches the camera
damn
>>958927
it always worth trying and even if you end up as an engineer helping others reach space, that is still a noble cause.
>>967966
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KNmgiinYY-M
>>949999
The sound for that video taken elsewhere, "bootleg fireworks"
>>948386
hi/pol/
>>964194
Anybody got a ba-nominal remix?
>/watch?v=2-SD2gxMn5U
"Successful landing not expected," but it's still a launch.
