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Author Topic: Space Thread  (Read 509556 times)
pxib
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Reply #420 on: November 21, 2015, 12:56:55 PM

How big is the ISS? Find astronaut Kjell Lindgren for scale.

Spoilered for size:

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Reply #421 on: November 22, 2015, 08:17:49 AM

Would help if he wore a red and white striped spacesuit.

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Count Nerfedalot
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Reply #422 on: November 24, 2015, 07:03:40 PM

The solar arrays are huge, but whatever that is he's working on seems barely large enough for him to stand up inside of. Hopefully it's just an equipment truss or something and not a hab or lab module?

Yes, I know I'm paranoid, but am I paranoid enough?
MahrinSkel
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Reply #423 on: November 24, 2015, 07:33:21 PM

By the location, that should be a truss section, looks like the radiators for the life support coming out of it. Hab/lab sections would be where the picture is being taken from.

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Teleku
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Reply #424 on: December 22, 2015, 12:10:49 AM

Well, SpaceX finally did it.  Last night they managed to to successfully launch a rocket into orbit (and deliver its payload) and land it again for the first time in history:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-12-22/musk-s-spacex-returns-to-space-in-first-launch-since-june-blast

Probably still years before they perfect the entire processes of launching it and reliably reusing the rocket (let alone perfecting the landing part), but this is a huge mile stone.  If they can get the whole process down, the cost of space launch will be reduced drastically.  Very exciting!

Launch and landing in one long exposure shot:


"My great-grandfather did not travel across four thousand miles of the Atlantic Ocean to see this nation overrun by immigrants.  He did it because he killed a man back in Ireland. That's the rumor."
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Quinton
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Reply #425 on: December 22, 2015, 03:08:44 AM

They also deployed 11 satellites.  Not a bad night's work.
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Reply #426 on: December 22, 2015, 03:41:19 AM

That's some got-damn science fiction right there!  The landing looked almost like the launch in reverse.  Very nice indeed!
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Reply #427 on: December 22, 2015, 04:18:08 AM

So why is it that they tried so many times previously to land on rocky and unsteady sea barges?  Just to prove they could be accurate in the landing site before trying over land?
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Reply #428 on: December 22, 2015, 05:24:57 AM

So why is it that they tried so many times previously to land on rocky and unsteady sea barges?  Just to prove they could be accurate in the landing site before trying over land?

It is much more difficult to get the permits for attempting on land. In international waters there are no permits required. They also had systems that failed in pretty spectacular fashion on their first sea tests which would have done a lot of damage to the facilities nearby if they happened on land. (I believe the closest human to the sea barge was over a dozen miles away.)

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Reply #429 on: December 22, 2015, 06:20:47 AM

Reuse of the device is awesome and I'm glad to see it. My only question has continually been why land it upright like that. The additional fuel for landing that has to be carried during launch is the antithesis of "every oz matters" that I'd previously understood for rocket launches. Some sort of glide landing or water landing seems like they'd be more efficient.

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01101010
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Reply #430 on: December 22, 2015, 06:34:33 AM

Reuse of the device is awesome and I'm glad to see it. My only question has continually been why land it upright like that. The additional fuel for landing that has to be carried during launch is the antithesis of "every oz matters" that I'd previously understood for rocket launches. Some sort of glide landing or water landing seems like they'd be more efficient.

Sea water is not a friendly substance.

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Reply #431 on: December 22, 2015, 06:39:24 AM

Yeah, even though the external tanks and solid boosters on the shuttle were "reused" it basically cost almost as much to recondition the tank as it would to build a new one after all the seawater damage.

I have always felt that the electromagnetic catapult was a better idea for putting things like cargo into orbit. My advisor when I was an engineering student had done some work with a team that was studying various designs.

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Reply #432 on: December 22, 2015, 07:14:30 AM

Reuse of the device is awesome and I'm glad to see it. My only question has continually been why land it upright like that. The additional fuel for landing that has to be carried during launch is the antithesis of "every oz matters" that I'd previously understood for rocket launches. Some sort of glide landing or water landing seems like they'd be more efficient.
Yeah, as others have said, landing it in salt water causes massive issues to the rocket.  It's very expensive to reuse after that.  Plus, with something that big and somewhat delicate, there is no such thing as a totally soft water landing that wont fuck up something that will need to be fixed.

Fuel is the cheap part of the rocket.  This method means you need a rocket able to carry enough fuel to get to its target, and have enough to land.  It means the rocket itself is more expensive (because it needs to be a bit bigger than the task at hand requires), but if you are able to relaunch the rocket, this is totally offset, and the extra fuel cost is minuscule in comparison.  The rocket used in this launch was also the newest upgraded version of the Falcon 9, which gave it a significant thrust boost compared to previous versions.  Meaning it has even more fuel to work with now.
« Last Edit: December 22, 2015, 07:18:57 AM by Teleku »

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Reply #433 on: December 22, 2015, 07:59:41 AM

It's not the cost of the fuel, but dollars I was referencing. An additional kilo of fuel is a kilo of cargo you can't take up.

I get that saltwater is damaging, and glide surfaces would also be additional weight. However, I just wanted to know details on the how and why the weight of fuel and control thrusters and the logistics of a reverse takeoff made more sense than other options.

Then again, we did do exactly that with the Curiosity and I imagine the algorithms to do such landings have come a long way even since it was launched.

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Reply #434 on: December 22, 2015, 11:15:35 AM

When you save the cost of capital nary ting a total new rocket every time, you price per kg plummets.

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Reply #435 on: December 22, 2015, 11:35:14 AM

 Ohhhhh, I see. Yeah though they had it for the water landing stuff initially.  Anyway I'm on to gliding now.  Raspberry Raspberry Raspberry

The past cannot be changed. The future is yet within your power.
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Reply #436 on: December 22, 2015, 12:59:27 PM

One of the better subplots of these launches are Bezos and Musk trolling each other on Twitter.

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Reply #437 on: December 22, 2015, 01:53:10 PM

Blue Origin is a toy compared to SpaceX.

Edit: or more specifically the New Shepard is a toy compared to the Falcon 9.
« Last Edit: December 22, 2015, 01:55:48 PM by Trippy »
Count Nerfedalot
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Reply #438 on: December 22, 2015, 04:57:24 PM

Awesome stuff!  I love it that though SpaceX failed twice at the much harder but safer barge landing at sea, when Blue Origin one-upped them with a landing from a sub-orbital flight (vastly simpler both in velocities and navigation) and Bezos started trash talking SpaceX turned around and nailed their first attempt at land. 

I am curious as to why the arcs are parallel rather than in opposite directions.

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Reply #439 on: December 22, 2015, 07:18:40 PM

To simplify things, just look at Falcon 9 as a 3-stage rocket built in 2-stages.  That's essentially what it is in order to backburn and retro all the way back to point of origin.  Which is perfectly ok, seeing as how every 3-stage rocket to date essentially destroys itself after every use. 

The fuel necessary isn't as much as you think either, since most of the weight is discarded and the majority of the flight time is spent in freefall.  Also, the most consuming burn is the backburn, but there is no drag at that point, so again... not as bad as you think.  It only uses 3 of its 9 engines to get back as well.

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Reply #440 on: December 22, 2015, 07:45:25 PM

AHHHH!!!! *lightbulb* first stage booster doesn't go to orbit!  (duh! I know, right? I R dum)  it's just a catapult that goes up, then comes back down - into the ocean normally but back to where it started in this case. 

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Reply #441 on: December 22, 2015, 08:55:34 PM

It's more of a slingshot than a catapult.  It's ballistic at time of separation and would likely hit LEO if it didn't make that backburn.  It's a long burn also, something like 30 seconds I believe.  But again,  its momentum and drag are relatively miniscule at that point.  When its hits atmo much of the control is also via flight surface (after retro and interface); so in a sense, yes, it does glide as well.

You must realize, at those speeds there's a tremendous amount of control even for something like a simple rocket.  For an example, look at vids of sidewinder missile tracking and so forth.  They rarely miss.  Falcon9 is really just a sidewinder without suicidal tendencies.

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MahrinSkel
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Reply #442 on: December 22, 2015, 11:26:02 PM

Awesome stuff!  I love it that though SpaceX failed twice at the much harder but safer barge landing at sea, when Blue Origin one-upped them with a landing from a sub-orbital flight (vastly simpler both in velocities and navigation) and Bezos started trash talking SpaceX turned around and nailed their first attempt at land. 

I am curious as to why the arcs are parallel rather than in opposite directions.
It's coming back from the direction it went, and landing at a pad very close to where it launched. As others have pointed out, most of the weight is fuel, and they've already burned most of that at separation. Maybe they could get fancy and make a single orbit, but there's really not much point, it wouldn't save enough fuel to be worth the complexity. So they just burn a bit more that it would take to de-orbit anyway to go back to where they came from.

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Quinton
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Reply #443 on: December 23, 2015, 08:39:17 AM

At launch, the bulk of the mass of the vehicle is the fuel but the cost of that fuel is a tiny fraction of the vehicle and launch.  

Quote from: Elon Musk
The cost of propellant is actually only about 0.3% of the cost of the rocket, or of a mission. So, if the mission costs $60 million, the cost of propellant is only $200,000.
(via http://shitelonsays.com/transcript/spacex-press-conference-at-the-national-press-club-2014-04-25)

A little extra fuel, some deployable control surfaces, and some small thrusters seems like a small price to pay if they can successfully redeploy the recovered vehicles on future missions.  And of course when the rocket has expended almost all its fuel it only needs a small amount more to land, as it has shed the bulk of its mass (and has gravity on its side).
Mandella
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Reply #444 on: December 23, 2015, 09:38:21 AM

As another point, wings are weight, and a lot of it. A winged rocket can easily be twice or more the weight of an unwinged rocket, so since you already *have* rockets attached you might as well add a bit of extra fuel and use them.

Also, regarding the first two "failed" attempts at landing on a barge, those were always described as destructive testing by Musk. They were expected to fail, thus the barges out in the middle of the water. To the best of my knowledge this was the first landing that "better damn work," especially after the booster blew up on the one before.
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Reply #445 on: January 02, 2016, 02:52:29 PM

Apparently the Falcon 9 rocket has no damage and is ready to launch again
Ghambit
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Reply #446 on: January 03, 2016, 02:16:29 PM

They save $60m a pop with that thing.  Crazy.  The nanosats it launches costs more than the fuel burned.  With the next iteration of HLV's (that'll take them to Mars) the 2nd stage will be re-usable as well.  It's a damned good time to be a space engineer right now.

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Reply #447 on: January 03, 2016, 03:33:30 PM

It will be an interesting process to see when they are brave enough to fully launch one of the used rockets again (AKA, how much do I trust the structural/material engineers I hired).  If they can do it fairly soon, that will put them well ahead of what was expected.  And puts the schedule for awesome space stuff that much closer.  As shit as the world has gone lately, space has really become interesting to follow again over the last few years (and for more than just SpaceX stuff).

Next few biggest challenges for SpaceX:

Launch from California - SpaceX refurbished an unused launch pad at Vandenburg air force base in Southern California awhile ago, but because of delays (rockets exploding) and politics, nothing has launched.  With everything going well after that last launch, they've been given the go ahead to try it out for the first time January 17th.  This increases cost savings since all the rockets are constructed in southern California.  Also neat because west coast gets a chance to see more rockets go off.  No idea if they are planning on trying to recover this rocket the same way or not.

Launching the Falcon 9 Heavy - For those of you not following, the Falcon 9 Heavy is their next big thing.  It's basically 3 Falcon 9's tied together.  If it works (has never been launched before, so all hypothetical), it will be able to launch a bigger payload into orbit than any other rocket in history other than the Saturn V (which is what we used to launch all the of the Apollo moon landing missions).  Things have been delayed it for a couple of years, but the first demo flight for it is currently scheduled for first half of this year.  Second in the later half.  And, if all goes well, full commercial by the end of 2016.  If (and big if, no doubt about it), it all works and goes on schedule, this would be the rocket by which we could start sending men and material back to moon (or beyond, Musk is set to announce his plans on how to colonize Mars soon, heh).  Be sure to tune in to watch either way though.  If it succeeds, our nations (and humanities) aspirations go that much further!  If it fails, the fireworks will be AMAZING.

Reusing the Falcon 9 Heavy - Curious to see how they manage to successfully land and recover three different rockets at once.  Should be very interesting and/or hilarious when they try.

Launching Astronauts - The Big One.  They've been awarded the contract, and the Dragon Capsule has successfully launched and docked with the ISS several times now.  So by 2017, they are suppose to be able to get the manned version of it ready, and launch people into space.  They've done several launchs well so far using the same tech that hopefully everything will go as scheduled.  But of course that one rocket blow up means everything built around their abort system will be highly scrutinized.  If you are curious how that system is suppose to work, here is a test launch they did earlier this year for the system..  Looks a hell of a lot more promising than the space shuttle at least (not saying much).
« Last Edit: January 03, 2016, 03:35:49 PM by Teleku »

"My great-grandfather did not travel across four thousand miles of the Atlantic Ocean to see this nation overrun by immigrants.  He did it because he killed a man back in Ireland. That's the rumor."
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Morat20
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Reply #448 on: January 04, 2016, 06:53:09 PM

Yeah, I'm really interested in how they're handling metal fatigue. Launches are brutal. High temperature, heavy vibration, tons of stress. There's thermal expansion (in both directions if they're using something like liquid hydrogen and oxygen) too. Pressures tend to be insane, and I'm not sure how possible it is to re-inspect every critical part.
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Reply #449 on: January 04, 2016, 08:56:45 PM

The entire 1st stage is Aluminum-Lithium composite.  Likely not designed to flex much; therefore any apparent "fatigue" if bad enough would likely manifest as a failure/crack and easily found.  The worst kind of failure is not a failure at all, but just a weakness you can't easily find (additive manufacturing has really made this a mantra of late).  Also, part inspection has gotten a lot easier with next-generation radiography and tomography techniques (proton, neutron, electron, etc.)   Even for something as large as a rocket tube assembly.

The gravy will be when they can just leave the tube on a flatbed and just drive it slowly through the scanner.

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jakonovski
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Reply #450 on: January 14, 2016, 07:49:43 AM

Remember that star where they detected something big passing in front of it? It's been dimming for a century.

http://arxiv.org/abs/1601.03256
http://www.centauri-dreams.org/?p=34837
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Reply #451 on: January 14, 2016, 08:14:40 AM

I'm not entirely sure what the dimming means, but the idea that it would take 648,000 giant comets to cause it tells me it's something really big and perhaps some kind of phenomena we've never seen in astronomy. Pretty cool.

Viin
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Reply #452 on: January 14, 2016, 08:17:48 AM

Reminder/heads-up: The next Falcon 9 launch with barge landing is Jan 17th (Sunday).

- Viin
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Reply #453 on: January 14, 2016, 08:46:35 AM

I'm not entirely sure what the dimming means, but the idea that it would take 648,000 giant comets to cause it tells me it's something really big and perhaps some kind of phenomena we've never seen in astronomy. Pretty cool.

I hope it means somebody is building a Dysonsphere/-swarm and that the dimming is due to the construction work with more finished satellites eclipsing more of the star's light.  Heart

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Ghambit
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Reply #454 on: January 16, 2016, 02:19:13 PM

Remember that star where they detected something big passing in front of it? It's been dimming for a century.

http://arxiv.org/abs/1601.03256
http://www.centauri-dreams.org/?p=34837

The lesson learned here, is a great many space-science phD's like to prematurely blame comets for every goddamned thing.  I personally was never convinced (as said earlier), because the data blew past anything we currently know.  So essentially they took crazy numbers, pasted a simple comet explanation on it, and quieted the masses.  That's just dumb.

I applaud the guy for actually looking at the plates and injecting some common sense into it ("hai guys, umm this is a lot weirder than you said"), but then he goofs and says with certainty that there's no way a civilization could dim a sun by 20% in 100 years.  wtf?  Like how the hell would he even know this?  Is he from there or some shit?  Some kind of prophetic technomancer?

Completely bad science.

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