871–880 of 926 posts
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The Blackbirds leaked because they had engineered gaps to allow for heat expansion.
I bet SpaceX could engineer something in spec that wouldn't leak fuel or need to be immediately refueled though.
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It's not an assumption, it's in the parent comment itself: > The other hosts are great, but if you told me they were hired actors or PR people I'd believe it.
assumption of _bias_.
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That has nothing to do with titanium and everything to do with material expansion, the design/shape of the assembly and ambient vs operating temp.
Cant reply directly to wand3r for some reason. Re his comment spacex could engineer something that wouldn't leak or need instant refuelling - I wouldn't be surprised if they could - but they have around 30 years of advancements to help them!
If you dig past the internet comments and read some of the "primary source" books, the picture of the leaks is very different. I can't remember the exact book I read it in, but the author states there was a tank sealant, and it lasted around 50 hours (I think), before it needed to be replaced.
This is somewhat backed up by the Jenkins book [1] which talks about the time consuming process of replacing sealant, and the Graham book [0] that is the source for the Wikipedia claims on expansion. It talks of different sealants used, and how leaks were precisely noted and collected in _shallow_ drip trays.
[0] https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=dX5cCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA129&dq...
[1] https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=lEpWE748QUsC&q=sr71+seal...
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SpaceX goal with the Falcon 9 is to be able to land, simply check the core (the engine gets more complicated checkups), and to have it back on the launchpad within of a few days or weeks. Arianespace (a major european launch company, known for the Ariane 5) has developed their own new engine concept for reusability, which is designed to be restarted unlimited times. Once Prometheus flies, they’ll not only have a reus…
> Once Prometheus flies Sounds like they are not that committed to the project and if it happens at all it will be a long way off. Will it be worth competing with both SpaceX and Blue Origin? “We could replace Vulcain 2.1 by Prometheus,” Bonguet told SpaceNews. “Or Prometheus can be the first brick to build the next generation. We will see where we are in 2025 or 2030, and then decide on the right time whether to go…
If Arianespace follows that schedule, they’ll be a decade late compared to SpaceX, but still ahead of all other competitors in this.
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Because they're too busy trying to save millions of people in third-world countries to care about first-world problems. Less snarkily, the pitch of Elon Musk is surprisingly selfish--he's basically doing this as much so he can get to Mars as anyone can. By contrast, people like Rockefeller and Carnegie in the past are largely responsible for endowing public culture in the form of museums, concert halls, public librar…
This is a joke right?
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It’s like that at BlueOrigin too. I visited twice (they gave me a job offer but withdrew it after I got badmouthed by a reference, gah). They have an avionics software engineering room right next to where they assemble the engines.
> they gave me a job offer but withdrew it after I got badmouthed by a reference Why in the world would someone agree to be a reference and then bad mouth afterwards? Some folks...
Depending on what this company wanted, it's entirely possible that something I said during that call would've influenced the company's hiring decision, though I was obviously trying to portray my friend in the best light possible given the context.
I don't know if BlueOrigin has a similar process or not, but it's not necessarily that the reference was intentionally giving a negative report; they could've just picked up on something the reference said and felt it didn't mesh with the position.
Spoiler: my friend got the job, supposedly in part due to my good reference. Phew! I would've hated to be the one that got blamed for "bad mouthing" him.
It's such a shame that so many people with Elon kind of money aren't doing anything to transform us into a spacefaring species. Why doesn't apple have a mars program? What the fuck are people doing with all the money? Awesome work by spacex. They are peerless, except if you want to count massive superpower governments as peers.
Not everyone can be Elon Musk, nor should they try. There is much to do with our feet on the ground.
That's going to be one very hard to overtake Tesla.
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Yup that was amazing. Slightly related, I'm already nervous for the James Webb Telescope launch. Maybe Spacex should launch it :)
The main argument for Falcon Heavy over Ariane 5 is cost, not reliability. Ariane 5 remains the most reliable heavy launcher, so that's the launcher you want for JWST.
Obviously JWST does not fall into that category. I imagine if it blows up, it is just done forever?
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I absolutely love that Musk is putting a car into Mars orbit. Assuming mankind doesn't have an extinction event (or dark ages event), it is extremely likely we'll populate the solar system over the next millenia. In 200 years, Martian children can look up in the sky and know that one of the quickly moving visible satellites is a hilarious, old-Earth car. Depending on how accessible orbit is from planets over the next…
Is it okay to put unnecessary stuff in the orbits around our or other planets? Isn't this space trash that can potentially be problematic for future endeavors? Are we creating problems for ourselves to satisfy our vanity?
It probably does not add a measurable amount of junk to hit than is already up there in the form of natural rocks.
Though if in the future human population hits the quadrillions and we are living on all 8 planets we should probably start worrying about our space trash.