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SpaceX successfully launches two humans into orbit

nasa.gov

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Re: SpaceX successfully launches two humans into orbit

#731

Post by pharke »

Chathamization wrote: post #510
Rebelgecko wrote: post #363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know much about the intricacies of asteroid mining, but human beings are very capable entities. As great as machines like the Mars rovers are, there's no comparison. A human astronaut could probably accomplish as much in a week as a Mars rover can in a year. When I was reading the daily diaries of one of the rover drivers, it was incredible how much effort and thought went into the most trivial activities. A…

> A human astronaut could probably accomplish as much in a week as a Mars rover can in a year. The estimates I've seen for a human mission to Mars are about 100-500 times the budget for Curiosity. So even if astronauts could accomplish things 52X faster (and I'm skeptical they would), it still wouldn't be as cost efficient. And that's even before you factor in the fact that the Mars Rover is going to be doing work on…

My problem with this framing of the argument is that it's reasoned from the position of "If we want to do X then how much do we have to spend to make it happen". It's very much a "moonshot" style of thinking where you are only considering doing it once, it's not sustainable and it's not scalable. What we need to be asking is "If we want to do X what systems do we need to put in place so that X is trivial". Then the goal becomes to build sustainable and profitable industries that make everything leading up to X easier, cheaper, safer, and more accessible to everyone. It's not as direct of a route but it has a compounding effect built into it that works for you and eventually does all the work to keep X going.

This is exactly what SpaceX is doing with the eventual goal of putting people on Mars. They've been finding and solving problems the whole time but the ultimate problem is that we still have all of our eggs in one basket and we're one asteroid, volcano, war, or pandemic away from civilizational collapse. Creating a self-sustaining population off planet is the only way to solve that problem.

Re: SpaceX successfully launches two humans into orbit

#732

Post by JoeAltmaier »

Just watched the docking. Strangely when the module entered the shadow of the station, the edge of the shadow was a gradient. I would have expected a knife-sharp line. Is this because the camera resolution couldn't render it as a sharp line? Other clear edges were visible in the image. Or is the station somehow fuzzy around the edges? Does the module surface somehow soften the shadow? Confused.

Re: SpaceX successfully launches two humans into orbit

#733

Post by rtkwe »

avmich wrote: post #613
rtkwe wrote: post #607

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From a quick search their main RCS is still a dimethylhydrazine which is quite toxic. They're just on the engine part of the craft instead of on the capsule so it doesn't come down to Earth. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KTDU-80#Pneumatic_Pressurizati... http://www.russianspaceweb.com/soyuz-ms-kdu.html

Right, but at least the capsule, which goes through atmosphere and keeps people inside, doesn't have the toxic substance. It's not saying Soyuz is perfect, or near that. It's about Crew Dragon - the spacecraft could use already existing ways to avoid toxic materials in operations, and it wasn't done. And it's hard to do after the design is complete. So we can reasonably hope for the next spacecraft to be better - for…

The way to do that requires throwing away the entire engine section which it a lot of equipment when you're trying to make a commercially viable option and need to reuse as much as possible.

Re: SpaceX successfully launches two humans into orbit

#734

Post by pharke »

elcritch wrote: post #682
X6S1x6Okd1st wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Especially given that we'll need to leave the magnetosphere to access a lot of space mining. You either bring a ton of shielding+food+water+life support+crew quarters, or you advance autonomous operation. One of those is already happening and highly applicable to other fields. Imo what ever comes after homo sapiens inherits the solar system, not homo sapiens ourselves

The magnetosphere bit is intriguing... I've never heard of a proposal to use superconductors to generate a miniature magnetosphere outside of earth's. Even for earth orbit it seems that'd be helpful way to reduce radiation exposure. Superconductors should be able to be cooled to operating temperature readily enough, meaning minimal power once charged. Spaceship hulls are aluminum and non-ferromagnrtic. Odd to never h…

This has already been proposed for shielding the entire planet Mars, see https://www.popularmechanics.com/space/moon-mars/a25493/magn... (2017). I'd love to see SpaceX take a crack at this, conceivably it would amount to launching a modified MRI into Mar's L1. It's actually within the launch capability of Falcon Heavy so it's something they could start working on now.

Re: SpaceX successfully launches two humans into orbit

#735

Post by aquajet »

ycombonator wrote: post #245

How did SpaceX accelerate their development so fast ? What took NASA decades to achieve in terms of high tech rocketry SpaceX achieved in less than half the time. What are the factors ? The people Elon hired were ex NASA ? Where did the working knowledge come from ?I don’t think I found the answer anywhere on the internet.

Read the Elon Musk biography by Ashlee Vance. It describes the early days of spaceX. The short answer is incredibly hard effort.

Re: SpaceX successfully launches two humans into orbit

#736

Post by selimthegrim »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #664
burntoutfire wrote: post #623

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Who says space exploration can't be similar. We can see into the space through telescopes, while the seafaring explorers needed to literally go to some place to see what it was like.

We can't see crap now. We need more, bigger, better - and most importantly - space-based telescopes to be able to image interesting objects in anything resembling fidelity. There's e.g. a bunch of exoplanets, or hell, even planets in our own system, that we could image from a distance, if we could put couple hundred tons worth of equipment in space. For the more ambitious future, there are papers showing that you cou…

I’d love to see a citation for one of those papers.

Re: SpaceX successfully launches two humans into orbit

#737

Post by nickik »

trhway wrote: post #447
Gene_Parmesan wrote: post #388

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thought of a next-gen trillionaire spending the millions of dollars required to launch a freaking rocket just so he can get to Europe in twenty minutes instead of the couple hours a supersonic airliner would take.. man, talk about ostentatious.

There aren't supersonic airliners. Anyway, let's calculate. Starship having passenger capacity about that of Concord, say 100, would burn 1000 ton, $1M, of fuel and oxygen, per a suborbital transcontinental flight. Capital cost say $100M per Starship. Say amortize over 100 flights. So $20K/ticket. Double for operations. $40K/ticket. I don't see any supersonic in near and mid future coming even close. If I remember co…

Methane is pretty cheap, fuel should not be so expensive. Starship is made from cheap steal and should be less then $100M to produce.

If you put people in seats, and not spaced out for going to Mars, you should get more then 100 people in on.

Re: SpaceX successfully launches two humans into orbit

#738

Post by badosu »

selimthegrim wrote: post #736
TeMPOraL wrote: post #664

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We can't see crap now. We need more, bigger, better - and most importantly - space-based telescopes to be able to image interesting objects in anything resembling fidelity. There's e.g. a bunch of exoplanets, or hell, even planets in our own system, that we could image from a distance, if we could put couple hundred tons worth of equipment in space. For the more ambitious future, there are papers showing that you cou…

I’d love to see a citation for one of those papers.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravitational_lens

See [32]-[35]

Re: SpaceX successfully launches two humans into orbit

#739

Post by nickik »

rtpg wrote: post #478
TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would be astounded if there were no space hotel projects shopping around for finance already. Although I think given the likely customer profile we're at least as likely to get Vegas-in-Orbit - casinos, hookers and all - as labs and exploration.

The minuscule ISS is already the most expensive structure ever built. What universe has something like described being economical?

ISS was built with lots and lots of really, really, really expensive Shuttle flights.

The Skylab was 1/3 the size and only needed on launch.

The price of making a station also goes down massively with the going down of general launch prices.

Re: SpaceX successfully launches two humans into orbit

#740

Post by shrimp_emoji »

yellowapple wrote: post #683
shrimp_emoji wrote: post #526

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ironic since the Culture is anti-capitalist. xD

"By the way, I am actually a socialist." -- Elon Musk

Oh word https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1008013111058526209

Ok, he can use Culture names without irony. uwu

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