71–80 of 89 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
As someone without much knowledge of use cases for orbital computing, what's the ELI5 use cases for this? Cheers!
The strongest use case is in-space data analytics on Earth Observation data (camera images, simply said).
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> From layperson's perspective, SpaceX so far has done nothing new that hasn't been done 50 years ago. https://bucket2.glanacion.com/anexos/fotos/85/2912485.gif In the last 50 years we did not have anything like this. Rocket re-utilization, now only for first stage but also second stage in the future is a game changer in the economics of launching a rocket.
Yes it’s cool and being cheaper is a nice thing but what does it enable that wasn’t possible before?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you don’t think robotic tech changes anything about the core of space flight, I just don’t know what to tell you.
Okay, what it changes? I know the talking points(yes, it is cheaper but not in order of magnitude) but where's the substance here? If it's the cool videos, that could have been done in CGI too. What is the new things, the thing that is a leap forward? Sure, it is nice to end the reliance on Russia but that's a political advancement. If it's the wild stock market, you can do it with cryptocurrencies too(maybe rockets…
Sorry if this is remotely tangentially related, but wasn't there a startup many years ago backed by silicon valley bigwigs with the mission to mine asteroids for gold and diamonds? Or did I see that in a movie?
Gold and diamonds are common enough on earth, we have as much as we need for industry. Articles often talk about rare-earth minerals but don't specify exactly what is desperately needed that can't be found or made on earth cheaper.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
if gold becomes common, it's value drops, as it has no inherent uses (other than as decoration, and minor electrical/industrial uses, for which there is plenty here on earth already). Ditto with platinum - 'cept may be more valuable than gold for use as catalysts in industry. I would imagine that asteroids would hold value with rare-earths instead of currency metals.
I think you severely underestimate the usefulness of gold in electronics.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
From https://momentus.space/development/ it looks like they are using a microwave generator with water to generate a plasma thruster. The technical name seem to be microwave electro-thermal thruster (MET). There is more info on the thurster in the abstract here: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/1420619
So in a sense it’s a steam engine powering a space ship.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
From https://momentus.space/development/ it looks like they are using a microwave generator with water to generate a plasma thruster. The technical name seem to be microwave electro-thermal thruster (MET). There is more info on the thurster in the abstract here: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/1420619
So in a sense it’s a steam engine powering a space ship.
(Technically, the thrust generated is more complicated than just pressure, heavily affected by temperature too, but I digress)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The strongest use case is in-space data analytics on Earth Observation data (camera images, simply said).
Orbital compute presents a pretty good physical security model as well (X-37B notwithstanding). I've often thought it would be fun to build a smallsat providing crypto functions (signatures, certificates, message passing).
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Once in space, does it not make more sense to split water into hydrogen and oxygen using solar energy and use that as fuel?
At that point it would be far more efficient to just skip the electrolysis, fill your spacecraft with xenon, and use the solar power for ion propulsion. No need for an oxidant when you have sufficient electrical power, so a large portion of the water's mass would be dead weight.
But the company's site claims a "3x increase in efficiency" (WTF that is), so I guess they didn't manage to get any high isp.
I have the privilege of being the space startup founder. If you have any specific questions - I am happy to answer them. P.S. Going offline now, but send questions anyway - I'll to reply them later.
How much would it cost to put something like microNOVA into orbit around Mars?