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As last module docks, China completes its space station

nytimes.com

81–90 of 401 posts

Re: As last module docks, China completes its space station

#81

Does anyone know to what extent China has advanced the state of the Soviet technology that they have (I assume) licensed? I have been to the Russian Star City training facility, Baikonur Cosmodrome and been in the full-size Mir training module and the Chinese station components look very similar. I am sure getting good information is difficult, but perhaps someone here has some more info.

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Re: As last module docks, China completes its space station

#82

I hope mankind can move beyond building space stations as a handful of modular small cylinders, and start building space stations the way they appear in science fiction: dozens of rooms, cubical exteriors, hallways, human height doors that open and close, stairs, elevators, hangars, a nuclear reactor instead of solar panels, and modules that rotate around an axis to create artificial gravity. And a more diversified c…

Unfortunately it’s about $2,720 per 2.2 lbs in even the best case scenario.

TIL for about ~$3,090, I could send a 40oz of Old English to space.

Re: As last module docks, China completes its space station

#83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I would gladly pay for a ticket for a week long stay on an aesthetic space station. How much would you pay? Because the capital cost of building it was hand wavey thrown out as $500B and the operating costs of facility would be exorbitant. What do you imagine doing?

Staring out the observation bay for hours on end with my favorite mood music playing through my headphones. Then going for a spacewalk, before heading back inside and having dinner with my friends in the rotating orbital restaurant. After that, I'll play an online video games with Earth-based players. To conclude my day, I'll return to my luxury pod, lay on the side in bed while looking outside at the planet through…

Your best bet is VR.

Re: As last module docks, China completes its space station

#84

I hope mankind can move beyond building space stations as a handful of modular small cylinders, and start building space stations the way they appear in science fiction: dozens of rooms, cubical exteriors, hallways, human height doors that open and close, stairs, elevators, hangars, a nuclear reactor instead of solar panels, and modules that rotate around an axis to create artificial gravity. And a more diversified c…

I think this company is highly optimistic, but this might fit the bill:

https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/space-hotel-orbital-assem...

Re: As last module docks, China completes its space station

#85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The space race was motivated by competition with Russia, notably the imperative to establish a tactical nuclear advantage. We could conceivably see another space race between the US and China, but maybe not if "space" doesn't have the same tactical appeal?

What happened to the US space force? I expected the US to have nukesats in orbit by now. Or maybe they do?

Presumably everyone already has access to enough nukes such that there isn't much of a point in investing in nukes, whether terrestrial or satellite? The arms race might lead toward building more, better interceptors?

Re: As last module docks, China completes its space station

#86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point is not that one makes available one's site for free. The point is that the quality of the work is sloppy, price of said service notwithstanding. There are many other ways to approximate a client's geolocation so as to prevent displaying an embarrassing error where one did not first check whether the object's property was truthy or not. Justifying terrible UX by saying, "it's free," is a terrible strategy, t…

It's not just that the key isn't populated; it's that it's undefined. FWIW, my browser (Chrome) works on the site even if I choose not to share geolocation; I assume because the API is populated even if it then refrains from sharing. Your point isn't quite wrong but it also isn't quite right; geolocation is supported by every browser listed on Mozilla's documentation ( https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API…

None of the browsers on my iPhone will render this site, W3C compliant or not.

In any event, I would never tell my users that it's their fault that my app didn't check the truthiness of the object's property. Seems particularly hostile to one's users and customers, free product or not.

Re: As last module docks, China completes its space station

#87

I hope mankind can move beyond building space stations as a handful of modular small cylinders, and start building space stations the way they appear in science fiction: dozens of rooms, cubical exteriors, hallways, human height doors that open and close, stairs, elevators, hangars, a nuclear reactor instead of solar panels, and modules that rotate around an axis to create artificial gravity. And a more diversified c…

That requires a truly astounding amount of material. Unless the cost to place it in orbit gets within an order of magnitude of our current terrestrial freight, it's not happening. Best bet is to construct these things in orbit, with materials sourced in orbit. But now you have a chicken and egg problem - need to send an incredible amount of material (and people) in order to (potentially!) save in the future.

Beltalowda!

Re: As last module docks, China completes its space station

#88
Wait, in order to build this, they've launched half a dozen rockets up with no idea where the boosters would come back down and land? That seems up there amongst worst ideas I've heard for a while, "good luck everybody else."

Edit: didn't realize this would be a controversial comment; per the article, the "norm" is to have a burn again after releasing their payload, to "control" / direct the return. The Chinese aren't doing that, which has apparently lead so far to a village-damaging crash in the Ivory Coast. If the US has done a similar thing, if this was common practice in the past, I'm not familiar with it as I'm entirely naive on the topic.

Re: As last module docks, China completes its space station

#89

I hope mankind can move beyond building space stations as a handful of modular small cylinders, and start building space stations the way they appear in science fiction: dozens of rooms, cubical exteriors, hallways, human height doors that open and close, stairs, elevators, hangars, a nuclear reactor instead of solar panels, and modules that rotate around an axis to create artificial gravity. And a more diversified c…

While I too look forward to that day, at least for awhile longer due to physics, we are going to continue to have “rounded cylinders”. The main reason for this is very simple: Pressurized vessels. If you look at any type of air tank, and there is a reason they are a certain shape. The moment you do any type of “point” or “edge” it becomes a weak point in the design. That said… you can always make a really large press…

A torus shape has no sharp edges and can be pretty useful in space if it rotates.
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