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New Glenn Update

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Re: New Glenn Update

#121

Post by palata »

lesuorac wrote: post #112
jdranczewski wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've always found the weather argument somewhat unconvincing, because 0°C being the freezing point of water is very much a useful point of reference in weather contexts - it's roughly where one may expect iced-over pavements and rain to turn to snow! And then the higher temperatures are a question of getting used to it - 40°C instead of 100°F is very very warm, 30 is pretty hot, 20 is reasonably warm, etc. But then I…

But I'm never at exactly 1 atm plus the government dumps copious amounts of salt so water never actually freezes at 0°C plus so long as I memorize that 32°F is freezing it's exactly the same as memorizing 0°C is freezing. I would say the nice thing about the metric system is as long as you convert into a base unit (i.e. Meters, Seconds, etc) then you can easily convert stuff around. But you can't! Metric uses Kilogra…

> But you can't! Metric uses Kilograms not Grams all the time for things like Force (Kg *m/s^2)

A gram is 1000 times a gram, it's written in the word. Are you serious when you say you can't easily multiply or divide by 1000?

A mile is 5280 feet. I can't just convert 231 miles into feet like that, and that's assuming I remember "5280".

Re: New Glenn Update

#122

Post by goku12 »

kopirgan wrote: post #88
nutjob2 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By "some countries" you mean United States, Liberia, and Myanmar

In India, decades after metric, many will only understand feet and inches for height, length etc.. Think it's the same in many Asian countries, though some have moved on. But miles has gone out of fashion. Pounds too..

Some of use in India don't even grok inches, miles, pounds, pints, ares or cubits. In fact, I haven't met anyone in the professional fields (science, engineering and medicine) who is comfortable with imperial or any other non-metric systems. Not even our parents are comfortable with them. It was a nightmare when we were faced with such units in public exams. That's an arcane skill that disappeared 3 or 4 generations ago. To be clear, I'm not claiming that the whole of India is like that. But I'm pointing to the fact that there are entire regions in India where it has been like that for generations.

Re: New Glenn Update

#123

Post by timschmidt »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #75
timschmidt wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I said aerospace community. Not NASA. NASA doesn't build rockets. ULA (Lockheed Martin + Boeing), Northrup Grumman, Aerojet Rocketdyne, etc. do. That's what I took "aerospace community" to mean. The community of people working in aerospace. Artemis has shifted focus several times now, since before it was called "Artemis" as each political administration has emphasized different goals, and as mission planning has ev…

> ULA (Lockheed Martin + Boeing), Northrup Grumman, Aerojet Rocketdyne, etc. do. That's what I took "aerospace community" to mean Fair. Not who I talk to. None of them get their bread buttered by Artemis. A few would if it were dumped. > I don't see any problem with the way Dustin presented the situation, nor do I feel any kind of need for an apology or clarification Fair enough. I thought the "we're going, right" wa…

> None of them get their bread buttered by Artemis. A few would if it were dumped.

https://www.nasa.gov/artemis-partners/

"NASA prime contractors Aerojet Rocketdyne, Axiom Space, Bechtel, Blue Origin, Boeing, Amentum, Jacobs, Lockheed Martin, Maxar Space Systems, Northrop Grumman, and SpaceX"

> suggesting NASA should just redo Apollo was dumb

Dumber than redoing Shuttle and throwing away proven reusable RS-25 engines? It's been a while since I watched it, but it seems to me one example highlights the absurdity of the other.

Re: New Glenn Update

#124

Post by Zigurd »

jmyeet wrote: post #65

I think Blue Origin's biggest problem is they don't currently have a planned or real Falcon 9 competitor. These expected and incremental updates (to a years late system that still needs to be proven) are putting the payload capacity in the Falcon Heavy range and there's roughly 1 Falcon Heavy launch per year. There are over 100 Falcon 9 launches per year. Yes a bunch are Starlink so you can exclude those when estimat…

Trying to compete against Falcon 9 is like entering the TV market against TCL. At best, you won't lose your shirt trying and can quit gracefully. Several other rockets startups think they do want to try. Let them.

Being a better Falcon Heavy is a much more realistic goal. Just having a larger payload fairing is enough to win some business.

I'm not sure what Starship is designed for. But I don't think it's worth even comparing until it can demonstrate deploying a payload other than a flat pack satellite, in orbit refueling, recovering both stages and turning the rocket around fast enough that you don't have to build 17 Starships to refuel one in orbit. Before these milestones are reached, the cost-effectiveness is very theoretical.

The big difference is that one of these rockets flew a successful mission, and the other one might be years away from key milestones.

Re: New Glenn Update

#125

Post by rbanffy »

dopa42365 wrote: post #79
exomonk wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Such standardization will set a design envelope for the Golden Dome weapons..

Launch cost was already a single digit percentage of total cost when using Falcon-9s. Reduction in launch cost doesn't really change anything at that point. Ignoring that weaponizing space would backfire badly (you want hundreds of nukes in orbit? yeah actually let's just not do that) and thus no one considering it either.

> you want hundreds of nukes in orbit?

If you think about that, a lot of fuel for in-space nuclear reactors will already have been launched, so, if a new peace treaty outlaws them, it'll be a boon to whoever operates fission reactors in space. Or wants to use them for propulsion.

Once in space, they can't be disposed of - deorbiting is a big no-no, as it's blowing them up.

Re: New Glenn Update

#126

Post by lesuorac »

palata wrote: post #121
lesuorac wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But I'm never at exactly 1 atm plus the government dumps copious amounts of salt so water never actually freezes at 0°C plus so long as I memorize that 32°F is freezing it's exactly the same as memorizing 0°C is freezing. I would say the nice thing about the metric system is as long as you convert into a base unit (i.e. Meters, Seconds, etc) then you can easily convert stuff around. But you can't! Metric uses Kilogra…

> But you can't! Metric uses Kilograms not Grams all the time for things like Force (Kg *m/s^2) A gram is 1000 times a gram, it's written in the word. Are you serious when you say you can't easily multiply or divide by 1000? A mile is 5280 feet. I can't just convert 231 miles into feet like that, and that's assuming I remember "5280".

If you can't multiple 231 by 5280 what are you going to do when you measure a length of 23.1 cm and need to multiple it by the height of 52.80 cm?

> Are you serious when you say you can't easily multiply or divide by 1000?

You have missed the point. Force is a mass * distance / time. So, if I have a 1 g weight I want to move 1 meter in 1 second then it takes 1 Newton of force. Except it doesn't because Force is actually kilo-mass * distance / time. If I need to look up (or memorize) stuff like this then the entire advantage of metric goes away because I can just memorize the imperial way as well.

It just comes down to what you're familiar with. There's certainly a benefit to everybody using Metric in the same reasoning as there's a benefit to everybody using Mandarin.

Re: New Glenn Update

#127

Post by [deleted] »

rbanffy wrote: post #125
dopa42365 wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Launch cost was already a single digit percentage of total cost when using Falcon-9s. Reduction in launch cost doesn't really change anything at that point. Ignoring that weaponizing space would backfire badly (you want hundreds of nukes in orbit? yeah actually let's just not do that) and thus no one considering it either.

> you want hundreds of nukes in orbit? If you think about that, a lot of fuel for in-space nuclear reactors will already have been launched, so, if a new peace treaty outlaws them, it'll be a boon to whoever operates fission reactors in space. Or wants to use them for propulsion. Once in space, they can't be disposed of - deorbiting is a big no-no, as it's blowing them up.

[deleted]

Re: New Glenn Update

#128

Post by zamadatix »

rbanffy wrote: post #125
dopa42365 wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Launch cost was already a single digit percentage of total cost when using Falcon-9s. Reduction in launch cost doesn't really change anything at that point. Ignoring that weaponizing space would backfire badly (you want hundreds of nukes in orbit? yeah actually let's just not do that) and thus no one considering it either.

> you want hundreds of nukes in orbit? If you think about that, a lot of fuel for in-space nuclear reactors will already have been launched, so, if a new peace treaty outlaws them, it'll be a boon to whoever operates fission reactors in space. Or wants to use them for propulsion. Once in space, they can't be disposed of - deorbiting is a big no-no, as it's blowing them up.

If one is using a nuclear reactor for long term power or propulsion you shouldn't need to be disposing of it in the Earth's vicinity anyways - there is plenty of solar in Earth orbit. Not that peace treaties around nukes will inherently ban reactors.

Re: New Glenn Update

#129

Post by jdranczewski »

lesuorac wrote: post #126
palata wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But you can't! Metric uses Kilograms not Grams all the time for things like Force (Kg *m/s^2) A gram is 1000 times a gram, it's written in the word. Are you serious when you say you can't easily multiply or divide by 1000? A mile is 5280 feet. I can't just convert 231 miles into feet like that, and that's assuming I remember "5280".

If you can't multiple 231 by 5280 what are you going to do when you measure a length of 23.1 cm and need to multiple it by the height of 52.80 cm? > Are you serious when you say you can't easily multiply or divide by 1000? You have missed the point. Force is a mass * distance / time. So, if I have a 1 g weight I want to move 1 meter in 1 second then it takes 1 Newton of force. Except it doesn't because Force is actua…

I think in your first point the difference is between "calculation" and "conversion". For calculations, it's generally accepted that arbitrary numbers are possible and a calculator may have to come out. For conversions, it's nice to be able to say that 1250m is 1.250km - I bump into conversions much more commonly than having to do calculations, and it's nice to be able to do them in my head.

I don't think the second point is particularly valid. The SI unit is a kg - which is weird, but always consistent. All Physics units in metric involve kilograms. I will grant that it's unusual that it has a prefix, but still - if you know the 7 base SI units (including the kg), the rest follows reasonably, and conversions are trivial compared to Imperial (orders of magnitude vs arbitrary multipliers).

Fundamentally yeah, what one's familiar with is the system that feels most intuitive, but I don't think these specific arguments against metric work super well

Re: New Glenn Update

#130

Post by lacksconfidence »

palata wrote: post #107
sam_goody wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I split my time between Europe and the US, and I am totally not convinced that metric is better. Some things are ridiculously better in the imperial system - like temperature: In Fahrenheit, 0 is roughly the coldest mean day in densely inhabited areas, and 100 is the hottest. In Metric, 0 is the freezing point of water at sea level in ambient temperatures and with a low barometer reading, 100 is boiling in the same c…

I am ready to bet big that you would never hear that kind of opinions from someone who learned the metric system first. Am I right in your case? As someone who grew up with metric, my opinion is that nothing that imperial people claim is unintuitive with metric is, in fact, unintuitive to me. Nothing. And I tried hard. We're used to what we're used to :-). > Some things are ridiculously better in the imperial system…

I think the mistake you have is starting from the wrong premise. The premise, IMO, should be that OP has been harassed, demeaned, and otherwise been made to feel bad for 20+ years for using the units they were raised with. At least that's my experience as an American.

Most people don't seem to care about the units, what the haters care about (not you, but the general experience) is having an opportunity to proclaim how much better they are than other people, mostly over an accident of birth.

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