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Super Heavy has splashed down in The Gulf of Mexico

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Re: Super Heavy has splashed down in The Gulf of Mexico

#511

Post by xcv123 »

stctw wrote: post #406
amanaplanacanal wrote: post #391

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Firebombing whole cities in Europe and Japan is still a black mark in US history. It’s really hard for me to get “holier than thou” on other terror campaigns when I remember that.

It's easy to say that now. Have you lived through unrestricted, total warfare, where one side intends to conquer a continent or the world, invades without provocation, and won't stop until brought to submission through extreme force? The Allies did not initiate war and did not want war. How many of your country's people should you sacrifice to end a war of aggression started by the enemy? Should you not use the means…

Japan was already trying to negotiate conditional surrender when Hiroshima and Nagasaki were nuked. The US demanded unconditional surrender, and they nuked hundreds of thousands of civilians to force that demand.

The bombing of Dresden is arguably a war crime by todays standards. It was unnecessary.

Remember that we were allied with the Soviet Union (Joseph Stalin was the "good guy" on our side). After WW2 he was given half of Europe as a reward, forcing that half of Europe to become communist, and the Soviets got to write the history books about Germany and WW2. Not the most transparent and unbiased source of information.

The Soviets and other allied soldiers (the good guys) also had a free-for-all with the German ladies after winning the war.

"The majority of the assaults were committed in the Soviet occupation zone; estimates of the numbers of German women raped by Soviet soldiers have ranged up to 2 million"

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

Re: Super Heavy has splashed down in The Gulf of Mexico

#512

Post by itslennysfault »

szundi wrote: post #398

All enthusiast people, just buy the Kerbal Space Program (1, not the 2), play it through. Then play it without reloading saves. That’s something!! And then, install the RP-1 mod and get blown away. I have 2k hours in this game, worth every of those hours.

After a TON of trial and error I made it to orbit. I decided that was "beating the game" for me and never played it again. Ain't nobody got time for a moon mission.

Re: Super Heavy has splashed down in The Gulf of Mexico

#513

Post by backwardsmoo »

indoordin0saur wrote: post #442
hackernudes wrote: post #422

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The commenter is talking about the 6 month trip to Mars in space, not on the surface.

On that, if you orient the ship so that the rear is pointed directly at the sun (trivial to do once you're coasting) you'll have a hundred feet of liquid fuel and other solid material which will block the primary source of radiation (the sun).

I was always led to believe that the primary source of radiation we need to worry about for space travel was Cosmic Radiation [1]. The shielding requirements for CR relative to solar radiation requires much more material, to protect from rays from every angle. [1] https://www.nasa.gov/missions/analog-field-testing/why-space...

Re: Super Heavy has splashed down in The Gulf of Mexico

#514

Post by ActorNightly »

magicalhippo wrote: post #504
notact wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can someone explain why reentry must be so hellish? The energy gained during the rocket burn into orbit must be bled off during reentry, and that energy is enormous. However, why must reentry occur so quickly? It seems if the descent into the atmosphere was slower, the heat shield would be able to radiate the heat energy away more effectively, thus lowering skin temperatures, and significantly reducing the engineerin…

I tried what you said in the most realistic simulator we have, Kerbal Space Program, assuming like you that a gentler approach would be better. And I learned that no, that most certainly is not better. What you need to protect is on the inside of the heat shield. Heat conduction is based on temperature difference and time[1] and the conduction of the material[2]. Since the heat shield tiles have a very low thermal co…

What happens if you do a geostationary deorbit? I.e straight down.

Re: Super Heavy has splashed down in The Gulf of Mexico

#515

Post by foota »

bombcar wrote: post #470
Zigurd wrote: post #450

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That doesn't work IRL. Space is insanely unforgiving. While Starship has a vastly better chance than STS had of achieving rapid reusability, you really can't launch with a rocket that isn't up to spec because adding robustness adds weight. Unlike a multi-stage expendable rocket, Starship uses all its fuel to get to orbit. To go to the moon or beyond, it requires refueling by several other Starships that also just get…

There's a difference between getting to space and being in space. A true space age will involve many ships that never enter atmosphere or land.

Won't you still need to enter and exit gravity wells? I guess you never lose the energy from launch though if you stay moving, so maybe it's easier?

Re: Super Heavy has splashed down in The Gulf of Mexico

#516

Post by HPsquared »

mulmen wrote: post #481
HPsquared wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess the Space Shuttle did have main engines (and orbital maneuvering engines) but it's notable that they weren't expected to relight afterwards.

Why is that one implementation detail notable? Is it also notable that Starship's main engines are unused at launch? I realize re-lighitng main engines is novel but it isn't unique and even if it was that doesn't make the up-thread claims any less inaccurate. Shuttle was a reusable orbital vehicle with multi-day endurance capable of hypersonic reentry. Falcon 9 is not that.

I guess it implies that all major systems are still fully operational after re-entry. The engines still work etc. So in theory you could just refuel and send it back up.

Re: Super Heavy has splashed down in The Gulf of Mexico

#517

Post by foota »

inglor_cz wrote: post #439
flerchin wrote: post #429

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A naked human can survive the ocean for 3 orders of magnitude longer than they can survive space.

Calm ocean, yes. The real problem are the storms, as a naked human you won't survive in an ocean storm any longer than in vacuum. At least you are going to space in a sophisticated vessel full of redundant life support systems. People sailed the high seas in old, barely seaworthy wooden ships dangerously overloaded with cargo, which didn't even have a reliable way of determining where precisely they were, because no…

Didn't they die by the droves?

Re: Super Heavy has splashed down in The Gulf of Mexico

#518

Post by tim333 »

cjk2 wrote: post #55
gadders wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's mad how rocket landings are now more exciting than rocket launches.

They used to be far more exciting. It's the anticipation of less excitement that is nail biting :D

It's one of the fun things with SpaceX that with many flights you don't quite know what's going to blow up or go wrong. The commercial flights are reliable but the experimental ones are interesting.

Re: Super Heavy has splashed down in The Gulf of Mexico

#519

Post by inglor_cz »

foota wrote: post #517
inglor_cz wrote: post #439

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Calm ocean, yes. The real problem are the storms, as a naked human you won't survive in an ocean storm any longer than in vacuum. At least you are going to space in a sophisticated vessel full of redundant life support systems. People sailed the high seas in old, barely seaworthy wooden ships dangerously overloaded with cargo, which didn't even have a reliable way of determining where precisely they were, because no…

Didn't they die by the droves?

In fact, they did. Being a sailor was about the most dangerous profession that you could choose, including the military.

Until today, some jobs at sea are pretty dangerous. Being a fisherman in Alaskan waters is much more risky than being an (American, not Russian) soldier.

People still do it. Which convinces me that people will risk their lives going to Mars, and more than a few of them. Some people are just built that way.

Re: Super Heavy has splashed down in The Gulf of Mexico

#520

Post by hot_gril »

api wrote: post #120
delichon wrote: post #81

Watching pieces of the ship melt off, but then seeing it make a relatively controlled landing, is perversely confidence building. If it can survive that kind of damage on a control surface maybe it's a quite robust craft.

I’ve said for a while that we won’t be ready for the real space age until you can have a rusty pickup in space. What I mean by that is that we have it down well enough that the tech exceeds tolerances and can degrade gracefully. You see this in some sci-fi where there are rust bucket old ships that work.

We also won't be ready for the sci-fi-style space age in real life unless there's a use case for it. Imagine Star Wars except there's no life on any reachable planets, what would they even do with their spaceships?

And Star Trek doesn't have "good old rust-bucket" ships in it, but the whole premise of it is that they found a way to move faster than the speed of light.

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