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Airbus to build 'first interplanetary cargo ship'

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Re: Airbus to build 'first interplanetary cargo ship'

#71

Post by ceejayoz »

kerkeslager wrote: post #55
ben_w wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, I’m saying everyone else is more guilty of the same sins . Generally with more money behind them, too.

> No, I’m saying everyone else is more guilty of the same sins. Given the sin in question is "lying", I'm pretty sure that's just not true. Can you give another example of a space corporation with such a consistent strategy of very publicly overpromising to win contracts and investment? > Generally with more money behind them, too. I'm not sure who you're referring to. NASA might have more funding, but if you subtrac…

> Can you give another example of a space corporation with such a consistent strategy of very publicly overpromising to win contracts and investment?

All of them? We call them cost-plus contracts, and they're very common in space/military projects. Bid crazily low, because the bid doesn't matter!

For example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Webb_Space_Telescope

Re: Airbus to build 'first interplanetary cargo ship'

#72

Post by Robotbeat »

itsoktocry wrote: post #56
bufferoverflow wrote: post #41

> The joint American-European project is expected to cost billions and take just over a decade to implement. I'm 99% sure that if SpaceX's starship takes off, it will fly to Mars and back within a few years. But still, competition is good.

> I'm 99% sure that if SpaceX's starship takes off, it will fly to Mars and back within a few years. Define "a few years" and I'll bet you it won't, with whatever odds you want.

2031 is when the Sample Return Mission is supposed to return the samples back to Earth. Keep in mind slips happen in ALL sorts of space projects, not just SpaceX. I’ll take your bet.

I want 2:1 odds:

SpaceX returns a vehicle from Mars by the end of 2035 (UTC), and before the NASA-ESA sample return mission has returned its samples. I’ll buy you a beer/beverage (value not to exceed $10) if you win, and you’ll buy me 2 beers/beverages (value not to exceed $20 total) if I win.

Re: Airbus to build 'first interplanetary cargo ship'

#73

Post by rsynnott »

ben_w wrote: post #64
rsynnott wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ESA and NASA are the only entities which have much recent operational experience of advanced use of ion drives; they've both launched and operated multiple ion drive propelled probes. And Airbus is the only manufacturer to have made _multiple_ ion drive propelled vehicles. Some commercial satellite companies, including SpaceX, use ion drives for station keeping, but this has been around for about 50 years. Currently,…

Can you go into more depth with this? Because I don’t understand why you consider the experience with satellite station keeping to be unimportant. What’s importantly different about the more recent ion drives?

Since the 1970s, some satellites (particularly Soviet satellites) have had some form of electric thruster for stationkeeping; these fire as needed, but spend most of their time off. This has become more common since the 90s.

A small number of probes have used ion thrusters for propulsion. These fire continuously for long periods (months). This is fairly new (late 90s on), and no-one has much experience with it, but NASA and ESA have had a few each.

Re: Airbus to build 'first interplanetary cargo ship'

#74

Post by sandworm101 »

ceejayoz wrote: post #70
sandworm101 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Better question: What will we learn that we cannot learn from all the Martian rocks we already have on earth . There have been plenty or Martian meteors found in Antarctica, and no doubt many more if we redoubled our efforts to find them. Many once claimed to have found evidence of life in these rocks already. Some of us are even old enough to remember President Clinton's speech on the subject. (That isn't a deepfake…

> Better question: What will we learn that we cannot learn from all the Martian rocks we already have on earth. These particular samples will be from the present-day surface, with known geographic (aerographic?) origin, not affected by potentially millions of years of interplanetary travel, and not contaminated by sitting around on Earth for who knows how long.

That would be true if we were looking for life currently alive on mars, but this is a search for fossil life, life that once existed but died off perhaps a billion years ago. Fossils would survive a million-year trip just fine.

There has only been one serious attempt to detect current life, the labeled release experiment on the Viking lander. It came back positive. If we are seriously interested in detecting current life we don't need a sample return. Any rover can dump some rock into a nutrient bath and put the results under a microscope. If anything is growing/moving, life is detected. Viking didn't have the bandwidth for such things. Lets do that a couple times first.

Re: Airbus to build 'first interplanetary cargo ship'

#75

Post by rsynnott »

Robotbeat wrote: post #72
itsoktocry wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm 99% sure that if SpaceX's starship takes off, it will fly to Mars and back within a few years. Define "a few years" and I'll bet you it won't, with whatever odds you want.

2031 is when the Sample Return Mission is supposed to return the samples back to Earth. Keep in mind slips happen in ALL sorts of space projects, not just SpaceX. I’ll take your bet. I want 2:1 odds: SpaceX returns a vehicle from Mars by the end of 2035 (UTC), and before the NASA-ESA sample return mission has returned its samples. I’ll buy you a beer/beverage (value not to exceed $10) if you win, and you’ll buy me 2…

Is that something returning from Mars _orbit_, or returning samples from the surface?

Re: Airbus to build 'first interplanetary cargo ship'

#76

Post by bryanlarsen »

lrnStats wrote: post #65
bryanlarsen wrote: post #62

If NASA really wanted to answer the 'life on Mars' question, Perseverance would have included a microscope. AFAICT, the reason it doesn't is because nobody wants to stake their reputation on the hypothesis.

Really? What's wrong with admitting you were wrong, and that was a discovery in its own? I recently made an error regarding essential amino acids, and it only improved the quality of suggested foods. Everyone wins. (Although you still get a few internet haters)

Yes, that's the way science should be done. But look at the number of negative result papers that get published, et cetera. How much push does a negative result give your career vs a positive one? Who's interested in spending ten years of their career pushing a test for a hypothesis that most people (and likely themselves) think is negative? And of course the microscope cannot prove the negative hypothesis, nor does it really help the negative hypothesis much.

Re: Airbus to build 'first interplanetary cargo ship'

#77

Post by habosa »

Remember when Uber’s business got a little shaky so they started making a bunch of noise about a flying taxi project that would launch soon and be cheaper than a car?

Well this smells like that. Airbus knows that orders for commercial airplanes may be low for years as we work through the fallout of this virus. So time to go to space to give the investors something to think about.

Re: Airbus to build 'first interplanetary cargo ship'

#78

Post by thinkcontext »

jiofih wrote: post #2

SpaceX Starship is planned for 2024, and with a cargo capacity in the hundreds of tons. Even if it gets delayed by four or five years it will be able to bring back samples before this is is even launched. NASA’s plans seem very slow in comparison.

Though I would very much like to see Starship succeed, it must be understood just how risky a project it is. Just having the rocket be able to work in Earth orbit is a risky proposition, given its novel design and materials challenges. Add to that the many novel challenges returning Starship would entail, refueling in space, landing and taking off from Mars, setting up multi megawatts of solar, mining, methane production, etc.

Consider that Falcon Heavy was something like 5 years late. That was doing something that had been done before, strapping rockets together to make a Heavy version. Starship is many times more ambitious, with any of the challenges I raised above likely to hit multi-year delays.

Re: Airbus to build 'first interplanetary cargo ship'

#79

Post by chriswarbo »

Robotbeat wrote: post #72
itsoktocry wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm 99% sure that if SpaceX's starship takes off, it will fly to Mars and back within a few years. Define "a few years" and I'll bet you it won't, with whatever odds you want.

2031 is when the Sample Return Mission is supposed to return the samples back to Earth. Keep in mind slips happen in ALL sorts of space projects, not just SpaceX. I’ll take your bet. I want 2:1 odds: SpaceX returns a vehicle from Mars by the end of 2035 (UTC), and before the NASA-ESA sample return mission has returned its samples. I’ll buy you a beer/beverage (value not to exceed $10) if you win, and you’ll buy me 2…

Maybe put it on http://longbets.org

Re: Airbus to build 'first interplanetary cargo ship'

#80

Post by arkitaip »

habosa wrote: post #77

Remember when Uber’s business got a little shaky so they started making a bunch of noise about a flying taxi project that would launch soon and be cheaper than a car? Well this smells like that. Airbus knows that orders for commercial airplanes may be low for years as we work through the fallout of this virus. So time to go to space to give the investors something to think about.

Did you read the article? They are creating a satellite, ERO, set to launch 2026 for an actual mission.
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