Europe's Space Industry Is Working On Reusable Rockets With Environmentally-Friendly Fuel (space.com) 72
schwit1 shared this article from Space.com (which includes a really cool video):
The European launch provider Arianespace -- best known as the manufacturer of the heavy-lift Ariane 5 and the future Ariane 6 -- has a plan to make its future rockets more competitive in a tight launch industry. As you might guess from looking at the U.S. company SpaceX's reusable Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets, reusability is what Arianespace wants to do as well.
Back in February, ArianeGroup and CNES (the French space agency) signed a memorandum of understanding for a new "acceleration platform" that will work to develop new launchers, including reusable ones. The platform, called ArianeWorks, unites teams under one roof and provides all the ingredients possible for innovation: "a highly flexible environment, open to new players and internationally," according to a press release from the time. The interim results are coming soon: two low-cost demonstrators [named "Themis" and "Frog"] that will examine how to recover the first stage of a rocket launching to space....
CNES and ArianeSpace are also working together to make an engine called Prometheus, which uses oxygen and methane as its propellant and can be adapted for multiple rocket platforms. Methane and oxygen produce products that are more environmentally friendly than many other rocket fuels. Themis will use the Prometheus engine for its landings, which means that the rocket demonstrator will not only be reusable, but also less harsh on the environment during launch and landing.
Back in February, ArianeGroup and CNES (the French space agency) signed a memorandum of understanding for a new "acceleration platform" that will work to develop new launchers, including reusable ones. The platform, called ArianeWorks, unites teams under one roof and provides all the ingredients possible for innovation: "a highly flexible environment, open to new players and internationally," according to a press release from the time. The interim results are coming soon: two low-cost demonstrators [named "Themis" and "Frog"] that will examine how to recover the first stage of a rocket launching to space....
CNES and ArianeSpace are also working together to make an engine called Prometheus, which uses oxygen and methane as its propellant and can be adapted for multiple rocket platforms. Methane and oxygen produce products that are more environmentally friendly than many other rocket fuels. Themis will use the Prometheus engine for its landings, which means that the rocket demonstrator will not only be reusable, but also less harsh on the environment during launch and landing.
Greenwashing (Score:1, Insightful)
Is there no limit to the absurdity of this kind of virtue signaling?
If your priority is the environment, don't launch rockets. Simple.
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Sounds like lawyers.
"After a thorough, multi-million dollar billable investigation, we've discovered we only worsen the problem. However, the checks have all been cashed."
Re:Greenwashing (Score:5, Insightful)
Is there no limit to the absurdity of this kind of virtue signaling?
Don't know, but there seems to be a limit to your intelligence.
If your priority is the environment, don't launch rockets. Simple.
Why can't they be concerned about both? The "environment" is more than exhaust gas. As "owlaf" pointed out, satellites help us study and understand the planet, its environment and our effects on both. Pursuing more environmentally-friendly rocket fuel can help and might also lead to advancements in other fuels, for other vehicles, etc...
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And the environmental effects of the entire production chain of rockets is vastly more than exhaust gas, as well.
As "owlaf" pointed out, satellites help us study and understand the planet, its environment and our effects on both.
Be specific on what more we need to know, to verify the rockets are indeed environmentally harmful, or some other fundamental environmental knowledge to the launch. You never asked for that, and neither do the people financing this
Re:Greenwashing (Score:4, Insightful)
No, what you're doing is trolling because you're an angry conservative and any positive step forward in being more environmentally friendly is something your team sees as their opening to attack liberals and throw a fucking tantrum.
"I'm planning on changing how I do thing X. While I'm making this change, I'm also going to make it a little more environmentally friendly."
Yet you go from that to "if you care about the environment you wouldn't do thing X" and "it's all bullshit virtue signaling". It's remarkable that you don't seem to know or care how transparent that is. Here's an article about how Europe has realized that they need to mimic SpaceX to stay competitive, and your first instinct was to first post an obvious political rant in the comments. Thanks for shitting in the comments. Asshat.
You and people like you are the cancer that got our AC accounts removed. Stop it. If you want to troll politics, head on over to Reddit. Or at least keep it to the obviously political articles that our boneheaded "editors" keep posting.
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Yawn. You're too far gone into projecting fantasies of your imagination to bother discussing with.
Meanwhile, rockets remain objectively harmful to the environment.
Re:Greenwashing (Score:5, Insightful)
Funny thing, global communication markets, gps, remote sensing for farming applications, these are all time proven benefits from satellite technology that outweighs the environmental costs of putting them into orbit.
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Now that's a valid argument. Presenting an actual analysis of the tradeoffs.
That, I don't object to, and expect it to be discussed on those merits, though naturally following through to a greater depth on the particulars. Not of the basis of a Pavlovian "Don't question our activities, just look over here at how Green we are".
What does or does not outweigh the environmental costs is exactly the question at hand. And "always more" ultimately reaches a point of diminishing returns.
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Green is largely marketing, I think that Ariane space's primary concern is being cost competitive with SpaceX
Re-usability of booster components is certainly "green", but it was pursued by SpaceX for financial reasons
I think that the new SpaceX methalox engine could also be branded 'green' if the methane was recovered from waste processing and diverted from direct release of methane to the atmosphere to CO2 release (actually not as bad as methane).
This article outlines many benefits of sat tech [thespacereview.com], but they rea
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As do aircraft, cars, cows and all sorts of stuff. Instead of just accusing anyone not living life as a vegan subsistence farmer in a hut made of mud of virtue signalling, why not be glad that they are looking for ways to preserve the modern lifestyle you enjoy while also keeping your house above water?
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Re, your sig: that would be Speedraptor. You need to multiply by UnitVectorRaptor. :)
Re: Greenwashing (Score:2)
No, what you're doing is trolling because you're an angry conservative and any positive step forward in being more environmentally friendly is something your team sees as their opening to attack liberals and throw a fucking tantrum.
Say what you will about gp, but I have to ask, is the actual launching of rockets (not their production) really that big of a contributor to the total volume of greenhouse gases? (Honest question, I really don't know, but I suspect it ranks pretty low.) Furthermore, NASA and SpaceX are already working in this direction:
https://www.space.com/falcon-h... [space.com]
Though without the methane part. And I'm not a rocket scientist, but something tells me that going with a fuel that isn't very energy dense like methane isn't
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Here are some legitimate reasons to select Methane over H2 [stackexchange.com]
Methane has the benefit of being easier to store than hydrogen. Mostly passive cooling can suffice to keep it cryogenic, whereas hydrogen needs active cooling, and will still vent over time. Which makes Methane much closer to 'storable' than hydrogen can be. This would make it useful for deep space missions, with long mission durations.
Methane is less bulky than hydrogen. Which means tankage is smaller for the same mission. (The Shuttle external tank
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Everyday Astronaut did an excellent, if long, video on the SpaceX methane fueled rocket engines.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
There are many reasons to choose methane as a fuel and it takes nearly an hour to go through them all.
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CO2 production from rockets is negligible compared to other industries, even if scaled up two or three orders of magnitude.
More of a concern is damage to the ozone layer. Solid fuel boosters put alumina particles in the upper atmosphere, and kerosene rockets do the same with soot. Both can persist for years, and neither are good. Hydrogen and methane fuels are cleaner burning, and produce a lot less upper-atmosphere particulates.
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I'm responding to the overwhelming trend of hypocrisy of claiming environmental benefits to anything and everything, because of political expediency and "image", not the actual effects.
What's ironic is that you're actually just doing some signalling of your own.
Yes, it's very obvious their announcement is to boost their image - that's why they announced it. That's what all press releases are for. Doesn't invalidate the premise here, that reducing an environmental cost is a good thing, like any other cost.
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It's all about the green-backs (or whatever they call euros), Ariane is no longer cost competitive against Space-X and reusable launchers is how you get there.
Also, SpaceX is using Methane and Liquid Oxygen, which is pretty easy to call green, particularly if you source the methane from waste processing
I have to wonder if SpaceX would consider licensing Falcon9 designs to Ariane space
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Ariane's technology is strategically valuable, i.e. the French and the EU want to maintain the ability to independently build and launch rockets. Or ICBMs.
They probably aren't interested in licensing, except perhaps as a way to gain experience with the technology and assist with developing their own.
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Also, SpaceX is using Methane and Liquid Oxygen, which is pretty easy to call green, particularly if you source the methane from waste processing
I have to wonder if SpaceX would consider licensing Falcon9 designs to Ariane space
If SpaceX did, it would not help Ariane with a liquid methane and oxygen rocket since the Merlin engines in the Falcon9 use kerosene in the form of RP-1. SpaceX apparently has no desire to upgrade the Falcon9 to use liquid methane and is reserving that for the BFR.
A reusable rocket is not something Ariane cannot develop for themselves.
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No one is using methane as a rocket fuel because it is "green". Actually no one is using methane at all yet. There are rockets in development and flying (SpaceX's Starhopper) using methane but no methane powered rockets to orbit yet. Methane/LOX is attractive as a fuel because it straddles the properties between Kerosene/LOX and Hydrogen/LOX. Hydrogen is the higher energy per pound fuel but because of its low density and very cold boiling point has drawbacks especially in a booster (first stage). Keros
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Another advantage of liquid methane over kerosene or liquid hydrogen is that its temperature is similar to that of liquid oxygen which makes storage of both in close proximity easier. This is even more important when treating both as storable propellants.
Re:Greenwashing- Not at all. (Score:3)
Playing Catchup. (Score:2)
That is how they are painting it, but in reality its even worse.
They are just spending truckloads of taxpayers money to try and play catch up to SpaceX, who are already using an 'environmentally friendly methane rocket' (Raptor), and have reusable first stages.
Really, there is little to research here - it is shows to work well, they just need to play catch up.
Just like all the other launch companies, they buried their heads in the sand while pouring away fat government cash, until 'suddenly' private industr
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>Really, there is little to research here - it is shows to work well, they just need to play catch up.
Those are two independent statements, and I don't think the first is justified. SpaceX has proven that reusability can be done extremely cost effectively, and large methane engines are apparently viable - though Starhopper won't be the vehicle to really prove that conclusively. That doesn't necessarily mean they've done it in the best way possible.
This is still very much a developing field of technolog
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At this point ... (Score:2)
"ArianeGroup and CNES (the French space agency)" (Score:2)
The French aren't really completely on board with this whole EU thing, are they?
Re:"ArianeGroup and CNES (the French space agency) (Score:4, Informative)
The first thing I thought of (Score:3)
was that they had stolen the NASA document:
https://www.nasa.gov/pdf/15340... [nasa.gov]
lolz environmentally friendly (Score:4, Insightful)
cut the green marketing crap
methane makes carbon pollution just like any other fossil fuel
it makes more pollution than hydrogen and LOX
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Yes, but H2 requires really large fuel tanks (density 0.07), which means heavier rockets as well as more fragile rockets, making recovery that much more difficult. Never mind that we don't launch enough rockets to amount to a hill of beans in terms of AGW (compared to, say, coal power plants, natural gas (for which read "methane") power plants, cars, etc.)
Note that they seem to be planning on duplic
Re: lolz environmentally friendly (Score:1)
virtue signaling cheap (Score:2)
Do you understand that H2 is made from Methane? (Score:2)
I did a bit of Googling when SpaceX said that the Methane fueled Raptor engine would be better for the environment because Methane (CH4) obviously adds one carbon dioxide module for two H2O molecules it produces when it is burned and that didn't make sense.
It might seem intuitive that H2 is produced by electrolysis but for industrial scale amounts it's actually produced by "steam reforming" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_production) in which high temperature steam breaks the Methane molecule into C
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H2 is also a devil to contain, compared to CH4, and requires much more expensive tanking technology
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BTW hydrogen production from electrolysis got a lot cheaper recently. I know of at least three manufacturers now producing industrial hydrogen electrolysis equipment. I believe the Sabatier process for methane is more expensive, but methane is a lot easier to work with, and can be just as carbon-neutral.
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BTW hydrogen production from electrolysis got a lot cheaper recently.
Energy-wise, or just equipment-wise? Either one seems like it would be notable from a physics standpoint.
I know of at least three manufacturers now producing industrial hydrogen electrolysis equipment.
That doesn't prove that it got cheaper, only that it became more profitable. There are federal credits which subsidize hydrogen fueling stations and vehicles, so automakers are now funding those stations. Honda has been running a FCV beta test in California with the Clarity FCV lease program. When they started it, you basically got the fuel free — unless you were putting on a huge number of miles,
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at the moment four percent of hydrogen is made by electrolysis.
but making hydrogen from methane has the option of sequestration of the carbon dioxide and some places are doing that.
rockets aren't a major source of pollution anyway, they don't matter
Re:lolz environmentally friendly (Score:5, Informative)
First, compared to solid fuel, it is substantially better by pretty much every metric that isn't CO2. Solid rockets involve burning all sorts of nasties. Common solid fuel rocket propellants include APCP https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ammonium_perchlorate_composite_propellant [wikipedia.org] and PBAN https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polybutadiene_acrylonitrile [wikipedia.org]. They burn producing complicated long organic chains as well as chlorine compounds which damage the ozone layer, along with particulate. Solid rockets also can if they are in the upper atmosphere or higher leave chunks of material which provides more space debris. Note this is one reason why SpaceX even early on, before they intended to do propulsive landing, refrained from working with solids; they care about the environmental impact of rockets and plan with that in mind.
Second, methane produces less CO2 per a unit of energy than either kerosene or gasoline https://www.volker-quaschning.de/datserv/CO2-spez/index_e.php [volker-quaschning.de] which means that using methane does overall produce less CO2 compared to some of the most common fuels.
Third, many other fuels are unpleasant on the rocket engines themselves; kerosene burns in ways which leaves residue which is hard to clear away, and hydrogen embrittles metals it is in contact with https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_embrittlement [wikipedia.org]. These reduce the lifespan of the rocket and make reuse less practical; the energy cost in making a rocket as well as the environmental impact from mining necessary components is non-trivial, so using a fuel that has allows more reuse is a definite environmental benefit.
Fourth, in the long-run there are plans to produce methane using the Sabatier process https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabatier_reaction [wikipedia.org], taking in carbon from the atmosphere which will mean that if one has a non-carbon emitting electricity source, such as solar, wind or nuclear, one can make functionally carbon neutral rockets using methane.
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Fourth, in the long-run there are plans to produce methane using the Sabatier process
There's a lot of low-hanging, uh, fruit, before that's a good idea. That fruit is shit, and putting it into a bag and letting it cook itself both destroys pathogens and also produces methane. Thousands of tons of shit currently winds up in water systems after being inadequately processed.
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You know what we should do? Just build a big honking space laser and blow the planet up. In one move we would completely eliminate the need for rockets to get out of the gravity well by simply removing the gravity well. At the same time we would solve the problems of climate change, species extinction, deforestation of the amazon, and even the threat of nuclear war.
I'm sure there is a down side but it can't be that bad.
On and it would get Trump out of the Whitehouse.
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Mod Correction. The OP should be correctly Modded as '+1, Funny'. Please use your mod points responsibly.
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You know what we should do? Just build a big honking space laser and blow the planet up.
We would, but we seem to have misplaced our illudium Q-36 explosive space modulator.
Ummm H2O. (Score:2)
But its competing with Hydrogen Oxygen rockets...
You know, the ones with H2O exhausts? (well, huge simplification, but certainly no Carbon, if you care about that).
Solid boosters are dying out very rapidly - I doubt we will see any/many more.
No one should be comparing it to Kero engines for these purposes, and rockets dont use petrol..
Hydrogen embritlement? are you serious? how long do you think they sit with Hydrogen present.. certainly not that long - they tanks are not (usually) metal these days anyway.
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But its competing with Hydrogen Oxygen rockets..
That's not accurate. Only a few rockets currently functioning are hydrogen-oxygen rockets.
Solid boosters are dying out very rapidly - I doubt we will see any/many more.
Possible, but difficult to say. Governments have an incentive to keep solid production going because they are needed for military uses (ICBMs and shorter range weapons also), and that dual use also creates economic efficiencies for solids that wouldn't otherwise exist. Multiple rockets today use solids as boosters, including the Atlas, Delta. The Epsilon, Minotaur, and Pegasus don't just use solids as boosters but us
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No one should be comparing it to Kero engines for these purposes, and rockets dont use petrol..
Gasoline/LOX rocket engines work but kerosene/LOX is just better so there is no reason to use gasoline. The few applications which used gasoline/LOX were because of availability and if you were going to make a rocket with storable propellants, there were better options than gasoline.
Enviromentally friendly fuel (Score:3)
Hydrogen and Oxygen are environmentally friendly (the exhaust is water) and can be made with solar and/or eind generated electricty.
In fact we should be using Hydrogen as a way to store energy generated by such non carbon based, intermittant source.
The shuttles main engines used liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen, but of course the eolid rocket boosters were not eco friendly
H2 + O2 = H20 (Score:1)
No carbon is involved.
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I'm wondering if they're also looking at how the fuel is produced rather than just its byproducts. Cuz yeah, Methane combustion produces CO2, and any unburnt methane is a significant greenhouse gas in its own right.
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Methane can still be carbon-neutral if it's produced from CO2 to start with. The guy who figured out how to do that got a Nobel prize, back in the 19th century.
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Methane can still be carbon-neutral if it's produced from CO2 to start with.
That's not enough, the energy source needs to also not emit CO2. For people to be willing to bother the price needs to be competitive with the alternative sources.
The US Navy is working on this process. Their intent is less about environmental impact but about producing fuel at sea for the aircraft and smaller watercraft that support the large nuclear powered ships. The nuclear power plant can produce the energy needed, and the CO2 and hydrogen is drawn from the sea. The Navy wants a kerosene like fuel
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Isn't liquid hydrogen combined with liquid oxygen the greenest fuel?
Not necessarily. Do people not realize that the most abundant green house gas is water vapor?
No carbon is involved.
Not necessarily. The cheapest hydrogen is produced from natural gas, therefore most hydrogen is produced from natural gas. If you want fuel that is "green" then we need fuel that is is carbon neutral. The lowest CO2 energy source is nuclear power. Kerosene synthesized from carbon out of the air would be carbon neutral, and the US Navy has a project investigating this process right now. They intend to use this
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Do people not realize that the most abundant green house gas is water vapor?
Sure, doesn't mean it's harmful though. Water vapour saturates and rains out within days, so it stays in equilibrium and doesn't accumulate in the atmosphere like CO2, which persists for decades to centuries. More nuanced answer here [newscientist.com].
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Sure, doesn't mean it's harmful though. Water vapour saturates and rains out within days, so it stays in equilibrium and doesn't accumulate in the atmosphere like CO2, which persists for decades to centuries.
I was being half serious and half joking about water vapor being a green house gas. Looks like I triggered someone to down mod me because of that. It's true that water vapor reaches an equilibrium in the air, and the contributions humans make to this vapor is nothing compared to natural processes. I'm sure some people argue over this because rocket exhaust puts this vapor far higher in the air than any natural process could.
The real point I wanted to make was that hydrogen is not "green" because of how i
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"No carbon is involved."
Except that most hydrogen production at current is extracted from fossil fuels. You could use electrolysis instead, but that is rather inefficient. If done from a carbon neutral source (nuclear, solar, wind) during times of high production/low utilization it might still make sense. But it also has some significant usage limits for a rocket fuel, especially for a first stage. It requires very large tanks, is a bit of a pain to handle and can have some deleterious effects on reusab
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Isn't liquid hydrogen combined with liquid oxygen the greenest fuel?
No carbon is involved.
That would be the case if exhaust products were the only consideration. The low density of liquid hydrogen, difficulty in working with it, and stress on the engine make it unattractive for 1st stage and reusable engines.
Hydrogen peroxide (Score:2)
The exhaust is steam.
This is a proven technology: https://www.airspacemag.com/ai... [airspacemag.com]
(To be fair, the Black arrow did mix in kerosene for the first stage)
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Hydrogen peroxide (as used in Black Arrow) is an *oxidizer*, not a fuel. The kerosene was the fuel, it operated just like an Atlas missile or the Saturn 1/1b/5. It would have been RP-1, had that been invented yet. It has about the same exhaust products as any other kerosene-fueled rocket, although (unlike the Atlas and Saturn series) it did not leave unburned kerosene from the pumps, which is the cause of the huge yellow flames.
HTP (high-test peroxide) can also be used as a mono-propellant, b
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That is true of the first stage (as I alluded to) - the third stage was solely H2O2.
I love knee jerk Wikipedia responses.
You want to go to space? (Score:1)
If you want to go to space then you need nuclear power. From nuclear power you can produce all the "environmentally friendly" rocket fuel you want. Once in space there is no wind for windmills. Beyond the orbit of Mars solar power is near worthless, assuming it's worth anything inside the orbit of Mars.
There is not any coal or natural gas in space, or an oxygen rich atmosphere to burn it in.
A nation without nuclear power might be able to create a space program, but it will always be behind the nations th
To do *what*? (Score:2)
What the hell are we putting into space in such quantities? I don't get it. Satellite TV is a relic of the '90s, I rarely see dishes anymore. Sat phones are a specialized tool, GPS uses a limited number of satellites. Weather? How many do you need?
I do not get it. At all.
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If we don't keep launching LEO (Low Earth Orbit) Satellites, we will never be able to achieve the Kessler Syndrome.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
We need to have more satellites like the Space X's Starlink Internet Service
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
It would be sad, ironic, and possibly hilarious (depending on your sense of humor) if the first Space X manned mission to mars was taken out a Space X Starlink satellite collision.
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If we don't keep launching LEO (Low Earth Orbit) Satellites, we will never be able to achieve the Kessler Syndrome.
In LEO, the chunks will deorbit in a matter of months to a year or so. In the depths of LEO where the current Starlink satellites are going, it only takes a couple of months.
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"I do not get it. At all."
Lots of people don't have cable running to their front door, especially in other countries than USA
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All sorts of climate research and measurement.
Navigation/communication/tracking for ships and naval emergencies.
Tracking of planes, so losses like the Malaysian plane can be avoided or the riddles at least solved.
I see many dishes, though.
Rockets powered by wine? But of course! (Score:2)
Of course they are. (Score:2)
And I bet they'll come up with a way to make the rocket wiring harnesses biodegradable too. Here's hoping they won't fall apart during the first mission!
(In case you're not in the know, a lot of European automakers had issues with biodegradable wiring harnesses in the 90s. Car guys will know)
...but weâ(TM)re saving the environment (Score:1)