SpaceX Says It Will Launch First Commercial Space Station By Mid-2025 (upi.com) 88
schwit1 shares a report from UPI: SpaceX confirmed Wednesday it signed a contract to launch the world's first commercial space station. The company also will perform manned space flights shortly after launching the station into orbit "no later than August 2025," SpaceX said in a statement. The Haven-1 space station is being built by Vast, a private aerospace company based in Long Beach, Calif. Its "mission is to contribute to a future where billions of people are living and thriving in space -- a future in which the human population and our resources expand far beyond our current imagination." Vast is solely funded by its billionaire founder and CEO Jed McCaleb.
SpaceX will use its Falcon 9 rocket to carry the Haven-1 station into orbit. Manned crews will then use the company's Dragon reusable spacecraft to get to the space station, docking for up to 30 days while in orbit. Vast plans for the initial module to become part of a larger 100-meter-long multi-module spinning space station with artificial gravity. SpaceX confirmed it also will provide crew training, as well as spacesuit and spacecraft ingress and egress exercises. SpaceX also will conduct mission simulations, as part of the agreement with Vast. Crew selection is underway, the company said Wednesday, and will be announced at a future date.
SpaceX will use its Falcon 9 rocket to carry the Haven-1 station into orbit. Manned crews will then use the company's Dragon reusable spacecraft to get to the space station, docking for up to 30 days while in orbit. Vast plans for the initial module to become part of a larger 100-meter-long multi-module spinning space station with artificial gravity. SpaceX confirmed it also will provide crew training, as well as spacesuit and spacecraft ingress and egress exercises. SpaceX also will conduct mission simulations, as part of the agreement with Vast. Crew selection is underway, the company said Wednesday, and will be announced at a future date.
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Re:After destroying a launchpad? (Score:5, Insightful)
They have the best safety record
by far.
I think that is pushing it.
If I'm counting correctly there have only been 9 crewed flights of falcon 9/dragon. 1 spacex demo, 6 operational flghts for NASA and 2 private flights.
By contrast there were 135 crewed space shuttle flights, 2 of which resulted in loss of crew.
One accident would essentially take spacex's record on crewed flights from best to worst.
Now the total number of falcon 9 launches is much higher, but those haven't been without incident, one blew up on the pad prior to launch, and one broke up in flight. Hopefully nothing simlar will happen on a crewed launch and if it does hopefully the launch escape system will do it it's job.
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In terms of fatalities, they have a good safety record. Looking at their most recent launch though leaves some doubts about their performance on the safety front. Large chunks of concrete hurled around and losing control of the ability to terminate the launch are some of the concerns. Now, it's easy to say that the pad problems can easily be fixed, but that just raises the question of why they were not fixed. I saw them being predicted right here on Slashdot well before the launch. This was a known issue th
Re: After destroying a launchpad? (Score:1)
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The first few Falcon 1 rockets failed. By your standard, SpaceX should have just given up then.
Where did you get that idea, coward?
Rockets will fail, especially early on. But the Falcons were functioning devices. They could self destruct if the button commanding it was pushed.
Hella difference there. As well, the Falcons are built to well known standards. Even the re-useable engine was nothing new, So no one was trying to re-invent the wheel other than landing the candle.
And the Falcons are decent rockets. I don't have an issue with them.
But the StarShip is a completely different animal. Let
Re: After destroying a launchpad? (Score:4, Informative)
While I get your points, I also think your intense disdain for Musk is coming through loud and clear.And to be honest, I don't much care for the guy either.
That said, I am able to separate and distinguish Musk from the achievements of all of the other people who work for the company, SpaceX.
Your points are somewhat valid, but I'd temper them with the fact that this was a new vehicle, with new problems that need to be worked out. If the full ramifications of everything had been foreseeable the darn thing would have flew into space.
Was there pad damage?. Yes. Was there more damage than expected? Yes. To hit another point, "the Falcons are built to well known standards. Even the re-useable engine was nothing new." And that's true. Yet five of the engines used in that rocked failed or failed to ignite on Starship.
We could have a conversation on these points, provided, of course, that you don't automatically assume that anyone who doesn't completely and totally agree with you is "in thrall" to Musk.
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I don't much care for [Elon Musk] either.
Overall, I'm a fan. He's not perfect, but he's on my list of people I think I would enjoy meeting in real life.
I think it's clear that he has exceptional ability in founding and running tech companies. IMHO his best ability is to clearly see the best way to solve a problem and then insist on solving it that way. For example, while people have talked forever about reusable rockets, he insisted on making rockets with a path to reusability and now SpaceX has made it
Re: After destroying a launchpad? (Score:2)
And yet here you are, arguing with results.
So in other words, anybody whose ideology doesn't align with your own is incapable of succeeding at anything.
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And yet here you are, arguing with results.
So in other words, anybody whose ideology doesn't align with your own is incapable of succeeding at anything.
It ain't ideology, homie. It's rocket mechanics. Spacex fans are arguing ideology, not me.
Re: After destroying a launchpad? (Score:2)
You're sitting here arguing, over and over again, that the results SpaceX delivers, no matter how good they are, (which they are) are meaningless. And the only rationale you've offered is to the effect of "the ends don't justify the means". We've also been over your argument that SpaceX isn't the first to reusability ad nauseum, and your arguments for for it are specious, particularly given you've repeatedly justified it with misleading and often false information.
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You're sitting here arguing, over and over again, that the results SpaceX delivers, no matter how good they are, (which they are) are meaningless.
Cool story Bro! If you read what I've posted without taking a temper tantrum, you'd see that I believe the Falcon 9 and Heavy are good Rockets. I also believe that Grew Dragon is a good ship, and will bake a good team for the Boeing ship as well. But that I believe Starship is more of a vanity, and bad engineering is not out of the realm of possibility, it appears you just won't take telling about that.
And the only rationale you've offered is to the effect of "the ends don't justify the means". We've also been over your argument that SpaceX isn't the first to reusability ad nauseum, and your arguments for for it are specious, particularly given you've repeatedly justified it with misleading and often false information.
There is a simple solution -you hate what I have ot say with a passion.
Then stop reading what I post! Ea
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Cool story Bro! If you read what I've posted without taking a temper tantrum, you'd see that I believe the Falcon 9 and Heavy are good Rockets. I also believe that Grew Dragon is a good ship, and will bake a good team for the Boeing ship as well. But that I believe Starship is more of a vanity, and bad engineering is not out of the realm of possibility, it appears you just won't take telling about that.
No tantrum here dude, you're just projecting. Reread what you just wrote here, you can't even speak coherently. And somehow you interpreted your own tantrum as mine.
There is a simple solution -you hate what I have ot say with a passion.
Actually there's an even easier solution: You love to speak authoritatively about subjects you don't even understand. Recall this episode:
https://slashdot.org/comments.... [slashdot.org]
Like that topic, I have a much closer connection to this topic than you do. So close in fact, that I'm under an NDA with the parties involved, which I'll honor even though I'm
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Rockets will fail, especially early on. But the Falcons were functioning devices. They could self destruct if the button commanding it was pushed.
The FAA signed off on the flight termination system installed in Starship and Super Heavy. Both they and SpaceX thought it would be sufficient. You're going to bitch about Elon Musk when nobody knew there wasn't enough explosive built into the vehicle, including the government organization which vets and approves these systems for all US rockets? Talk about disingenuous...
Would you not prefer a rocket that would obey supposed fail-safe commands like the flight termination system?
Sure. It did. It took 40 seconds after the signal was sent before the rocket actually broke up. It obeyed the fail-safe command imm
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Rockets will fail, especially early on. But the Falcons were functioning devices. They could self destruct if the button commanding it was pushed.
The FAA signed off on the flight termination system installed in Starship and Super Heavy. Both they and SpaceX thought it would be sufficient. You're going to bitch about Elon Musk when nobody knew there wasn't enough explosive built into the vehicle, including the government organization which vets and approves these systems for all US rockets? Talk about disingenuous...
Well, FAA has grounded them now. As well - Spacex is now saying that they did indeed terminate the flight, and the FTS worked. That - for whatever reason is dissembling.
And here is something you are going to absolutely hate. Might not fit with your narrative, such as it is. https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com] I'll bet you can't get through it .
Windows were broken and debris rained down on Port Isabel. https://www.livescience.com/sp... [livescience.com] I predicted this - or worse when Spacex started building in Boca Ch
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Operational rockets are delayed when needed.
Recent Falcon Heavy launch was delayed,
https://spaceflightnow.com/202... [spaceflightnow.com]
Starship was known to be at best 50/50 chance of succeeding at best during the TEST launch.
And even of that launch, it was delayed due to valve issues.
https://www.reuters.com/busine... [reuters.com]
From my understanding, the main difference between SpaceX and the other launch providers is, the others do extensive simulation with very few launches during development, whereas SpaceX does some simulations but
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Operational rockets are delayed when needed.
Recent Falcon Heavy launch was delayed, https://spaceflightnow.com/202... [spaceflightnow.com]
We need to establish something. I always differentiate between the Falcons and StarShip. The Falcons are well thought out and function very well. The same can be said for the Crew Dragon. Good ships and rockets. Designed and built by a competent company.
Starship? It's kind of hyperloopian or Spruce Goosian by comparison.
Starship was known to be at best 50/50 chance o
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What is amazing to me is that utterly simple things, indeed rocketry at it's most basic have been ignored. I cannot imagine the acceptance of all those engines sitting on a launchpad that was just a bigger version of a early 1960's Mercury launch.
/facepalm
TBH everything you've said on this topic so far is laughably bad, just as every other topic I've seen you comment on. Like that time you said "I know a lot more about waging war than you might think" but reading a history book or even just paying attention to the news within your lifetime would show just how bad your understanding of even that topic was.
You talk about basic rocketry as if you wrote the book on it, and you don't even have that right.
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They didnÃ(TM)t want to wait months to build a flame tunnel or the metal plate that was water cooled. They knew there would be some damage.
That was wrong, and they willfully misrepresented the risks of the launch when they filed their plan. They should have either waited months, or got their shit together sooner as it wasn't a surprise that it was a problem.
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Why? So they lost the concrete under the launch pad. They've almost already fixed it well before their next test launch, meanwhile they've collected lots of data from the launch to improve the next iteration
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Why? So they lost the concrete under the launch pad.
It matters because they sprayed both the concrete and the stuff under the concrete into a big area they said they weren't going to affect. They lied about the risk of affecting that area, and now they are being investigated for it.
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Whoop-di-doo, an experimental launch blew more dust into the air than expected and because of that you're worried they won't be able to launch a space station? Overall that's a pretty minor issue. The FTS not working properly is far worse
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Both things are problems, and I was answering the question, not talking about priorities. I can care about both things at once, I'm just that great.
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Whoop-di-doo, an experimental launch blew more dust into the air than expected and because of that you're worried they won't be able to launch a space station?
Dust? While the dust was a problem, some of the chunks of concrete thrown were as big as cars. They're pretty certain that flying concrete damaged the engines and it could have destroyed the whole rocket. Also, the bigger problem is that the launch didn't terminate when instructed to. Blowing up on the pad is one thing, blowing up after falling out of the sky onto a populated area would be another, and that system is what prevents that from happening.
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The chunks of concrete damaged some stuff around the launch pad. They say it DIDN'T damage the engines, but that does seem a bit unlikely.
The FTS failure (or being slow) is a major problem, but blowing up a rocket isn't too hard a problem to solve
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The FTS failure (or being slow) is a major problem, but blowing up a rocket isn't too hard a problem to solve
It's for exactly that reason that we're concerned. It shouldn't be too hard a problem to solve, but SpaceX had not, in fact, solved it when they launched the largest rocket ever.
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Youâ(TM)re seriously considering a rocket in development using a launch platform they knew not to be ready and in development? They didnâ(TM)t want to wait months to build a flame tunnel or the metal plate that was water cooled. They knew there would be some damage.
Old Olsoc already said it, but it bears repeating. If they knew it wasn't ready, they should not have launched. There are basic standards of safety that you can't simply bulldoze aside in the name of progress. Using a process where you waste more experimental rockets that blow up more often until you get it right is not necessarily a problem because you can't foresee everything. This, though, was 100% foreseen. Also, it may have taken months to build a proper pad, but they di, in fact, know that this would
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In terms of fatalities, they have a good safety record. Looking at their most recent launch though leaves some doubts about their performance on the safety front. Large chunks of concrete hurled around and losing control of the ability to terminate the launch are some of the concerns. Now, it's easy to say that the pad problems can easily be fixed, but that just raises the question of why they were not fixed. I saw them being predicted right here on Slashdot well before the launch. This was a known issue that was left unaddressed in a blithe and callous manner. That sort of thing leaves people with concerns about the company.
What is amazing is the cavalier braying of how successful this flight was, while having issues that are Rocketry 101 level horrifying.
That Flight Termination system needs explored in depth. If the other two gimbaling engines that pointed the thing whereto failed, the rocket could have taken off in any direction it felt like, and if it flew into a populated area, Spacex's Perfect Safety Record would have been demolished, along with whatever it hit and who it killed. And nothing could be done about it.
A
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I would put money on it, that this guys EDS is bad as his TDS.
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Saw the full video of that launch. The presenters mentioned that SpaceX planned to not start all the engines at once, but in quick succession stages. To me that would explain why it lifted rather slow up from the ground.
Re:After destroying a launchpad? (Score:4)
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The Falcon family of rockets has 200 consecutive fully successful launches, which is the most ever. Atlas is second with 97 or 173 depending if you count versions with different engines. Yes, for Atlas that's 30 years whereas for SpaceX it's 7 years because Atlas hardly ever flies... but low flight cadence does not make a vehicle more trustworthy. This article is about a Falcon 9 launch contract, Falcon 9 representing nearly all of those 200.
The customer is either lying or delusional, but the odds of SpaceX
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Starship isn't even close to being in production, it's still under heavy development.
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Re: After destroying a launchpad? (Score:2)
Those orbiters weren't in development. Worse than that, in both cases there was ample knowledge of what was likely to happen but they wilfully ignored it, and what's worse is there were lives at stake. None of that is true of starship.
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I feel a bit unclean replying to what appears to be a troll, but for the benefit of those who don't follow the space industry...
Thereâ(TM)s no way he can actually get any crap in orbit.
SpaceX mass to orbit in 2022 was 159 tons. More than the rest of the world combined. They very much get crap to orbit.
. Did you see the last one? Blew up just after takeoff.
Last one? Since that very off nominal Booster 7/Ship 24 explosion, there have been four successful Falcon 9 launches and landings and one successf
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"As much as I love the idea of a space travel finally getting cheaper, I'm not going anywhere near SpaceX. Being the first isn't always the best."
You should take a Boeing then, plenty of 'experience'.
The headline is literally true (Score:5, Insightful)
The headline is literally true, but really all SpaceX is doing is contracting to launch someone else's space station. I guess nobody has heard of Vast so it becomes a SpaceX story.
Vast are being very optimistic here. Some of it is pure sci-fi too, like spinning for "artificial gravity". Spinning causes a lot of mechanical problems, which is why nobody has done it yet. Also the "gravity" isn't gravity at all, and unless the station is absolutely huge and people only live on the tips of it, it doesn't work well for humans. It's been tested on Earth and found to be lacking.
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Agreed, there will absolutely be no artificial gravity - we don't have the engineering capability yet.
First, if I recall correctly you need something like a 200m radius of rotation to get an acceleration gradient at a reasonable rotation rate that doesn't make a standing average-height human feel ill (that's pretty big). Second, every little movement from then on is going to change the centre of rotation and stress the entire structure. Third, it's a bitch to dock with.
If SpaceX wanted to claim they were
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Forth, the direction that the "gravity" is pulling is constantly changing as you rotate around the axis. If you throw an object it won't travel along the same trajectory that it would on Earth, it will become disconnected from the rotating force as soon as you let go of it.
Scott Manley did a video about it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
At around 10:30 you can see some video of Soviet experiments where people struggle with simple tasks, and demonstrate the way that objects behave when thrown.
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The coriolis effect inside a small rotating space station is definitely counter-intuitive to someone raised on a large mass like a rocky planet.
The good news is, though, that your brain can rewire itself for the task of predicting the path of thrown objects if you switch environments. It might take some time, but you can do it.
Astronauts already do this when switching from normal terrestrial gravity effects to a microgravity environment while in orbit.
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I liked the design in the movie Stowaway where the crew portion of the ship was tethered to a center point (with communications and stuff that doesn't want to be spinning as much) and countered by a booster tethered across from it to keep it balanced. They reeled in the tethers for the docking portion.
Not sure how practical that is in reality, if we have materials strong enough, but it seems like something that would give the appropriate circumference without building as large a structure
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The tether-and-counterweight is one of the more serious proposals for providing some 'normal gravity' for astronauts on long trips - say, to Mars. It's a simple setup to have two objects and a tether, and shifting mass in one won't really be that much of an issue. And a 400m tether is a LOT less mass than rotating ring that would just shake the rest of your ship apart starting at the bearings.
Even better, you're usually not planning to use such an arrangement permanently. The usual scenario involves stopp
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And a 400m tether is a LOT less mass than rotating ring that would just shake the rest of your ship apart starting at the bearings.
Things are a bit different in the microgravity of an orbit. The vibrations you get on Earth in a very high mass structure supported on bearings are aggravated by gravity. Without gravity pulling the mass down when it bumps up, there are no vibrations. Instead the whole structure wobbles a little. The vibrations you're talking about are essentially pendulum behavior, but that doesn't happen in orbit.
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"Wobbles a little" is not trivial in a space station. That wobble translates into stresses at every joint / seal / weld / whatever.
If you jump (or push off) the interior of a non-rotating structure in free fall, it's a fairly simply thing. When you do that in a rotating structure, the dynamics get a bit more complicated and can be more energetic - after all, you can apply a lot more force with your feet staying firmly planted than you can if you start floating away the moment you apply any effort.
It's the
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Agreed, there will absolutely be no artificial gravity - we don't have the engineering capability yet.
Don't we? If you mean there's no off-the-shelf design waiting to go, sure, but there are no unsolved engineering problems.
First, if I recall correctly you need something like a 200m radius of rotation to get an acceleration gradient at a reasonable rotation rate that doesn't make a standing average-height human feel ill (that's pretty big).
Sure. So build a big thing. That's not just a known engineering capability, there's an example in orbit right now. The ISS main truss is 94 meters long. It wasn't lifted into orbit in one chunk that long. It was built.
Second, every little movement from then on is going to change the centre of rotation and stress the entire structure.
Microscopic changes to the center of rotation aren't going to stress a rotating space station. You said yourself it's going to be at least 400 meters across. If it'
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You might be able to do it comfortably without a huge station by using a tethered system with a counterweight and a very long tether between the main module and the counterweight allowing you to rotate a good distance from a common center of gravity. Also, you can do simulated gravity without simulating 1 G. It might be sufficient to simulate Mars-level gravity or moon-level, or even lower.
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The problem with a tether is that the forces on it can get quite extreme. It's difficult to build a robust system where the risk of it ripping itself apart is low enough for crewed missions.
Given that people can live in zero g for longer than the trip to Mars takes, there just isn't much reason to try to develop such complex technology.
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The problem with a tether is that the forces on it can get quite extreme. It's difficult to build a robust system where the risk of it ripping itself apart is low enough for crewed missions.
I keep hearing people talking about the "extreme" forces involved in simulated gravity and I am constantly left scratching my head. The maximum we would go up to simulating gravity would be 1G. That's a really standard force that engineers here on Earth always need to deal with. This is no more "extreme" than hanging the module from something. Suppose, for example, that it was a gondola hanging from a balloon. If the forces for a module spinning on a tether are "extreme" then the forces acting on the cables
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The magnitude of the force is only half the equation. The other half is mass.
You can lift a pencil, but not a bus. Both subject to 1G that you need to overcome.
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The magnitude of the force is only half the equation. The other half is mass.
You can lift a pencil, but not a bus. Both subject to 1G that you need to overcome.
Yes, but that was covered by "This is no more "extreme" than hanging the module from something." If you can take whatever module you're going to attempt the artificial gravity experiment on and, for example, hang it off a bridge over a deep canyon, and the tether doesn't snap, then you're handling the forces _and_ the mass just fine. You'll want to add extra mass to the module, say 2X its normal fully loaded mass so that you have a 3X safety factor.
Also, if we're still operating under the realm of engineeri
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Vast are being very optimistic here.
So you're saying they are being half-vast? 8^)
SpaceX says a lot of things... (Score:5, Interesting)
Doesn't often happen that way.
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Faster than anyone except Elon Musk expected, perhaps.
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Faster than anyone except Elon Musk expected, perhaps.
Is that what you think? He's like a carnival barker. A rich, rich carnival barker, but he's still like a carnival barker.
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In general, SpaceX is really bad at making deadlines. But they still end up doing things faster than anyone expected and far more than what many think they can do.
Right. NASA took 9 years to research, built and get to thee moon. Spacex could have done that in 9 months.
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That was when NASA had a large budget and huge support from the government. They're currently trying to get to the moon again with the Artemis project using existing technologies, but it's looking like SpaceX might be there around the same time
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That was when NASA had a large budget and huge support from the government. They're currently trying to get to the moon again with the Artemis project using existing technologies, but it's looking like SpaceX might be there around the same time
Bloody hell, man Spacex will be on Mars, and sending manned missions to Europa in a few years...
um, NASA has a huge budget. (Score:2)
Don't let yourself get hoodwinked by people who love huge government spending for spending's sake. People who complain that NASA is underfunded usually play a particularly dishonest game: They compare NASA budgets year-by-year as a percentage of government spending (which, because it has risen at an insane rate as government started and grew huge social spending programs, and had growth in debt payments, made NASA a smaller portion of the budget). The fact that the US Government upped child school lunch pro
Re: SpaceX says a lot of things... (Score:3)
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SpaceX role in this doesn't sound any different than what it already does for the International Space Station.
Right, which indicate that they are qualified to do the job.
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Still waiting on the self driving Tesla. Space Karen will say anything to keep his name in the news.
so true
Whose legal jurisdiction would it fall under (Score:2)
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The company under American law because it's registered there (I guess) but the station itself?
This has been hammered out for ISS already. The nation which launches the individual modules retains ownership, and what happens in their modules is under their jurisdiction. For this station with a single owner, it will be wholly under American jurisdiction, unless Vast abruptly registers themselves in Panama.
It's quite similar to maritime law, though lawyers claim it isn't, for reasons that involve getting paid more money.
A smoking lounge for the Mars flights? (Score:2)
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Still waiting for those.
Mars? Pffshht. I'm still waiting for the Space Hilton [cnn.com].
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So far the whole spacecraft planned to go to Mars is a smoking lounge.
Sure (Score:2)
I'll drive to the launch site using my Cyber Truck.
But Bigelow... (Score:2)
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I think Bigelow is done at this point, and while the pandemic may have helped their demise I doubt it was the primary thing that brought them down. They seemed to be having trouble before it and while they managed to launch some interesting hardware (two partial test articles and a small demonstrator for the ISS) they weren't getting much actual traction (contracts). Even with all of the testing/hardware they've had other companies are developing their own inflatable modules instead of buying them off of
T&C (Score:1)
Still waitin g... (Score:2)
For a Wheel space station.
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I thought it was odd that the emissions and pollutants from rocket launches are not talked about or given measure in general articles to the public. It really seems to undermine the efforts to curb environmental pollution.
It's because they're so small as to be unmeasurable. There are lots of good targets for regulations to reduce CO2 output (and other pollutants), but space travel isn't one of them. Someday that might change, but, for now, the focus needs to be on electricity production, ground transportation, manufacturing, and farming. When those are squared away, then we can talk about things like air and space travel.
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Because they don't even show as a rounding error on emissions statistics. Even picking the largest rocket in existence (starship) and assuming a worst case scenario (failure on the pad) it's methane emissions would only be 0.005% of the global emissions per year. Nineteen of them would have to FAIL on the pad every year to even reach 0.1% of global emissions. If successful their direct emissions are water, oxygen, CO2 and negligible amounts of Nitrous oxide. Other rockets produce nastier stuff to be sur