Space and Science BS Thread

That’s the perfect birthday date if you celebrate material Christmas. Halfway between

 

Wow…
https://twitter.com/spcplcyonline/status/1537030541526155264?s=21&t=COBxeX1_yp9rtlbwqC58hA

 

I wonder if they will have to increase the mass of future satellites for larger asteroids? Or would they just impact the asteroid further out?

Which it is!

Well, that answers that question. About time they started coming here to launch to the ISS.

 

My shop has had a covid outbreak and we have hands in so many things the meeting this morning with Nasa was...are we going to have to delay launches because we have sent that shop home to quarantine? But its sounding like things will move forward now.

 

Hope you’re able to stay safe and no one gets it bad.

 

Fluid situation so we shall see.

 

I'm pretty sure SpaceX has a launch from Vandenberg Saturday morning, booster returning to launch site

 

Once we can launch from the moon we can hit harder with bigger payloads at higher velocity using smaller boosters. It depends on where the moon is in its earth orbit and from what direction the threat is coming as well though since the orbital velocity of the moon could either add to or subtract from the projectiles initial velocity. Give us that month of notice though and the moon becomes a sling adding it’s 3600kph for free.

 

It only adds 3,600kph? That number seems low to me.

 

Rockets travel 40,000kph and voyager 1 after several slingshots is only going 61,500kph. And after 45 years it's 17 hours and 18 light minutes away....

 

See. Seems slow.

 

https://twitter.com/sciguyspace/status/1537186400826793985?s=21&t=BQK0Y2AHrFmotwG_Eeq_CA

 

The number I found for orbital velocity of the moon around the earth was something like 1.022 kps(remember it takes most of a month to make one orbit). Multiply that by 3600 seconds per hour. It’s still quite a bit higher than earths rotational speed of ~1700 kph.

The DART mission was launched on an F9 from earth. It seems to me the same F9 launched from the moon could start with a higher base velocity and reach a much higher terminal velocity with a larger and more powerful second stage. It would also get there sooner with the target that much further away. Given the objective of prioritizing the weight of the punch it seems a no-brainer. Maybe somebody could do the math on burnout velocity of an F9 launched from the moon remembering there’s no air resistance either.

 

Do you think it would be an F9 on the moon and not a Starship? And wouldn't a Merlin RVAC have a differing thrust than a sea level Merlin?

 

I'm curious what ya'll think about Germany's claim that they will have a working fusion reactor, that can be used to produce electricity, next year.

 

I'll believe it when I see it, but if true, that would be outstanding news.

 

CERN was able to do it in a controlled environment, and I recall an article about a French/German consortium planning an experimental reactor...but I didn't think they'd gotten close to the production phase. We'd have heard about it EVERYWHERE if they had.

 

Now I'll be looking forward to the fusion reactor powered Tacoma in the near future!

 

Correction - not CERN. These guys. I did remember reading the article and thinking "well, that looks fucking expensive as hell."

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-00391-1

Nuclear-fusion reactor smashes energy record
The experimental Joint European Torus has doubled the record for the amount of energy made from fusing atoms — the process that powers the Sun.

 

Anyone know what happened to the Firefly Aerospace online shop? My saved bookmark now points to Shopify which had me set up an account.

Now it seems Shopify want me to set up the shop