Space and Science BS Thread

A lot of those capable of competing don't bid. Spacex doesn't bid on every contract available. Elon has said that he doesn't want to get in too deep with them as the more they spend on you they more say they have in your final design. This is one of the problems that has held space tech back. They design rockets based upon the payload, then dump a bunch of money to make minor modifications to fit a new payload. This was his reasoning for getting a fairly concrete design for Starship before making the bid for HLS.

 

I saw. 1.99B is a bunch!

Though, we still don't know how much Starship has cost.

 

Likely a pretty penny, but they'll still sell flights at under 100m a pop.

 

The document was to state why they didn’t even solicit bids. “Others need not apply” might have saved the time and effort to produce it. That or “we don’t care late or over budget they were, we’re still using them”.

 

We do know that they’ll need another mobile launcher as well plus NASA provided the VAB whereas X is making their own(at least 2 of each, Megabay & OLM + Mechazilla. Also, Orion is a crewed space craft and Starship is as yet just an SS hull. HLS will have to be a whole lot more than that once it proves the concept. A decent chunk of that 100MT to orbit will go to life support.

 

I’m thinking once the orbital test start, there’s going to be an exponential and rapid iteration of human capacity. After all, 2025 is only two years and some months away.

 

I wouldn't be surprised if Ship 30 and above are HLS or human-rated prototypes.

 

That’d be rapid for sure..

 

So is moonbase supposed to be subterranean? or are they just going to drag that thing across the surface? Is the moon going to be a neutral zone or a claimed territory? How many corps will have their fingers in that pie?

Also, space mining!


The trips to the gas giants make me think of Elite Dangerous and the scoop for getting hydrogen fuel from stars. Wonder if we could siphon off some gasses from Jupiter and Saturn. In order to convert to fuel in the future though I'm sure ships would need some form of onboard refinery/processing. Would be neat though to grab resources off world especially as we establish bases off-world without the need to deplete Earth.

 

As @bagleboy and I agree, and as Elon Musk has said in press releases, the moon base would need to be underground to protect humans from radiation.

As far as claimed territory, that's above my pay grade.

 

On NASA.gov it says the Artemis programs PPE/HALO are going to be delivered by SpaceX. Is that not what you guys were talking about with B&NG? [Source]

I wonder if they'll scrap the 'Moon Village' concept from 2015 after all the tension on the ISS. Also considering current climate I'm sure one country wouldn't be considered even though they signed an MoU with China to build the joint ILRS. But they were also planning to start 2 years ago to get to the moon and build their own base by 2032. [Source]

Regardless, it seems like Artemis will be the gatekeeper to future lunar construction, being the only support in place by 2030.

Is this what's in store for the moon....


I'm throwing a lot of things out there but I wonder what plants will do in a greenhouse exposed to the heightened levels of solar/cosmic radiation present on the moon. Time to find another rabbit hole to go down...

EDIT: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4187168/ Neat

 

Remember, the Artemis Accords are not just about Orion and SLS..
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artemis_Accords

 

I would think cosmic radiation could be kept to a minimum level putting the base under regolith. We already know we can grow food and plants with grow lights and minimum hydroponics.

 

I know that much, I was just wondering if the resulting plant growth would be more or less viable. Also whether or not it would show mutations in order to adapt to the environment. Flora is much more adaptable to survivability than we are, so it'd be interesting to see the long term effects of growing and whether it would be good or bad. The study on the ISS was inconclusive on the ability for the plants they studied to absorb nutrients properly. "When looking at changes in plant medium composition after a spaceflight experiment in NASA’s Plant Growth Unit, Levine and Krikorian (2008) found a reduced amount of potassium in the spaceflight exposed growth medium indicating an elevated potassium uptake in plants grown in space [40]. This was argued to be either an increased quantity of root tissue, or to a microgravity related change in uptake kinetics. Another study showed no differences in nutrient uptake rates between ground and flight exposed plant material in ventilated chambers [41]. Thus, studies on the effects of the space environment on plant nutrition are inconclusive and very limited, and no study has, as far as we know, assessed effects on the rhizosphere." [Source section 2.2.1, first paragraph]

I'm wondering in a low oxygen (or high oxygen given supplied oxygen for the lunar crew), and a slowly increasing level of CO2 from the crew, would trees grown in the radiation adapt to thrive, possibly absorb as much CO2 as it can, or simply be more/less/same in producing Oxygen? I see varying consensus on the number of trees required to sustain one human, but I think 6 trees, allowed to grow to maturity in this environment, would be a great indication. They could also grow 6 trees of the same genus underground and 6 on Earth all at the same time and see what those environments result in. The control being the 6 on Earth.

The study talked about root hypoxia as well so it's possible that the low oxygen environment wouldn't be an environment that would work.

 

For anyone wanting to delve further, check out the MELLiSSA Loop. It's being developed to sustain crews. In theory, it will provide oxygen, water, food and exchange CO2 while absorbing waste in order to create a sustainable environment in space either aboard ships or bases. https://www.esa.int/Enabling_Support/Space_Engineering_Technology/Melissa/Closed_Loop_Compartments

 

I know that they have planted flora in moon regolith and gotten them to grow. It was here on Earth, and I'm not sure what nutrients or chemicals they had to add to the regolith to get the plants to grow, however.

I would be interested in what the moon's microgravity would do to the height of plants, in particular, trees. And if that would have detrimental effects on the strength of the trunks. Also, I don't know if we would plant trees on the moon for the habitat, in the beginning. The larger the plant, the more resources it would take and of course we would have to take all of that up there with us.

 

New NASA group to study UAPs (fka UFOs)
https://twitter.com/nasa/status/1583474732749697026?s=46&t=XkA_EsYkaOblbRr_APFIeg



https://science.nasa.gov/uap/faqs

 

From the study it said mainly the predictable fact that cell walls were thinner among a few other things. Longer study would be needed to have a definitive result though. I'd predict taller, thinner plants.

Imagine a Georgia pine being able to grow without gravity weighing it down....

 

Back to space mining. It would utterly collapse the metal industry as metal would become cheap as dirt. Which I think is a great thing in the long run, no more reliance on operations that damage the local ecosystem, other countries, etc. Free market of several competing companies mining and refining in space to bring cheaper materials to Earth. Initially it'd be more expensive, but as time went on it'd become dirt cheap, especially if we solve the issue of power. (Come on Cold Fusion! or Large Scale Gas Giant Siphoning Operations) When all that cheap cheap metal comes in, all those metal reliant industries would boom as they could finally sell cheaper products, divert materials to more advanced R&D and provide for more off-world infrastructure. I'm sure a huge buyer of space metal would be expansion of Moonbase (considering it'll be established long before we'd be mining reliably) or later Marsbase. Quality of life would improve as more and more polluting industries transition into space operation. Well in a perfect future anyway and I'll probably not live long enough to see it.

Imagine it though, Earth, a simple place to dwell, wheel, and vacation, while space is where all our refineries produce materials with less EPA involvement sense there's no atmosphere to ruin. Unless we start terraforming other planets. But even still, if you could float a space station weighing nearly 1M pounds, you could probably float a refinery on a platform and dump waste gases into the vacuum. Or who knows, maybe by that point we will have clean refineries that capture and recycle those gases for other uses.

If you all like sci-fi and fantasy, go pick up Emerillia series by Micheal Chatfield. It's like reverse Matrix + all this theoretical future tech and fight for humanity's survival, though its a lot more magic that actual science.

 

Thanks for the series suggestion. I'm always into Scifi books that also add in Fantasy.