Space and Science BS Thread

Elon’s pretty good at lowballing estimates in the development stages...
https://thespacereview.com/article/3740/1

BTW, Elon says it’ll be 10x cheaper.

 

You can ballpark it yourself.

Assume a half million cost per engine. (varies wildly upwards depending on engine).
Starship uses 1.2k tonnes methane and O2.(*appx*)
Methane (natural gas) is appx $50/tonne. So a launch (assuming full reuse, minus a little bit of fudging to make round numbers) 600k. Even if you round up to a million a launch... it's going to be an order of magnitude or more less per kg to LEO than any other booster.

 

Falcon 9 is not 100% reusable. There is repair and refurbishment done to each booster before they fly again. I believe the current turn around time is 2 months. The fairings are just now starting to be reused. The second stage is still 100% disposed of. The second stage costs 8 million dollars. The fairings are 6 million, meaning 8-14 million lost per launch. The end goal of Starship is 100% reusability with 0 refurbishment and 0 parts disposed of.

 

F9 has a chance of fairing reuse.

In case it wasn't mentioned, if I say 'methane' it means starship, not F9 (keroLox).

 

You get an A minus, great work

 

SpaceX starlink launch in about 40 minutes

 

Scrubbed for weather

 

NROL-44

Launch is now scheduled for 11:58 p.m. EDT on Tues., Sept. 29, 2020.

https://www.ulalaunch.com/missions/next-launch/delta-iv-heavy-nrol-44

(Don’t be concerned if it looks like the rocket is catching on fire on the pad- it is )

 

The space station has been militarized.. we now own space, including the moon.. a perfect military space base. Next on the list is Mars. Our children will have peace. Those who align with us will have peace. Life is short.. choose wisely.

 

It looks like 4 launches this week on the East coast, 2 by SpaceX and 1 each by ULA and Northrop. SpaceX is going to land on drone ships, where do the others land?

 

https://youtu.be/G2CBSvZzw2Y

 

https://youtu.be/g-Q8aZoWqF0

 

6 months after my last haircut, I’m sporting Carl’s

 

19:25

Launch Scrubbed
Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla., (Sept. 29, 2020) – The launch of the United Launch Alliance Delta IV Heavy NROL-44 mission has been scrubbed. The local weather resulted in a significant delay to pre-launch preparations including the roll of the Mobile Service Tower (MST). When the MST roll began we discovered a hydraulic leak in the ground system required to move the tower which needs further evaluation. Subsequent weather will prevent the team from moving forward with tonight’s attempt.

Launch is now scheduled for 11:54 p.m. EDT on Wed., Sept. 30, 2020.

 

I’ve been wondering how the SpaceX High Bay compares with the KSC VAB...


https://youtu.be/9Ceyvmmx4pg

 

I don't think Spacex needs as large of a building because the rockets they are building are not that heavy in comparison. As far as I know, most of the rockets that Nasa has built have used solid rocket boosters where as Spacex fuels up on the stand. Up until that point they are "essentially" just big empty water tanks weighing single digit percentages of what they will when fueled.

 

The VAB is a moonshot era building.

All rockets were liquid fueled & loaded up on the pad-NASA didn’t go with solids for manned rockets until the Shuttle.

The weight of the craft didn’t matter, the size of it and need for assembly did.

SpaceX seems content in storing their rockets components outside. The High Bay is only to build the Heavy and stacking the Starship will be outside.

My guess is that it will be at the pad. Moving an assembled stack would be quite an undertaking.

 

Antares is slotted for Oct 1st at 9:38 PM EST from Wallops Island, VA

 

Here's hoping for a clear night... I can see them launch from Va in my front yard.