The thread for space cadets!

[warpus]

It's like news publications these days don't even hire editors

My friend's sister used to work as an editor for a large Canadian publication.. She recently quit and is trying to enter a new field, as something about the job just infuriated her so much she never wants to do it again. I wonder if it's because nobody really cares about facts anymore

 

[Berzerker]

Fortunately, the media got that completely wrong. A 7% difference would most likely kill him quickly.

What actually happened is that a tiny fraction of his genes changed their expression in space. Of these, 93% turned back to normal as soon as he came back to earth. 7% didn't, but not 7% of his genes, but 7% of the tiny fraction that changed.

that makes sense, I wouldn't blame the media - blame my impatience with relying on a headline or blurb without investigating further. Now I'm not even sure I got the blurb right.

On another subject, researchers are suggesting the world was hit by several large objects long after the proposed "Gaia" impact forming the Moon. The impactors were moon sized objects accounting for the heavy metals we find in the crust and upper mantle - materials that should have sunk into the core with iron and nickel. But they were introduced after differentiation so they got stuck closer to the surface and get pushed up by volcanoes.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Brazil is lobbying hard for the US to begin launching rockets from the country. I just don't see it happening but I keep seeing op-eds on the subject in space news and other publications. It also appears that the people the government of Brazil is paying to write these op-eds don't actually have a grasp on the subject - one guy claimed that because Brazil is close to the equator that rockets can save fuel (true) and that this results in a cost drop of 30% (wildly untrue). They have also consistently oversold their position and at one point claimed SpaceX was going to launch there (also wildly untrue).

Meanwhile the UK and Canada are both setting up launch facilities, as is the state of Georgia and Alaska is signing contracts for commercial launches out of Kodiak. Everyone's trying to get in on the launch craze.

 

[Thorgalaeg]

My house has a pretty large backyard. It is mostly sunny here (and windy) and failed launches would fall on the rock of Gibraltar, it is a win win situation.

 

[uppi]

that makes sense, I wouldn't blame the media - blame my impatience with relying on a headline or blurb without investigating further. Now I'm not even sure I got the blurb right.

That is a commendable attitude, but this time most of the headlines, the blurbs and the articles were so bad that it was next to impossible to draw any correct conclusions from them without spending much more time than what can be reasonably expected.

 

[Lexicus]

That is a commendable attitude, but this time most of the headlines, the blurbs and the articles were so bad that it was next to impossible to draw any correct conclusions from them without spending much more time than what can be reasonably expected.

Yes- one reason is that headlines and taglines, stuff intended to draw people in to the article, are often not done by the same person who actually wrote the article. I have seen headlines and taglines that literally imply the story takes a perspective opposite to the one it actually takes, while ridiculous exaggerations, oversimplifications, etc. are quite common.

Obviously all of this is even more of a problem in science reporting than in ordinary reporting.

 

[uppi]

Yes- one reason is that headlines and taglines, stuff intended to draw people in to the article, are often not done by the same person who actually wrote the article. I have seen headlines and taglines that literally imply the story takes a perspective opposite to the one it actually takes, while ridiculous exaggerations, oversimplifications, etc. are quite common.

Obviously all of this is even more of a problem in science reporting than in ordinary reporting.

The headlines going along the lines of "Will X kill us all / cure cancer / revolutionize technology?" are bad enough, but if the ridiculous exaggerations, oversimplifications and plain falsehoods continue in the article itself, how can a reader ever make sense of that? These stories often even leave the expert confused what this is about, because the stories raise more questions than they answer.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

This is why I generally stick almost exclusively to Space News for well...space news. They are professional and really understand what they're talking about. They aren't as heavy on the technical details as I'd like a lot of the time but that's probably for the best because they don't get their facts wrong which is easy to do in a lot of technical space discussions.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Trump and certain members of Congress want to establish a separate Space Force within the military. The rationale is that typical Air Force personnel are not versed enough in space issues to do a good job of dealing with space threats and space acquisitions.

On the threat side - the line from the military is that Russia and China are rushing to weaponize space which is a dubious claim. While Russia has conducted some aggressive proximity operations missions lately, I haven't seen anything indicating that either power is really pushing weapons into space. It's fair to say that both sides are increasing their space capabilities (particularly the Chinese given the Russians are already developed in this area) but I don't think there's really been a fundamental shift in the kinds of threats or number in the space arena.

On acquisitions - yeah, there is bad need for reform and new ways of thinking but I'm not sure that a separate force would do that. The Air Force has been in a bind on the launch side because for a decade they only had a single provider. Now that there are two providers (and at least one, potentially two more on the horizon) they are in a better position to bargain. Unfortunately, the signs have been that they are still willing to accept inflated launch costs from ULA to maintain a duopoly. While I understand this strategy, it hasn't really helped their bargaining position. They just awarded a 2-launch deal to ULA that costs about $100 million more than a 3-launch deal they signed with SpaceX. Moreover, the per-launch cost from ULA actually rose for this deal relative to past deals they have made despite claims that they were aggressively cutting costs. On the actual hardware side (satellites, not launch vehicles), yeah they need to make some major changes but again I'm not sure a separate Space Force helps with that. The military is as bad as NASA when it comes to imposing insane requirements that cost many billions to satisfy. Some of the top brass have issued statements that going forward they want to start buying lots of smaller satellites rather than single large ones but I haven't actually seen a ton of movement on that front publicly.




In other news, NASA still does not have an administrator. Joe Bridenstine is still held up in confirmation (for over a year now) and the current acting administrator has announced his retirement. Bridenstine is not an ideal candidate in that he denies climate change but on the other hand, he's a huge space fan boy and I am not sure that he'd take an axe to the Earth-sciences budget the way that the current EPA administrator would. But then again, Trump's appointments have been almost to a person terrible for the groups they are in charge in so there's that.

 

[uppi]

The militarization of space by the USA - at least on paper - will only encourage Russia and China to do the same.

 

[Cutlass]

I don't know that Russia has the resources to do so. China's resources are increasing. Russia's are struggling to not rapidly decline.

 

[Takhisis]

Yes. It would be less dazzling since shiny ice wouldn't last long in orbit this close to the sun, leaving it far more dull than Saturn's rings. This could be offset by a moon ejecting geysers to replenish it as happens at Saturn. However, if the world had a moon, that would tend to destabilize the entire ring - replinishment likely would not keep up with natural destruction of the ring in a system around a world as small as the Earth.

It would also make the climate cooler in seasons when it obscures the sun locally.

Actually I was thinking of a ring that was either formed from what in other circumstances would have formed into a moon or simply a ring resulting from a cataclysmic event. I'm once again writing post-apocalyptic fiction - I haven't decided whether a giant rock crashed into a planet, the planet got tidally locked, or possibly both. In either case the rings would be made of rock.

 

[warpus]

The militarization of space by the USA - at least on paper - will only encourage Russia and China to do the same.

I bet the U.S. government has all sorts of secret stuff in space we don't know about. I even wouldn't be surprised if they had astronauts on some secret space station.

I bet the countries that can afford to do these things are already doing them. Maybe not by putting nukes in space, but.. they are probably doing something

 

[uppi]

I bet the U.S. government has all sorts of secret stuff in space we don't know about. I even wouldn't be surprised if they had astronauts on some secret space station.

I bet the countries that can afford to do these things are already doing them. Maybe not by putting nukes in space, but.. they are probably doing something

All sorts of secret stuff, yes. A manned secret space station, no. It would require way too many supply launches to keep secret. Rocket launches are hard to hide, after all.

Secrecy usually comes at a cost of efficiency. An official space force maintaining a space base manned with space marines would be much cheaper and easier than having a secret base that needs to be supplied somehow and funded in such a way that nobody notices the missing money. For the USA, but for other nations as well.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

I don't know that Russia has the resources to do so. China's resources are increasing. Russia's are struggling to not rapidly decline.

The Russians don't. They're struggling to maintain the industrial base that they have for space missions and are failing pretty hard at it. All of their projects meant to advance space exploration (new rockets, capsules and probes) have languished for literally decades with little progress except backwards. They have a few joint missions ahead of them but the majority of their contributions to those are in the form of launch services meant to keep the doors open at their rocket factories.

Their contributions to the ISS are about the only cash cow their space sector has going for them with the loss of the commercial launch market due to all of their launch failures.

Actually I was thinking of a ring that was either formed from what in other circumstances would have formed into a moon or simply a ring resulting from a cataclysmic event. I'm once again writing post-apocalyptic fiction - I haven't decided whether a giant rock crashed into a planet, the planet got tidally locked, or possibly both. In either case the rings would be made of rock.

Is the planet habitable? Any collision powerful enough to create a ring system would demolish the ecosystem planet wide for many thousands or millions of years. In fact I think that by the time biosphere recovered and the planet returned to habitability the ring system would have decayed out of orbit. And I'm skeptical the biosphere would recover at all... This kind of impact would just absolutely wreck everything - large segments of the planet would be molten for decades, the atmosphere would be unbreathable, etc.

If you have more specifics I might be able to work out a plausible scenario.

All sorts of secret stuff, yes. A manned secret space station, no. It would require way too many supply launches to keep secret. Rocket launches are hard to hide, after all.

Secrecy usually comes at a cost of efficiency. An official space force maintaining a space base manned with space marines would be much cheaper and easier than having a secret base that needs to be supplied somehow and funded in such a way that nobody notices the missing money. For the USA, but for other nations as well.

Spot on!

I bet the U.S. government has all sorts of secret stuff in space we don't know about. I even wouldn't be surprised if they had astronauts on some secret space station.

I bet the countries that can afford to do these things are already doing them. Maybe not by putting nukes in space, but.. they are probably doing something

The US pretty much gave up on manned military bases with the MOL project which only got to the test launch phase. The Russians took it a bit further with manned Salyut/Almaz military stations and even fired a gun on orbit from one of the stations.

Basically both sides realized that everything they wanted to do with manned projects could be done much more easily and for a fraction of the cost with automated space missions. There's just no real need to put manned military missions in space and there never really has been.

 

[Ajidica]

FWIW PBS put together a great documentary on the covert US and Soviet space programs.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Thanks for sharing!

 

[warpus]

Basically both sides realized that everything they wanted to do with manned projects could be done much more easily and for a fraction of the cost with automated space missions. There's just no real need to put manned military missions in space and there never really has been.

All sorts of secret stuff, yes. A manned secret space station, no. It would require way too many supply launches to keep secret. Rocket launches are hard to hide, after all.

Secrecy usually comes at a cost of efficiency. An official space force maintaining a space base manned with space marines would be much cheaper and easier than having a secret base that needs to be supplied somehow and funded in such a way that nobody notices the missing money. For the USA, but for other nations as well.

Humans are going to Mars and there's talk of bases on the moon, so the U.S. government probably wants to be in the best situation possible to be able to project the power of the U.S. military & related government agencies across the parts of the solar system inhabited by humans. So I figure they are probably doing research to best accomplish that, including top secret research we don't get to find out about. So I assumed a part of that might very well include manned spaceflight.

You guys have convinced me that this probably does not include any permanently occupied space stations.

 

[Takhisis]

Is the planet habitable? Any collision powerful enough to create a ring system would demolish the ecosystem planet wide for many thousands or millions of years. In fact I think that by the time biosphere recovered and the planet returned to habitability the ring system would have decayed out of orbit. And I'm skeptical the biosphere would recover at all... This kind of impact would just absolutely wreck everything - large segments of the planet would be molten for decades, the atmosphere would be unbreathable, etc.

If you have more specifics I might be able to work out a plausible scenario.

Well, remember that my settings almost always include magic of one sort of the other so recovery is easy, but still it amounts to tens/hundreds of millions of people dead.

I don't know whether we should get a room thread of our own, btw.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Humans are going to Mars and there's talk of bases on the moon, so the U.S. government probably wants to be in the best situation possible to be able to project the power of the U.S. military & related government agencies across the parts of the solar system inhabited by humans. So I figure they are probably doing research to best accomplish that, including top secret research we don't get to find out about. So I assumed a part of that might very well include manned spaceflight.

You guys have convinced me that this probably does not include any permanently occupied space stations.

I agree that once humans start making a permanent appearance around the solar system, militaries will want to start making a show with their own manned missions. Until then, the prospects for human occupation are too dim and too distant for the military to spend much effort on it. And when they do, all of the old unsettled legal arguments about claims to space territory will come back to the forefront. But right now the main military use of space is various forms of spy craft and they just don't need manned missions to do that.

Well, remember that my settings almost always include magic of one sort of the other so recovery is easy, but still it amounts to tens/hundreds of millions of people dead.

I don't know whether we should get a room thread of our own, btw.

Oh yeah, sorry I forgot about the magic. That would explain how everything doesn't die but it should be very powerful magic. I don't think we need a separate thread.