The thread for space cadets!

[MilitantSecular]

the canceled NASA mission


and the European replacement

http://lisa.nasa.gov/
http://www.e-mta.eu/researchers-fro...t-spatial-observatory-of-gravitational-waves/
http://nasa3d.arc.nasa.gov/detail/lisa
http://www.outerspacecentral.com/relativity_page.html
http://www.popsci.com/science/artic...-cost-nasa-bows-out-two-astrophysics-missions
https://dorigo.wordpress.com/2007/07/29/guest-post-daniele-bortoluzzi-lisa-and-its-challenges/
http://science.nasa.gov/missions/st-7/
https://directory.eoportal.org/web/eoportal/satellite-missions/l/lisa-pathfinder
http://stuver.blogspot.com/2011/04/nasa-cancels-lisa-and-more-info-on-big.html
http://spaceflight101.com/lisa-pathfinder/
http://www.popularmechanics.com/space/news/a18366/lisa-pathfinder-launch/

thought it might make an interesting read for you guys

with all the headlines about Gravity Waves

Pathfinder for the next generation spacecraft, called eLISA.

In space no one can you hear you scream. Neither do you have to deal with pesky Earth-based phenomena like seismic tremors. Researchers have been lobbying the European Space Agency to put a LIGO-like detector in space — the Evolved Laser Interferometer Space Antenna — sometime in the 2030s. In anticipation of eLISA, ESA recently launched the LISA Pathfinder, a mission to test technologies needed for the full-fledged space-based gravitational wave detector.

https://www.elisascience.org/
ELISA the replacement for NASA's cancelled LISA mission

 

[MilitantSecular]

here's one more on the cancelled Gravity mission

really good watch this vid

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MXe4p1izzzU

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Spoiler :

 

[r16]

for those who can follow the physics of it

http://nextbigfuture.com/2015/10/laser-produced-blackhole-interstellar.html

and a pdf file you can download with checking a few of buttons

http://arxiv.org/abs/0908.1803v1

and a quote from the original thread where the poster found it on Wikipedia

According to the authors, a black hole to be used in space travel needs to meet five criteria:

has a long enough lifespan to be useful,
is powerful enough to accelerate itself up to a reasonable fraction of the speed of light in a reasonable amount of time,
is small enough that we can access the energy to make it,
is large enough that we can focus the energy to make it,
has mass comparable to a starship.

Black holes seem to have a sweet spot in terms of size, power and lifespan which is almost ideal. A black hole weighing 606,000 metric tons (this is about the mass of the Seawise Giant, the longest sea-going ship ever built) would have a Schwarzschild radius of 0.9 attometers (0.9 × 10–18 m, or 9 × 10–19 m), a power output of 160 petawatts (160 × 1015 W, or 1.6 × 1017 W), and a 3.5-year lifespan. With such a power output, the black hole could accelerate to 10% the speed of light in 20 days, assuming 100% conversion of energy into kinetic energy. Assuming only 10% conversion into kinetic energy would only take 10 times longer to accelerate to 10%c (10% of the speed of light).

bah , no Master of Orion I player these guys are .

 

[Gigaz]

Classical NBF . I don't doubt that the math works out, but none of the physics behind it is validated experimentally.

 

[uppi]

for those who can follow the physics of it

and a pdf file you can download with checking a few of buttons

http://arxiv.org/abs/0908.1803v1

Yeah, right. That is more of a science fiction novel than a physics paper.

 

[r16]

what can ı say ? Am one of those who can't follow the physics of it .

 

[s0nny80y]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_International_Space_Station_expeditions#Current_expedition

"Landing date: 4 March 2016
(planned)"

Up next?!
Two years in space, on the moon (fingers crossed).

Oh yeah, and Mikhail Kornienko kinda looks like Prez Obama.
...
Kinda.

Moderator Action: Merged into the space cadet thread.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Unfortunately, I'm going to have to cut back pretty heavily on my SpaceX-related posting. I will only be able to talk about things that are public knowledge from here on out. I don't even want to openly speculate about the company anymore lest it be construed as insider (and possibly ITAR non-compliant) information.

_______________________________________--


Blue Origin flies New Shepard on suborbital test flight

WASHINGTON — Blue Origin successfully flew its New Shepard suborbital vehicle for the third time in four and a half months April 2 as the company moves closer to commercial operations of the vehicle.

The vehicle lifted off from the company’s test site shortly after 11 a.m. Eastern time, according to a series of tweets by company founder Jeff Bezos. The vehicle’s propulsion module, the same one that flew earlier test flights in November and January, made a successful powered landing, he said. Its crew capsule, flying without people on board, parachuted to a safe landing.

Link to video.

So they re-flew the same booster again, which is awesome! It's looking like Blue Origin is going to be the first company to fly tourists into space. Sooner or later someone is going to create a Virgin Galactic deathwatch site.

________________

In other news:

A ULA executive was fired after bad mouthing not only his companies competition (SpaceX) but also his company's engine supplier (Aerojet). To make things worse, he bashed SpaceX with a blatantly false tirade that was borderline non-sensical.

This happened while he was giving a recruiting pitch/presentation at a university in Colorado. One of the students recorded the speech and put it on the internet, where Reddit picked it up and it all winded up costing the guy his job.

To make matters worse, the last launch of ULA's Atlas V booster nearly failed to place Orbital ATK's Cygnus cargo-ship into orbit after the first stage acted up and cut off early.

ULA is having a rough month.


Also:

SpaceX is launching CRS-8 to the ISS this Friday and with it they will be carrying this inflatable space station module:

Spoiler :

 

[trader/warrior]

SpaceX just landed the thing on the thing.

Those waves look surprisingly big for pulling it off too, almost surprised it's stable even while safely down.


Link to video.

 

[Hakim]

That's pretty awesome.

It would be interesting to see the rocket manoeuvring itself into position.

 

[Thorgalaeg]

It seems they got the hang of it.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

SpaceX just landed the thing on the thing.

Those waves look surprisingly big for pulling it off too, almost surprised it's stable even while safely down.


Link to video.

All of the weight is at the bottom of the rocket, so it's actually fairly stable. If you were to scale up a soda can to the size of a Falcon 9, the resulting wall thickness of the can would be too thick. That's how thin they make these things. The 9 engines at the bottom and the structural element that ties them all together (the octoweb) are really heavy compared to the rest of the rocket.


After it touches down, they go out and put shoes over the feet of the rocket and weld those shoes to the deck, just to be safe.

That's pretty awesome.

It would be interesting to see the rocket manoeuvring itself into position.

It's a pretty neat process. They use the grid fins to help steer it and don't re-light the engine for a final slow down burn until the last second. The maneuver has been called a suicide burn by redditors and is a lot like how most people land rockets on Kerbal Space Progam.

It seems they got the hang of it.

Yup. And they actually nailed a barge landing back in January but one of the landing legs didn't lock and it fell over.


They needed to perfect this maneuver because later this year they are going to fly a 3-core Falcon Heavy and they will need the barge to land at least the center booster, if not all 3.

 

[trader/warrior]

We're finally going to Alpha Centauri boys!

Breakthrough Starshot announces plans to send ship to Alpha Centauri

NEW YORK CITY—The top of the new World Trade Center building was buried inside the clouds, but everyone's focus was on the stars. Yuri Milner, the man whose investments have helped fund the Breakthrough Prizes and Breakthrough Initiatives, was here to announce his newest venture: Breakthrough Starshot, an effort to send hardware to the nearest stars quickly enough for many of us to live to see their arrival.

......

Breakthrough Starshot plans to build what's essentially a spacecraft on a chip, which Milner called a nanocraft. A gram-scale wafer will include "cameras, photon thrusters, power supply, navigation and communication equipment." The technology behind the power supply wasn't mentioned; communications at these distances will require something with pretty considerable power, even when using the optical communication that Breakthrough Starshot plans to rely on.

Each device would cost roughly the same as a high-end smartphone to make, allowing a massive number to be sent on the journey, providing some significant redundancy. Milner held up an early prototype during the announcement.

Propulsion will be outsourced to a facility on Earth. The small spacecraft will be equipped with a light sail, and a phased array of lasers in the 100GW range will provide the sail with enough push to get the craft moving at roughly 20 percent the speed of light in just a matter of minutes.

All of this, Milner said, comes from the revolutions in electronics, nanotechnology, and photonics—electronics to make the starship, nanotechnology to build the light sails, and photonics to build the drive system. The technology isn't quite ready yet, but Milner felt it was close enough that a focused effort could have it ready in a reasonable amount of time. He said that his website lists 18 distinct problems that his team will have to solve, along with some ideas on how to overcome these hurdles.

Or sending a smartphone to get pics at least, maybe.. some time in the future..

Sounds pretty crazy, and awesome, with some serious people behind it at least.

Big presentation: http://livestream.com/breakthroughprize/starshot

 

[warpus]

I watched the landing and it was awesome, but I have questions.

The rocket is tall, and the base isn't very wide. Say that they figure out their landing algorithms/methods so that the rocket is always going to land on the barge, no matter what. No more explosions, the onboard computers are always able to compensate for wind, etc. and guarantee a perfect landing.

Question 1: Would the above be possible, in all conditions? What's if it's especially windy, or there are high waves or something? Would a water landing only be done if the waters are calm? Are they only testing water landings right now because they're a lot harder to pull off than landing on land?

After a landing, the barge has to make its way to port. That could take a while, right? Does the rocket get attached to the barge in some way? What if weather conditions change and it's windy and wavy? It seems that the rocket is so high it could easily tip over, if conditions change.

So I guess I want to know if they are testing water landings only right now, because that's the most extreme situation.. are most landings going to happen on land, and this is going to be a "every once in a while" solution, or are most landings going to happen on water? If so, how are they going to get around bad conditions? Is securing the rocket to the barge, once it's landed, good enough? Its centre of gravity has got to be low, so that's got to be it.. but how does it attach, even, if the whole thing is umanned? If it doesn't get attached, it seems that it could very easily fall off during rocky conditions.

 

[Lexicus]

We're finally going to Alpha Centauri boys!

Breakthrough Starshot announces plans to send ship to Alpha Centauri



Or sending a smartphone to get pics at least, maybe.. some time in the future..

Sounds pretty crazy, and awesome, with some serious people behind it at least.

Big presentation: http://livestream.com/breakthroughprize/starshot

Saw this today, found it very interesting indeed. I am really curious as to whether they will decide it's feasible or not.

 

[El_Machinae]

It looks like a billionaire is going to help save us from our stagnation on this front. We now live in a world where too many people hope someone else takes the lead ...

I recall that the Planetary Society has been working on the underlying technology for quite some time. A series of small donations are what's funding some pretty essential experimentation in this field.

http://sail.planetary.org/ (you can pimp that link on your FB feed when someone else talks about the LightSail story!)

 

[hobbsyoyo]

I watched the landing and it was awesome, but I have questions.

The rocket is tall, and the base isn't very wide. Say that they figure out their landing algorithms/methods so that the rocket is always going to land on the barge, no matter what. No more explosions, the onboard computers are always able to compensate for wind, etc. and guarantee a perfect landing.

Question 1: Would the above be possible, in all conditions? What's if it's especially windy, or there are high waves or something? Would a water landing only be done if the waters are calm?

No system is perfect, so no. They have already had to call off a few drone ship attempts due to rough seas and nothing guarantees against future failures.

Are they only testing water landings right now because they're a lot harder to pull off than landing on land?

From my previous post:

They needed to perfect this maneuver [drone ship landing] because later this year they are going to fly a 3-core Falcon Heavy and they will need the barge to land at least the center booster, if not all 3.

The Falcon Heavy is going to start launching very frequently after the test flight this year so they need to perfect this process to save on all those cores (3 per launch). Drone ship landings take less fuel to pull of than a return to launch site landing (hence you can carry bigger payloads) but they are much harder to pull off due to all the factors you listed.

For Falcon Heavy to carry huge payloads, typically at least 1 core (the center) will have to land on a barge.

After a landing, the barge has to make its way to port. That could take a while, right? Does the rocket get attached to the barge in some way? What if weather conditions change and it's windy and wavy? It seems that the rocket is so high it could easily tip over, if conditions change.

From my previous post:

All of the weight is at the bottom of the rocket, so it's actually fairly stable. If you were to scale up a soda can to the size of a Falcon 9, the resulting wall thickness of the can would be too thick. That's how thin they make these things. The 9 engines at the bottom and the structural element that ties them all together (the octoweb) are really heavy compared to the rest of the rocket.


After it touches down, they go out and put shoes over the feet of the rocket and weld those shoes to the deck, just to be safe.

There are manned support ships staged over the horizon that go in and secure the rocket after it lands.

So I guess I want to know if they are testing water landings only right now, because that's the most extreme situation.. are most landings going to happen on land, and this is going to be a "every once in a while" solution, or are most landings going to happen on water? If so, how are they going to get around bad conditions? Is securing the rocket to the barge, once it's landed, good enough? Its centre of gravity has got to be low, so that's got to be it.. but how does it attach, even, if the whole thing is umanned? If it doesn't get attached, it seems that it could very easily fall off during rocky conditions.

I don't know if most landings will be on land or on a barge. The rest I answered earlier in the post.

Saw this today, found it very interesting indeed. I am really curious as to whether they will decide it's feasible or not.

The whole part about accelerating to 20% c in minutes is very unrealistic in my opinion. Not from an energy standpoint - I'm sure you can pump enough laser energy from the ground into a tiny payload to do it - but from a thermal standpoint. Even if the sails are 99.999% reflective, they will still absorb some photons. With the acceleration they are describing, the thermal load from the tiny fraction of photons that get absorbed will still melt the thing.

That and the g force is going to be beyond insane.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

I can't wait to start work there next Monday.

 

[Evie]

We'll see. Certainly, it's got enough brain power behind it to be worth close attention.

All hail the first step in winning our science victory!