The thread for space cadets!

[Manfred Belheim]

I've been wondering about this. I really don't like the thought of going underground. Wouldn't it be possible to make some kind of concrete or just pile martian soil on an inner structure to make radiation safe martian buildings? Would presumably just need a good inner membrane. And for the layer of soil to be pretty thick I guess. I would really hope it's possible to have at least some amount of windows too. One thing making mars safer, much like on the ISS, is that the planet itself shields it 50% of the time.

While writing this I found this: Material Scientists Make Martian Concrete

What's the difference between going underground and staying above ground... underneath a thick layer of soil?

 

[trader/warrior]

What's the difference between going underground and staying above ground... underneath a thick layer of soil?

Well they key bit would be the windows I guess. Also, maybe a bit of a false assumption by me for this to be dependent on above ground structures, large open spaces. Though to have open spaces at all I assume we would need something like martian concrete which I think would pretty likely result in above ground structures anyway, some kind of mix with underground stuff (all the stuff you dig out has to be put somewhere, why not use it for structures?).

For having enough windows to have a feeling of living above ground, I know very little about the precise levels of protection needed, but in the worst case I could imagine large galleries with expensive to build windows using a layer of water for protection.

 

[Berzerker]

That's not the same as the other Planet 9 is it? The one postulated to align the periapsii(?) of a couple of KBOs; because they are talking Mars to Earth mass. The other one was Neptiunian IIRC. I wonder if that is just us picking up statistical outliers by looking too hard at the data.

We wont have to wait too long for better data if the telescope warpus mentioned is up and running by 2020, but they are two different objects proposed to account for features of the Kuiper Belt. I believe there's one object (with satellites), larger than Mars but smaller than Neptune on an orbit between the 2 they're citing to explain KBO orbits.

I've never heard it explained convincingly why the planets dont orbit the solar equator. Either the sun's tilt changes up to 7-8 degrees with respect to the planets' orbits or something else in our solar system has dragged the planets off the nebular plane... And I dont think it would have been an original member. Maybe we captured a stray planet on a long, elliptical (eccentric) and inclined orbit, thats basically how the moons of Jupiter and Saturn are lined up - the inner main moons are ~equatorial while smaller rocks further out were captured or moved there by collisions.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Well they key bit would be the windows I guess. Also, maybe a bit of a false assumption by me for this to be dependent on above ground structures, large open spaces. Though to have open spaces at all I assume we would need something like martian concrete which I think would pretty likely result in above ground structures anyway, some kind of mix with underground stuff (all the stuff you dig out has to be put somewhere, why not use it for structures?).

For having enough windows to have a feeling of living above ground, I know very little about the precise levels of protection needed, but in the worst case I could imagine large galleries with expensive to build windows using a layer of water for protection.

You can skip the water under the windows if you use chevron-shaped mirrors to bounce the light on the inside. There is a calculation you can use that tells you how thick the chevrons need to be to block a certain amount of radiation so it's pretty straight forward.



Yesterday was a milestone for SpaceX - we had our fastest turnaround between launches (about 48 hours) and we broke our record for most launches in a year. Last year it took until August to get 8 launches in and then we blew one up. This year we've gotten to 9 by the end of June, which is awesome. Both launches were successful and both 1st stages were recovered. We flew upgraded grid fins on yesterday's launch as well and they worked out great. Plus, I got to see yesterday's launch in person from Vandenberg!

 

[Berzerker]

you get to work on that stuff?

cool

 

[hobbsyoyo]

you get to work on that stuff?

cool

Yes I work on Falcon 9 production at SpaceX. I do not work on lunar bases but came about the knowledge of chevron shielding from a 1970's NASA design study on space colonies that I read for fun. I'm really into space.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

On Wednesday SpaceX launched their 10th rocket for the year - a company best. Two of the rockets sent up thus far were alsoon their 2nd flight.

 

[trader/warrior]

The face of Jupiter, or “Jovey McJupiterface” from the Juno spacecraft images.

 

[Thorgalaeg]

On Wednesday SpaceX launched their 10th rocket for the year - a company best. Two of the rockets sent up thus far were alsoon their 2nd flight.

How many flights are they expected to withstand?

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Anyone who's interested in the old shuttle program and International Space Station might appreciate this bit of Canadian news that came out today:

One of our astronauts, Julie Payette, has been chosen as Canada's next Governor-General.

She's accomplished in numerous fields - computer engineering, she's a commercial pilot, flew on two shuttle missions, has been to the ISS, speaks 6 languages, and is an athlete and musician. She's also a great role model for Canadian girls and women interested in science.

It's about time that people in the sciences were being more noticed here. The previous PM would never have chosen a female astronaut as the new GG.

 

[Lillefix]

She's accomplished in numerous fields - computer engineering, she's a commercial pilot, flew on two shuttle missions, has been to the ISS, speaks 6 languages, and is an athlete and musician. She's also a great role model for Canadian girls and women interested in science.

Sometimes you're just too good...

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Sometimes you're just too good...

Yeah, it seems a bit unfair that one person should be so good at a bunch of seemingly unrelated fields and could have had a great career in any of them.

But some people are that good, and unless she's a spendthrift like Adrienne Clarkson or a clueless hypocrite like Michaelle Jean, I think she should do okay as GG.

She'll be the second astronaut currently in government - Marc Garneau is in the cabinet.

 

[Berzerker]

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/07/170712110457.htm

the evidence for another planet is growing... Several years ago I predicted analyses of orbits would lead the way to it

 

[trader/warrior]

How many flights are they expected to withstand?

Gwynne Shotwell COO of SpaceX answered this on a recent interview with the Space Show (@14mins). They basically expect their current flown cores to hold up for two or three flights with refurbishment between flights to be economical, but with the upcoming Block 5 variant of the Falcon 9 with lessons learned from earlier ones, they expect to be closer to the level of a simple "inspection" between flights and for it to be able to do a dozen or more total flights.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Gwynne Shotwell COO of SpaceX answered this on a recent interview with the Space Show (@14mins). They basically expect their current flown cores to hold up for two or three flights with refurbishment between flights to be economical, but with the upcoming Block 5 variant of the Falcon 9 with lessons learned from earlier ones, they expect to be closer to the level of a simple "inspection" between flights and for it to be able to do a dozen or more total flights.

Thank you for digging that up! I wasn't ignoring the question, I just have to be careful to only say things that are publicly available. I tried to find a source for this answer to quote but failed when I looked so I had to stay silent.

 

[trader/warrior]

but with the upcoming Block 5 variant of the Falcon 9 with lessons learned from earlier ones, they expect to be closer to the level of a simple "inspection" between flights and for it to be able to do a dozen or more total flights.

By the way, I put the word inspection in scarequotes here as I couldn't really believe it was just an inspection. But yesterday Elon musk literally said they should be able by the end of next year to relaunch a booster within 24 hours still with burnt paintjob and no changes. Didn't say whether they would actually do it mind, as I can't really see that there is enough demand that it would be needed, but I dunno.

Of course Mr. Musk is pretty known for being very optimistic in his timelines at this point.

 

[warpus]

A dozen flights out of a single first stage. That's not bad. After that they get recycled for parts or just dumped into the ocean I guess?

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Museum pieces and scrap. The launch environment is uniquely harsh - designing qualifying parts for effectively infinite re-use (which is implied by harvesting for parts) at this point would be a fool's errand.

It would be far more economical to focus on a clean sheet design with infinite re-use as a design criteria from the outset.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Rocket lab announced their their recent launch failure was due to problems on the ground. They hired a contractor to run a ground station to talk to the rocket during flight. The ground station in question went down and stopped talking to the rocket which promptly shut itself as it was programmed to do in this contingency (valid programming on their part even if it seems foolish). That has got to really suck for the people who worked on that flight and the whole company.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

A company in Scotland just commissioned their first ground station for talking to their own (and other company's) satellites. Clyde Space is a pretty big name in the CubeSat community. The CubeSat market has seen and will likely continue to see explosive growth so it's entirely conceivable that newer, smaller companies located far from traditional aerospace hubs (Rocket Labs in New Zealand and Clyde come to mind, among others) may become major players in the global aerospace market in the next decade.

It is far less capital intensive to build new infrastructure, production facilities, launch pads, ground stations and basically everything else aerospace requires when your product is the size of a shoe box and the rockets meant to get it into space are smaller than houses.

It's really exciting to be in the industry now. Small firms like these and the one I work for are making all kinds of cool missions, many of them even interplanetary. We're in a proving out phase where early entrants are starting to really show off new capabilities that used to be the sole domain of ESA, NASA, Roscosmos, SSL, Lockheed, etc.

Next will be the consolidation phase. A lot of creative destruction is going to follow on the heels of major successes.


http://spacenews.com/with-its-first...space-moves-towards-turnkey-smallsat-service/