Astronomy and space exploration
- Thread starter eloic
- Start date
Now show the W40K Warmonger Titan-class cannon that fires it.
cheapchips
Veteran
The nose of the Starship hopper fell over in the 50mph winds. The lower tank section's fine. It'll be a couple of weeks for them to fix up the nose, which currently looks like a non flaming version of the Hindenburg.
hoom
Veteran
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Its such an odd duck :neutral:
I really don't understand the whole sub-orbital 100km straight up and then straight back down thing, really doesn't seem like much point especially for 'nasa science payloads'.
Meanwhile this back in Dec
I'm not sure I'm convinced its actually more efficient but it does actually seem to work & they've secured a bunch of commercial payloads all the way to orbit.
Also if you piss us off we can now bombard you with Hobbit feet & frozen Lamb legs from fucking space!
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cheapchips
Veteran
I guess there's some experiments you can only do in microgravity. They have 3-4 minutes of that after separation. The main point of NS is as a reusable test vehicle for Blue. Their New Glenn orbital vehicle will launch in a couple of years. It'll be huge!
They're kind of building it from the top down. The 2nd stage of NG is derived from NS. It uses hydrogen fuel and a vacuum versions of NS's BE3 engine.
Electric pumps + batteries have lousy power to weight ratio compared to conventional turbopumps in large rockets. Turbo pumps don't scale down very well though, so it's a good choice for Electron, which is a relatively small rocket.
hoom
Veteran
Ah so these 100km up & down hops aren't the final target?
I had the impression just making it reliable enough for high frequency space tourism up/down was the end goal.
Also good info :smile2:
cheapchips
Veteran
They don't plan to fly people to orbit for all least 5 years, so that'll be suborbital for a while.
Their New Glenn rocket has a factory, launch facility under construction and the engine has almost finished development. It's more than just a CG showreel, but this their CG showreel.
hoom
Veteran
Thunderf00t did a pretty impressive vid I just watched
She was great in Kill Bill.
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Hahaha, I have to watch all those movies, now that I think of it!Also I just can't think of that name without my mind going immediately to
Has been bugging me all day (yes I know its spelt differently but you know, there is no Thule, only Zuul)
Lol! BTW, when the guy in the video said that the moon is approximately the size of "America" and then a map showed that the moon occupies the space of the US, I cringed a bit.
Yesterday, NASA announced that in one week we'll see the first demo flight for the Crew Dragon capsule (uncrewed). 
Also yesterday, this:
https://www.space.com/virgin-galactic-powered-flight-february-2019.html
I wonder if one day this ship will take off on its own. I don't know if this has ever been mentioned as a future goal.
Also yesterday, this:
https://www.space.com/virgin-galactic-powered-flight-february-2019.html
https://www.space.com/virgin-galactic-powered-flight-february-2019.html
cheapchips
Veteran
SpaceShipTwo rocket motor isn't powerful enough to do that. You'd be talking about a different vehicle.
Virgin hasn't talked about what it wants to do next. Air launch doesn't really scale very well. The now canned orbital craft Stratolaunch was developing needed the biggest plane in the world and was only as capable as a medium lift rocket.
Virgin hasn't talked about what it wants to do next. Air launch doesn't really scale very well. The now canned orbital craft Stratolaunch was developing needed the biggest plane in the world and was only as capable as a medium lift rocket.
Of course. I meant a future iteration of the model, in any case.
cheapchips
Veteran
If you can imagine sticking wings to New Shepherd, but bigger, since it also has to carry the wings. Doesn't really seem very practical.
No matter what, a very, very complicated subject, indeed.
It's like... as hard as rocket science, you could say.