US Launch Vehicles and Spacecraft: Discussion & News

The above video is relevant to the use of Starlink as a spy satellite network.

1) Digital photography/filming with CCDs is vastly superior to chemical film. One can truly reach the limit of the
optics and engage in image processing that is impossible with chemical film.

2) If Olympus Mons can be filmed by some guy with rather small telescopes on Earth, you can bet your
last penny that similar sized optics in LEO orbits can measure 10 meter sized objects and likely even
smaller ones.

So it is fully likely that Starlink will have optics and high resolution CCD cameras with real time processing
of any part of the Earth. In fact, it will be multi-spectral imaging with CCDs and not just visible band.
So clouds will not be a show stopper. A network of such satellites gains image "mining" ability that
a single satellite cannot have. Multiple views can be synthesized in real time leading to actual resolution
gains as shown just for one camera in the above video.

Musk does it again!!  LOL!!!  RIP SN9






Does anyone really think this POS is going to the Moon with 70 PAX????  The entire concept is UTTELY FLAWED. If one engine doesn't start at the exact moment of the critical landing maneourve (or starts late and/or flames out as it did here) then the ENTIRE VEHICLE IS LOST AND ALL PASSENGERS ARE DEAD.  This flaw was always obvious to anyone who cared to engage a little risk assessment, yet Space(-ex) has taken this dumb idea to such an advanced stage...  At least hyperloop just grinds to a halt when it fails, not slaming into the California sands amd blowing itself and its occupants into tiny bits...  

What a joke.  A space program driven by a naricisstic egotist whose claim to fame is based on creating an online payment system....

He can use the money assholes gives to Tesla to build an escalator to the moon before the Tesla's stock market crashes. IMO he has enough right now...

Did anyone tell that idiot what 3 years in zero gravity do to human skeleton?

That info alone should have been enough to put the kibush on this farce...

But I ain't complaining, free fireworks show on Uncle Sam's tab

PapaDragon wrote:
Did anyone tell that idiot what 3 years in zero gravity do to human skeleton?

That info alone should have been enough to put the kibush on this farce...

But I ain't complaining, free fireworks show on Uncle Sam's tab

haha!! Yeah, 70 people jammed into this thing for a 9 month flight to Mars? What a joke. Food? Water? Life support? Protection from lethal solar radiation? Nah, the almighty Elon isn't gonna sweat the little details. Its all about convincing the dumb herd that you have the "right stuff" so that those idiots will volunteer for an early grave.

IMHO this contraption is actually aimed at the US military as a rapid-response sub-orbital troop carrier. Elite boots on the ground anywhere on the globe in 1 hour. Musk has a lust for the Pentagons black budget programs and will do and say whatever he needs to in order to get a slice of that taxpayer-funded gravy train.

haha!! Yeah, 70 people jammed into this thing for a 9 month flight to Mars? What a joke. Food? Water? Life support? Protection from lethal solar radiation?

They are the food...

Big_Gazza wrote:....haha!!  Yeah, 70 people jammed into this thing for a 9 month flight to Mars?  What a joke. Food? Water? Life support? Protection from lethal solar radiation?  Nah, the almighty Elon isn't gonna sweat the little details.  Its all about convincing the dumb herd that you have the "right stuff" so that those idiots will volunteer for an early grave....

70 people? For 9 months? In that cargo container?

Why not go all the way then?

How about they do astronaut selection via process called the reaping?

They could select tributes from every district

Tributes could have their own sponsors

Whoever survives the trip will earn great fortune and will be adored in the Capitol

May the odds be ever in their favour...    

Chalk another "win" for the vaunted private space industry. The US company Phantom Space lives up to its name and
photoshops a fake rocket in fake factory.

Back in the 2000s there were several documentaries about speculative journeys to Mars, and in them the spaceships all had rational elements in them:
Artificial gravity from "tumbling" or having rotating parts, modular, orbitally assembled components, landing craft with tile heat shielding, additional unmanned item drop missions which would drop the necessary living quarters, etc.

And now musk comes along with the cistern and suddenly noone cares about these intricacies, instead just droning about "MUSK SAID WE'RE GOING TO MARS, MUSK OH HE SO SMART HE CHUNGUS" and about how its its going to be so much safer because its not NASA and how it'll be reusable. No talk about modularity, or landing craft. The original plan for the apollo craft was for it to be a single piece craft that would land on the moon and return to the athmosphere. This idea proved stupid for obvious reasons and was quickly discarded for the lunar lander/ return capsule. However now this design step has been conveniently forgotten so that musk shills can drink the starship koolaid,and can call naysayers jealous russians.

I was going to link that very same video.   Having a scientist analyze the hype is always a good thing.   Reality does not
conform to people's wishes.

But there is definite value in reusability. The economics of using the same launcher are best for the first few uses and
the cost benefit asymptotes after that. So being able to reuse a rocket 4 times is already a major leap in cost to LEO.
There is not much additional value for trying to reuse it 10 times or more. I think that 4-6 times is perfectly reasonable given
current technology.

Well whaddya know, it turns out that location chosen for landing, the Jezero crater is named after a town in Republic of Srpska

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jezero,_Bosnia_and_Herzegovina#Jezero_on_Mars

There was a big landing celebration at local school and everything