US Launch Vehicles and Spacecraft: Discussion & News

There is zero chance of a rocket launching something headed for Mars that can land back safely to earth...

Even a Saturn 5 like monster of a rocket would need multiple launches to take the sort of material that would be needed for a Mars trip where it could be assembled in orbit and launch towards the planet...

The people speculating that this is some sort of system for delivering military forces anywhere on the planet rapidly are probably the closest to the truth... lets face it... no one in the US has deeper pockets to piss money away on useless stupid shit that likely wont work anyway than the US military.

The fact that it will be enormously expensive and will never work can be a secret... working with the F-35 so far...

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.

Good thing the Peresvet is online and ready to give such orbital voyeurs a nice and thorough vibe check whenever they deign to overfly.

The thing looks like a grain silo with wings.

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

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.

The irony is that if that is what it is then even MANPADS could take it down let alone any other air defence system... likely including rifle calibre machine guns.

A WWII Hurricane or Spitfire could actually shoot it down... its trajectory can be determined very quickly and interceptor aircraft could be flown along the line of reentry and easily destroy this platform.

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.

(CNN)The NASA Perseverance rover safely landed on Mars after its 292.5 million-mile journey from Earth, the agency confirmed at 3:55 p.m. ET Thursday. The rover landed itself flawlessly, according to the mission's team.

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

Another prototype of SpaceX's Starship SN10 spacecraft made a successful landing after a test flight, but exploded a few minutes after landing. The head of the company, Elon Musk, expressed hope for the continued success of the prototypes, despite the third explosion in a row.



https://en.topwar.ru/180540-prizemlilsja-celym-i-nevredimym-prototip-kosmicheskogo-korablja-starship-vzorvalsja-posle-posadki.html

George1 wrote:Another prototype of SpaceX's Starship SN10 spacecraft made a successful landing after a test flight, but exploded a few minutes after landing. The head of the company, Elon Musk, expressed hope for the continued success of the prototypes, despite the third explosion in a row.



https://en.topwar.ru/180540-prizemlilsja-celym-i-nevredimym-prototip-kosmicheskogo-korablja-starship-vzorvalsja-posle-posadki.html

Yet another one exploded lmao?!?!          Surely we can blame trampolines for this.

The head of the company, Elon Musk, expressed hope for the continued success of the prototypes, despite the third explosion in a row.

When every failure is called a success then of course you are going to have continued success with your prototypes... DUH...

Here is your gold star for trying... I look forward to see the next explosion test.

I love fireworks where no one dies...

This video is cool, you can pretend to be Spetsnaz with a VSS that shoots it after it has landed... a magnesium cored bullet should not leave any trace right?