The Credit Card company I work for has been getting refunds from this, for the last two weeks. I've seen three.

By Richard Eitzen (Rbeitzen) on Thursday, April 13, 2023 - 02:45 am: Edit

Relativeity Space giving up on their Terran-1 rocket after failing to put payloads in their proper orbit. This is a small-sat launcher.

They have announced they are pivoting to development of a medium launch rocket.

They are abandoning making it fully reusable and instead intend to reuse just the first stage, and it won't be 3D printed (they had previously planned that it would).

Essentially a Falcon 9 clone, but a bigger proposed payload, launching no sooner than 2026.

Not holding my breath on this one, but time will tell...

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Sunday, April 16, 2023 - 06:03 pm: Edit

China has announced plans to construct a moon base within the decade.

By Richard Eitzen (Rbeitzen) on Monday, April 17, 2023 - 02:10 am: Edit

I am doubtful that they have the heavy lift capacity to do this in any meaningful way.

By Richard Eitzen (Rbeitzen) on Monday, April 17, 2023 - 02:13 am: Edit

And speaking of heavy lift capacity, Starship may launch tomorrow on it's first test mission, it will test whether the second stage, moving at orbital speed, can survive reentry (among many other things it is testing).

This is the most powerful rocket ever to be launched. While this particular example will not test reuse, the goal is to get it to 100% reuse with a very short time between launches.

If SpaceX can pull that off, it will revolutionize access to space. No one else is seriously developing anything that could equal this rocket.

Fingers crossed.

By Mike Grafton (Mike_Grafton) on Monday, April 17, 2023 - 08:39 am: Edit

Like him or not, Musk has created the greatest current space innovation company.

Like Ma Bell, AT&T and NASA in their heyday.

By Jeff Anderson (Jga) on Monday, April 17, 2023 - 12:08 pm: Edit

China Moonbase...

IIRC, not long after the Apollo 13 flight (and before 14 returned us to the moon), there was a solar storm strong enough so that, outside of the Van Allen Belt, it would have proven lethal in minutes.

Sure, with enough (heavy, lead) shielding, it'd be survivable, but would the CCP consider it essential for their moon base?

By A David Merritt (Adm) on Monday, April 17, 2023 - 07:35 pm: Edit

Yes, simply because a major component of a Lunar base right now is propaganda. After they become somewhat common, likely not.

By Mike Grafton (Mike_Grafton) on Tuesday, April 18, 2023 - 07:45 am: Edit

Moonbase should just be buried in a few meters of regolith.

https://www.science.org/content/article/moon-safe-long-term-human-exploration-first-surface-radiation-measurements-show

By Mike Grafton (Mike_Grafton) on Tuesday, April 18, 2023 - 07:49 am: Edit

Or just invest in a darn artificial magnetic shield.

Any electrical engineers or physicists on the bbs?

By Douglas Lampert (Dlampert) on Tuesday, April 18, 2023 - 10:30 am: Edit

Yes, but I have no idea how hard it would be to artificially shield a moonbase. The Earth's magnetic field is not particularly intense, but it's BIG, it's got lots of time and distance to deflect incoming, and lots of atmosphere to help disipate the energy from stuff deflected rather than guiding it straight to the magnets (that's what the auroras are, incoming particles deflected by the magnetic field hitting near the poles because that's where the magnetic field guides them).

By Mike Erickson (Mike_Erickson) on Tuesday, April 18, 2023 - 10:34 am: Edit

From the science.org article:

What's more, the researchers calculated that Moon bases covered with at least 50 centimeters of lunar soil would be sufficient to protect them. A deeper chamber shielded with about 10 meters of water would be enough to protect against occasional solar storms, which can cause radiation levels to spike dramatically.

--Mike

By Paul Howard (Raven) on Thursday, April 20, 2023 - 09:39 am: Edit

Make Rocket go!!!!!

Wow - that seems to move so slowly for about 15 seconds.....

and flew for about 3 mins

....and there she just blew.

Separation didn't happen - but it cleared the tower (got to about 31 km up).

By Burt Quaid (Burt) on Thursday, April 20, 2023 - 10:20 am: Edit

It suffered “a rapid unscheduled disassembly “

Burt

By Douglas Lampert (Dlampert) on Thursday, April 20, 2023 - 10:55 am: Edit

That's still a limited success, the natural state of any new large rocket design should be assumed to be an explosion on the pad. As Paul pointed out, this cleared the pad.

Technically, stage 2 blew on it's pad I guess.

By Paul Howard (Raven) on Thursday, April 20, 2023 - 11:45 am: Edit

Yep - SpaceX seems to be fairly happy with the flight - certainly the worst didn't happen* and the Data will be worth it's weight in gold.


* - Not sure why - but why was the Fuel storer/factory built so close to the launch pad - if it fell over the wrong way, never mind exploding - it would take everything out (i.e. why wasn't it built + 100 metres more away!!!) - I know Elon was worried a failed launch could take everything out.

By Richard Eitzen (Rbeitzen) on Thursday, April 20, 2023 - 01:38 pm: Edit

Three engines did not ignite on launch. Two more failed during flight with a sixth failing but being successfully restarted.

One poster I read suggested that the end over end tumble at the end (this was something I read elsewhere) was deliberate to stress the rocket as at that point it had failed to get sufficient altitude to continue the mission. The explosion was deliberate, self destruct order was given.

The rocket did succesfully reach and survive max-Q.

SpaceX got a lot of data from this flight. Future rockets are already designed to an improved standard and we should hopefully see another launch attempt 'soon'.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Tuesday, June 20, 2023 - 03:05 am: Edit

Betelgeuse is supposedly going to go supernova any time now and should be visible from Earth in daylight with the naked eye. It poses no real danger to Earth.

BTW, I always thought "beetle juice" was a stupid way to pronounce that star. In my childhood the first time I saw the name I said "Bee-TELL-Geeze" and I think that's better.

By MarkSHoyle (Bolo) on Tuesday, June 20, 2023 - 09:34 am: Edit

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Quote:

Betelgeuse is supposedly going to go supernova any time now and should be visible from Earth in daylight with the naked eye.

---

By Joseph Jackson (Bonneville) on Tuesday, June 20, 2023 - 10:10 am: Edit

It's all relative. I think beteguese is behind the sun and won't be visible till August. But it's very exciting. I'd love to see a super nova.

By Nick Blank (Nickgb) on Tuesday, June 20, 2023 - 10:15 am: Edit

Betelgeuse going nova soon means in the next 100,000 years according to most astronomers. Some astronomers now think soon means in the next 1,000 years. So still, don't hold your breath. Could be tomorrow, but probably not.

I would love to see it. But I would be a bit sad as after it fades one of the most recognizable constellations will be forever altered.

By Jean Sexton Beddow (Jsexton) on Tuesday, June 20, 2023 - 04:18 pm: Edit

All posts prior to 2023 will be deleted June 27, 2023.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Thursday, June 29, 2023 - 11:49 am: Edit

Virgin Galactic has just landed its first space flight, all crew are fine. There were three passengers. They went up 50 miles, just barely into "space". Their next flight is in August.

By Richard Eitzen (Rbeitzen) on Thursday, June 29, 2023 - 12:09 pm: Edit

SpaceX also takes (paid) flights to space for civilians. They do a bit more than take them 50 miles up though.

Spoiler: A lot more.

By Paul Howard (Raven) on Friday, June 30, 2023 - 04:21 am: Edit

Well done Virgin Galactic.

After the folding of the commercial saterlite launcher early this year, some really good news for the Virgin 'Outer Space' groups

1 down and probably about 150-200 flights to go to get through the current 800 seats booked 'backlog'!