The Astronomy Thread

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Siddar

Siddar

Bronze Baronet of the Realm
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Speculation is its just a outer shell with falcon 9 tanks inside powering raptor engines.
 
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Tuco

Tuco

I got Tuco'd!
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This reflective shell on the star ship looks ridiculous. I love it.
 
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moonarchia

moonarchia

The Scientific Shitlord
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meStevo said:
5 days ago:



Today:



Edit: Now that I'm not on my phone, lets have just the images:

DwKIR5EWkAAqDuW
DwmagBZX4AEbUN-


Additionally:

Click to expand...


A space dildo all shiny and chrome, ready to thrust its way into the stars.
 
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iannis

iannis

Musty Nester
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Looks,like it's about that Hawaiian na med asteroid that they noticed.

People want to think it's rama.

Which is fine. Would be neat.

Probably just a weird shaped rock travelling at a weird angle. What's most amazing about it is that we were able to detect and track it.
 
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Kiroy

Kiroy

Marine Biologist
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iannis said:
Looks,like it's about that Hawaiian na med asteroid that they noticed.

People want to think it's rama.

Which is fine. Would be neat.

Probably just a weird shaped rock travelling at a weird angle. What's most amazing about it is that we were able to detect and track it.
Click to expand...

The amount of acceleration is a mathimatical problem. If it wasn’t for that id have dismissed this all together.
 
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Mudcrush Durtfeet

Mudcrush Durtfeet

Hungry Ogre
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Yes, it IS speculative. /eyeroll. Guy needs to read the dictionary:

spec·u·la·tive
/ˈspekyəˌlādiv,ˈspekyələdiv/
adjective

  1. 1.
    engaged in, expressing, or based on conjecture rather than knowledge.
 
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Siddar

Siddar

Bronze Baronet of the Realm
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MusicForFish said:
What ya think about the 10% layoffs at spacex?
Click to expand...

Probably inevitable. They bulked up to handle working four rockets through different launch pads at the same time. Now their streamlining those teams to do it faster with less people. It also indicates that falcon 9 is very close to it maximum annual launch rate
 
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Ukerric

Ukerric

Bearded Ape
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This. It's essentially the "Ariane argument" (that probably cost the CEO his seat). Now that the F9 gets mostly refurbished all the time, multiple times, they don't need the full manufacturing teams.

I'm pretty sure nobody in the R&D got fired, and most of the launch teams are unaffected.
 
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khorum

khorum

Murder Apologist
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Still the same issue as the VASIMR and other ion drives though. At 100kw per N, thats better thrust/kw ratio than the 200kw VASIMR prototype---but to get to mars faster than chemical drives it would need a 5megawatt nuclear reactor to produce the kilowatt-hours to win out. The VASIMR would need a 10MW. Neither technology yet exists for space.

Which isn't to say they can't. For comparison the new A1B reactors powering the Ford-class supercarriers are 700 MW each and they're both 24% smaller and more efficient than the older A4W reactors on the Nimitz class.
 
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