The Astronomy Thread
- Thread starter Araxen
- Start date
meStevo
I think your wife's a bigfoot gus.
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Loving the almost daily updates on Pluto we're getting now.
Pluto: North pole bright spot getting clearer.
Pluto: North pole bright spot getting clearer.
meStevo
I think your wife's a bigfoot gus.
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khorum
Murder Apologist
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I love that spacex actually makes several mods for Kerbal Space Program. Though you COULD actually try to make a reusable booster stage in the stock game somehow. I've no idea HOW but considering people made robotech veritech fighters in KSP I wouldn't be shocked.
Anyways, they actually modded the game to put that autonomous landing barge in more than the actual rocket supposedly. The Dragon's real barges are autonomous too and their proposed final plan is that the entire launch and retrieval ecosystem (choppers, barges etc) would be autonomous.
Denamian
Night Janitor
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They're doing it because rockets aren't cheap. I thought you would know this since you apparently know more about rockets than actual rocket scientists. Maybe you should let them know that what they're doing is dumb.
Palum
what Suineg set it to
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Agraza
Registered Hutt
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Getting to a fully re-usable launch vehicle represents a huge savings in long-term models. It opens the envelope on how much investment you can pour in since less of it is being burned in a pile per launch. Higher ROI, more investors, more synergy involved in moving to an increasingly extraplanetary economy where the people that control launch technology make insane stupid money.
Denamian
Night Janitor
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That has it's own problems. NASA used to recover and refurbish the SRBs from the shuttle, but it took months to do and you have to go out to the ocean to recover the rocket. SpaceX wants to eventually land the rocket near the launch site and have it ready to go again asap.
Maybe their plan will turn out to not be feasible with current technology, but it's damn interesting to watch them try.
Palum
what Suineg set it to
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You misunderstand. Instead of the ocean, build Olympic swimming pool next to launch area. They have it down to near misses mostly, it's the fine control issues that are going to plague it indefinitely. If it fell over into water instead of a hard landing platform it'd probably explode less.
Denamian
Night Janitor
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I imagine dunking the rocket would slow own how quickly it can be reused, but that sounds like something that could be done if landing it on the ground proves too difficult. Certainly better than not recovering it at all.
iannis
Musty Nester
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The main thing that can be said for it is that if they're able to do it the hard way, they should have developed the tools to be able to do it an easier way much more effectively.
And if they can get funding to TRY to do it the hard way, that is also a positive.
It seems silly as shit, but they're man-challenging this thing. And if they're able to get it reliable within 10-15 years it will seem a hell of a lot less silly. And if they aren't... there should still be a lot of innovation and practical technique that comes out of failure.
And if they can get funding to TRY to do it the hard way, that is also a positive.
It seems silly as shit, but they're man-challenging this thing. And if they're able to get it reliable within 10-15 years it will seem a hell of a lot less silly. And if they aren't... there should still be a lot of innovation and practical technique that comes out of failure.
