The Astronomy Thread
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khorum
Murder Apologist
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Automated refurbishment during those 24 hours is even more incredible.
The whole idea had always been a fleet of rockets and drone landing barges with a highly automated repair and refurbishment hubs to drive launch cycles down to weeks from months then down to days from weeks.
The whole idea had always been a fleet of rockets and drone landing barges with a highly automated repair and refurbishment hubs to drive launch cycles down to weeks from months then down to days from weeks.
iannis
Musty Nester
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the tensile strength is beyond our scope, and the tensile strength is the least of it.
That cable is going to wiggle. It's going to oscilate. It will very quickly become unstable and start to just whip the fuck around. Stanley overcame that problem in Mars with magic orbital AI's. But we don't have magic AI's yet. We don't have any AI's yet.
Even though the idea has been around for a hundred or more years, the engineering ain't there to actually do it. Who can say what the future holds, but the immediate future (50 years)... not so much.
That cable is going to wiggle. It's going to oscilate. It will very quickly become unstable and start to just whip the fuck around. Stanley overcame that problem in Mars with magic orbital AI's. But we don't have magic AI's yet. We don't have any AI's yet.
Even though the idea has been around for a hundred or more years, the engineering ain't there to actually do it. Who can say what the future holds, but the immediate future (50 years)... not so much.
iannis
Musty Nester
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They're starting to mass produce carbon filaments.. but yeah, it's not just even a problem of mass production. The yield for energy to produce them... you don't even have to do the math. You can just see that's not ever going to be practical without some world-changing innovation. You need a -lot- of this shit.
Now I'm not 100% sure about this part, but I think it's a consideration. There's also a scalar problem. You know how an ant can lift some ridiculous % of their body weight, one little ant carrying entire leaves around and shit. You blow that ant up to human size and she (edit: ants are she's) can't do it anymore and (it's been a while) but I think the reason for that is just simple geometry. The ratio of a2 b2 c2 never changes with scale, but the strength of materials sure as shit does. It seems like you'd run into a similar issue where you're taking carbon atoms strung together and trying to apply that to a scale of orbital mechanics. I might be retarded tho, but I do think that's also a real thing.
Now I'm not 100% sure about this part, but I think it's a consideration. There's also a scalar problem. You know how an ant can lift some ridiculous % of their body weight, one little ant carrying entire leaves around and shit. You blow that ant up to human size and she (edit: ants are she's) can't do it anymore and (it's been a while) but I think the reason for that is just simple geometry. The ratio of a2 b2 c2 never changes with scale, but the strength of materials sure as shit does. It seems like you'd run into a similar issue where you're taking carbon atoms strung together and trying to apply that to a scale of orbital mechanics. I might be retarded tho, but I do think that's also a real thing.
khorum
Murder Apologist
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Well yeah, but we'd still need to get the CNT ribbon into orbit... even if we manufacture the graphene in orbit we'd still have to get the carbon up there. If we find an asteroid with carbon somehow we'd still need rockets to get the means to haul it into orbit and then get the equipment up there to manage it.
So yeah, we'd still need a commoditized rocket scene going.
So yeah, we'd still need a commoditized rocket scene going.
Brad2770
Avatar of War Slayer
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It's unfortunate, but there is a good chance this will be cancelled. It's already at $575 million of it's $675 million budget. It probably won't last another 2 years to be launched.
Tolan
Member of the Year 2016
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Why do you think there is a need for expensive reinforcements when the device gently accelerates and gently decelerates? Besides, aluminum is a relatively cheap material.
Cybsled
Naxxramas 1.0 Raider
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Actually, The Expanse on Syfy folds this into the narrative. People born out in the Asteroid Belt have a tendency to be taller due to lower gravity and they have trouble functioning on Earth due to the massive change in gravity. They actually use "gravity torture" against a Asteroid Belt person in one part and it is later revealed the legal way to deal with them on Earth is to place them into (I presume) zero buoyancy water tank.
In an article later posted it said Elon has been insisent on reuse since day 1.
Tolan
Member of the Year 2016
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I know that. That doesn't translate into a need for expensive structural reinforcements. If it's strong enough to make it to LEO, it's strong enough to land in reverse.
Tuco
I got Tuco'd!
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There is nothing gentle about what that rocket did, and that rocket is in no way cheap.
Tolan
Member of the Year 2016
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Expense due to new technology development and (maybe) more on-board components has nothing to do with structural reinforcements, which was my point.
The G forces on that rocket are relatively low compared to many other engineering applications. Except for, perhaps, the shock of landing, which if fine tuned should be very benign, the reverse landing operation exerts similar G's as the launch.