llamacoffee @ llamacoffee @lemmy.world

Posts

387

Comments

96

Joined

2 yr. ago

SpaceX engineers are amazing. Still making changes and improvements to Falcon 9 capabilities!

Simply incredible. We all love boosters, I certainly do, but the unsung hero is the second stage and the team that builds them! Each is an incredibly complex vehicle and they have to build a new one for each launch!

Terrible presentation (imo), fantastic article. Definitely worth the read.

Does anyone have a link to a video or something of "Lisa Watson-Morgan, NASA's HLS program manager, [speaking] about Starship at an American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics conference" that is mentioned?

Also showed a new pez door design! I guess we'll see if it's for real or just an idea at this point. I can't seem to find a way to upload it in a comment

If all goes well with New Glenn, then I'd say Blue is probably the most likely competition. We've just been waiting for so long that I find it hard to root for them!

The De Cecco box always recommends 56g, and I never feel like I need any more!

You make really good points. It seems like you really care about the environmental impacts and, for what it's worth, so do I. I think where we differ is in the conclusion of whether or not the impact is significant. I am not qualified to answer that, but my little back-of-the-napkin math as well as the FAA and FWS reports suggest that it isn't. But that doesn't mean vigilance isn't important, so thanks for your skepticism and concern!

So the pictures you posted look like the debris of the actual booster and ship, which are more or less just steel. What happens to it upon impact with the water is hard to say, but at worst it'll wash up somewhere, and at best it'll provide surface area for an artificial reef. As for the "gigantic cloud of methane and oxygen" — the oxygen has very little impact while the methane needs to be considered carefully when at high altitude because of its greenhouse gas effects, but if sufficiently scattered is less than a rounding error when compared to what most natural environments release on a day-to-day basis. Engine shutdown definitely leaks some unburnt gasses, but not really in a substantial amount relative to when the engines are lit. The pumps do shut off, just not right away, and you can expect boosters to not RUD during regular operations. :) And yes, there has been a lot of talk about the launch pad. Looks like that issue is practically solved, and the debris from IFT1 was just concrete and steel. Anything not picked up by the clean up operation will be reclaimed by the environment in a relatively short period of time.

I'm switching to back to Linux for the first time in 8 years. Grew up on Mandrivia for no reason other than that's what my dad liked, got a MacBook for school, and now that my OS isn't getting updates I want something fresh and free! Thinking of getting my toes wet with Linux Mint :)

"Amazon is up against the clock when it comes to getting its Project Kuiper constellation deployed. The company needs to launch 1,618 Kuiper satellites, or half of its planned first-generation constellation, into orbit by July 30, 2026 in order to meet a mandatory deadline from the Federal Communication Commission (FCC)." https://spaceflightnow.com/2023/12/01/amazon-buys-three-launches-from-spacex-for-rival-internet-constellation/

Probably not. I'd say it's an inspired design. They could take all the measurements they want, but to make it actually work basically means developing a new engine.

Yeah I really messed up the units on this one. It's actually in km/hr/s, which makes it around 35m/s^2. My bad!

Thank you! I'm somewhat embarrassed, but these silly mistakes really show why I did not end up in a field that requires any kind of serious math. I just do this for fun and, thanks to people like you, am learning as I go along!

My bad, I didn't convert units correctly! Should be about 35m/s^2

You're right, that's my bad. I just meant to say the debris hasn't gone into orbit.

It blew up about 3000 km/hr short of orbit, so thankfully all of it has burned up in Earth's atmosphere already :)

It blew up about 3000 km/hr short of orbit, so thankfully all of it has burned up in Earth's atmosphere already :)

It blew up about 3000 km/hr short of orbit, so thankfully all of it has burned up in Earth's atmosphere already :)

Amen!

Think it'll make it to stage sep? I bet if it does, it'll go all the way to reentry. After that... I don't have high hopes but I do hope for some juicy flamey footage!