I’m not really into the idea of moving everything to a baby Google, even if they’re currently good about privacy. They just added an AI tool to email and a crypto wallet, which could be either awful or great signs depending on your perspective.
So does Valve?
I was kind of hoping for Impulse Space, but they’re probably too unproven.
One of Starship’s engines on the lowest setting would tear the station apart. Regardless of whether they make this based on Starship instead of something more reasonably sized like a Dragon or Falcon 2nd stage, it’ll still need either a new engine design or a big cluster of Dracos. It’ll be something custom.
Regarding their Artemis work- the payments are milestone based, so they get money as they pass milestones. Engine relights and ship to ship prop transfer are some of the next ones.
Regarding their other customers- the Starship manifest includes another moon cruise, several satellite launches, and a lot of Starlinks.
Serious answer- SpaceX is building the deorbit vehicle then turning it over to NASA, who will have full control over it.
There’s no way Russia builds a new station. The timeline for them getting Nauka to orbit basically proves that it’s impossible. They’ve been trying to buddy up with China to visit theirs, though.
The docking adapters look pretty much the same (interlocking petals, not male/female) and can be active, passive, or both, but Dragon’s is only active. Active has to dock to passive, so two Dragons couldn’t dock.
SpaceX developed a new one that can be active or passive for Starship, which will have to dock with Orion and the Lunar Gateway.
https://www.nasa.gov/image-article/nasa-spacex-test-starship-lunar-lander-docking-system/
Maybe? Soyuz is too cramped, but Dragon might be able to fit extra people. A few years ago a NASA astronaut flew up on a leaky Soyuz, so they looked at using Dragon as a lifeboat:
https://www.space.com/nasa-spacex-dragon-rescue-spacecraft-soyuz-leak
Dragon was drawn up to fit 7 people, with 3 seats on the bottom and 4 on top. They ended up changing the seat angles for reentry, so now they only have 4.
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Starliner is still their emergency ride home in case a real alarm goes off, but they want to study the leak issue as much as possible before they separate their service module, which burns up during reentry.
This process led to Falcon, which is one of the most reliable rockets of all time. The launch rate and reuse are unprecedented. Iterative design is a big part of how they got there. Their prowess in manufacturing and mass production is another large part of that success.
It sounds like they still have some hope of bringing it back, so, fingers crossed.
It looks like more Venus probes will start launching over the next few years. There’s the Rocket Lab / MIT mission first, then more from the US, China, India, and Russia to close out the decade. Plus ESA’s next probe in 2032.
And it will hallucinate and give wrong answers
I think Jared Isaacman is my favorite space billionaire? Not that that should be a thing, but he’s at least spending his money on private missions that move technology development forward.
I’m rooting for Stoke and Radian to pull off full launch vehicle reuse.
I really want to see space agencies put out orbital debris cleanup bounties, especially for big things like spent upper stages and dead satellites.
They’ve actually done 2!
The 1st, in 2019, didn’t get to the ISS. Bad clock code made thrusters fire like crazy and run out of fuel.
The 2nd was on the launch pad in '21, but Florida air made valves seize. It launched in '22, had 2 thrusters fail, but still got to the ISS and back.
Before this crewed flight test, they’ve been replacing parachute harnessing and flammable tape.
In 2018, right? When’s the 2nd launch supposed to be?
I hope so, but if they launch on the suborbital trajectory again because they aren’t certain about the Raptor relight for a deorbit burn, then I’m guessing a Starlink won’t be able to deploy and raise its orbit in time to not also reenter.
SpaceX, in a perfect world, just wants to be the railroad to facilitate others who want to build stations, bases, mining, recycling, etc.
As far as the greenness of rockets, recycling would be 5th in the 5 R’s:
I’m hoping this is successful enough to put Starlinks on the next one to actually get operational, but the loss of attitude control and lack of Raptor relight don’t make me super optimistic.
Wirecutter and RTINGS both do a lot of testing and reviews, including for headphones.
There are private/paywalled Discord servers and forums out there, too, so this could replace some of those. I think the Reddit format is better than a lot of alternatives, so I don’t actually hate this idea.