Astronomy & Space Exploration

Balljy

Full Member
Joined
Jan 31, 2016
Messages
3,449
So is all that fuel wasted now or can they reuse it?
No, they'll pump it back into the tanks and reuse it. That's a lot of the reason it'll be a couple of days before they try again as they have to drain the fuel which can take around 24hours.
 

Tarrou

Full Member
Joined
May 13, 2013
Messages
25,998
Location
Sydney
Still trying to figure out why Aoki is famous. He feels like some sort of Baron Cohen parody character like SuperGreg
I wondered that before, and concluded it's probably because his dad is loaded

he's shite
 

Smores

Full Member
Joined
May 18, 2011
Messages
25,812
Good to see a successful launch, lifting that thing off the ground with so many engines needing to synch is a big achievement.

Not ruining the launchpad should help speed up the next launch anyway.
 

McGrathsipan

Dawn’s less famous husband
Joined
Jun 25, 2009
Messages
24,910
Location
Dublin
Good to see a successful launch, lifting that thing off the ground with so many engines needing to synch is a big achievement.

Not ruining the launchpad should help speed up the next launch anyway.
How much money exploded today ?
 

Balljy

Full Member
Joined
Jan 31, 2016
Messages
3,449
How much money exploded today ?
They have the next 3 iterations already in different stages of production and 2 of them are visible and outwardly ready. This one was never going to be used again, but they won't want the first reusable vehicles to blow up for sure.
 

dove

New Member
Joined
May 15, 2013
Messages
7,899
How much money exploded today ?
It was never intended to land, it didn't even have the landing legs. Although they probably hoped for a more successful launch to collect even more data, it failing to separate from the first-stage rocket booster cut the test very short.
 

Smores

Full Member
Joined
May 18, 2011
Messages
25,812
How much money exploded today ?
As others have said it was never intended to land. It's like asking how much damage cost on a car used for crash testing.

After every launch there seems to be confusion about how new rockets are tested.
 

McGrathsipan

Dawn’s less famous husband
Joined
Jun 25, 2009
Messages
24,910
Location
Dublin
As others have said it was never intended to land. It's like asking how much damage cost on a car used for crash testing.

After every launch there seems to be confusion about how new rockets are tested.
Never looked into either to be honest but I'm intrigued where such vast amounts of investment is coming from and how they are meant to get a return
 

Cheimoon

Made of cheese
Scout
Joined
Jun 22, 2020
Messages
14,492
Location
Canada
Supports
no-one in particular
Nature Briefing said:
Most powerful explosion ever witnessed

Astronomers have observed the most energetic explosion ever: a fireball 100 times the size of the Solar System and 2 trillion times brighter than the Sun, which has existed for 3 years. The event, dubbed AT2021lwx, might have been caused by an enormous star or cloud of gas being gobbled up by a black hole. The reason why night hasn’t been turned to day here on Earth is that the party is happening 2.5 billion parsecs away. It’s not the brightest event ever seen — that would be the γ-ray burst known as GRB 221009A — but that lasted only a few minutes.
More info: Astronomers capture largest cosmic explosion ever witnessed | Black holes | The Guardian
Scientific publication: Multiwavelength observations of the extraordinary accretion event AT2021lwx | Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society | Oxford Academic (oup.com)

Pretty picture:
 
Last edited:

nickm

Full Member
Joined
May 20, 2001
Messages
9,332
Never looked into either to be honest but I'm intrigued where such vast amounts of investment is coming from and how they are meant to get a return
The return is that SpaceX will be the only company in the world able to (a) put 100 ton payloads into orbit (b) because of that capacity, reusability and launch frequency, it'll be cheaper than anyone else by an order of magnitude. SpaceX will own the bridge into orbit. And when you have cheap, heavy lift capacity available, you can build stuff in orbit that's currently inconceivable - factories, solar power generation, orbiting hotels, massive satellite constellations, tourism. That's where they'll get their return.

And that's civilian uses. I don't know if there are military versions of Starship on someone's desk but imagine being able to put a small army anywhere on the planet inside one hour.
 
Last edited:

Raoul

Admin
Staff
Joined
Aug 14, 1999
Messages
131,151
Location
Hollywood CA
It's nice that SpaceX isn't the only game in town. Shame that they're both owned by some of the richest people in the world, but better that there's two of them than just one.
This was after it was originally tipped for SpaceX but Blue Origin sued about something or the other being unfair in the process, which has resulted in them getting it now. Musk must be fuming.
 

Balljy

Full Member
Joined
Jan 31, 2016
Messages
3,449
The NASA contract for Blue Origin is different from the one previously announced. SpaceX have still got that for Artemis III and IV. This new contract is for Artemis V and was explicitly for a new lander to give NASA options in the future.

It's good news that it's fixed price, NASA seem to be making better decisions that will hopefully free some money up for more missions in the future.
 

MrMarcello

In a well-ordered universe...
Joined
Dec 26, 2000
Messages
53,144
Location
On a pale blue dot in space

WPMUFC

Full Member
Joined
Jul 9, 2013
Messages
9,987
Location
Australia
Full Image here. (132mb)


i don't think we've ever been visited by aliens....but pictures like that just make it so hard for me to believe there has never been evolution of advanced life elsewhere. They may have come and gone, but I cannot look at a picture like that and think "wow we are all alone". We definitely could be a solitary freak of nature, but I'd need strong convincing.
 

Volumiza

The alright "V", B-Boy cypher cat
Joined
Jul 13, 2018
Messages
13,827
Location
Somewhere in the middle
Full Image here. (132mb)


Incredible.

It’s a shame the school curriculum doesn’t include more stuff about the cosmic scale. Hopefully breed more interest in quantum physics and also maybe make people realise there’s bigger sh*t out there than the petty bollocks everyone is so fixated on arguing over.