SpaceX is already throwing 1-2 (I dont know if they've 3+) rockets a week. They have their own projects, commerical projects, and NASA projects already. Figured if you better to offload any of the load if possible. But if they can handle the extra load then by all means let them have it.
I would be cool to see Rocket Lab move up. The are a lesser known but pretty successful space agency that operates out of the US but they only launch small payloads. NASA does like to have more than one operator available and it looks like ULA screwed themselves waiting for Bezos to make them a rocket engine.
There are two ways to build a rocket and attach the payload, vertically or horizontally.
The former is what NASA has historically used. Everything is put together vertically (in a huge building), then rolled out the pad (on the biggest self-propelled land vehicle in the world) and launched with no rotating.
Horizontally is how SpaceX, Russia, and others do it. The rocket is assembled lying on its side, moved to the launch site, and only then flipped vertical and launched. This has a lot of benefits. It's a lot easier to assemble, as you don't have to be working 500ft in the air. You can do it in a fairly normal building. You can move the rocket with a fairly conventional semi truck towing a special trailer rather than the above transporter. Drawback is that the rocket and its payload both need to be able to handle being flipped like that and able to handle gravity coming from two different directions. That isn't always feasible.
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What the world has learned is that America is never more than one election away from losing its goddamned mindMe on Elite : Dangerous | My WoW charactersOriginally Posted by Howard Tayler
Japan has their own launch capabilities, China has their own, India has their own. South Korea working on it.
Beyond that, Japan and South Korea have launched with SpaceX several times, Thailand has launched with them, Taiwan, Bangladesh, Indonesia... And while Hong Kong is not looking so hot these days, they too have had private industry contracts with SpaceX.
My point is that SEA have already adopted SpaceX or have their own stuff to launch on. Why would they ever take the risk of launching on Russian hardware after this?
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Assuming Bezos gets the BE-4s rolling, United Launch Alliance has the Vulcan rocket coming up. Arianespace has the Ariane 6 coming, but rumblings are that it could take another two years for that to actually come online. And either way, both are already booked for a while in advance. Ariane 6 in particular don't have any open slots until at least 2026 or 2027. No one is able to immediately step up because they thought they wouldn't have to, and now they're screwed because they thought they could trust an authoritarian regime with keeping the status quo.
Last edited by Nerraw; 2022-03-07 at 08:41 AM.
We are too stupid as species to space travel and explore the universe while we killing us each other thats the sad true. I think other species (im sure they are around) just look at us and thinks how we gonna doom ourselves and when. Its just matter of time.
Interesting you think "other" species didn't go through the same process as they grew out of their industrial infancy.
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That would be interesting to see some of the other private commercial enterprises break out and start launching themselves. But I think we're at least a few years away from seeing that on a consistent basis.
My thinking re SpaceX, as the only U.S. based operational launch facility, would be that they build more rocket factories and establish more launch sites to up the United States' capabilities. I know SpaceX already has an aggressive expansion plan in place and rolling out, but they could always up that even more, especially with a "national emergency" behind the funding.
Latest from James Webb - alignment milestone reached, optics working successfully.
Thats a star 2000 light years away.
Its crazy that is probably the US will not have one but two rockets capable of sending people to the Moon by the end of the year. SLS is FINALLY about to is launch pad rehearsal. Maybe...just maybe it will get to launch in May.
SpaceX is hoping to get the go ahead to flight a fully stacked Starship prototype by the end of the month while its in the phase of liquid tests.
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Man both Starship and SLS are on a launchpad (just for testing). That's wild.
Just wanted to share images of the two rockets stacked on pads
The Starship one doesn't do it justice, its just as big as SLS.
Now that is something to look forward to. Though I hope Starship will get up there first, at least it should if the last tests are any indication. What I have questions about is the production rate for SLS. Musk seems to be partially on the way to spamming new boosters and Starships, even before the first launch.
SLS is utter trash. Its existence is a net negative for the country. If it explodes on the launch pad it should be a national holiday of celebration.
"There is a pervasive myth that making content hard will induce players to rise to the occasion. We find the opposite." -- Ghostcrawler
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It's enormously more expensive per mass to orbit than Falcon Heavy, never mind Starship. It has no mission to justify it, and at what it costs it cannot have any mission that could make sense. It exists purely as a pork barrel spending delivery vehicle. It's a political parasite sucking on the taxpayers and deserves extermination.
"There is a pervasive myth that making content hard will induce players to rise to the occasion. We find the opposite." -- Ghostcrawler
"The bit about hardcore players not always caring about the long term interests of the game is spot on." -- Ghostcrawler
"Do you want a game with no casuals so about 500 players?"