Space Travel & Exploration

[plz delete account]

Huh? Starship runs on methane and oxygen, which is just hydrolox and a little carbon.

Where are you going to get carbon on the moon?

[PACOX]

Vulcan delayed into 2024: https://arstechnica.com/space/2023/1...xecutive-says/

Not official yet but you how these things go. Bad luck, overly cautious, who knows. They don't have too many delays until their only contracts are defense ones that are hard to back out of. Some of those they only received because SpaceX didn't have the proper fairing for the payloads at the time (idk if that's still the case couldnt find good info).


Edit: SpaceX had to scrub 2 flights citing similar issues. Bad luck all around.

[Masark]

Where are you going to get carbon on the moon?

I was assuming you could get it from the soil, but apparently there's much less carbon there than I thought.

[Nerraw]

For the moon you bring the fuel from Earth, that's what the orbital refueling is for. For Mars you synthesize the methane by using the CO2 in the atmosphere and the water/ice from underground. There's plenty of it there, we keep finding new lakes every other year or so, and the atmosphere is 96% CO2, so you just open up and start sucking.

[PACOX]

https://www.satellitetoday.com/launc...ess-rehearsal/

Vulcan passes its wet dress rehearsal but will still have to wait until January.

It's been a rough week in Cape Canaveral trying to get anything up let alone a new rocket on Christmas Eve. We'll see what happens in a few weeks.

[Nerraw]

The main reason Vulcan has to wait that long is because they're sending something to the moon. The next window for that is Jan 8th.

[Ihavewaffles]

Sending people to Mars is practically murder.

The absurd part is that the people need to do tests to see if they are of a sound mind...to go die..

I wish I could be earth dictator for a day n force all major countries with space programs to sign treaty to stop sending people further out than to the orbits of earth's space stations.

Until Robotization n automation n ai reaches a much higher level, in lets say 40+ years from now.

So when the first humans go to Mars, the planet there has been in charge by an advanced ai that runs several bases, satellite dishes, a global network of satellites, at least a few return ships, n a large supply of equipment, supplies n vehicles.

If someone disobeys, then drag them in front of a judge who'll say "why was ur nerd project so important that got people killed, why couldn't it wait?"
The defendants "Errr...you..YOU HATE SCIENCE!!!111"

[bladeXcrasher]

15 launches to send Orion to the moon verse a single Saturn V...and Orion still doesn't have the dV to put the space craft into a low moon orbit.

[PACOX]

For those who are actually curious...It only takes 1 trip to send Orion to the Moon. Considering how it's already been to the Moon I don't know why that's even in question. Orion doesn't go up with a lander, on reason being that it's significantly bigger than Apollo, also bigger than Apollo+the service module. Apollo was patched together and a barely functional craft by today's standards, just replicating would be like replicating a drawing you did a 3 for an art show.


Starship is the lander portion of lunar missions and might take anywhere between 7 - 20 launches to reach the Moon. All those launches are fuel delivery to the main Starship that will go to the Moon and will happen in relatively fast succession. The goal is to eventually has an "orbital gas station" so Starship doesn't rely on actual launches.


No one wants to build rockets much bigger that the massive titans like Starship, SLS, and Saturn V because you even up wasting most of your resources on fuel just to get the things up, limiting payloads. The future is multiple launches to build/stage much heavier interplanetary craft in orbit - hence Starship takes multiplelaunchestoget to the Moon. Easier to deliver the fuel Starship needs (or any future interplanetary craft) to it while it's in space rather than try to lift all that fuel at once under the weight of Earth's gravity.

[plz delete account]

15 launches to send Orion to the moon verse a single Saturn V...and Orion still doesn't have the dV to put the space craft into a low moon orbit.

What?

It takes one launch by SLS to get it into Lunar orbit.

And even if it had enough fuel to land, I don't exactly see anywhere for it to land on without crushing the engine bell and making it impossible to take off lmao

[bladeXcrasher]

What?

It takes one launch by SLS to get it into Lunar orbit.

And even if it had enough fuel to land, I don't exactly see anywhere for it to land on without crushing the engine bell and making it impossible to take off lmao

What do you mean "what", that's the number from NASA. It's near the end of the video.

[plz delete account]

What do you mean "what", that's the number from NASA. It's near the end of the video.

It takes literally one launch to get Orion from Earth's surface to LLO bro. Lmao

[Pann]

It takes literally one launch to get Orion from Earth's surface to LLO bro. Lmao

Orion does not go into LLO, Artemis 1 went into a distant retrograde orbit, Artemis 3 onwards will make use of a Near Rectilinear Halo Orbit.

[bladeXcrasher]

It takes literally one launch to get Orion from Earth's surface to LLO bro. Lmao

The fact you are so confident in your ignorance of the topic is astounding...even after I left a video for you to educate yourself. LLO...LMFAO.

[PACOX]

How many launches did it take Orion to get to the Moon last year?

[Nerraw]

You may be confusing Orion and Starship. Orion will get there with just the one launch, Starship has to be refueled in LEO first.

[bladeXcrasher]

You may be confusing Orion and Starship. Orion will get there with just the one launch, Starship has to be refueled in LEO first.

I don't know how it can be much clearer...to do what Apollo did with a single Saturn V we need to do with at least 15 separate launched (NASAs number) rockets.

[plz delete account]

The fact you are so confident in your ignorance of the topic is astounding...even after I left a video for you to educate yourself. LLO...LMFAO.

How ironic.

You don't even know what parking orbit Orion was in for most of Artemis 1. Lmao

Most of the launches are for *starship*, which won the bid to be the lander because it's cheap and reusable.

The other two bids didn't even come close. Dynetics bid even had negative mass requirements. Lol

- - - Updated - - -

I don't know how it can be much clearer...to do what Apollo did with a single Saturn V we need to do with at least 15 separate launched (NASAs number) rockets.

SV also wasn't launching a pod the size of the Apollo Lander, Command Pod, and Service Vehicle combined. Apollo also physically could not sustain missions longer than it did. Artemis can.

[bladeXcrasher]

How ironic.
You don't even know what parking orbit Orion was in for most of Artemis 1. Lmao

You were the one that said it was in LLO, not me. It was never in LLO.

[plz delete account]

You were the one that said it was in LLO, not me. It was never in LLO.

69Mi parking orbit per the NASA TV broadcast. Same orbits as Apollo. LLO.

You also have the ENTIRE THREAD disagreeing with your take that it takes NASA 15 launches to get to the moon.

It's really fucking rare for the thread to agree on ANYTHING