The Space Thread - Launches, Events, Live Streams, Governments, Corporations, drama in Spaaaaaaaaaaaace

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mindlessobserver said:
1. Permanent lunar settlements and manufacturing base. Getting large amounts of supplies off the moon is far cheaper then then getting them off earth.
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This has always been the issue, people just use the word "supplies" but never go into specifics. Those supplies would all still need to come from earth (that meat lasagna MRE needs a cow, so a cattle ranch on the moon?). I think we skip the lunar shit and go for a starbase.
"Rocks are for mining, not for living on" (future space motto)
 
Kwisatz00 said:
This has always been the issue, people just use the word "supplies" but never go into specifics. Those supplies would all still need to come from earth (that meat lasagna MRE needs a cow, so a cattle ranch on the moon?). I think we skip the lunar shit and go for a starbase.
"Rocks are for mining, not for living on" (future space motto)
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Well, technically, edible insects dont need a ranch. And farming them for protein on the moon is very doable. As is edible algae, and other stuff. Its not life as you know it, but yeast can also survive in low gravity so that means we can make vodka on the moon too. So life wont be all misery.
 
mindlessobserver said:
Well, technically, edible insects dont need a ranch. And farming them for protein on the moon is very doable. As is edible algae, and other stuff. Its not life as you know it, but yeast can also survive in low gravity so that means we can make vodka on the moon too. So life wont be all misery.
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We did not domesticate all these dumb-ass delicious animals, not to be able to eat them when we go into the void.
 
Evan Kor said:
Thank God everything went well. It'll be interesting what they find out after examining the heat shield since that heat shield design could be better than the honeycomb type if it can avoid spalling. I think its fair to say that the 2nd Space Race has officially begun today.

Also consider this: there was a moment in time when that spacecraft was the furthest away from Earth during its flight. At that moment, one of the astronauts was sitting/floating the further from Earth than any human has ever been. However, its probably impossible to actually know which astronaut that was.
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I like the idea of a second Space Race, only thing is - who the hell are we racing against? China? Russia, if I recall correctly, just toasted their only good launch site [Baikonur] with their last Soyuz launch, although they now claim that it is repaired sufficiently for further launches, and they seem a little busy at the moment. I can give them credit for having the only feasible means to shuttle crew back and forth to ISS for a while, though. China's the only "near-peer" in terms of space travel at the moment and even then, they're pretty damned far behind. They can't even quite figure out how to not have their spent SRBs land on villages and spew a bunch of toxic residual hydrazine all over the place, and it's happened multiple times now. IIRC India landed a probe on the Moon in 2023, Israel tried in 2019 and I guess technically it landed but it ended up being an impactor probe unintentionally. China thinks they might be able to put together a manned lander by 2029-2030, but I'm assuming by then they'll move for Taiwan and will likely be otherwise engaged.

Nitpicking but it was the furthest manned artificial object from Earth, I believe Voyager I still holds the title for the furthest from Earth and probably will forever unless we figure out superconductors, nuclear/ion propulsion or Albucciere drives. Old girl is about 16 billion miles from the Sun and is somehow still operating and phoning home. The distances involved are almost impossible to imagine - the distance between the Sun and Neptune times six. If you were driving a car at a constant 60mph, it would take you 30 million years to cover that same distance. It takes 24 hours for a signal from Earth to reach Voyager I. Fucking insane, really. You could fit 18.54 million Suns into the distance between the real Sun and Voyager I, and the Sun is fucking massive.

Man, I can't wait for a fucking manned lander now, though. That's going to be fucking sick with modern camera equipment and network capabilities - actual live, high-def footage from the lunar surface. Obviously the big one I'm waiting for is Mars, but I am quite pessimistic about the feasibility of it. I hope it can be done within my lifetime but I'm not going to hold my breath. Nuclear propulsion is absolutely not theoretical but there are a number of critical drawbacks preventing its use - foremost being that if you have a spacecraft with a nuclear engine disassemble itself during launch, re-entry or perhaps even in orbit, you have a big fucking problem as you have essentially just created a low-energy upper atmospheric nuclear explosion, which is no bueno for organisms on the ground. Also vacuum heat dissipation is not yet a solved problem, you would need massive radiator panels.
 
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Green Man said:
who the hell are we racing against?
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China. They basically licensed all the gear the Soviets invented then improved on it and rebuilt it with an actual serious budget and a methodical step-wise process with a clear goal in mind, to colonize the moon. Meanwhile the US was dithering about whether or not we needed a manned space program and what to do with all those massive super-expensive "centers" built to sustain the Shuttle program until Trump announced fuck it, we're going back to the moon. The plan was kind of ad hoc, stupidly expensive and probably unachievable but it was the first actual plan we've seen since the ISS was first conceived and Biden ran with it. Now thanks to my boy Jared for the first time in basically forever we have an actual official NASA plan to colonize the moon for real, because we know that unlike the Soviet Union which just wanted a cheap-as-possible one-and-done propaganda win, China is dead serious about this and the only way to not be left in their dust is to play catch-up from a head start and beat them at their own game by being even more super serious about it.

China's goal is to put the first socialist on the moon by 2030 and they are right on schedule. America's new goal is the next free man on the moon by 2028 but that's still incredibly optimistic given our lack of progress to date, however the real "race" isn't to be first but best - to be sustainable and productive, to go back not just to leave footprints but facilities, including power generators, landing and launch pads, habitats, mines and factories.

The moon is actually big enough for both of us, and will necessitate competition and cooperation between the great powers to civilize. If the will ($$$) is there, it can be done, lead by either China or America or both.

Also please note the planned Chinese space capsule is called Dreamboat and their lander is called Moonhugger.
 
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mindlessobserver said:
Well, technically, edible insects dont need a ranch. And farming them for protein on the moon is very doable. As is edible algae, and other stuff. Its not life as you know it, but yeast can also survive in low gravity so that means we can make vodka on the moon too. So life wont be all misery.
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if shrimp are like sea bugs couldn't we just raise em instead of eating ze bugs
 
not william stenchever said:
Sphess mahreens bunny hopping across the lunar surface with low or recoiless sphess guns and doing silly shit with militarized moon buggies.
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They will be my space marines, and they shall know no outlook.

Quintex96 said:
I imagine that tradional ballistic weapons would be as much use on the moon so they would be hopping around using concussive weaponry trying to blow each other into orbit.
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They would be more effective without drag to worry about.

With the lower gravity they could also all carry .50 cals no problem. The bolter will be real damn it!
 
Is the crimp in a bullet casing airtight, so it would carry the oxygen it needs to fire? Or would it need special oxidizer+fuel gunpowder in space?
 
For some reason I can't quote GreenMan, but I think nuclear propulsion is absolutely doable, we just have to many ignorant bastards against it. Even a launch from earth RUD wouldn't cause that much issue since it won't detonate. It won't be hard to find either, so clean up would be pretty easy.

Once you get out of orbit, it's all fair game, since it would be like pissing in an ocean of piss, radiation wise.

Also, side note - man, white people can't even have the moon. As soon as a white man proves it can be done, the minorities flood the place.
 
Green Man said:
I like the idea of a second Space Race, only thing is - who the hell are we racing against? China?
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China has a fairly advanced lunar program and wants to put men on the moon by 2030. Worse Korea also wants to go there for some unknowable reason. Russia officially wants to but knowing them I'll be buying ryanair tickets bound there before they get there.

PlugsPugs said:
but I think nuclear propulsion is absolutely doable, we just have to many ignorant bastards against it. Even a launch from earth RUD wouldn't cause that much issue since it won't detonate. It won't be hard to find either, so clean up would be pretty easy.
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projectorionconfiguration_propellant-3977318612.png
I want project orion to be resurrected. Propah' way for a true git' to travel between foights.
 
PlugsPugs said:
I think nuclear propulsion is absolutely doable, we just have to many ignorant bastards against it. Even a launch from earth RUD wouldn't cause that much issue since it won't detonate. It won't be hard to find either, so clean up would be pretty easy.
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NASA already uses atomic power of a sort on certain spacecraft, although not for propulsion.

There's a device called a radioisotope thermoelectric generator. It's a fairly compact energy source that utilizes the heat produced by the radioactive decay of Plutonium 238 to generate electricity. The Voyager 1 probe that Green Man mentioned uses three of them.

They last a very long time which makes them ideal for long duration applications like Voyager. This article goes into more detail. Interesting stuff.

 
Wahgonga said:
NASA already uses atomic power of a sort on certain spacecraft, although not for propulsion.

There's a device called a radioisotope thermoelectric generator. It's a fairly compact energy source that utilizes the heat produced by the radioactive decay of Plutonium 238 to generate electricity. The Voyager 1 probe that Green Man mentioned uses three of them.

They last a very long time which makes them ideal for long duration applications like Voyager. This article goes into more detail. Interesting stuff.

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You're right. That makes it even more silly that we don't experiment with Project Orion. We use RTGs in multiple earth applications, from pacemakers to scientific sensors in the remote wilds. They're everywhere, and people are worried about "muh environment".

Let's stop being collective faggots and embrace atomic energy for all it can give us.
 
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