# The Great Ongoing Space Exploration Thread **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Tags:** science-math\ **Created:** [November 16, 2020, 12:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-ongoing-space-exploration-thread/925703 "2020-11-16T12:18:17Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 29
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2023, 2:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-ongoing-space-exploration-thread/925703/562 "2023-01-09T02:33:21Z")
CNN reports the Russians want to land it to study the malfunction. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2023, 2:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-ongoing-space-exploration-thread/925703/563 "2023-01-09T02:45:12Z")
No reason to crash it deliberately. It may not be safe enough for people, but trying for controlled reentry as normal but accepting they may lose it seems like a decent overall plan. ---
**Author:** ![Santos\_L\_Halper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/santos_l_halper/32/1_2.png) [@Santos\_L\_Halper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Santos_L_Halper)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2023, 6:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-ongoing-space-exploration-thread/925703/564 "2023-01-09T06:09:31Z")
Nope, they used to do it when the Space Shuttle was flying. crew members would launch in the Shuttle and return in Soyuz or visa versa. They did this both to the ISS and the Russian Mir station. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2023, 9:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-ongoing-space-exploration-thread/925703/565 "2023-01-09T09:13:02Z")
> [@Santos\_L\_Halper](#): > > crew members would launch in the Shuttle and return in Soyuz or visa versa Interesting; thanks. Do you know what they did for the flight suits? Surely, Shuttle vs. Soyuz also had suit compatibility problems. ---
**Author:** ![Santos\_L\_Halper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/santos_l_halper/32/1_2.png) [@Santos\_L\_Halper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Santos_L_Halper)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2023, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-ongoing-space-exploration-thread/925703/566 "2023-01-09T16:04:12Z")
That’s a good question. I don’t know. I’m sure that if I’d happened upon a photo of debarking from a landed shuttle, some in NASA suits and a couple in Russian suits I’d remember that! My guess would be that that must have carried up second suits for those crew that were going to be changing rides. ---
**Author:** ![Fiendish\_Astronaut](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fiendish_astronaut/32/3295_2.png) [@Fiendish\_Astronaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fiendish_Astronaut)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2023, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-ongoing-space-exploration-thread/925703/567 "2023-01-09T19:26:42Z")
The UK is finally launching something into orbit again tonight for the first time since the seventies (AFAIK). > **[UK space launch: Historic Cornwall rocket mission set to blast off](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-64190848)** > > A modified jumbo jet will fly out of Cornwall on a mission to send nine satellites to orbit. The rocket will be mounted under a modified Jumbo from 35,000 feet. There’s also a new space launch facility in Scotland with the UK wanting to inflate its space industry, already having a very advanced satellite manufacturing sector. ---
**Author:** ![filmstar-en](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/50afbb/32.png) [@filmstar-en](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/filmstar-en)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2023, 1:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-ongoing-space-exploration-thread/925703/568 "2023-01-10T01:33:54Z")
Sadly, it did not go to plan…space is hard! " While Cosmic Girl, Virgin Orbit’s customised Boeing 747 jumbo jet, successfully took off from [Cornwall Airport Newquay](https://www.cornwalllive.com/all-about/newquay-airport) and released Virgin Orbit’s LauncherOne rocket with a view to it taking nine satellites from seven British and international customers into space before returning safely down to Earth, the mission was a failure for Sir Richard Branson’s space company after the payload burnt up. The flight towards the south coast of Ireland was going smoothly and the first stage of the rocket had started its own flight into orbit when the second stage of LauncherOne failed to fire up meaning it failed to reach orbit and its payload could not be deployed." > **[Cornwall space mission failure as payload burns up](https://www.cornwalllive.com/news/cornwall-news/cornwall-space-mission-failure-payload-8011887)** > > It should have been Cornwall's moment ---
**Author:** ![pjd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pjd/32/3009_2.png) [@pjd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pjd)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2023, 9:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-ongoing-space-exploration-thread/925703/569 "2023-01-10T09:33:06Z")
It wasn’t a “failure”, it “suffered an anomaly”. ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2023, 10:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-ongoing-space-exploration-thread/925703/570 "2023-01-10T10:00:31Z")
> [@pjd](#): > > It wasn’t a “failure”, it “suffered an anomaly” The trajectory was not nominal. ---
**Author:** ![filmstar-en](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/50afbb/32.png) [@filmstar-en](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/filmstar-en)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2023, 10:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-ongoing-space-exploration-thread/925703/571 "2023-01-10T10:22:34Z")
When a launch causes PR to deploy one of their terminal euphemisms, you just know the outcome was sub-optimal. I guess the satellite hopefuls had some insurance and a spare ready for the next bet. ---
**Author:** ![Fiendish\_Astronaut](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fiendish_astronaut/32/3295_2.png) [@Fiendish\_Astronaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fiendish_Astronaut)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2023, 10:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-ongoing-space-exploration-thread/925703/572 "2023-01-10T10:27:26Z")
Disappointing because I think Virgin Orbit have used this method to launch successfully in the past. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2023, 10:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-ongoing-space-exploration-thread/925703/573 "2023-01-10T10:45:41Z")
My favorite “anomaly” has to be this one: [![](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/z_aHEit-SqA/hqdefault.jpg "DELTA II ROCKET EXPLODES AFTER LIFTOFF!") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z_aHEit-SqA) The perky way the announcer says “we have had an anomaly” as fire and brimstone are raining down from the heavens is just classic. > [@Fiendish\_Astronaut](#): > > Disappointing because I think Virgin Orbit have used this method to launch successfully in the past. Yeah, they’re four for six. That’s not a terrible record for a launch startup, but their finances aren’t great, and it’s a really tough market (especially with SpaceX’s rideshare program). There’s not much room for error for any small launch service in this environment. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2023, 2:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-ongoing-space-exploration-thread/925703/574 "2023-01-10T14:21:17Z")
The commentator is frequently watching a telemetry stream that’s a few seconds behind reality. Which is how when Challenger blew up, those of us watching the live video could see the vehicle had catastrophically come apart while the commentator was about 2 sentences behind narrating the increasing speed / altitude / etc. As to the Virgin failure, I wonder how much the payload “burned up” versus just fell to earth. In most rockets, the end of first stage ignition is way, way short of orbital velocity and if there’s no second stage ignition, all the chunks will come back to earth at less-than-incandescent speeds. ---
**Author:** ![PastTense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pasttense/32/14550_2.png) [@PastTense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PastTense)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2023, 3:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-ongoing-space-exploration-thread/925703/575 "2023-01-10T15:04:34Z")
> [@Dr.Strangelove](#): > > There’s not much room for error for any small launch service in this environment. I think you can divide the small launch service into two markets: commercial and government. The commercial market is going to go with the best value (price, reliability) so there will be great difficulty competing with SpaceX and maybe a couple other firms. But for the government market there is national pride, national security… involved so the British government could well keep Virgin going [and a similar situation with China, Russia, European Union…]. ---
**Author:** ![Fiendish\_Astronaut](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fiendish_astronaut/32/3295_2.png) [@Fiendish\_Astronaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fiendish_Astronaut)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2023, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-ongoing-space-exploration-thread/925703/576 "2023-01-10T15:34:42Z")
Virgin Orbit are actually an American company but the UK government might offer them incentives to launch from the UK. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2023, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-ongoing-space-exploration-thread/925703/577 "2023-01-10T15:47:25Z")
It was founded by a British guy, was it not? ---
**Author:** ![Fiendish\_Astronaut](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fiendish_astronaut/32/3295_2.png) [@Fiendish\_Astronaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fiendish_Astronaut)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2023, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-ongoing-space-exploration-thread/925703/578 "2023-01-10T15:51:42Z")
True but I think they are registered in the US. Anyway the UK government is not the sort to bail out individual companies. But they might offer incentives to businesses in a particular sector. ---
**Author:** ![pjd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pjd/32/3009_2.png) [@pjd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pjd)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2023, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-ongoing-space-exploration-thread/925703/579 "2023-01-10T16:22:19Z")
In totally unrelated\* news … > **[Meteor lights up skies over England](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-england-64220964)** > > An orange light streaking across the night sky is captured on mobile phones and doorbell cameras. \*It occurred a couple of hours before the rocket anomaly. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2023, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-ongoing-space-exploration-thread/925703/580 "2023-01-10T16:27:05Z")
Perhaps they will be inclined to give a British knight a break. =) ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2023, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-ongoing-space-exploration-thread/925703/581 "2023-01-10T20:36:44Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > The commentator is frequently watching a telemetry stream that’s a few seconds behind reality. Certainly true in general, though I think in this case not relevant. Really she was just being professional. I just found the juxtaposition amusing, since for this incident in particular it wasn’t a far-off fireball, but rather chunks of white-hot solid fuel raining down on the pad area. IIRC, a bunch of it landed on the parking lot and destroyed some cars. > [@PastTense](#): > > I think you can divide the small launch service into two markets: commercial and government. I’m not really seeing that distinction yet in the small launch market. NASA, ArianeSpace, Roscosmos, China’s various organizations, ISRO (Indian), etc. definitely go in the “national pride” category and are either state-funded already or will get subsidized indefinitely so as not to fail. But those aren’t smallsat launchers. Maaaaybe Virgin Orbit could fit into that category–it certainly seems to be the case for the OneWeb constellation (i.e., the UK government didn’t let them fail). But I’m not convinced about the rest. Rocket Lab is in a similar position of seemingly being a New Zealand launcher, but in fact is a US company. Would NZ bail them out for national pride reasons? I don’t think the US would. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-ongoing-space-exploration-thread/925703.md?page=28) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-ongoing-space-exploration-thread/925703.md?page=30)