# 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:** 81
**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:** [September 23, 2024, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-ongoing-space-exploration-thread/925703/1602 "2024-09-23T21:11:07Z")
Yeah, orbital refueling basically _the_ gating technology for significant development beyond Earth orbit. We just barely landed people on the Moon with a 3-stage single-use rocket using hydrogen propellant. Sending significant mass to the asteroid belt or Mars or whatever can’t be done like that. All of Starship’s missions beyond LEO depend on refueling. Everyone that isn’t SpaceX will eventually discover the same truth. Cheap launch requires _full_ reusability. And you can have full reusability, but it costs so much performance that you’re limited to LEO. Therefore you must refuel in orbit to regain that performance–which is relatively cheap because you’re fully reusable. It resets the rocket equation, which is notoriously “tyrannical”. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2024, 9:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-ongoing-space-exploration-thread/925703/1603 "2024-09-23T21:34:18Z")
The earliest depiction of asteroids as rubble piles that I’ve encountered yet! Here’s an interesting graphic I ran across: it shows how much the mass for a round-trip to the moon could be reduced depending on how much refueling is available and where (of course the fuel has to come from somewhere; the presumption is lunar propellent production and LEO/ L1 depots fueled from the moon): [![](https://images-wixmp-ed30a86b8c4ca887773594c2.wixmp.com/f/ade5409b-2e79-4780-88fd-dace9ed03a7c/d8o5tw5-9cd3e554-f565-4faa-bef9-c70747e7e003.png/v1/fit/w_828,h_620,q_70,strp/why_isru_on_and_from_the_moon_is_important_by_william_black_d8o5tw5-414w-2x.jpg?token=eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJzdWIiOiJ1cm46YXBwOjdlMGQxODg5ODIyNjQzNzNhNWYwZDQxNWVhMGQyNmUwIiwiaXNzIjoidXJuOmFwcDo3ZTBkMTg4OTgyMjY0MzczYTVmMGQ0MTVlYTBkMjZlMCIsIm9iaiI6W1t7ImhlaWdodCI6Ijw9NzY2IiwicGF0aCI6IlwvZlwvYWRlNTQwOWItMmU3OS00NzgwLTg4ZmQtZGFjZTllZDAzYTdjXC9kOG81dHc1LTljZDNlNTU0LWY1NjUtNGZhYS1iZWY5LWM3MDc0N2U3ZTAwMy5wbmciLCJ3aWR0aCI6Ijw9MTAyMyJ9XV0sImF1ZCI6WyJ1cm46c2VydmljZTppbWFnZS5vcGVyYXRpb25zIl19.6KFy6JExILDblicNIPHTuQW0gYVH_VH9azk95RicjQo) ](https://images-wixmp-ed30a86b8c4ca887773594c2.wixmp.com/f/ade5409b-2e79-4780-88fd-dace9ed03a7c/d8o5tw5-9cd3e554-f565-4faa-bef9-c70747e7e003.png/v1/fit/w_828,h_620,q_70,strp/why_isru_on_and_from_the_moon_is_important_by_william_black_d8o5tw5-414w-2x.jpg?token=eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJzdWIiOiJ1cm46YXBwOjdlMGQxODg5ODIyNjQzNzNhNWYwZDQxNWVhMGQyNmUwIiwiaXNzIjoidXJuOmFwcDo3ZTBkMTg4OTgyMjY0MzczYTVmMGQ0MTVlYTBkMjZlMCIsIm9iaiI6W1t7ImhlaWdodCI6Ijw9NzY2IiwicGF0aCI6IlwvZlwvYWRlNTQwOWItMmU3OS00NzgwLTg4ZmQtZGFjZTllZDAzYTdjXC9kOG81dHc1LTljZDNlNTU0LWY1NjUtNGZhYS1iZWY5LWM3MDc0N2U3ZTAwMy5wbmciLCJ3aWR0aCI6Ijw9MTAyMyJ9XV0sImF1ZCI6WyJ1cm46c2VydmljZTppbWFnZS5vcGVyYXRpb25zIl19.6KFy6JExILDblicNIPHTuQW0gYVH_VH9azk95RicjQo) Orbital refueling is one of two badly neglected technologies that Apollo skipped over in favor of specializing in a “dog sled to the South Pole” approach to get to the moon as fast as possible. The other is rotational gravity. Both are indispensable if we’re ever going to have any meaningful manned presence in space. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2024, 9:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-ongoing-space-exploration-thread/925703/1604 "2024-09-23T21:45:38Z")
> [@Lumpy](#): > > The earliest depiction of asteroids as rubble piles that I’ve encountered yet! I tried to find the earliest scientific proposal for rubble piles, but failed. ---
**Author:** ![Balance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ccd318/32.png) [@Balance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Balance)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2024, 9:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-ongoing-space-exploration-thread/925703/1605 "2024-09-23T21:46:25Z")
I don’t think there’s any question that we ultimately need a space station that’s more depot and utility station than research outpost. My dream plan is for such a facility to become the hub of a manufacturing facility that will construct space-to-space vessels. We don’t need a dedicated vessel to take a lander all the way from the Earth’s surface to lunar orbit, or fuel tanks to Mars, or mining drones to the Belt. We need what amounts to tug boats that can haul standard packages around the system. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2024, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-ongoing-space-exploration-thread/925703/1606 "2024-09-23T21:53:36Z")
And yet the genius of Starship is that because it’s not specialized as a spaceplane like the Shuttle was, once refueled it can also be an orbital transfer vehicle and with very little modification both a lunar and Mars lander. This might end up working better than the old presumption of specialized vehicles for each leg of the trip. It’s close to the old concept of a “rocket ship”, albeit one without the ridiculous amounts of delta-v it was presumed atomic energy would provide. ---
**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:** [September 24, 2024, 12:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-ongoing-space-exploration-thread/925703/1607 "2024-09-24T00:41:04Z")
> [@Darren\_Garrison](#): > > It was done in 1960, but was too expensive so people just brought their own FYI your cited images are now an “Image not found” graphic. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2024, 12:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-ongoing-space-exploration-thread/925703/1608 "2024-09-24T00:50:50Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > FYI your cited images are now an “Image not found” graphic. Odd, never had that host remove an image before. Here they are on another host. [![](https://i.imgur.com/pfi64UO.jpeg) ](https://i.imgur.com/pfi64UO.jpeg) [![](https://i.imgur.com/SdvdzDK.jpeg) ](https://i.imgur.com/SdvdzDK.jpeg) From Uncle Scrooge issue #29, March 1960 (“Islands in the Sky”). ---
**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:** [September 24, 2024, 12:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-ongoing-space-exploration-thread/925703/1609 "2024-09-24T00:53:44Z")
Thanks for the re-post Evidently _somebody_ thought those were copyright violations. I take no position on whether they are or are not. Not my field of expertise. ---
**Author:** ![peccavi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peccavi/32/388_2.png) [@peccavi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/peccavi)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2024, 1:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-ongoing-space-exploration-thread/925703/1610 "2024-09-24T01:31:19Z")
> [@Darren\_Garrison](#): > > Odd, never had that host remove an image before. Here they are on another host. Of course, the non-cartoon on-orbit fueling demonstration was accomplished about 20 years ago. > **[Orbital Express](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orbital_Express)** > > Orbital Express was a space mission managed by the United States Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and a team led by engineers at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC). The Orbital Express program was aimed at developing "a safe and cost-effective approach to autonomously service satellites in orbit". > The system consisted of two spacecraft: the ASTRO servicing satellite, and a prototype modular next-generation serviceable satellite; NEXTSat. > The mission launched from Cape Th... ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2024, 1:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-ongoing-space-exploration-thread/925703/1611 "2024-09-24T01:34:03Z")
Is this some sort of joke I’m not in on? Or am I going crazy? To me this video looks very obviously like CGI, but the posts and commenters are talking like they believe it is real? > **[A Chinese rocket narrowly missed a landing on Sunday—the video is amazing](https://arstechnica.com/space/2024/09/a-chinese-rocket-narrowly-missed-a-landing-on-sunday-the-video-is-amazing/)** > > Deep Blue Aerospace is just one of several Chinese companies working on vertical landing. ---
**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:** [September 24, 2024, 1:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-ongoing-space-exploration-thread/925703/1612 "2024-09-24T01:38:09Z")
Why don’t you think it’s real? It’s filmed with a high-performance drone with camera tracking, and IMO is nausea-inducing, but there’s nothing impossible about it. It’s not that large a craft and they aren’t doing anything that SpaceX didn’t do a decade ago (or the DC-X did decades earlier). Drones can easily go 100+ mph these days and zip around in arbitrary directions. ETA: The distortion from the wide-angle lens also makes it look a little CGI-like, but there’s nothing impossible about that, either. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2024, 1:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-ongoing-space-exploration-thread/925703/1613 "2024-09-24T01:49:43Z")
One specific issue (other than the general look of it) is that I have watched it over and over and can’t see a trace of the drone’s shadow. ---
**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:** [September 24, 2024, 2:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-ongoing-space-exploration-thread/925703/1614 "2024-09-24T02:01:07Z")
I didn’t spot a shadow either. But the rocket is 3.35 m diameter. The drone might only be a tenth of that–and much of that in a sparse structure that doesn’t leave much of a shadow. Could easily get lost in the pixels. ---
**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:** [September 24, 2024, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-ongoing-space-exploration-thread/925703/1615 "2024-09-24T21:53:50Z")
My copy of Eric Berger’s _Reentry_ is on its way. Hopefully it arrives before the weekend. Ars put a chapter of it up: > **[In the room where it happened: When NASA nearly gave Boeing all the crew funding](https://arstechnica.com/features/2024/09/in-the-room-where-it-happened-when-nasa-nearly-gave-boeing-all-the-crew-funding/)** > > "In all my years of working with Boeing I never saw them sign up for additional work for free." SpaceX owes a lot to Phil McAlister. When NASA was deciding between Boeing and SpaceX for Commercial Crew, Boeing was looking like a sure bet. But McAlister asked a few very important questions that gave them the chance. For one: > McAlister asked if the veteran procurement official had ever seen a federal agency choose a bidder that cost 60 percent more when both bids were technically acceptable. And the response (from someone that had voted Boeing): > McNally shifted uncomfortably in his seat at this question. Eventually he remarked that the source selection official, Gerstenmaier, could do whatever he pleased. McAlister pressed further, repeating the question. “No,” McNally replied. “That would be uncharted territory.” And then: > Next, McAlister questioned the engineer representing safety and mission assurance, Deirdre Healey. When she had spoken, Healey said the safety division preferred Boeing as long as the company performed an in-flight test of its spacecraft’s abort system—powerful thrusters that push the vehicle away in case the rocket malfunctions during launch. But Boeing did not plan to do so. Their bid included a ground test of this abort system, not one in flight. McAlister seized on this, asking Healey if this meant Boeing’s proposal should really be considered unsatisfactory. And in the “aged like milk” category: > A few weeks later I had an interview with John Elbon, a long-time engineer at Boeing who managed the company’s commercial program. As we talked, he tut-tutted SpaceX’s performance to date, noting its handful of Falcon 9 launches a year and inability to fly at a higher cadence. As for Musk’s little Dragon event, Elbon was dismissive. > > “We go for substance,” Elbon told me. “Not pizzazz.” ---
**Author:** ![Zakalwe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zakalwe/32/270_2.png) [@Zakalwe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zakalwe)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2024, 2:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-ongoing-space-exploration-thread/925703/1616 "2024-09-25T02:31:57Z")
Frankly, this is the kind of event that shows why NASA is no longer capable of managing a space program. Everything they do costs more than it should and works less often that it should because NASA is a Congressional jobs program. They should write requirements and then get the fuck out of the way and let the bidders figure out how to make it happen. If they had, in 2018, given SpaceX + 2 other rando companies the amount they’ve spent on Artemis to date (with many more billions to go), we’d have men on Luna now or expected to there next year at the latest. NASA is now an antagonist of practical human spaceflight. ---
**Author:** ![duality72](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/duality72/32/3910_2.png) [@duality72](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/duality72)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2024, 1:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-ongoing-space-exploration-thread/925703/1617 "2024-09-25T13:24:11Z")
> [@Zakalwe](#): > > we’d have men on Luna now or expected to there next year at the latest > [@Zakalwe](#): > > practical human spaceflight I don’t see these as compatible statements. ---
**Author:** ![Balance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ccd318/32.png) [@Balance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Balance)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2024, 5:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-ongoing-space-exploration-thread/925703/1618 "2024-09-25T17:52:27Z")
> [@duality72](#): > > I don’t see these as compatible statements. In that a substantial human presence on the moon is not of practical use? I’m inclined to agree. In the medium term, an automated facility for collecting and refining certain materials could be worthwhile. There are useful minerals accessible at the Lunar surface, and if a practical automated system could be built to extract them, lifting them from Lunar gravity would be cheaper than launching them from Earth. Even so, asteroid mining is likely to be a better solution in the long term, in my opinion, so the trade-offs would have to be weighed carefully. ---
**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:** [September 28, 2024, 1:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-ongoing-space-exploration-thread/925703/1619 "2024-09-28T01:41:07Z")
Some very nice 4k footage of the Polaris Dawn mission: [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/5_DZtCYhdXc/maxresdefault.jpg "Polaris Dawn | Views from Dragon in flight") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_DZtCYhdXc) Worth playing fullscreen. Looks like the camera got a bit of radiation damage in parts. Very beautiful, regardless. ---
**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:** [October 4, 2024, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-ongoing-space-exploration-thread/925703/1620 "2024-10-04T21:38:41Z")
Vulcan flight two launches, with a small problem: > **[ULA launches second Vulcan flight, encounters strap-on booster anomaly –...](https://spaceflightnow.com/2024/10/04/ula-launches-second-vulcan-flight-encounters-strap-on-booster-anomaly/)** But I’ve found my favorite euphemism yet: > “The trajectory was nominal throughout,” he said on the company’s launch webcast. “We did, however have **an observation** on SRB No. 1, so we will be off looking at that after the mission is complete.” No other details were provided. “An observation.” Ha! Half of the SRB nozzle exploded and it’s just “an observation.” Even “anomaly” is apparently too strong a term here. ---
**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:** [October 4, 2024, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-ongoing-space-exploration-thread/925703/1621 "2024-10-04T21:57:53Z")
Neat: > Real _Koyaanisqatsi_ vibes. (one of you know what I’m talking about, I hope) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-ongoing-space-exploration-thread/925703.md?page=80) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-ongoing-space-exploration-thread/925703.md?page=82)