Author Topic: Deep Space and Interplanetary Exploration - The Universe is Timeless  (Read 176924 times)

worktroll

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I'll stick to the station idea. Any Mars mission is likely to spend more time in transit than on the ground, unless you're going Zubrin one way ;) And the long-term experience  is the needed point - ISS doesn't even pretend to recycle (sorry, it does recycle some urine), everything else comes canned.
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Given all the talk of other nations gearing to send people to the moon, like the Russian and the Chinese. The Moon may get bit crowded in decade or so.
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worktroll

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It is, reputedly, a harsh mistress ...

(Which is the last readable book Heinlein wrote, IMHO. YMMV.)
* No, FASA wasn't big on errata - ColBosch
* The Housebook series is from the 80's and is the foundation of Btech, the 80's heart wrapped in heavy metal that beats to this day - Sigma
* To sum it up: FASAnomics: By Cthulhu, for Cthulhu - Moonsword
* Because Battletech is a conspiracy by Habsburg & Bourbon pretenders - MadCapellan
* The Hellbringer is cool, either way. It's not cool because it's bad, it's cool because it's bad with balls - Nightsky
* It was a glorious time for people who felt that we didn't have enough Marauder variants - HABeas2, re "Empires Aflame"

Natasha Kerensky

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Looks like new Administration has jumped started NASA into planning something.

Space.com has reported NASA has plans to established a Luna Station in orbit of the Moon in order gain more experience handling deep exploration.

The "gateway" is driven by organizational inertia dating all the way back to an early 2000s study.  This notional planning is internal to NASA and Boeing, is not being done at the behest of the Administration, and has not been adopted by the Administration.

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Also the small space station is to sever as a jump point for robotic missions going to the surface of the Moon and other efforts. 

Robotic missions would not stage from the gateway.  There's no need -- we've been mounting robotic planetary missions since the 1960s without gateways or other space stations.  At most, lunar surface rovers might be temporarily controlled from the gateway.  But that also makes little sense given the short communications time lag from Earth.

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Is this good step?

No, the gateway is a make-work destination for SLS and Orion because after SLS and Orion development and operations are paid for, NASA can't afford more than a couple ISS-type modules in lunar orbit.  There's no money for human lunar landers, surface habitats, rovers, and ascent vehicles.  Or for deep space propulsion, deep space habitats, human Mars landers, surface habitats, etc.

SLS/Orion/gateway is a Potemkin human space "exploration" program.  It just replicates a little of what ISS is doing a little further out.  That is not human space exploration.  If we want a _real_ human space exploration program -- one that does more than visit an ISS-type module beyond low-Earth orbit once a year -- then we should ditch SLS/Orion, replace them with much less expensive and more reliable launchers and capsules that already exist and/or are under development, and put NASA's limited resources into the systems necessary to put boot prints on the surface of the Moon or Mars.

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They still need learn how to control radiation exposure from the sun for the longer trips.

We know how to shield against solar events (behind water reserves and/or human waste) and against background radiation (polyethylene).

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Will ISS be able be sustained?

Commitments are only through 2024.  If SLS/Orion are retained, NASA funding for ISS would need to ramp down shortly after so that NASA funding for this gateway could ramp up.

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The SLS apparently going to be powering much of the missions.

SLS throw weight is not needed for these kinds of minimal missions beyond low Earth orbit.  Gateway elements would be launched as secondary payloads on SLS, meaning that they could be launched as primary payloads on much cheaper launchers.  And SLS doesn't have the launch rate nor the reliability to support NASA's more ambitious plans, like Mars DRM 5.0.

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I do wonder why no serious efforts were made try go explore while Obama Administration was around.

An early effort to invest in actual human space exploration technologies and systems was stymied by old Shuttle job concerns, and SLS was created and Orion continued to maintain those jobs.  When it became clear that SLS and Orion could not affordably execute near-term human lunar missions nor support long-term human Mars missions, a robotic mission to move an SUV-sized, near-Earth asteroid into lunar orbit was proffered to give astronauts on Orion something to visit.  The asteroid mission was almost universally panned, but SLS and Orion have soldiered on, driven by the jobs issue.  The gateway is the latest attempt to give SLS and Orion something to do that they could conceivably do.

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(I'm not trying get political here.)

Me neither, just to be clear.  I am purposefully avoiding mentions of political parties, governing branches, and leadership.

Putting a base on the Moon would be a logical step before putting one on Mars.

It's actually not.  Everything is different, from how you get to the surface (Mars has an atmosphere, Moon does not) to the toxic contaminants (carcinogenic hexavalent chromium versus silicosis-inducing dust) to any number of mundane but important, system-driving details (local gravity, local solar flux, water sources, etc.).  Even the surface operations doctrine, planning, and tempo are radically different due to the enormous differences in distance from Earth and communications lag.  Lunar advocates like to argue that the Moon is on the critical path to Mars, but systems and operations designed for the Moon will not be useable for Mars.

I'm agnostic on the Mars versus Moon debate.  (In fact, I think the debate is idiotic.)

But if the decision is to go to Mars, then spend limited resources on the systems and testing needed for Mars.  The Moon would be an expensive distraction and contribute little to a humans-to-Mars effort.

Further human exploration of the Moon should (and probably can) stand on its own.

I'll stick to the station idea. Any Mars mission is likely to spend more time in transit than on the ground, unless you're going Zubrin one way ;) And the long-term experience  is the needed point - ISS doesn't even pretend to recycle (sorry, it does recycle some urine), everything else comes canned.

The gateway will not provide long-term experience.  It is man-tended, not manned.

My 2 cents... YMMV.
« Last Edit: 31 March 2017, 11:52:40 by Natasha Kerensky »
"Ah, yes.  The belle dame sans merci.  The sweet young thing who will blast your nuts off.  The kitten with a whip.  That mystique?"
"Slavish adherence to formal ritual is a sign that one has nothing better to think about."
"Variety is the spice of battle."
"I've fought in... what... a hundred battles, a thousand battles?  It could be a million as far as I know.  I've fought for anybody who offered a decent contract and a couple who didn't.  And the universe is not much different after all that.  I could go on fighting for another hundred years and it would still look the same."
"I'm in mourning for my life."
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ANS Kamas P81

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Two big ones today, a reused Falcon 9 first-stage landed on Of Course I Still Love You successfully after kicking SES-10 into orbit, and...
http://www.space.com/36279-mysterious-flash-of-x-rays-detected-by-space-telescope-video.html
Chandra found something interesting.  I didn't see mention of a neutrino event yet, so it might not be a supernova, but perhaps a black hole belch?
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Natasha Kerensky

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Link to Falcon 9 1st stage reuse.  Potentially game changing, but depends heavily on how much it costs to refurbish these stages over the long-run.

http://spaceref.com/commercial-space/spacex-makes-history-with-reuse-of-first-stage.html

"Ah, yes.  The belle dame sans merci.  The sweet young thing who will blast your nuts off.  The kitten with a whip.  That mystique?"
"Slavish adherence to formal ritual is a sign that one has nothing better to think about."
"Variety is the spice of battle."
"I've fought in... what... a hundred battles, a thousand battles?  It could be a million as far as I know.  I've fought for anybody who offered a decent contract and a couple who didn't.  And the universe is not much different after all that.  I could go on fighting for another hundred years and it would still look the same."
"I'm in mourning for my life."
"Those who break faith with the Unity shall go down into darkness."

worktroll

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Love to see the date this was observed. Neutrinos should have preceded X-rays, if it was a supernova.

And more vessels should be named after Culture ships O0
* No, FASA wasn't big on errata - ColBosch
* The Housebook series is from the 80's and is the foundation of Btech, the 80's heart wrapped in heavy metal that beats to this day - Sigma
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* The Hellbringer is cool, either way. It's not cool because it's bad, it's cool because it's bad with balls - Nightsky
* It was a glorious time for people who felt that we didn't have enough Marauder variants - HABeas2, re "Empires Aflame"

ANS Kamas P81

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Love to see the date this was observed. Neutrinos should have preceded X-rays, if it was a supernova.
Oh wow, there's a LOT more to this one.

http://chandra.si.edu/press/17_releases/press_033017.html

Quote
A mysterious flash of X-rays has been discovered by NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory in the deepest X-ray image ever obtained. This source likely comes from some sort of destructive event, but may be of a variety that scientists have never seen before.

The X-ray source, located in a region of the sky known as the Chandra Deep Field-South (CDF-S), has remarkable properties. Prior to October 2014, this source was not detected in X-rays, but then it erupted and became at least a factor of 1,000 brighter in a few hours. After about a day, the source had faded completely below the sensitivity of Chandra.

Thousands of hours of legacy data from the Hubble and Spitzer Space Telescopes helped determine that the event likely came from a faint, small galaxy about 10.7 billion light years from Earth. For a few minutes, the X-ray source produced a thousand times more energy than all the stars in this galaxy.

This X-ray source in the CDF-S has different properties from the as yet unexplained variable X-ray sources discovered in the elliptical galaxies NGC 5128 and NGC 4636 by Jimmy Irwin and collaborators. In particular, the CDF-S source is likely associated with the destruction of a neutron star or white dwarf, and is roughly 100,000 times more luminous in X-rays. It is also located in a much smaller and younger host galaxy, and is only detected during a single, several-hour burst.

...on the sunny side of 11 billion LY away and it was visible.  That had to be a polar jet aimed just right; I don't want to think about what the spherical radiation would be if it went that hard in all directions.  Anyone want to work out the surface area coverage of Chandra's detector versus a sphere "stupid" miles in radius?
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Kit deSummersville

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Me neither, just to be clear.  I am purposefully avoiding all mentions of political parties, governing branches, and leadership.


I think we should at some point address the fact that the Judicial branch is far behind the Executive and Legislative branches in supporting NASA.
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worktroll

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Oh wow, there's a LOT more to this one.

http://chandra.si.edu/press/17_releases/press_033017.html

...on the sunny side of 11 billion LY away and it was visible.  That had to be a polar jet aimed just right; I don't want to think about what the spherical radiation would be if it went that hard in all directions. 

I understand the sentiment, but the odds of a jet being pointed 'just right' at that distance? I don't want to think about that either.

OTOH, if it's full-spread, then we may have just resolved the Fermi paradox, right? I mean, one of them nearby, and Reset!

W.
* No, FASA wasn't big on errata - ColBosch
* The Housebook series is from the 80's and is the foundation of Btech, the 80's heart wrapped in heavy metal that beats to this day - Sigma
* To sum it up: FASAnomics: By Cthulhu, for Cthulhu - Moonsword
* Because Battletech is a conspiracy by Habsburg & Bourbon pretenders - MadCapellan
* The Hellbringer is cool, either way. It's not cool because it's bad, it's cool because it's bad with balls - Nightsky
* It was a glorious time for people who felt that we didn't have enough Marauder variants - HABeas2, re "Empires Aflame"

ANS Kamas P81

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Yeah, that's one of those 'either or' nasty consequences; from the mention of a neutron star being destroyed in over few hours I'd suggest a fortunate angle is the most likely.  You cap a neutron star at 3 solar masses, so one of those getting eaten by a black hole would still only have so much energy to it.  That one's gonna be a mystery for a little while I think.
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Wrangler

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Well Spaceflight Insider gave bit more visually directive insight to the Gateway plan.

I found it more interesting presented this way.  At least they have a plan.  I felt NASA had been kinda rudderless, but it more so with lack of money to do anything beyond the near-Earth manned missions and robotic probes.

Luna Phase


Mars Phase


I still think the Mars Transportation phase kinda lacking. I was hoping they try go with Plasma engine type propulsion so they could get the crew to Mars faster.  Like months length trip vs year plus.
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Natasha Kerensky

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Well Spaceflight Insider gave bit more visually directive insight to the Gateway plan.

Those charts are from an Associate Administrator's presentation to the NASA Advisory Committee, not SI.

Note that there is no NASA Administrator yet in the new Administration to bless this plan or send it back to the drawing board.  And no buy-in from the Administration itself (or Congress).

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I found it more interesting presented this way.  At least they have a plan.  I felt NASA had been kinda rudderless, but it more so with lack of money to do anything beyond the near-Earth manned missions and robotic probes.

It's still that way.  With SLS and Orion, all the agency can afford is puttering around in Earth orbit through 2033, and even then, the program will only swing by Mars.  There is nothing beyond Earth orbit for a couple decades and no surface exploration at all.  Just more spam in a can.

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I was hoping they try go with Plasma engine type propulsion so they could get the crew to Mars faster.  Like months length trip vs year plus.

Requires a MW-class power source.  While paying for SLS and Orion, they don't even have the resources for 1kW+ nuke or 100kW+ solar.

FWIW...
« Last Edit: 02 April 2017, 23:28:58 by Natasha Kerensky »
"Ah, yes.  The belle dame sans merci.  The sweet young thing who will blast your nuts off.  The kitten with a whip.  That mystique?"
"Slavish adherence to formal ritual is a sign that one has nothing better to think about."
"Variety is the spice of battle."
"I've fought in... what... a hundred battles, a thousand battles?  It could be a million as far as I know.  I've fought for anybody who offered a decent contract and a couple who didn't.  And the universe is not much different after all that.  I could go on fighting for another hundred years and it would still look the same."
"I'm in mourning for my life."
"Those who break faith with the Unity shall go down into darkness."

kato

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100kW+ solar.
Not that hard. Current commercial GEO sats are in the 15-25 kW region, and the primary thing limiting that is that the payload doesn't need more.

I'm moderately sure that "40 kW power/prop bus" in the graphic above is the same one originally designed for ARM btw.

Natasha Kerensky

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Not that hard. Current commercial GEO sats are in the 15-25 kW region, and the primary thing limiting that is that the payload doesn't need more.

I'm moderately sure that "40 kW power/prop bus" in the graphic above is the same one originally designed for ARM btw.

We don't know what sticky power management, thermal management, and charging issues we may run into at those unexplored power levels, but they're hopefully not hard.  That said, even with smooth sailing, the kind of power needed for the notional DST is at least a couple iterations after the 40kW ARM bus, and that keeps getting delayed to keep SLS/Orion on life support.  And then there's the propulsion system...

"Ah, yes.  The belle dame sans merci.  The sweet young thing who will blast your nuts off.  The kitten with a whip.  That mystique?"
"Slavish adherence to formal ritual is a sign that one has nothing better to think about."
"Variety is the spice of battle."
"I've fought in... what... a hundred battles, a thousand battles?  It could be a million as far as I know.  I've fought for anybody who offered a decent contract and a couple who didn't.  And the universe is not much different after all that.  I could go on fighting for another hundred years and it would still look the same."
"I'm in mourning for my life."
"Those who break faith with the Unity shall go down into darkness."

kato

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They're not really unexplored. ISS' solar wings are rated for 120 kW.

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Any hypotheses/spoilers about what NASA's got planned for their big reveal this Thursday?
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Frabby

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Any hypotheses/spoilers about what NASA's got planned for their big reveal this Thursday?
I've read that it'll probably be about discoveries made by Cassini and related to extraterrestial oceans.
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kato

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Given the lineup likely something on the interior ocean of Enceladus. Presence of the INMS team leader could suggest detection of plumes, perhaps in other places than the south pole.

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They're not really unexplored. ISS' solar wings are rated for 120 kW.

Yeah, but the DST is baselined at 425kw (or thereabouts).
"Ah, yes.  The belle dame sans merci.  The sweet young thing who will blast your nuts off.  The kitten with a whip.  That mystique?"
"Slavish adherence to formal ritual is a sign that one has nothing better to think about."
"Variety is the spice of battle."
"I've fought in... what... a hundred battles, a thousand battles?  It could be a million as far as I know.  I've fought for anybody who offered a decent contract and a couple who didn't.  And the universe is not much different after all that.  I could go on fighting for another hundred years and it would still look the same."
"I'm in mourning for my life."
"Those who break faith with the Unity shall go down into darkness."

Natasha Kerensky

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Any hypotheses/spoilers about what NASA's got planned for their big reveal this Thursday?

Here's what it's going to be:

Quote
On Thursday NASA will announce evidence that hydrothermal activity on the floor of an ice-covered ocean on Saturn's moon Enceladus are most likely creating methane from carbon dioxide. The process is indicative of possible habitable zones within the ocean of Enceladus.

http://astrobiology.com/2017/04/hydrothermal-activity-in-the-seas-of-enceladus-implications-for-habitable-zones.html

"Ah, yes.  The belle dame sans merci.  The sweet young thing who will blast your nuts off.  The kitten with a whip.  That mystique?"
"Slavish adherence to formal ritual is a sign that one has nothing better to think about."
"Variety is the spice of battle."
"I've fought in... what... a hundred battles, a thousand battles?  It could be a million as far as I know.  I've fought for anybody who offered a decent contract and a couple who didn't.  And the universe is not much different after all that.  I could go on fighting for another hundred years and it would still look the same."
"I'm in mourning for my life."
"Those who break faith with the Unity shall go down into darkness."

Daryk

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I assume that's "habitable" in the bacterial sense?

Natasha Kerensky

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I assume that's "habitable" in the bacterial sense?

_Potentially_ habitable for methanogen/extremophile-type lifeforms (i.e., no photosynthetic cycle).  Who knows if such microbes would qualify as Earth-type bacteria.
"Ah, yes.  The belle dame sans merci.  The sweet young thing who will blast your nuts off.  The kitten with a whip.  That mystique?"
"Slavish adherence to formal ritual is a sign that one has nothing better to think about."
"Variety is the spice of battle."
"I've fought in... what... a hundred battles, a thousand battles?  It could be a million as far as I know.  I've fought for anybody who offered a decent contract and a couple who didn't.  And the universe is not much different after all that.  I could go on fighting for another hundred years and it would still look the same."
"I'm in mourning for my life."
"Those who break faith with the Unity shall go down into darkness."

Daryk

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Right, should have said "extremophile" vice "bacterial"... Still very interesting...

ANS Kamas P81

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The definition of life is pretty bloody wide, I suppose.  And of course there's the question of its core chemistry, if there is such a thing in the oceans there.
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Fühlt nicht durch dich Jadefalke Todesschmerzen,
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Wrangler

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Looks like Japan's JAXA is going to launch a space probe to Mar's moons to retrieve soil samples.  The mission named Martian Moon eXploration Mission (MMX) is set to launch in 2024, to arrive in 2029. 

Their determining how the moons were formed. If they were formed or captured.  I've read that it was believed that one of the moons was the remains of ancient collision that gave form to Mars we know to day.  I don't think that's the case, however you never know.  The moon was said to have been formed from collision with Earth and they both reformed. Which does make some sense to me from what all I've read over the years.
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"How do you defeat a Dragau? Shoot the damn thing. Lots." - Jellico 
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worktroll

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General concensus is that Phobos & Deimos are captures from the asteroid belt. This is supported by things like albedo and spectra, and their overall limited orbits (Deimos is going out, Phobos is going down). Much evidence around Mars' equator of bands of craters, suggesting they're only the latest of a long string of temporary captures - as they dip in orbit, tidal forces tear the moonlet apart, and "the sky rains fire" ;)

Now, I've seen the reports for the alternative, but - given the absolutely trivial size of Mars' moons, it'd be not so much a 'giant impact' as a 'big impact', IMHO.

W.

* No, FASA wasn't big on errata - ColBosch
* The Housebook series is from the 80's and is the foundation of Btech, the 80's heart wrapped in heavy metal that beats to this day - Sigma
* To sum it up: FASAnomics: By Cthulhu, for Cthulhu - Moonsword
* Because Battletech is a conspiracy by Habsburg & Bourbon pretenders - MadCapellan
* The Hellbringer is cool, either way. It's not cool because it's bad, it's cool because it's bad with balls - Nightsky
* It was a glorious time for people who felt that we didn't have enough Marauder variants - HABeas2, re "Empires Aflame"

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So, seems Tabby's Star is dimming again.  Any guessses what it is the aliens are building that's causing this?
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Here folks, have pictures of Jupiter from Juno who's doing a good job of checking up on her husband

http://imgur.com/gallery/aB26b
Ghost Bears: Cute and cuddly. Until you remember its a BLOODY BEAR!

Project Zhukov Fan AU TRO's and PDFs - https://thezhukovau.wordpress.com/

Daryk

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  • The Double Deuce II/II-σ
Sweet images, thanks Marauder! O0

 

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