Author Topic: Deep Space and Interplanetary Exploration - The Universe is Timeless (Read 193584 times)

worktroll · « **Reply #960 on:** 08 February 2018, 20:06:00 »

Quote from: hoosierhick on 08 February 2018, 18:00:23

There's a towel and a copy of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy in the glove box. No sunglasses or babel fish, from what I've seen.

Also a copy of Foundation on hardened optical media.

In 50 years someone's going to salvage this; the materials effects of deep soak will be invaluable, but the prestige & bragging rights will be more ;)

Wrangler · « **Reply #961 on:** 15 February 2018, 12:28:32 »

Looks like commercial astronaut training has begun now to get serious.

What's cool about the company running it is they have the last seven operational F-104 Starfighters in the world help train these would-be astronauts. The Last Starfighters. ;)

I wonder thought how long they will be able to keep those birds flying. Hopefully they have source of spare parts, since the Air Force only produced 50 of them in total. Pretty cool looking planes to boot.

worktroll · « **Reply #962 on:** 15 February 2018, 12:38:00 »

F-104s are terrible spacecraft trainers, IMHO. They're also highly dangerous when flown aggressively. But it's part of the "right stuff", fighter jock image.

I'd rather have them use converted civilian airliners, as the Russians did at one point. Support crew, and more likely to get out of problems.

Still, it begs the question of purpose. If you intend to be flying X-wings, then maybe Starfighters make sense ... ???

Bedwyr · « **Reply #963 on:** 15 February 2018, 12:50:41 »

Which prompts an associated question. What spacecraft training is done in fighters and T-28s? I thought the point was for it to be cross-training in an aviation environment, stemming from Apollo era pilots wanting to maintain proficiency.

worktroll · « **Reply #964 on:** 15 February 2018, 12:55:44 »

Fighter jocks maintaining proficiency in fighters. And keeping up flight pay. "The Right Stuff" covers the area well for the Mercury period.

Flight characteristics of jet trainers, or Starfighters, has little to do with proficiency in a ballistic capsule. And the Shuttle - which no longer exists - was different again.

Starfighters might help maintain twitch reflexes, but ... just nothing like a Dragon capsule. Even the Virgin Galactic glider is ... different.

(And it may be worth pointing out that Starfighters are not ideal trainers for gliding approaches ...)

kato · « **Reply #965 on:** 15 February 2018, 12:56:29 »

Quote from: Wrangler on 15 February 2018, 12:28:32

I wonder thought how long they will be able to keep those birds flying.

It's a Starfighter, the question is not how long they will be able to keep them flying but how long they will be able to keep them from following the call of nature and crashing.

Quote from: Wrangler on 15 February 2018, 12:28:32

Hopefully they have source of spare parts, since the Air Force only produced 50 of them in total.

The USAF operated 277 Starfighters, other nations a total of 2,578 units.

About 1,000 Starfighters crashed, leading to such quaint nicknames as "fallfighter", "lawn dart", "flying coffin", "missile with a man", "the beautiful death" or "widowmaker".

Bedwyr · « **Reply #966 on:** 15 February 2018, 13:12:09 »

Quote from: worktroll on 15 February 2018, 12:55:44

Fighter jocks maintaining proficiency in fighters. And keeping up flight pay. "The Right Stuff" covers the area well for the Mercury period.

Flight characteristics of jet trainers, or Starfighters, has little to do with proficiency in a ballistic capsule. And the Shuttle - which no longer exists - was different again.

Starfighters might help maintain twitch reflexes, but ... just nothing like a Dragon capsule. Even the Virgin Galactic glider is ... different.

(And it may be worth pointing out that Starfighters are not ideal trainers for gliding approaches ...)

That's what I meant. It was for fighter pilot/astronauts to keep their wings and it just spread as a kind of expensive "enrichmment" training for people like mission specialists.

Weirdo · « **Reply #967 on:** 15 February 2018, 15:04:28 »

Quote from: worktroll on 15 February 2018, 12:55:44

(And it may be worth pointing out that Starfighters are not ideal trainers for gliding approaches ...)

Cut the engine on a Starfighter, and you're not that far off from a ballistic capsule, flight-wise... :)

Wrangler · « **Reply #968 on:** 15 February 2018, 23:40:51 »

So this company maybe a waste of time?

Weirdo · « **Reply #969 on:** 16 February 2018, 00:48:10 »

A lot of space exploration is a waste of time, that's why they call it rocket science instead of rocket assemble-the-IKEA-chair.

Okay, waste of time is not the right wording at all, but you get my drift.

Lazarus Jaguar · « **Reply #970 on:** 16 February 2018, 16:39:21 »

A little something that popped up on my FB feedg

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/next/space/atomic-rockets-could-be-nasas-best-bet-for-getting-humans-to-mars/

Wrangler · « **Reply #971 on:** 16 February 2018, 16:47:20 »

I just read that. It will take alot effort politically to get NASA to be able to get nuclear-propulsion going again.
There alot political / environmental groups who would cry foul. Another thing is if they do manage even get funding to do it, the political winds could change and all that research is wasted again.

Weirdo · « **Reply #972 on:** 16 February 2018, 17:01:05 »

Hardly wasted. The research you do is still there, so that the next time it gets okayed people don't have to start over at square one.

worktroll · « **Reply #973 on:** 16 February 2018, 17:09:40 »

Are we talking closed-cycle or open-cycle?

Would we be better off coming up with basic nuclear power units, which could then drive ion, VASIMR, or closed-cycle thermal?

In space situations, there's almost a case for liquid-metal reactors.

Almost.

Daryk · « **Reply #974 on:** 16 February 2018, 17:26:26 »

Well... liquid metal does have some interesting physics... ::)

Lazarus Jaguar · « **Reply #975 on:** 16 February 2018, 23:02:34 »

Younlike liquid metal, go look up Gas Core nuclear thermall rockets

I have yet to see a porpposal for a propulsion system with higher thrust than one of those

BirdofPrey · « **Reply #976 on:** 17 February 2018, 00:05:14 »

Quote from: Weirdo on 16 February 2018, 17:01:05

Hardly wasted. The research you do is still there, so that the next time it gets okayed people don't have to start over at square one.

Sure, research won't go to waste, but if they start building something, and that gets canceled, that's a lot of expense with nothing to show for it.

ColBosch · « **Reply #977 on:** 17 February 2018, 00:13:48 »

Quote from: BirdofPrey on 17 February 2018, 00:05:14

Sure, research won't go to waste, but if they start building something, and that gets canceled, that's a lot of expense with nothing to show for it.

Don't fall into the sunk costs fallacy. As long as the money went into a skilled workforce and materials, it was not wasted. Sometimes the right thing to do is to just write a project off and start something new.

BirdofPrey · « **Reply #978 on:** 17 February 2018, 00:42:15 »

Well there's a difference between canceling a project before it burns up too much funding and canceling a project because political winds have changed.
Canceling the Constellation Project was the former, but SLS having much the same requirements and goals (the big one being to reuse Space Shuttle equipment) is a political rather than pragmatic decision, and falls square into sunk cost fallacy territory.

What I am trying to say is it would be a terrible misuse of funds if they create infrastructure to support nuclear rocketry then dismantle it all, not because it costs too much, or because it's too high risk, but because "grr nuke bad"

Wrangler · « **Reply #979 on:** 17 February 2018, 08:11:38 »

Lockheed Martin has begun production of 2nd Orion Capsule for the EM-2 2022 mission.

Its very detail work. Were the capsules are suppose to be reusable once they get past the testing phase?

Matti · « **Reply #980 on:** 25 March 2018, 08:35:29 »

Looks like SpaceX is building the first equivalent of a spheroid DropShip.

BFR

:thumbsup:

Wrangler · « **Reply #981 on:** 25 March 2018, 10:18:07 »

I'll be happier if they start showing physical construction going on. With the company switching to using the BFR as manned spacecraft, Falcon Heavy almost waste of an effort. Delays manned flight bit for them. Dragon 2 makes me wonder how many they'll end up doing.

Don't get me wrong, i think BFR is extremely good idea and should be done. However their talking about eliminating most of the spacecraft for it. I honestly don't think using BFR as point-to-point spaceliner will be great idea because gravitational forces your putting on ordinary travelers with all that retrorockets slowing down it's descent. If Virgin Galactic get beyond a tourist plane to a passenger service like the had said few years ago, it would properly less strain of people traveling on the space craft doing sub-orbital fight.

kato · « **Reply #982 on:** 13 May 2018, 11:07:33 »

Mission Schedule for Hayabusa 2 at Ryugu:

kato · « **Reply #983 on:** 13 May 2018, 11:08:38 »

Touchdown Operations #1 and #2:

drop laser-reflective Target Marker for navigation at altitude 100m
approach to 30m, then use target marker to go down for surface contact
fire rifle with 76-grain Tantalum projectile point-blank at rock
suck up what gets thrown up

The concept is pretty much the same as for Hayabusa 1 at Itokawa. Five target marker spheres are carried in case an approach has to be reattempted in a different place. Samples from each touchdown are stored separately in the return capsule.

Touchdown Operation #3:

Deploy SCI independent weapons platform and DCAM3 freeflying camera
move Hayabusa behind asteroid
fire SCI at asteroid from 100m distance while DCAM3 observes
move to new crater, drop target marker, move to surface
fire rifle into sub-surface material and suck it up

SCI is a 20 kg free-flying carrier for a shaped charge that fires a EFP to create a 4m diameter crater.
DCAM3 is a copy of DCAM1 and DCAM2 which observed IKAROS deploying her solar sail a couple years ago.

Rover Deployment #1 and #2:

Deploy MASCOT (10 kg German/French hopping lander, battery-powered, will take measurements in 2-3 locations with multiple instruments)
Deploy MINERVA-II-1A and MINERVA-II-1B together (1.1 kg hopping landers, solar-powered, will scout surface, carry stereo camera)
Deploy MINERVA-II-2 (1.6 kg hopping lander, solar-powered, will scout surface, carry stereo camera)

The main difference between MINERVA-II-1 and MINERVA-II-2 is that the two -1 landers are built by JAXA while -2 is built by a consortium of Japanese universities.
MASCOT's instruments are mostly derived from Philae, battery lasts for 15-16 hours on the surface.

ANS Kamas P81 · « **Reply #984 on:** 21 May 2018, 10:14:58 »

Well here's something you don't see every day. An asteroid in a retrograde orbit with 1:1 resonance with Jupiter.

Chew on that a moment.

The punchline? It's an interstellar capture that we can bloody well reach. Dig into that thing and find out what the composition of an entire other solar system was when it formed. Suddenly there's a potential second data set to start comparing this little backwater stellar harbor to...the planetary sciences folks are gonna be drooling at the opportunity.

kato · « **Reply #985 on:** 21 May 2018, 11:45:29 »

Haven't read the paywalled NYT article, but what's in the press about it is a bit cringeworthy in how it's "shortened".

Basically, what's actually the case is that there are a number of stable retrograde heliocentric orbits (numerically), and that the orbit of 2015BZ509 is likely to match one of those stable orbits. If it does, that means that it has been in orbit since 4.5 billion years ago. Since current solar system formation theories do not have a mechanism for objects in retrograde orbits it therefore is concluded that it can't have formed in the solar system.

A year ago the orbit of the same object was estimated to have existed for at least a million years, thus being long-term stable. At the time it was speculated by those who had traced that orbit to be a long-period comet that had been forced into its orbit through interaction with Saturn.

There are around 60 known objects in retrograde heliocentric orbits, mostly Centaurs and TNOs. Their orbits tend to be unstable though, in the case of 2007VW266 (the second retrograde object near Jupiter) existing for a lifetime of 10,000 years.

One object exists in a stable retrograde heliocentric orbit with a lifetime of 100+ million years, 2008KV42 - which is also much larger than 2015BZ509. It's a bit hard to get to though, since it's a TNO with a SMA of 41 AU orbiting near perpendicular to the ecliptic.

ANS Kamas P81 · « **Reply #986 on:** 21 May 2018, 13:34:17 »

Sure, plenty of stable orbits, but 2015BZ509 being in clean 1:1 resonance with Jupiter (it seems to like the leading Trojans, from the animation) and holding that for as long as it's been here, with no simulation able to provide a local origin? That's exciting stuff.

Wrangler · « **Reply #987 on:** 22 May 2018, 05:51:36 »

More Nine Planet news, NASA has some hopes a irregular orbit of a asteroid will hint if there is a Ninth Planet out there. (No not Pluto..)

I hope they find something within our lifetime with this.

kato · « **Reply #988 on:** 24 May 2018, 05:56:56 »

Has anyone seen any close-neighborhood analysis based on Gaia DR2 out there yet? On Arxiv or similar?

From a quick search on Vizier using DR2 data Gaia spotted some 11 objects on multiple CCD passes in the immediate neighborhood, i.e. closer than Alpha Centauri.

Wrangler · « **Reply #989 on:** 24 May 2018, 12:51:56 »

Do you guys think that major Aerospace industrial companies be able to coop with SpaceX and arguably Blue Origin's movement with Reusable rockets? It's seem it could be major problem that could put alot these rocket makers out business if they don't catch up. I like the changes but i hate see people lose the talent and people losing jobs. Insane research and development costs seem to kept people from developing something new until Blue and SpaceX showed up.

A article raised the question if ArianaSpace (Europian space agency's rocket maker) should make a reusable space plane, if it's would be feasible for them.