
SpaceX's hot new monster rocket ready for first test flight - dnetesn
https://phys.org/news/2018-02-spacex-hot-monster-rocket-ready.html
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ggm
Meantime in NZ, a smaller company succeeds in launching microsats into LEO and
signals that the foodchain in rocketry is a complex ecology. And the Japanese
signal sounding rockets are in this niche too. And Australia decides to build
out a committee to investigate forming a working party to design the logo for
a future Australian Resarch & Space Exploration body...

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djsumdog
One of my best mates works for Rocket Lab in Auckland. They put in crazy mad
hours and the people there love their work. It'll be interesting to see more
of their launches over the next year.

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NamTaf
If they pull it off, the tandem booster landing at the Cape will truly be a
sight to behold. That's probably the most exciting part of it all for me.

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trothamel
I'll love to see that, but what I'm really looking forward is seeing the core
and boosters separate.

If only because that'll be about the time I breathe again, and I'm sure I'll
be pretty close to running out of air.

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hliyan
Nobody from the 1960's will ever believe that for almost the entirety of the
decade of 2010, the United States will be without manned space flight
capability...

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aardvark291
It turns out that manned space flight capability just isn't very useful.

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sterlind
Taking a page from Seveneves, what is the minimum set of robotics required for
parity with the general-purpose abilities of a human astronaut?

Humans can repair electronics, perform assembly in space and run a wide
variety of experiments. Automation works, but it's hard to make as general-
purpose.

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greenhouse_gas
It's much cheaper (and safer) to throw away a satellite than to develop and
fly a shuttle.

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sterlind
I'm in agreement with you there. but launching a new satellite for every task
rapidly gets expensive. could you imagine the ISS being assembled by
satellites alone? humans are good at assembling and maintaining things.

asteroid mining will provide an impetus to develop assembly robots capable of
matching human flexibility and autonomy. we're not there yet, though.

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fnord77
> The Falcon Heavy won't surpass NASA's Saturn V moon rocket, still all-time
> king of the launch circuit.

Yeah. The Saturn V could put twice as much mass into LEO than the specs for
the FH and about 3x as much into Lunar orbit.

All 50 years ago.

Progress, folks.

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greenhouse_gas
SpaceX never claimed that it's advancing rocket science.

NASA recovered rockets and landed on the moon years ago.

What they didn't do was lower the cost to orbit.

_That_ is SpaceX's thing

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kaycebasques
“SpaceX’s hot new monster rocket ready for first test flight”

Did People Magazine write that?

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lerie82
Washington post maybe?

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djsumdog
Is this really progress, or have we taken a huge step backwards from the NASA
days? Keep in mind, a collaboration between NASA, Russia (for launches) the
CSA and ESA helped build the International Space Station. The space shuttles
had some design problems, but they lasted for decades. NASA rockets cost a
lot, but SpaceX is heavily subsidized.

I don't want to diminish what SpaceX, Rocket Lab, et. al. are doing. It's
incredibly impressive and important. I realize a lot of NASA was cold war tech
was a hidden way to invest in ICBMs. I wish it wasn't that way. I wish space
exploration wasn't growing private. It wish it were open, publicly funded;
without secrecy, corporate work and non-disclosures.

> The Falcon Heavy won't surpass NASA's Saturn V moon rocket, still all-time
> king of the launch circuit. It won't even approach the liftoff might of
> NASA's space shuttles.

Then why? Tax payer dollars are going to subsidize private rocket research.
The SpaceX videos are more sensationalized than any NASA launches.

Back in the 60s, NASA scientists envisioned space stations with 10k person
capacities by 2010. The Biosphere II hit some major problems, Challenger
exploded and tons of other issues started to chill everyone's expectations.
That future that was so hopeful started to fade.

We praise Space X, and some of Musk's absolutely fucking retarded ideas, along
with his many successes. Somehow, I feel like, a few decades ago, scientists
in this field thought we'd be much further than we are right now. They
promised themselves so much...

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dwaltrip
Your comment doesn't make it clear what your gripe actually is... or what you
think should be happening instead.

