So who's signing up to go to space?

Not me. Hopefully some wealthy Ag does and checks in here, after contributing whatever it takes to an NIL program that brings in some top D1 linebackers to the program.

Pretty cool perspective at this blog I've never heard of about 'Cape Canaveral version 2.0' coming together:

Quote:

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Jay might have also gotten us some pictures of the shuttle Atlantis, which is on display at Kennedy. However,

Quote:

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On Thursday, I dropped off my security pass and headed down south to catch my flight. I had some time to kill so I thought about seeing the shuttle Atlantis, but they were asking a lot and I did not want to pay to park. What a racket.

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His final thoughts about this first visit in sixteen years however match mine:

Quote:

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So driving south, I saw new buildings for engineering firms. Some are old and some are new faces to the scene. When I was at KSC in 2007, I met with a retired engineer who worked with Apollo, Skylab, and the first shuttle missions. I asked him where are all the companies? I was told that that it is not worth it. Now, everyone wants to have their offices near KSC, private enterprise has breathed new life to the local economy and to KSC. What we are seeing is KSC 2.0.

---

Actually, what we are seeing is KSC version minus 2.0. This new version, based on private enterprise and private ownership and not a government-run program, harks backwards, to the basic American vision that built the country. For a half century following Apollo we decided to emulate the Soviet Union and the communists, making our space effort a government program, ruled from above with no freedom or competition allowed.

The result was a moribund space program that got little done, and strived to make what it did as boring as possible.

That model has at last been abandoned. Now we have private companies competing for profit, and the result has been the most energy and creativity in the aerospace industry in decades. The situation Jay saw at Kennedy simply reflects that.

---

And politics related briefly - some will take that as a negative and point to the parking being expensive as a sign of this.

But make no mistake, this is how we make space happen. For everyone.

I have a very close friend who grew up on the Space Coast and he tried to convince me to resettle there (Melbourne Beach area) during the early parts of the pandemic. I was very close to putting an offer on a $400k home close to him, in fact. Homes around it recently went on the market for $650k. The area is booming.

And it cracks me up that the area code there is 321 (liftoff!).

When I have 450k to spare, I'll do it!

bthotugigem05 said:

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I have a very close friend who grew up on the Space Coast and he tried to convince me to resettle there (Melbourne Beach area) during the early parts of the pandemic. I was very close to putting an offer on a $400k home close to him, in fact. Homes around it recently went on the market for $650k. The area is booming.

And it cracks me up that the area code there is 321 (liftoff!).

---

That is the entire state of Florida since covid.

SIAP (op-ed from 3/26/23 - from the "Chair of Sky & Space Intergroup of the European Parliament"):

https://tech.eu/2023/03/26/can-europe-remain-a-space-power/

Quote:

---

Europe is about to lose its place as a space power. With the failure of the Vega-C light rocket, the positive momentum of the European Space Agency's (ESA) ministerial meeting has already been shattered. The numbers are grim: 60 launches of SpaceX's Falcon rocket this year, compared to... 3 Ariane launches.

More than 100 American launches are expected in 2023, while Ariane 5 will phase out without a confirmed maiden flight of its big sister Ariane 6. By that time, Europe will no longer have access to space, so we will be forced to launch the last three Galileo navigation satellites… with SpaceX, having previously relied on Russian Soyuz rockets.

We had already launched the latest French military communications satellite with an American rocket. Not to mention manned flights, which Europe never mastered, unlike the Americans, the Russians and now the Chinese. China is the only country that has an independent space station, while the others depend on the International Space Station.

Finally, we depend on U.S. Space Command for tracking the smaller objects in orbit, a key capability given their exponential increase due to constellations, debris, and the risk of accidental or intentional collisions. Not to mention the role that the Maxar and Starlink satellites play in supporting Ukrainian field observation and communications. Europeans are often deaf and blind on their own continent.
. . .
Why is it important to draw this damning conclusion? Because we can only move forward by first being honest to ourselves and to European citizens. The European space strategy and industry must change radically to get back on their feet. Of course, the performance of Ariane 5 has allowed the James Webb telescope to be more precise and gain a few years of life. Of course, the Orion module is essential to the conquest of the Moon in the Artemis mission. Of course, Thomas Pesquet, Samantha Cristoforetti, and Alexander Gerst are a source of pride.

But all this is happening in the context of programs driven by America, who have once again become an immense space power, in parallel with the Chinese, who are multiplying their successes - landing on the dark side of the Moon, space station, Mars rover, quantum communications - without a lot of care for possible collateral damage, as we saw with the uncontrolled return of the first stage of the Long March rocket in early November.
. . .
Europe's space organization and sacred cows need to be radically rethought: When ESA was created, the plan was to abolish national agencies - this was ultimately not done, resulting in a messy overlap of technical and procurement agencies. Same between the European Space Agency and the European Commission institutions, with duplicated resources, overlapping responsibilities and different members.

Finally, georeturn - this policy of returning the exact share of ESA's contribution to domestic industry - is becoming a factor of fragmentation and duplication of competencies at a time when we need pure excellence and speed to face fierce competition. Ironically, European public institutions that want to be "efficient" are rushing into commercial activities such as monetizing space observation, crowding out private actors that would be significantly more efficient. Worse, they are sometimes deeply naive, considering that Copernicus observation data are freely available, even to the major US technology platforms, who make it readable by end users - who pay for the service or provide convenient advertising revenue to those platforms.
. . .
Strategic thinking must be restored, in two ways: by ending the generalised subsidies spree - whether through European research programs or national programs - and instead using public procurement wisely, awarding contracts to the best rather than the most established; by designing contracts strategically to avoid any bias that would exclude new entrants, who often enable the greatest disruption and innovation.

To achieve this, the strategic and operational competence of contracting authorities must be strengthened. More engineers, fewer lawyers. Secondly, we need to think about the technological "Next Big Thing" and not indulge in the hubris of simply wanting "our constellation" - because only differentiation and a technological leap will give us an advantage.
. . .
The 2.4 billion euros earmarked for the new IRIS2 connectivity constellation will be wasted if we lie to ourselves, as we did with Ariane 6, by setting unrealistic schedules, or if we make a "sovereign" copy of Starlink. Will we use quantum communications? Will our satellites be less complex and much cheaper with an order of magnitude difference? Will the gamble of using only 100 satellites (compared to tens of thousands that Starlink plans in the long term, having already 2500) pay off?
. . .
Europe is losing market share and influence in space every day, despite the talent our continent has, as the NewSpace boom shows. Only a revolution in methods, strategic public procurement and our ability to prioritize and think ahead technologically can allow Europe to remain relevant in space, one of the key frontiers of the 21st century.

---

I always enjoy reading third-party's thoughts about SpaceX and America's recent space related successes.

2/ We have more samples to analyze to get higher confidence, then we will send samples to @Prof_Hafner of Rice University for Raman spectroscopy. If the fines that rained down are not from broken-up concrete, then they must be from the sand under the concrete.

— Dr. Phil Metzger (@DrPhiltill) June 16, 2023

PJYoung said:

---

2/ We have more samples to analyze to get higher confidence, then we will send samples to @Prof_Hafner of Rice University for Raman spectroscopy. If the fines that rained down are not from broken-up concrete, then they must be from the sand under the concrete.

— Dr. Phil Metzger (@DrPhiltill) June 16, 2023

---

3/ So I hope @Prof_Hafner can help identify their composition.

NASA is interested in this research because it will help inform how to build lunar launch pads. We've never seen a launch pad event like this, and it has similarities to expected failure modes of lunar launch pads.

— Dr. Phil Metzger (@DrPhiltill) June 16, 2023

The third tweet in that thread is the most interesting! Cool that this will end up helping NASA for a reason other than just getting Starship operational.

Every so often Betelgeuse does something weird like suddenly dimming and everyone starts talking about it going supernova any time now. Then scientists remind us it could happen anytime between the next few seconds and the next few million years.

Well check out this paper (it still needs to be peer reviewed):
https://arxiv.org/pdf/2306.00287.pdf

The authors analyzed its pattern of dimming and brightening and were able to infer at what stage the star is in its evolution.


This chart shows the time it takes for a star with Betelgeuse's properties to burn through its fuel and their models show that Betelgeuse is now in the the carbon burning phase (which is much shorter than the hydrogen burning phase), and the amount of carbon it has left is actually very low (see the blue column):


If you plot the range of carbon they estimate is left on the chart above, that's around t=1 to 2.5, on the log plot in years, so about 10-300 years. Hopefully we can tighten this estimate further, but I'm hoping for a supernova within the next 30 years.

Faustus said:

---

SIAP (op-ed from 3/26/23 - from the "Chair of Sky & Space Intergroup of the European Parliament"):

https://tech.eu/2023/03/26/can-europe-remain-a-space-power/

Quote:

---

Europe is about to lose its place as a space power. With the failure of the Vega-C light rocket, the positive momentum of the European Space Agency's (ESA) ministerial meeting has already been shattered. The numbers are grim: 60 launches of SpaceX's Falcon rocket this year, compared to... 3 Ariane launches.

More than 100 American launches are expected in 2023, while Ariane 5 will phase out without a confirmed maiden flight of its big sister Ariane 6. By that time, Europe will no longer have access to space, so we will be forced to launch the last three Galileo navigation satellites… with SpaceX, having previously relied on Russian Soyuz rockets.

We had already launched the latest French military communications satellite with an American rocket. Not to mention manned flights, which Europe never mastered, unlike the Americans, the Russians and now the Chinese. China is the only country that has an independent space station, while the others depend on the International Space Station.

Finally, we depend on U.S. Space Command for tracking the smaller objects in orbit, a key capability given their exponential increase due to constellations, debris, and the risk of accidental or intentional collisions. Not to mention the role that the Maxar and Starlink satellites play in supporting Ukrainian field observation and communications. Europeans are often deaf and blind on their own continent.
. . .
Why is it important to draw this damning conclusion? Because we can only move forward by first being honest to ourselves and to European citizens. The European space strategy and industry must change radically to get back on their feet. Of course, the performance of Ariane 5 has allowed the James Webb telescope to be more precise and gain a few years of life. Of course, the Orion module is essential to the conquest of the Moon in the Artemis mission. Of course, Thomas Pesquet, Samantha Cristoforetti, and Alexander Gerst are a source of pride.

But all this is happening in the context of programs driven by America, who have once again become an immense space power, in parallel with the Chinese, who are multiplying their successes - landing on the dark side of the Moon, space station, Mars rover, quantum communications - without a lot of care for possible collateral damage, as we saw with the uncontrolled return of the first stage of the Long March rocket in early November.
. . .
Europe's space organization and sacred cows need to be radically rethought: When ESA was created, the plan was to abolish national agencies - this was ultimately not done, resulting in a messy overlap of technical and procurement agencies. Same between the European Space Agency and the European Commission institutions, with duplicated resources, overlapping responsibilities and different members.

Finally, georeturn - this policy of returning the exact share of ESA's contribution to domestic industry - is becoming a factor of fragmentation and duplication of competencies at a time when we need pure excellence and speed to face fierce competition. Ironically, European public institutions that want to be "efficient" are rushing into commercial activities such as monetizing space observation, crowding out private actors that would be significantly more efficient. Worse, they are sometimes deeply naive, considering that Copernicus observation data are freely available, even to the major US technology platforms, who make it readable by end users - who pay for the service or provide convenient advertising revenue to those platforms.
. . .
Strategic thinking must be restored, in two ways: by ending the generalised subsidies spree - whether through European research programs or national programs - and instead using public procurement wisely, awarding contracts to the best rather than the most established; by designing contracts strategically to avoid any bias that would exclude new entrants, who often enable the greatest disruption and innovation.

To achieve this, the strategic and operational competence of contracting authorities must be strengthened. More engineers, fewer lawyers. Secondly, we need to think about the technological "Next Big Thing" and not indulge in the hubris of simply wanting "our constellation" - because only differentiation and a technological leap will give us an advantage.
. . .
The 2.4 billion euros earmarked for the new IRIS2 connectivity constellation will be wasted if we lie to ourselves, as we did with Ariane 6, by setting unrealistic schedules, or if we make a "sovereign" copy of Starlink. Will we use quantum communications? Will our satellites be less complex and much cheaper with an order of magnitude difference? Will the gamble of using only 100 satellites (compared to tens of thousands that Starlink plans in the long term, having already 2500) pay off?
. . .
Europe is losing market share and influence in space every day, despite the talent our continent has, as the NewSpace boom shows. Only a revolution in methods, strategic public procurement and our ability to prioritize and think ahead technologically can allow Europe to remain relevant in space, one of the key frontiers of the 21st century.

---

I always enjoy reading third-party's thoughts about SpaceX and America's recent space related successes.

---

That's what the metric system gets you...

Unfunded Space Act agreements with SpaceX for Starship as a space station and a Blue Origin crewed vehicle among others.

https://spacenews.com/nasa-agreements-to-support-work-on-commercial-spacecraft-and-space-stations/

Yes that's very helpful likely, agreed.



Some nice launch tower/GSE updates.

The Texas Space Commission was signed into law recently. The appropriation for it (in HB 1) includes $200 million for A&M to build a research, training, astronautical materials curation, and robotics facility near NASA Johnson.

https://texas2036.org/posts/space-commission-bill-passes-the-legislature/

I got caught behind those two storage tanks coming form Ohio last Friday. I was coming south and somewhere around Mifflin we started moving along in 2 lanes of traffic about 50 mph... at first I thought I'd come up on a wreck or something but before long I realized it had to be an oversize load. I never actually saw the holdup until just north of Raymondville where they pulled over on the frontage road and let traffic by.

Wow, this thread got buried.

SPIN PRIME! Ship 25 conducts a Spin Prime test where the engine's turbopumps are brought up to speed but there was no ignition.

Live:https://t.co/q6r9cT6yNp pic.twitter.com/scXO6CEphb

— Chris Bergin - NSF (@NASASpaceflight) June 21, 2023

PJYoung said:

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Wow, this thread got buried.

SPIN PRIME! Ship 25 conducts a Spin Prime test where the engine's turbopumps are brought up to speed but there was no ignition.

Live:https://t.co/q6r9cT6yNp pic.twitter.com/scXO6CEphb

— Chris Bergin - NSF (@NASASpaceflight) June 21, 2023

---

Do you even lost submarine, bro?

Sea Speed said:

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PJYoung said:

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Wow, this thread got buried.

SPIN PRIME! Ship 25 conducts a Spin Prime test where the engine's turbopumps are brought up to speed but there was no ignition.

Live:https://t.co/q6r9cT6yNp pic.twitter.com/scXO6CEphb

— Chris Bergin - NSF (@NASASpaceflight) June 21, 2023

---

Do you even lost submarine, bro?

---

Actually, I have become quite the expert.

Spin prime and no explosions. SpaceX just casually solving problems

About 2 mins and 45 secs into flight, the Falcon 9 is usually high enough (insignificant aerodynamic drag) that they can jettison the two fairing halves revealing the payload to (near) space. At separation and jettison, the rocket is going 2,000+ mph, but this is still WAY...

— Jon Cowart (@Rocky_Sci) June 23, 2023

good thread/post.

Maverick and Goose - love it.

Copied entirely from the /r/SpaceX subreddit:

Elon's starship comments on this morning's twitter space. Confirms hot-staging for starship. That vented ring is for hot staging!

Typing as he's talking:

Tremendous changes between last starship flight and current one.
Probability of next flight to orbit is much higher than last one, maybe around 60%, it depends on how well we do at stage separation.
We made a late-change to the way stage sep works which is to use hot-staging where we light the engines of the upper stage/ship while the first stage engines are still on (though most shut down, just a few running). Need to protect the top of the first stage from getting blasted.
There's a meaningful improvement in payload to orbit (10%!) in doing this so he feels it's worth it. The moment the rocket stops its engines it starts falling, you don't want to be coasting unless you're already in orbit. Non-stop thrust is much better.
This requires vents in the interstage area. An extension to booster is being added that is basically all vents. This is the biggest change for the next flight, requires all the venting and shielding to the top of the booster, can be risky.
He thinks launch pad upgrades and ship upgrades will be ready in 6 weeks. This is a massive update to the launch site. * Putting roughly 1000 cubic meters of steel reinforced concrete below the pad and the steel deluge sandwich on top of that. Elon then explains the deluge upside down showerhead as we've already heard.
Question: Have you addressed engine issues we saw on the first stage? Elon: Yes. Last engines were sort of a hodge-podge. Hot-gas manifold transferring ullage gas to the main chamber for combustion has been upgraded. This is the riskiest part of the engine. Hot gas leaking through the bolt-holes of the fuel manifold is a problem when it gets really hot, an improved design for this and higher torque of the bolts is helping minimize this fuel leakage at high pressure and temp.
how much invested in starship to date?: Over 2B, this year approaching 3. Not far from what was expected
Most difficult technical challenge remaining for starship to get to regular flights? We don't know with accuracy on this yet because we haven't reached orbit. If we knew we would already have fixed it. Can't know this before we launch.
Stage separation appears to be the biggest risk so far
Is Elon still dead-set focused on mars or concerned about other things now? Elon answers a bit confused by the question, says still worried about AI and Tesla.
Status of new AI company? Not for today's subject per Musk.
call completed

Wow, I think most were pretty skeptical of the flip for stage separation stuff but that's a huge change based on one test flight.

Lighting the 2nd stage while still connected seems…bold. Any other rockets do that, historically/regularly?

nortex97 said:

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Lighting the 2nd stage while still connected seems…bold. Any other rockets do that, historically/regularly?

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Bold is putting it lightly.

You could probably do this with solid engines and a disposable booster but given what Raptors do to concrete, igniting the starship engines to avoid a short coast stage is wild.

nortex97 said:

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Wow, I think most were pretty skeptical of the flip for stage separation stuff but that's a huge change based on one test flight.

Lighting the 2nd stage while still connected seems…bold. Any other rockets do that, historically/regularly?

---

Titan, and quite a few others historically. Proton has at least one stage that does as well. I believe Soyuz hot stages it's 3rd stage as well. It's a historical practice that's been used to avoid ullage motors and coast periods for decades

lb3 said:

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nortex97 said:

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Lighting the 2nd stage while still connected seems…bold. Any other rockets do that, historically/regularly?

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Bold is putting it lightly.

You could probably do this with solid engines and a disposable booster but given what Raptors do to concrete, igniting the starship engines to avoid a short coast stage is wild.

---

I'm sure Elon was told this isn't a good idea but he wants to try it anyway.

I wonder if the second stage had a hot gas thruster system that Elon tossed if the vehicle wouldn't need to do flips or light the 2nd stage engines before stage separation. Really makes you think.

Why is hot staging a bad idea? Look at the size and weight of the ullage motors the s2 had to use, and the risks the in-atmosphere cost causes

I thought it had a cold gas system and he took it out.

Ag_of_08 said:

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Why is hot staging a bad idea? Look at the size and weight of the ullage motors the s2 had to use, and the risks the in-atmosphere cost causes

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Did I misread the quoted article? Ullage motors would be fine. I thought Elon was going to ignite 1 or more Starship Raptors before shutting down all the booster engines.

The whole world is watching including his critics and he's still doing test flights like he's a small obscure rocket company. Hope it works out.

Ag_of_08 said:

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Why is hot staging a bad idea? Look at the size and weight of the ullage motors the s2 had to use, and the risks the in-atmosphere cost causes

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When is it ever a good idea to blast any part of the re-usable first stage with 5,000 degree supersonic hot gasses?

You can build heat shields and deflectors and vents, but that's added risk and additional stage 1 refurbishment cost.

If it does add payload capacity maybe it's worthwhile to figure out.

Might be better than their flip maneuvers or they wouldn't be trying it.

They should put some sample vents in front of a Raptor on the test stand and see how it holds up. I wonder if they do that before testing it in flight.

They're going to hot stage instead of using sep an ullage motors. The whole point of hot staging is to eliminate the need for both those systems, and has been in use almost since the start of space flight.

We did it 368 times from 1959 to 2005, on a rocket that was our primary nuclear ICBM...must not be too bad of an idea.

Also- the raptor throttles deeply enough that the couple of seconds if hot stage is far less than the pad level thrust

Ag_of_08 said:

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They're going to hot stage instead of using sep an ullage motors. The whole point of hot staging is to eliminate the need for both those systems, and has been in use almost since the start of space flight.

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How many were reusable 1st stage? If you aren't concerned with damage to the first stage then sure. You have to admit, this is pretty experimental and risks doing damage to the first stage.

Yes, it would be wise to test with 1 engine at mIn thrust.