Re:SpaceX Iridium-3 Mission Launching Streaming
by abhi3 on Monday October 09, 2017 @09:04AM
(#15433432)
The first time SpaceX landed a booster we had 1284 upvotes 432 comments (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10774865), in less than two years it has become so routine that this submission has just 22 point and 4 comments.
Makes me wonder if one-day lunches to Mars and intra-planetary travel via BFR will also become so routine :)
Re:SpaceX Iridium-3 Mission Launching Streaming
by krisroadruck on Monday October 09, 2017 @10:33AM
(#15434097)
This depends largely on advances in propulsion. It's convenient to launch to mars every 2 years from a fuel efficiency standpoint, but there is no reason why we can't go there at any other time, other than current propulsion limits. At a constant 1G acceleration (including a flip over at the halfway mark for equal 1G deceleration), even at its farthest distance from earth, we could reach it in under 5 days. You even get artificial gravity as a bonus.
Re:SpaceX Iridium-3 Mission Launching Streaming
by Narretz on Monday October 09, 2017 @09:18AM
(#15433504)
Overall, this is a good thing. What's bad is that the next time a rocket doesn't make the landing (or worse, cannot submit the payload), this will be all over the news as a failure. At least in Germany, a failure would get a mention on the frontpage of tagesschau.de (portal of the state-sponsored media channel), while a success doesn't.
Re:SpaceX Iridium-3 Mission Launching Streaming
by avar on Monday October 09, 2017 @09:31AM
(#15433601)
If Lufthansa crashes a plane tomorrow in Berlin that'll also make the German news, while them flying hundreds of flights a day doesn't make it because it's not noteworthy.
It's the news because it's notable or out of the ordinary.
Re:SpaceX Iridium-3 Mission Launching Streaming
by arctor_bob on Monday October 09, 2017 @09:13AM
(#15433474)
There's no "idle thrust" on Falcon 9 since even the lowest thrust is enough to lift the almost empty booster. You also don't want to completely run out of fuel because your engine will probably explode. This was just a residual fire.
Re:SpaceX Iridium-3 Mission Launching Streaming
by msl on Monday October 09, 2017 @12:27PM
(#15435231)
One problem here would probably be turbopumps [1] running dry. These things run very close to their limits when fully stressed and would presumably run higher still if they no longer needed to pressurize anything.
The fuel is also used as a coolant [2] so you would not want to run out of fuel in the plumbing before you run out of propellants in the combustion chamber.
"""
"I have been photographing Iridium flares since 1997 from various parts of the world. In fact, I was the one who first discovered the source of the flares after working with engineers at Motorola that year. I have gone so far as making a bar bet with people, advertising Iridium flares at international aerospace conferences, and emailing predictions to other overseas before there were web pages that allowed easy access to flare times." — Paul Maley, NASA Johnson Space Center Astronomical Society
Sadly, that era will soon draw to a close. On January 14th, SpaceX’s Falcon 9 delivered the first 10 of a new generation of Iridium NEXT satellites to low-Earth orbit, starting the process to replace the older units in a maneuver called slot-swapping. While the new birds will provide faster data rates and enhanced global communications, their antenna design is completely different and not expected to produce significant flares.
"""
Makes me wonder if one-day lunches to Mars and intra-planetary travel via BFR will also become so routine :)
Edit: citation http://athena.cornell.edu/mars_facts/sb_launch_window.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_travel_using_constant_ac...
It's the news because it's notable or out of the ordinary.
While that may once have been true, what consists of "news" today is simply whatever will grab people's attention. It's all about ratings.
It certainly does not have to be notable or out of the ordinary.
Can anyone suggest keywords/links about this? Sounds interesting.
The fuel is also used as a coolant [2] so you would not want to run out of fuel in the plumbing before you run out of propellants in the combustion chamber.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turbopump
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merlin_(rocket_engine_family) (search "regeneratively cooled")
""" "I have been photographing Iridium flares since 1997 from various parts of the world. In fact, I was the one who first discovered the source of the flares after working with engineers at Motorola that year. I have gone so far as making a bar bet with people, advertising Iridium flares at international aerospace conferences, and emailing predictions to other overseas before there were web pages that allowed easy access to flare times." — Paul Maley, NASA Johnson Space Center Astronomical Society
Sadly, that era will soon draw to a close. On January 14th, SpaceX’s Falcon 9 delivered the first 10 of a new generation of Iridium NEXT satellites to low-Earth orbit, starting the process to replace the older units in a maneuver called slot-swapping. While the new birds will provide faster data rates and enhanced global communications, their antenna design is completely different and not expected to produce significant flares. """