davidtheweb
Ars Scholae Palatinae
Looks like Tuesday, (3 Dec) for the next attempt.
I can't fathom a Martian economy, it makes no sense to me. It's not the western frontier. You can't just walk off into the prairie and grow corn. Or hunt for skins. Or dig a mine. Anything done on Mars will require a huge amount of resources, technology and capital. How do you manufacture anything without basic industry like mining and smelting? Then all the The equipment for that will be immensely expensive to bring to Mars. Any manufacturing has to be of high order technological products. Selling shovels and buckets on Mars is not exactly going to be a winning business. Even if you manage to make something, how will anyone else afford it if they can't also make something worthwhile. You can only have so many people growing hydroponic tomatoes! It'll be like a Sunday farmers market where everyone is selling squash because that's the only thing they can grow!![]()
[url=http://meincmagazine.com/civis/viewtopic.php?p=31235009#p31235009:2cnzxy2n said:MilleniX[/url]":2cnzxy2n]Don't worry, they still have plenty of time to find a reason to scrub[url=http://meincmagazine.com/civis/viewtopic.php?p=31234681#p31234681:2cnzxy2n said:Tom the Melaniephile[/url]":2cnzxy2n]Omg, my non tourist KSC visit is Thursday, and the date has been holding.![]()
![]()
![]()
![]()
![]()
https://xkcd.com/1788/Only outside seating is available; will that be all right?
I realize this is bordering on link and run, but I really don't have any (worthwhile) commentary to add. Merely "wow".
A train of Starlink sats passing overhead caught with a low light camera:
https://sattrackcam.blogspot.com/2019/0 ... x.html?m=1
It wouldn't get to that point.Doubtful. It's pretty easy to track ground signals from the air, so they could catch people that way, and it's likely if SpaceX allowed their satellites to transmit while over China at all, they would threaten to shoot them down.I realize this is bordering on link and run, but I really don't have any (worthwhile) commentary to add. Merely "wow".
A train of Starlink sats passing overhead caught with a low light camera:
https://sattrackcam.blogspot.com/2019/0 ... x.html?m=1
Still very on topic, and yes, 'WOW' works for me.
It's been mentioned, but the Starlink system could become very disruptive of China's 'Great Firewall' intent and could really hinder Russia's attempt to make a similar system for their people.
RF spectrum is mediated via international treaty as part of the ITU, an arm of the United Nations. Member States are free to regulate and allocate bandwidth in their territory, other than ITU requirement, as they see fit. If SpaceX breaches the United States' obligations under the ITU, it is guilty of criminal action under Federal law.
You don't need to shoot down satellites if you can just put Elon Musk in jail.
It's never actually hit and exploded. It has landed then had a leg fail and fallen over. If the rocket actually hit the barge at speed, the barge would likely sink. In this case, it was probably too low on fuel to complete the lading burn so it aborted. The reason it always looks like it's wildly swinging around right at the end is because it only moves over the barge at the last second. You can see the difference on the pad landings, where they come in much smoother.and not truly have a forced, 'we're gonna crash' need to demonstrate that failsafe.
Every landing is fail safe. The computers intentionally aim for just a bit away from the boat and only at the last possible moment do they correct the movement for a landing, if everything checks out. That way if something goes wrong (internal or external) it just hits the water.
It's a bit difficult to say every landing is fail safe when the damn thing has hit the ship and exploded previously. It's a good risk mitigation, but fail safe seems overselling it.
China can move fast and really doesn't care if things break.Maybe you mean China.
According to astronomers, it IS a fleet of star destroyers entering orbit.
Nope. They got wet.Did they catch the fairings?
OneWeb is using Chapter 11 to prevent its creditors from suing (for non-payment/tort) it while it finds a buyer for its assets. It's still self-liquidating. Airbus Defence and Space intends to continue the JV in Florida.I don't think you're interpreting this correctly. Chapter 11 does NOT mean that the company will shut down and assets will be sold off -- that's Chapter 7 (Liquidation). OneWeb could successfully emerge from Chapter 11 (under new ownership) and go on to complete their constellation. I'm not saying they will, mind you, just that they could.Related, looks like SpaceX has one less competitor:
https://www.oneweb.world/media-center/o ... le-process
Pity, they actually had a pretty nice satellite. 8 Gbps for 150kg and 250W. So about 1/2 the capacity for 2/3 the mass and 1/4 to 1/8 the power of Starlink. Guess we'll see if Amazon buys the carcass for the spectrum priority.
OneWeb used to work very closely with early SpaceX in its former guise as WorldVu. A falling out led to SpaceX "doing a Sony" and veering off to go into competition with OneWeb with Starlink. OneWeb is almost certainly where Elon Musk got the idea from for Starlink. This left OneWeb at the mercy of Russian launches, expensive and slow. That was OneWeb's first mis-step. The JV's satellite production facility is right outside the Kennedy Space Centre and designed for integration onto Falcon 9s, but OneWeb has never used a Falcon 9 and launches on Soyuz 2.1b rockets with a Fregat-M upper stage.
You can't build a massive satellite constellation on expendable rockets unless you have money to burn or are a government. Iridium was famous for bankrupting companies. Even SpaceX, which does have money to burn, hasn't ever contracted an external launch provider.
Starlink scrub.
Trying again in 2 hours.
Awww; I wanted to seeAaaaaand scrubbed.another earth-shattering kaboooma successful landing, finally.
Scrub doesn't appear to be weather-related, as forecasts are indicating the weather clearing up later this afternoon... no news on a backup date yet, either.
I like my crane parts bucket idea better.
Why two towers? Do they expect enough launch volume to keep two stacking towers busy? Or are they supposed to split the work? Maybe one lifts the booster on the launch platform and the other lifts starship on the booster?
And if you add in "ride along" launches, (assuming you haven't) that number goes up....and makes starlink launches that much cheaper.
Must be including that and averaging out?
Non starlink launches this year:
Turksat 5a
Transporter 1
Crew 2
CRS-22
SXM-8
GPS III-05
Transporter 2
CRS-23
So only 8 actual rocket launches with paying customers.
Inspiration4 has a paying customerSo only 8 actual rocket launches with paying customers.
EDIT: Also USSF 44 on Falcon Heavy