You obviously know a ton more about this and follow all that happens a lot more closely. I have huge gaps in my knowledge of what’s going on, like Google: Firefly space systems. Never heard of this before. Hopefully over the years to come I’ll be learning a lot more on this thread/forum, as the subject of getting out there past Earth orbit in manned craft is one I’m keen to see happen sometime in the next ten or so years.
I had this thought that once China started to do proper manned space flight that it would also help kick up a gear somewhat, the ESA and NASA and private funded efforts. But from what you’ve said it seems things are already moving along at a good pace which is good to know.
I’ll rephrase that…what I meant was to google the following companies…there are a ton of space startups right now and it’s really exciting. I have been doing research on what exists a lot right now because I’m graduating and I’ll be sending out applications soon .
I really like Firefly Space because they’re using an aerospike which is a really cool way to exploit fluid dynamics of combustion expansion leading to higher specific impulses at all altitudes. No one has flown an aerospike before so it’s cool to follow them.
Vector and Rocket Labs are taking advantage of the recent miniaturization of electronics and batteries and use cheaper and more importantly lighter electric motors to pump fuel into the combustion chambers. This simplifies a rocket engine immensely because a lot of the complicated mess of creating a rocket engine lies around the turbopump of traditional engines.
This is 100% correct. SpaceX and Boeing will be flying their own manned capsules in less than 2 years. BO is working on suborbital tourism while developing a larger orbital class rocket where they will do the same. With the current testing of expandable habitats with BEAM, there’s about to be an explosion(not literally, I hope) of human activity in orbit…I am of the opinion of “if you build it, they will come”…the demand isn’t quite there, but as costs fall rapidly and opportunity in space is quickly becoming economical conditions are becoming ripe for entrepreneurs. The billionares are already taking advantage of it ;), it’s just a matter of time until the costs fall to where the majority of millionaires and smaller corporations lie to catch up. China’s competition is great sure, but at this point governments are about to be sidelined by private and commercial activities once the highway to orbit is established and costs fall past a certain threshold.
I’m not sure I’d want to do this as a paid trip. If I could afford such a flight in my lifetime I’d want to go into proper orbit for at least one trip around the Earth before re-entering the atmosphere. The ideas of Earth orbit space hotels does sound like something I’d like to do…when safe. But I fear this might not be possible in my lifetime. We’ll have to see how this inflatable module tech fairs over the next couple of years with the hope it might lead to larger modules that could be used for space hotels.
I’m guessing that to do a lot of these things, materials design needs to also jump forward a bit more. Lots of interesting materials being R&D’ed.
EVA suit material interests me the most, especially for the Mars mission, for both EVA outside of the craft and service modules whilst on route and in Mars orbit. And the Mars surface suits, their final design. One would hope that a little design flair can be incorporated into them based off films like Interstellar and The Martian. Well, I would like to see a little of it reflected anyways. I think it would help with the optics to the public when watching in UHD 4k HDR as these missions unfold. It would be quite an event to watch someone EVA outside the craft whilst on the way to Mars, doing some repair etc…if EVA was an option whilst in transit.
And the first steps out of the lander module on Mars, what a moment that will be!. So a good surface suit design I think will add to the sense of drama and achievement of that first mission. I’m sure whomever is in charge of the Mars surface suit already knows this.
I’m strapped on time right now so I can’t give you a proper response, but you’ll be happy to know this is a “leaked” prototype of SpaceX’s flight suits. These aren’t EVA and are only for use in the case of emergency that the cabin depressurizes, but damn do they look good. I can imagine any EVA suits designed won’t look too much worse. It’s missing a lot of what’s necessary, but you can take a peak at the Dragon V2 internal videos by SpaceX on youtube where they show a bit of what they look like in a more recent version.
Thanks, Those look pretty cool. As material design pushes forward I see no reason why good looking suit design cannot be something we see for all aspects of EVA and surface work. The Moon on the other hand, I think will need some new super protective suit design. Its going to be interesting to see what the Chinese come up with if they are going to land on the Moon.
The Falcon 9 is considerably smaller than the Saturn V (70 m vs 110 m height).
SLS Block II will have a LEO payload capacity of 130 metric tons, just ten less than the Saturn V. Also consider that these days you can pack a lot more into a smaller mass than in the 60’s.
As for the cost, that targeted cost per launch is about US$500 million, compared to a Saturn V at about US$1.2 billion (adjusted for inflation). There has been a lot of controversy regarding whether it will be worth it, especially when you look at how much SpaceX and ULA are charging their customers, but when it flies there will be nothing that can match its performance.
There’s no way that the SLS’s actual cost per launch for $500 million…Like the shuttle and apollo the R&D costs will have to be factored in addition to the cost of building a new rocket to find the true price per launch…it will easily be $800+ million per launch I have no doubt…
The SLS program has already spent $5 billion at least…the SLS program gets 3 or 4 billion a year from NASA it’s insane and completely incomparable to previous programs since those costs usually have the cost of R&D of those programs factored in.
@JonnyRedHed Tens of billions if you’re government contracted.
BumBumBummmm LAUNCH TIMEEEEEEEE. Almost. It was supposed to be ~5 hours from now but it got delayed until tomorrow, same time. 1:20 edt or 10:20 pdt…Sorry for the UTC people I don’t know the conversion off the top of my head.
I’ve been super busy but know that no launch will go unwarned!
Yes the launch will attempt the landing on the barge
No it is not going to the ISS, it’s a Japanese commsat going to GTO.
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