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This is by far the most interesting aviation/rocketry development I've ever seen. After watching the two Falcon 9 lower stages come back simultaneously from the
by mechhacker 7y ago
This is by far the most interesting aviation/rocketry development I've ever seen. After watching the two Falcon 9 lower stages come back simultaneously from the first Falcon Heavy launch, I realized how different things were going to be.
Starship, even if Musk is off by quite a large factor on the cost to launch, is still going to be extremely cheap to fly compared to everything else out there.
Other people copycatting the ideas off of Starship will drastically improve the space industry costs, regardless if the Mars venture is successful or not (and I want it to be). This will literally put us in a different era. It wouldn't surprise me if Starship spins off other industries for vehicles not focused on Mars, but elsewhere in the solar system, or based on much longer space voyages.
The next hurdle for deep space, aside from shielding, will be power. Lower solar flux in deep space and the interest to save weight will likely see the use of more nuclear power.
Regardless, I'm much more hopeful about the space industry that I was in early February, 2003...
- moneytide1 7y ago> The next hurdle for deep space, aside from shielding, Zinc Bromide for radiation protection?
- mechhacker 7y agoProbably not. It looks like that's primarily for gamma. In space, cosmic rays are much much more powerful and catastrophic for cells. Water is actually probably the best shield, because you'll need it to support humans along the way. Gamma still is a risk but I think the concern has mainly been higher speed subatomic particles. Anything with heavy nuclei actually produces significant and also highly damaging secondary radiation when hit by fast moving, heavy nuclei, cosmic rays. Another interesting thing: Apollo astronauts could see sparkles in their eyes from the radiation effects of getting hit by cosmic rays travelling through their skulls. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_ray_visual_phenomena https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_ray_visual_phenomena
- moneytide1 7y agoCan we combine both Zn Br 2 and water? https://youtu.be/yB2v4_7UhLA?t=665 https://youtu.be/yB2v4_7UhLA?t=665
- moneytide1 7y ago< sparkles in their eyes Does the iron core of Earth imply magnetic repellent of the sight of these Cosmic ray retina inducing sparkles?
- mechhacker 7y agoNo, the atmosphere blocks almost all of it. If it weren't for that, we'd be hit constantly. Their influence on weather/cloud formation is an active area of research https://home.cern/news/news/experiments/cosmic-rays-clouds https://home.cern/news/news/experiments/cosmic-rays-clouds
- pmontra 7y agoI stood by this cosmic trays detector [1] in a station of the metro of Naples, Italy, for a few minutes. I saw quite a few cosmic rays passing through the detector. [1] https://www.researchitaly.it/en/news/surprise-in-naples-subway-there-is-an-infn-cosmic-ray-detector/ https://www.researchitaly.it/en/news/surprise-in-naples-subw...