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A US military exercise to launch a satellite on short notice
- khurs 4mo agoGood spot by whoever noticed it!
- mysteria 4mo agoThey published an official press release on this on the 22nd. https://rocketlabcorp.com/updates/victus-haze/ https://rocketlabcorp.com/updates/victus-haze/
- ck2 4mo agoCan we swap the US Military and NASA budgets for just one year please? Just one year It would be AMAZING Or even what we fund Israel's 2/3 of all their weapons are bought by US We'd have 10% speed of light probes going outside of solar system already Well at least Nancy Grace Roman L2 Telescope is launching, hope it goes perfectly
- avmich 4mo agoCan we really accelerate any probe to faster than 1% c? Or 2% c?
- r2_pilot 4mo agoYes, with lasers or nuclear energy
- patagurbon 4mo agoWe have the physics but not the engineering. See the Breakthrough Starshot project for instance
- altruios 4mo agoOne idea that stuck out to me was an array of giant thin solar powered spinning metal Crookes radiometers magnets in a line to make a railgun-like launcher. Materially cheap to do. Related, but not exactly what I was thinking of: https://www.centauri-dreams.org/2025/08/05/a-rotating-probe-launcher-alternative-to-tars/ https://www.centauri-dreams.org/2025/08/05/a-rotating-probe-... The original source I'm thinking of may be lost to time :( I'll keep hunting. edit:found! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDM1COWJ2Hc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDM1COWJ2Hc
- tclancy 4mo agoPer new Space Force regulations, we are using F for an adjusted speed of light. We are currently able to achieve 1.48F.
- kimixa 4mo agoNo, not even close. The issue is simply exhaust velocity and reaction mass, that leads us into the tyranny of the rocket equation - in that you have to carry that reaction mass with you and accelerate that mass too. Even if you had magic infinite energy - e.g. it's supplied externally by a laser or similar. Using the theorized maximum of 31km/s exhaust velocity of project orion (much higher than any current high impulse propulsion technologies) you'd need to have thrown out something similar to 10^42 times the probe's mass out the back at that 31km/s velocity. That means to accelerate a 1kg probe to 1%c you'd need to start with a spacecraft holding a reaction mass equivalent to a few trillion suns worth of mass. Hardly seems worth it. It's all about exhaust velocity - increase that and it scales down quickly. Using the theoretical max of 500km/s of VASIMIR for example means it's only 400x the mass of the probe of reaction mass - but that's still theory and max thrust limits means it'll take the order of millions of years to reach that sort of speed.
- zer00eyz 4mo ago> No, not even close. 10% of C is theoretically possible with a space sail, and lasers. Will it work? Well we don't know cause we haven't tried.
- kimixa 4mo agoSpace sails are super low thrust though, even lower than my VASIMIR example - so will take even longer to reach the desired speed - though they have the advantage of not having to carry the complex and heavy engine I ignored that in the rough estimates anyway. So by the time they're theoretically close to the desired speed they'll be on the other side of the galaxy at least, even if it took millions of years to get there at the much slower average speed.
- tatjam 4mo agoYou can't use a solar sail for this, but if you use lasers, you can get a few newtons / GW of incident laser power. Sci-fi stuff but if you can make a very very light reflector that can somehow be cooled (microscopic IR dipoles come to mind), and a very very focused and powerful laser, you can go a long way. Not sure what the purpose of moving a thin metalized foil at a fraction of lightspeed would be, though :)
- ck2 4mo agoI think the idea is tic-tac sized probes with nano circuitry (that doesn't exist yet) accelerated by lasers so they don't have to carry the power source Obviously stopping is the problem, they can never stop but at some point no need
- IAmBroom 4mo agoBefore someone mentions IBM's (completely BS) "sub-nanometer circuitry": it isn't nearly sub-nm, except if you look at it from one particular way. The real estate is still many nanometers in dimension. The gates aren't even sub-nano; gate-to-gate interactions are, kind of.
- cg5280 4mo agoIn 2024, the average American spent about $17,000 on taxes. Nearly $4000 of that went to the DoD, about $3500 went to interest on federal debt. I think it’s fun to think about it in this way. I personally spend hundreds of dollars a month on war.
- germinalphrase 4mo agoYou have a source to share for that framing of the tax spend?
- blobcode 4mo agoAlthough not quite exact, here's spending data for 2024 (https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/static-data/published-reports/mts/MonthlyTreasuryStatement_202412.pdf https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/static-data/published-report...) - about 14% of tax dollars went to defence, 0.14*17000=2380.
- rayiner 4mo agoThat’s just federal spending. $17,000 sounds too high to just be federal taxes, it looks like federal + state/local. Accounting for that, military spending is closer to 10%.
- ck2 4mo agoDefense spending in the USA is double what is publicly published There are all kinds of dark budgets and stuff spun off into "civilian" programs that actually aren't The published cost of Iran War is like $30 Billion when it is obviously over $100 Billion by experts and that doesn't including replacing all the missiles TWENTY-ONE TRILLION DOLLARS since 9/11 spent on defense 2001-2021 * https://ips-dc.org/report-state-of-insecurity-cost-militarization-since-9-11/ https://ips-dc.org/report-state-of-insecurity-cost-militariz... imagine how much food clothing shelter for the US and WORLD that would buy we'd have humans on Mars already with that budget not even knowing now how to stop space-blindness and bone-loss
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- WarmWash 4mo agoThe military budget is a jobs program that also keeps a (near bare minimum) level of industrial capacity afloat. Its why no politician left or right is really interested in cutting it. If you browse open contracts, you'll see they that they overwhelmingly buy rather banal things and spend comparatively little on the "killing people" parts.
- malfist 4mo agoWhat do you think NASA is? NASA is so expensive because it's a jobs program. There's no other reason for Boeing to have factories in so many states for building satellites.
- pc86 4mo agoOK so maybe they're both jobs programs, but .mil is bigger and employs more people (almost certainly at a lower per capita cost).
- Retric 4mo ago> OK so maybe they're both jobs programs, but .mil is bigger and employs more people Which is a direct function of its budget not a function of what it does. > (almost certainly at a lower per capita cost). DoD is extremely expensive per job due to the longe term benefits, layers of bureaucracy, and sub contractors.
- pc86 3mo agoI think it's more a function of who it employs. If you're able to get a job at NASA you're able to get a job a lot of other places. This is not necessarily true for large segments of the DOD.
- WarmWash 4mo agoYou're not wrong, and no one is turning down NASA contracts, but the scale isn't comparable. NASA buys mostly highly specialized parts that can be pretty narrow in scope and utility. OTOH the DoD will buy 150,000 aluminum water canteens, which is probably the only thing keeping the one decent job in Wagatah, Maine from closing. Which happens to be of only a handful of shops in the country with the tooling for this. Wagatah, of course, is not known for it's aerospace engineering. But thankfully water is pretty important for soldiers, and the new design is x% more efficient, so Wagatah gets another 5 years of work, the DoD gets to keep a domestic source of water canteens, and if NASA needs 5 space grade aluminum storage boxes, a company in Wagatah can make them.
- mschuster91 4mo ago> Or even what we fund Israel's 2/3 of all their weapons are bought by US And all of the money the US gives to Israel is earmarked for American products.
- amanaplanacanal 4mo agoJust more American tax dollars going to American defense contractors.
- chris_money202 4mo agoOr hear me out, we improve life here on Earth...
- throw48842975 4mo agoThe US gives Israel $3.8B a year (and 2/3 of their weapons are _sold_ by the US not bought). The budget of Nasa is $25B. But by antisemite math and logic says we’ll get 10% light speed.
- amanaplanacanal 4mo agoBeing against military aid to Israel isn't necessarily antisemitic.
- throw48842975 4mo ago[dead]
- SubmarineClub 4mo ago[flagged]
- ck2 4mo agoanti-israel-warmongering != antisemite but nice try US has given Israel over $20 Billion directly since 2023 alone Since 2023 NINETY THOUSAND TONS OF WEAPONS Enough already Israel has universal health care, let them buy build their own weaspons US must only sell Iron-Dome ONLY, defense only, they are warmongers
- zer00eyz 4mo ago> Can we swap the US Military and NASA budgets for just one year please? It would be nice. There is a pretty well known interview of Admiral Grace Hopper by David Letterman, where she talks about her famous "nanosecond" and explaining (to Generals) why it takes so long to get a message to a satellite. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oE2uls6iIEU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oE2uls6iIEU (As an aside, Grace was a name she lived up to in a way few others could, if you have never seen that interview it is well worth a watch!) The valuable and well understood lesson is that latency is tyrannical, and unavoidable. The only real customer for "data centers in space" is spacex for war fighting. You don't want that data, and it's analysis going back around the world. You don't want to put compute close to the front lines, and you certainly cant deploy it for the kinds of "special operations" that the US has been doing for the last two decades. Is there a civilian use? Maybe. Ships, oil platforms, and remote locations could all see a use for this, but it isnt going to be that impactful. Realistically, getting military spend back to more "dual use" applications would be great. We have a LONG history of this in the USA. Tons of Army core of engineers projects. The interstate highway system was born out of a need for better logistics. NASA was about missiles, space was incidental. The US computing industry's foundations fell out of the navy code breaking efforts of WWII. The internet (ARPANET) was a DARPA project to start with. Spread Spectrum and its roots in Torpedos (navy again). GPS, the auto injector (epi pens). Most of these are far in the past, recently the biggest thing we have gotten out military investments is TOR (and one could argue its in decline). I think we don't see as much coming out of the modern military because it is grossly mismanaged. It's become reliant on private industry to "innovate" and that has a relentless focus on the bottom line. Yes it would be nice if we did that spending swap, but it will never happen realistically. I think a change of leadership, of intent could result in far less waste and much more benefit for the American public. We have proof we can, we just need to figure out how and make it happen.
- rendx 4mo agoCan we swap the US Military and child care budgets for just one year please? Just one year It would be AMAZING
- senthil_rajasek 4mo agoAlso,the mission to rescue the Swift telescope made news this week. Soon I'll be seeing a sign for a "Joe's Satellite Repair Service" shop right next to the local autobody shop. https://www.mos.org/article/space-news-deep-dive-saving-swift https://www.mos.org/article/space-news-deep-dive-saving-swif...
- AyyEye 4mo agoJoe and Buzz Aerospace Supply https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KB-ZCmvFIXo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KB-ZCmvFIXo "accents" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=keKDA7523_c https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=keKDA7523_c "Nerdneck"
- somat 4mo agoHere is a good video on the swift rescue mission. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Up0LNTMPnjI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Up0LNTMPnjI Pegasus to the Rescue: 'The Edge of Feasibility' (Alexander the ok)
- akiselev 4mo agoI remember working with the Pegasus at Caltech in the early 2010s for a tech demo that was never going to launch. I'm amazed it's still operational.
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