Closer to Mars

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Re: Closer to Mars

Postby Grizzly » Fri Dec 04, 2020 1:23 am

No one commented the last time I posted this, but this seems like just the place for another try


The Breakaway Civilization with Jason Reza Jorjani
I'm NOT saying I swallow it ALL, but there are things that give me pause....
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Re: Closer to Mars

Postby DrEvil » Fri Dec 04, 2020 3:50 pm

BenDhyan » Fri Dec 04, 2020 2:16 am wrote:Yes, I am looking forward to the Starship test. Btw, do you remember the old McDonnell Douglas Delta Clipper single stage to orbit vertical take off and landing spaceship? Though it crashed on its last flight which gave NASA the excuse to close it down, I am sure Space X learnt a lot from it.

.


That's always been one of my favorite rocket videos, the way it just lazily tips over, flies sideways for a bit and then rights itself again, and that was 25 years ago. NASA has cancelled more cool stuff than they ever actually launched.

The fun part with Starship is that it will pull a similar maneuver when coming in for landing, using its body to aerobrake. They probably won't be pulling something like that on this test though, but it should make for an "interesting" experience as a passenger.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5seefpjMQJI

Also, looks like the test won't be until Monday at least as they cancelled all the road closures for the weekend.
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Re: Closer to Mars

Postby Belligerent Savant » Wed Dec 09, 2020 7:17 pm

.

And? How'd it go?

I know the answer but am intrigued at the manner it may be framed.
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Re: Closer to Mars

Postby BenDhyan » Wed Dec 09, 2020 7:49 pm

It was a win win, the test was successful except for the landing and we got to see a beautiful explosion. :thumbsup




An unmanned SpaceX craft exploded in a massive fireball during an attempted test flight Wednesday in Texas — but CEO Elon Musk said the mission was largely a success.

The Starship SN8 crashed back to earth around 5:30 p.m. after reaching an altitude of about 40,000 feet over Boca Chica, according to reports and stunning video of the crash.

Musk lauded the test run on Twitter.

“Fuel header tank pressure was low during landing burn, causing touchdown velocity to be high … but we got all the data we needed!” he wrote. “Congrats SpaceX team hell yeah!!

“Mars, here we come!!,” he added in a second tweet.

The rocket is part of the transportation system that SpaceX is developing with an eye toward eventually ferrying Earth-weary travelers to the moon and, one day, Mars.

The explosive ending, while visually stunning, was not entirely unexpected.

Musk last month pegged the odds of a flawless test launch at worse than fifty-fifty.

“Lot of things need to go right, so maybe 1/3 chance,” he wrote on Twitter when asked by a reporter how likely it was the craft would land intact.

Nearly the entirety of the test flight went exactly as planned, with the craft ascending skyward for a few minutes after launch, before the engines cut as planned.

It then entered freefall and went horizontal, before thrusters kicked in close to Earth for an attempted landing.

But, in the only apparent flaw of the test, the starship didn’t slow down soon enough or quickly enough, making for a rough and fiery landing.

The total time of the flight was six minutes and 42 seconds.

https://nypost.com/2020/12/09/unmanned-spacex-craft-explodes-at-end-of-botched-test-flight/
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Re: Closer to Mars

Postby Belligerent Savant » Wed Dec 09, 2020 8:47 pm

.

I weep for Mars if we ever get there. Shameful enough our "representatives" and their corporate sponsors are plundering fellow inhabitants and resources here on Earth. Let it go no further.
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Re: Closer to Mars

Postby BenDhyan » Wed Dec 09, 2020 9:05 pm

^ But it may have already started, the aliens are in on it..."This cooperation includes a secret underground base on Mars, where there are American and alien representatives." http://www.rigorousintuition.ca/board2/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=32737&start=780#p691864
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Re: Closer to Mars

Postby DrEvil » Thu Dec 10, 2020 6:37 pm

Belligerent Savant » Thu Dec 10, 2020 1:17 am wrote:.

And? How'd it go?

I know the answer but am intrigued at the manner it may be framed.


No framing required. Everything went well except the landing, and they know why, so now they know what to fix for the next one. They didn't expect it to go as well as it did.

I weep for Mars if we ever get there. Shameful enough our "representatives" and their corporate sponsors are plundering fellow inhabitants and resources here on Earth. Let it go no further.


What's there to weep about? It's a barren wasteland.
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Re: Closer to Mars

Postby Joe Hillshoist » Thu Dec 17, 2020 1:52 am

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Re: Closer to Mars

Postby BenDhyan » Thu Feb 18, 2021 8:21 pm

‘Hello, world’: NASA Perseverance rover lands on Mars safely

Douglas Braff Feb 18, 2021

NASA’s Perseverance rover, its most sophisticated one yet, successfully landed on the surface of Mars on Thursday after leaving Earth at the end of July. This is the space agency’s fifth rover to land on the Red Planet, where it will participate in a nearly $3 billion, two-year mission.

The rover, roughly the size of a car, will comb the Martian surface for evidence of ancient life and collect rock, microfossil, and soil samples from Jezero Crater to be sent back to Earth by the early 2030s. The crater is the site of an ancient lake that existed 3.9 billion years ago.

Perseverance’s descent to Mars’ surface, according to NBC News, was dubbed the “seven minutes of terror” due to the complex sequence of programmed events that had to occur at specific times in order to successfully land the robotic explorer.


When the rover’s touchdown was confirmed at 3:55 p.m. (EST), NASA officials in the control room at its Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California shot up from their seats with an elated uproar of cheers and clapping

On top of searching for ancient life and collecting geological samples, Perseverance will snap pictures to send back to Earth and produce the first-ever recording of sound from Mars.

But that’s not the only groundbreaking—or rather groundless—thing set to happen.

Attached to Perseverance’s belly is a revolutionary, four-pound helicopter named Ingenuity, which is set to take part in the first controlled flight on another planet. Ingenuity, Wired reported, will be test-flown later this spring..

https://saraacarter.com/hello-world-nasa-perseverance-rover-lands-on-mars-safely/

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Re: Closer to Mars

Postby BenDhyan » Wed Mar 03, 2021 8:35 pm

At last, but landing still looked a bit hairy imho.



SpaceX rocket lands in one piece after previous explosive test flights

March 3, 2021

Third time’s the charm?

SpaceX’s latest prototype rocket landed in one piece on Wednesday — following two recent test flights that ended in huge explosions.

The Starship Serial Number 10, or (SN10), blasted off from Boca Chica, Texas, at around 6:15 p.m., after an earlier flight attempt was aborted earlier in the afternoon.

The steel rocket flew as high as 10 kilometers, or about 32,800 feet altitude, before turning to a horizontal “belly flop” position.

It then came down upright, making a soft landing at around 6:21 p.m.

https://nypost.com/2021/03/03/spacex-rocket-lands-in-one-piece-after-previous-explosive-test-flights/
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Re: Closer to Mars

Postby DrEvil » Thu Mar 04, 2021 4:34 pm

^^The landing was hairy. The rocket exploded ten minutes later. :)

Looked to me like one or more of the landing legs crumpled or didn't deploy, and the rocket may have bounced. It was leaning and on fire after it landed.
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Re: Closer to Mars

Postby BenDhyan » Thu Mar 04, 2021 8:26 pm

Ha...this video captures it at 1:03 mark. Yes, it appears there was a fire, but they are making progress, this was the best result so far. :yay

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Re: Closer to Mars

Postby Iamwhomiam » Thu Mar 04, 2021 11:14 pm

Reports I heard mentioned a methane leak as cause. This might be the cause of flames coming up the right side from the engine compartment just before touchdown and after main engine shutdown and then remains afire and in sight until its obscured by the smoke cloud just before the explosion.

Thanks for posting the first video, Ben. I never before saw that launch and vertical landing. Had I known we already mastered the technology long before Musk's twin rockets launched and landed in unison, I wouldn't have been half as excited as I was when they landed successfully!
Shame it was cancelled so long ago. Or, was it really?
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Re: Closer to Mars

Postby BenDhyan » Fri Mar 12, 2021 8:21 pm

Hmmm, a challenge to the Artemis program, nothing like competition to get things moving.

Russia and China plan moon station in challenge to US lunar program

March 12, 2021

Russian and Chinese officials say they will establish a new lunar research station — potentially spurring a new space race as the US prepares for its own moon missions.

The joint Russia-China station would either orbit or be anchored to the moon.

The US plans to return astronauts to the moon — including sending the first woman — by 2024 under former President Donald Trump’s Artemis program.

Space exploration historically has been a matter of national pride and national security, and a rivalry between the US and Russia, particularly during the Cold War.

The US adversaries did not announce a date for their planned station but have benefited from lax regulatory processes in other projects — with Russia last year approving the first effective COVID-19 vaccine in August, months before Western competitors.

The stakes on the moon include not only prestige, but control of mining, including for fuel theorized to be a potential energy and space-exploration boon.

China and Russia previously have joined forces to challenge US global leadership. The large authoritarian countries last month formed plans to conduct naval exercises with Iran, after staging previous war practices with the anti-US theocracy in 2019

The China-Russia moon station was announced in a Tuesday press release from Roscosmos, Russia’s equivalent of NASA.

Dmitry Rogozin, general director of Roscosmos, and Zhang Kejian, director of China’s National Space Agency, signed a memorandum of understanding to establish an International Scientific Lunar Station.

The station will be “created on the surface and/or in the orbit of the Moon, designed to carry out multidisciplinary and multipurpose research work, including the exploration and use of the Moon, lunar observations, fundamental research experiments and technology verification with the possibility of long-term unmanned operation with the prospect of a human presence on the moon,” according to the Russian release.

Last month, White House press secretary Jen Psaki indicated that President Biden intends to continue Trump’s plan to return astronauts to the moon, which is expected to cost tens of billions of dollars.

“Through the Artemis program, the United States government will work with industry and international partners to send astronauts to the surface of the moon — another man and a woman to the moon, which is very exciting; conduct new and exciting science; prepare for future missions to Mars; and demonstrate America’s values,” Psaki said at a press conference.

“To date, only 12 humans have walked on the moon; that was half a century ago. The Artemis program, a waypoint to Mars, provides exactly the opportunity to add numbers to that, of course. Lunar exploration has broad and bicameral support in Congress, most recently detailed in the FY2021 omnibus spending bill. And certainly we support this effort and endeavor.”

https://nypost.com/2021/03/12/russia-china-plan-lunar-station-in-challenge-to-us-moon-plans/

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Re: Closer to Mars

Postby DrEvil » Sat Mar 13, 2021 6:45 pm

It's like the plot of For All Mankind come to life. Next thing you know there's a Chinese dude on the Moon extolling the virtues of socialism with Chinese characteristics and NASA goes into hair-on-fire crisis mode.

Competition with the next Big Enemy might be a good thing (until everyone starts bringing guns). It could really spur congress to stop the pork and start focusing on results. Richard Shelby not seeking reelection in 2022 will also help.
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