I think that was just an accelerated look at what would happen. Musk already said it would take 5 refueling trips to supply the vehicle, so I'd assume they'd use a few boosters. I also can't imagine they're be able to relaunch within a few hours considering the amount of inspections (I'm assuming) that would go into it. So yeah, ideally they'd have 2-3 launches primed and ready to go. Also, what I noticed, he never shows the ship with it's solar panels deployed on Mars, is he not planning on using that for power generation? Also, how easy is it to generate fuel on Mars, especially in the amount required to lift a body that big into orbit and do a Hohmann transfer back to Earth? I appreciate what he's trying to do, but it really seems like he's skipping from Steps 1 and 2 to Step 99.
9/28/2016 11:39:20 AM
9/29/2016 4:10:04 AM
http://giphy.com/nasa
12/10/2016 7:11:57 AM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qIGt7mFk7asMichoud Assembly Facility got hit by at least one twister. Looks pretty bad. Hope all are safe.
2/7/2017 8:23:22 PM
https://www.nasa.gov/feature/nasa-to-study-adding-crew-to-first-flight-of-sls-and-orionGot some push from DC to look into the possibility of a crewed launch for EM-1. Exciting, yes, but very risky. I don't think it will go anywhere. [Edited on February 16, 2017 at 3:05 PM. Reason : ]
2/16/2017 3:03:17 PM
So Ive been doing a ton of reading lately of Apollo and early space flight journals since all the folks who worked it are releasing memoirs. Compared to the challenges they had, running a rocket first time with a crew just seems plain dumb. Look at SpaceX. They've run theirs how many times and then blow one up on a simple test, much less a real launch? A few folks know there were some test flights between Apollo 1 and 7 , but most dont realize there were loads of tests unmanned even before Apollo 1 of the equipment.
2/20/2017 9:36:14 PM
Elon Musk says SpaceX will send two tourists to the moon next year.
2/27/2017 5:43:12 PM
*around the moon
2/28/2017 8:49:23 AM
I got excited and just copied the CNN breaking news headline.
2/28/2017 9:05:42 AM
Not to be outdone by NASA's announcement last week, SpaceX decided that THEY were going to be the craziest space organization in existence.Both ideas are horrible.
2/28/2017 10:51:25 AM
So realistically, that would be the what? Maybe 3 or 4th flight of Falcon Heavy? And 2nd or 3rd manned flight of Dragon 2?
2/28/2017 11:34:40 AM
I'm not up to date with their expected launch schedule but the concept of sending untrained people around the moon next year WHEN THEY HAVEN'T EVEN LAUNCHED ONE PERSON into space yet is crazy. I'm not saying it can't be done -- if they pull it off then kudos to them but I can't begin to imagine the safety concerns and corners they would have to cut to get there. Their engineers already work something like 80/hr weeks. I know the Dragon was originally designed for deep space but the logistics involved with sending people around the moon are so different from LEO or sub-orbital. I'm sure they'll get around to it, but next year just isn't reasonable. I'm fairly certain this announcement was a marketing ploy to generate hype (and believe me, the armchair engineer fanboys are coming out of the woodwork...) knowing full well they won't meet that goal.
2/28/2017 1:57:56 PM
I mean, they've been pushing back Falcon Heavy for a while now, plus they pushed off Red Dragon until the 2020 window instead of 2018. I would agree this is publicity, but it could be a hail mary like Apollo 8 was.I would be curious at what the crew makeup of this planned mission is. I know Dragon seats 7, but I really doubt they'd send a full bird up. I'd guess 2 astronauts + 2 tourists. Like you said though, it's amazing their considering this since they haven't even launched a single manned craft into space. Hate to start that TLI burn and then realize that your untested space toilet doesn't work.
2/28/2017 2:55:35 PM
2/28/2017 3:07:11 PM
SpaceX just reused a first stage rocket and successfully launched and recovered it. w00t!
3/30/2017 6:42:30 PM
Major NASA announcement later today believed to be in regards to the Saturn moon Enceledus, which in the past has been believed to have an ocean under its crust.[Edited on April 13, 2017 at 9:43 AM. Reason : .]
4/13/2017 9:42:16 AM
Fish people!!
4/13/2017 9:52:43 AM
Evidence of hydrothermal vents on Enceladus' subterranean ocean floor, which would supply minerals and nutrients that are necessary to support life.
4/13/2017 2:28:10 PM
Not manned space flight related, but I am flying down to Orlando on Wednesday and was planning to spend most of Wednesday at KSC Visitors Center with my son. Today I just found out that Orbital ATK is launching an Atlas V on Tuesday at 11:11 am. I am seriously considering pushing my flight up one day and flying from RDU at 7:00 am. If so, that would mean I would land at 8:40. If the plane departs on time, do you think I have a chance in hell of getting a rental and making it out to KSC and possibly over to the Saturn V Center in time to see it? Alternately I could go to Playalinda Beach, but I hear parking can be bad, and its another half hour driving almost. Dunno what traffic will be like at either location but probably not good.Either way I am stoked about the chance to get to see my first rocket launch in person!
4/13/2017 3:21:01 PM
^Traffic is going to be bad there regardless of a launch, but if everything lines up perfectly you could make it. That is a big if though.
4/13/2017 4:16:24 PM
Trump says a man on Mars in his first term.
4/25/2017 8:44:15 AM
^^Ended up just going the day after. It was great but I would have been hard pressed to make it even out there in time for the launch. Oh well, glad I went to KSC. Got lots of great photos and some shirts and hats for the family.
4/25/2017 12:52:00 PM
Just got word, EM-1 will not be crewed. Thank god.
5/12/2017 2:42:52 PM
5/12/2017 3:59:31 PM
https://www.nasa.gov/astronauts/biographies/frank-rubio/biographyNext group of astronaut candidates was just announced. If you want to feel like you have achieved next to nothing in your life, take a look at their bios, lol. One of them is an ex Navy SEAL who has an MD from Harvard. Meanwhile I'm like "Yep, I have a BS in Aerospace Engineering".
6/7/2017 3:52:58 PM
https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/07/elon-musk-knows-whats-ailing-nasa-costly-contracting/So, Elon Musk places much of the blame with what is wrong with NASA at the feet of cost-plus contracting, which is obviously true to some extent. A "whatever it costs" contract should be a sure-fire way to guarantee something gets done. But, "whatever it costs plus a percentage for yourself" just reads as perverse incentives: if you can find a way to make it cost twice as much, your profit will be twice as much. It seems to be, that second part should never be a thing. If someone is going to go "whatever it costs", at least the profit at the end should be fixed in the contract. Whether it winds up costing $3.4 billion or $24 billion, your profits should have remained fixed from the beginning. That alone should have caused the contractor to stop saying "yes" to everything and dragging the Orion design on for 17 years.
7/19/2017 1:55:14 PM
that's retarded, no serious competitive bidder would enter into that. if a project takes twice as long for reasons completely out of their control it would mean that their resources would be tied up for the rest of the duration but they would be unable to profit from those resourced. they would just try to get out of the project so they can make money doing something else, which would just delay the project and make it cost even more. you can competitively bid cost plus contracts, they don't need to be sole source. you have set margins and you manage the project[Edited on July 20, 2017 at 3:44 PM. Reason : .]
7/20/2017 3:42:13 PM
7/23/2017 2:37:53 PM
https://gizmodo.com/donald-trump-reportedly-wants-to-privatize-the-internat-1822913391
2/11/2018 8:27:17 PM
^ I just read an article written by a particle physicist that was maligning the future of the field of particle physics due to results from the Large Hadron Collider that it found the Higgs boson but it didn't have anything else for them to find or do, in a big negative for the supersymmetry believers. He then brought up manned space flight as an example and say how after Apollo got shut down, NASA spent a ton of money to not do a whole lot, using the International Space Station as an example.http://inference-review.com/article/higgs-on-the-moon
3/18/2018 9:09:46 PM
Don't spend money on dumb things or you'll find yourself not spending money on smart things. The application to high energy physics seems to be that we shouldn't build any larger colliders until we can demonstrate theoretically what size we need to build to finally settle the questions, rather than just building whatever size we think we can afford or that our technology can manage. Got it. no more colliders it is
3/21/2018 2:50:45 PM
That guy was actually kind compared to some.http://backreaction.blogspot.com/2018/03/the-multiworse-is-coming.htmlAfter discussing the failure of anything for particle physics past the Higgs-boson and the faultiness of "naturalness" arguments:
3/22/2018 11:27:48 PM
So what are the odds that ISS becomes unmanned due to this recent Soyuz abort
10/14/2018 5:15:03 PM
Depends if the Russian's can fly the December Soyuz up unmanned earlier. If that can be the on-station backup then all is well. If not? Then yea its going to be un-crewed for a bit.
10/14/2018 8:15:53 PM
The shitty thing about being unmanned, it'll delay the unmanned Dragon2 test.
10/14/2018 8:58:07 PM
1/4/2019 8:31:44 AM
^No, they decided not to human rate Falcon Heavy, which was going to do that. Instead the plan now is pretty much go all in on BFR/Starship. Heavy will still get some development work for launching heavy payloads into space until BFR is ready, but much of the engineering work is now going into BFR. Falcon 9 Block 5 is the final development level for that platform, so aside from tweaking that likely will not see much work either.
1/5/2019 9:08:29 AM
Cool.My new job I started a few months ago I'm doing outer space stuff. What I'm working on in particular is the major weather instrument in the GOES-R satellite program.[Edited on January 7, 2019 at 11:26 PM. Reason : .]
1/7/2019 11:25:50 PM
If you could adjust the temperatures down a little bit, that would fix global warming for us. Thx, mang
1/30/2019 12:47:40 AM
The midwest: "Ok maybe not down that much"
1/30/2019 9:39:35 AM
A lot of you probably already saw this, but yesterday, NCSU Alum Christina Hammock Koch got her astronaut wings after blasting off from Kazakhstan on her way to the ISS. She'll also be a part of the first all-female spacewalk during her 6 month stay up there.Heh, I used to play Smash Bros with her brother when I was at NCSU.
3/15/2019 2:13:36 PM
this is so awesome -- i don't know christina personally though we overlapped at ncsu, but bon courage! the article about her in the alumni mag awhile ago was great, i wish her the best of luck
3/15/2019 4:23:37 PM
She looks very similar as Laura Trump.
3/15/2019 4:37:21 PM
I know it just looks like a blurry coffee ring but this is the first ever actual photograph of a black hole. This is a HUGE milestone in how we understand the universe.
4/10/2019 5:43:15 PM
what's the significance, why is this a big deal?
4/11/2019 9:20:01 AM
4/11/2019 10:42:14 AM
You know that whole theory of relativity thing that Einstein came up with? This proves it beyond a theory.
4/11/2019 4:15:33 PM
https://youtu.be/TXMGu2d8c8gSpaceXFalcon Heavyall three cores landed. two simultaneously on dual landing pads at the launch site.the center core on a drone ship in the Atlantic.[Edited on April 11, 2019 at 11:32 PM. Reason : ]
4/11/2019 11:24:51 PM
Also the fairings were recovered (water landing) and will be reused later this year for Starlink launch.
4/13/2019 6:16:28 AM
https://www.wral.com/nc-state-grad-set-to-break-record/18331378/
4/17/2019 10:55:56 PM