SpaceX is a go for April 30th: 1st commercial launch to space station

[YellowSubmarine]

sojourner wrote:

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The rumor now is that they are working on a methane engine.

They're going to use the Martian cows to produce fuel on Mars!

[publiusr]

Something to do with the Zubrin live-off-the-land approach. I think there is some controversy between Space X and Dynetics over the number of engines to be used in the stratolauncher concept. From what I've read, Dynetics was trying to get them to reduce the number of engines.

[sojourner]

Reduce from what to what?

[gturner]

I assume from 5 to 4 Merlins, which is what was done.

They could've reduced the number of turbofans from 6 to 4 by going with bigger engines, but I suppose there are far more surplus 747 engines than 777 engines.

[publiusr]

AN-225 would still beat it for payload--just not wingspan. I hear scuttlebutt that there was a second AN-225 and that it was awaiting money for assembly for Antonov airlines.

[sojourner]

gturner wrote:

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I assume from 5 to 4 Merlins, which is what was done.
.

I haven't read anything confirming the number of engines being used. I have seen artists concepts using both 4 and 5 engines though. And why would a change in number of engines be "controversial"? Beyond the fact that having less might not be enough to do the job?

[gturner]

Stratolaunch has confirmed 4 engines instead of the 5 they initially showed.

http://michaelbelfiore.com/2012/01/s...paceships.html

Oh, and Sally Ride just died.

http://abclocal.go.com/ktrk/story?se...cal&id=8746225

Perhaps we should post it as a topic, though I have no idea where.

[sojourner]

Not sure how much credit I would give that stratolaunch article. It also states that SpaceX will use the Merlin 1B engine. That model was developmental only and superceded by the C and D production models.


There's a thread about Sally Ride already in Misc.

[YellowSubmarine]

SpaceX's video editing room is called Stanley Kubrick. They are making it difficult for anybody not to be their fanboy, aren't they?

[gturner]

That'll bite 'em in the butt if they land on the moon.

BTW, the best retort I've seen to the conspiracy idiots is:

"If NASA faked the moon landings, don't you think they'd have faked another major accomplishment by now?"

[sojourner]

^Done by XKCD.



(Yes, XKCD allows hotlinking. The site even provides the image code on the page.)

[YellowSubmarine]

gturner wrote:

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"If NASA faked the moon landings, don't you think they'd have faked another major accomplishment by now?"

I enjoyed this one, but given the average reasoning skills of a moon hoaxer, they're more likely to be convinced by:

“Kubrick is dead, you idiot, he couldn't have done a believable moon landing shoot even if they managed to chase Elvis away from the filming set. Did you know of all people Vladimir Putin personally expressed great appreciation for Louis Armstrong? How can you doubt he walked on the Moon after Putin's personal endorsement?”

[YellowSubmarine]

Hey, I didn't come to this forum the last few days, and now I'm surprised to find that this hasn't been posted.

NASA just accepted SpaceX, Boeing and Sierra Nevada on the next phase of their commercial crew program.

http://www.nasa.gov/exploration/comm...ouncement.html

The short version is that SpaceX just got 440 million bucks. This is around the same amount of money they cite as the development cost of Falcon 9, and the development cost of the Dragon capsule.

But they practically have a human-capable Dragon already. Even the SuperDraco thrusters are nearly done, and if I understand correctly the development of those was paid in the previous phase (correct me if I'm wrong), so the only thing missing are some nice cushions!

Since I'm not their accountant, I can't say if they just got an extra 400 million they can spare. And I don't think you can discount that they have seats to install, not to mention control equipment that Musk is already bragging about, and from the sound of it, it would somewhat resemble the front panel of the Tesla cars. But if they can put some of those money into the development of something extra, I'm truly looking forward to it.

Hopefully now they'd have a better chance to finish the reusability which isn't getting any specially alloted money.

[gturner]

Boeing and Sierra Nevada (love their pale ale) also got funding. Will the seats for the Boeing CST-100 have tray tables?

[YellowSubmarine]

gturner wrote:

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Will the seats for the Boeing CST-100 have tray tables?

Maybe if they forget to remove the tray tables when they are refitting the scrapped plane seats? I can't see what a tray table behind your back is useful for, though. Perhaps it will stop the contraband you hid behind your seat from falling to the ceiling, but I have it on good authority that astronauts don't carry contraband.