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The Biggest Rocket Launches and Space Missions We're Looking Forward To in 2018 (theverge.com)
Loren Grush, writing for The Verge: Next year is already overflowing with exciting missions to space. NASA is launching a new lander to Mars, as well as a spacecraft that will get closer to the Sun than ever before. And two of NASA's vehicles already in space will finally arrive at their intended targets: one will rendezvous with a nearby asteroid, while another will pass by a distant space rock billions of miles from Earth. But it's not just NASA that has a busy year ahead; the commercial space industry has a number of significant test flights planned, and the launch of one of the world's most anticipated rockets, the Falcon Heavy, is slated for early 2018. And if all goes well, people may finally ride to space on private vehicles. Here's the complete list.
SpaceX is putting up a new building for doing the the BFR's first stage. In addition, they have bought the equipment for building the BFR. Construction starts in the second half of 2018.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Their list left off Stratolaunch Systems, which has built the world's largest airplane (400 ft wingspan) out of parts from two used 747's, plus a new carbon fiber body. It is intended to carry rockets up to 500,000 lb under the wing so they can get about twice the payload compared to the same rocket from the ground. The carrier plane has already started taxi tests in the Mohave desert, and is expected to reach first flight in 2018. Launching rockets may come later in the year or next year.
Airplanes are highly reusable and relatively cheap per flight by rocket standards. If the first rocket stage is also recovered (which it won't be for the earliest rockets), it should be an economical launch system. The company is funded by Paul Allen, co-founder of Microsoft, who has more than enough money to see this through.
I remember reading a great article in Aviation Week years ago about Orbital ATK flying Pegasus missions from their converted L-1011.
The cost reduction of using an aircraft as the first stage wasn't very significant and there was actually less flexibility in terms of launches than if you were taking off from the ground. The only significant savings was in infrastructure - you can launch from a runway, not a complex.
The lack of cost reduction is due to the fact that an (converted) airliner provides less than 5% of the energy and altitude normally provided by a traditional first stage - the economics change more in favour of a launch aircraft when you get above Mach 5 and 200k feet but there are no aircraft with this capability.
I was surprised by the flexibility issue. "Minor" course corrections require a lot higher percentage of fuel after dropping the rocket than if the rocket was in the early stages of launch. This means that the launch window (which involves time, position of the carrier aircraft, it's speed, attitude and direction) is much more critical. If you miss any of the window parameters, then you have to plan another flight - when you're starting from the ground, dealing with the launch window trends towards a single variable problem.
Another thing that I was surprised at was that the acoustic vibration (noise) of the released rocket was also a significant issue - in the article, it stated that everybody on board wore ear protection during launch and after each launch the airframe has to be inspected for stress damage.
I should point out that Orbital ATK is still flying the Pegasus from their L-1011 (according to their website, they've done 43 launches) so clearly the issues listed above don't completely make an air launch approach impractical.
It would be interesting to see how Stratolaunch deals with these issues - I suspect that if they have eliminated them then the solutions will be proprietary and if they haven't, then they don't want to talk about it as it will discourage investors and customers.
Mimetics Inc. Twitter
That looks like a good place to start, sure. It says that 2 revolutions per minute generally produces too low Coriolis forces to be significant, and that a 30-second period would need a 224m radius to produce 1g. That's pretty substantial, but not a mile (1609m). For an orbital period of 15s, which might not produce significant Coriolis forces (the article says that 2 rpm is generally considered safe, but humans have adapted to 23rpm), the radius would be 56m, which seems much more reasonable.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
See, here's the thing. The guy is making assertions he knows to be false. He is using bullshit arguments that sound kind of "truthy"! It is the kind of "truthy" bullshit that religious people, politicians, so-called businessmen, and other shills spout all of the time. Arguing with someone like this over something so stupid, who is, I must admit, quite adept at keeping up his bullshit line and refraining from being bated into debating his child molestation, is quite fun and entertaining because I have to actually spend time thinking about his bullshit arguments and coming up with factual arguments to counter them. I'm not a working scientist or engineer. I have to actually consider what he is saying, why it is wrong, and think about the counter that shows how what he is saying is incorrect. This is interesting to me because my life at this point is so fucking uninteresting.
I'd rather be doing something useful, but, I don't even know what "useful" even means anymore. I thought I knew once, but, now I'm skeptical.
Frankly, I wouldn't mind if we had all-out civil war and we could start dividing into factions and killing each other. That's just about as useful as anything else that is going on at this point. The state of political discourse in this country is in the shitter. I served my country as a young man, and I now regret it. It isn't a country worthy of having been served.
Half the population should have a bullet put in the back of their skull and dumped in a ditch. That's how much I admire my "fellow citizens" at this point. The complete and utter BULLSHIT that is constantly on the so-called News (especially Fox News) disgusts me! The owners and every person working at such organizations should be shot!
Trump is a serial rapist voted in by the half the country. They can all die for all I care.
So, I'll just amuse myself arguing with this shit-bag, who at least knows he is making shit-bag arguments (for fun), and is simply trying to get people to try to make a legitimate argument. I admire this guy more than 1/2 the population of the USA, USA, USA, USA!