• 324 Posts
  • 74 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
Cake day: July 1st, 2023
  • llamacoffee@lemmy.worldOPtoSpaceX@sh.itjust.works•Polaris Dawn private astronaut mission ready for launchEnglish
    5·
    3 months ago

    Thanks for sharing the video! I’m always interested in seeing mainstream coverage of this stuff. However, they really don’t know what they’re talking about. For example, the host says they’re going to higher altitudes than the Apollo program, which is just utterly baloney. Really throws a wrench into the credibility of this news outlet, in my view at least.

    As for whether this mission is risky, yes it absolutely is. However, all manned space missions are risky and this one doesn’t really have anything that makes it fundamentally unsafe.

    Look, NASA sets objectives to accomplish its missions to the ISS, and they work with the engineers at SpaceX to figure out how to accomplish them as safely as possible. These Polaris missions are fascinating in that the objectives are set jointly between the SpaceX team and a paying customer.

    The customer is interested in a few things, but it probably comes down to fame for doing new things. SpaceX is interested in developing the technologies and raising funds to get to Mars. Where their goals overlap is how we get the Polaris missions. I think that’s pretty cool!

  • llamacoffee@lemmy.worldOPtoSpaceX@sh.itjust.works•SpaceX announces first human mission to ever fly over the planet’s polesEnglish
    7·
    3 months ago

    Good point! Truth is, it is basically space tourism. Now, because of the demand for science by humans in orbit, there will be science done and data gathered on the trip, but that isn’t really its purpose. That being said, this kind of orbit brings some very interesting challenges re launch, radiation, and recovery, but I’m sure SpaceX can easily manage that.

    On the tourism side, the orbit is actually quite noteworthy. We’ll have to see what the actual figures are, but even at 450km, you’re really quite close to the planet. As such, the sights they will see due to high inclination especially over the poles will be unlike anything any human has seen before, and that’s exciting to me :)

  • llamacoffee@lemmy.worldtoSpaceX@sh.itjust.works•CRS NG-21 Launch Thread!English
    3·
    3 months ago

    Possible Cygnus Issue

    Cygnus NG-21: Mission control just alerted the ISS crew to a possible issue with the Cygnus cargo ship: “Just to let you guys know, good comm with Cygnus, we’re going to have solar array deploy in about an hour. The first two burns were not performed by Cygnus, so they’re re-assessing what’s the current state of the burn plan. We’re hoping to still keep Tuesday (for capture by ISS), but we’ll re-assess once we figure out what went wrong with the first two burns.”

  • llamacoffee@lemmy.worldOPtoSpaceX@sh.itjust.works•SpaceX just stomped the competition for a new contract—that’s not greatEnglish
    201·
    4 months ago

    Interesting comment from Jared Isaacman: https://x.com/rookisaacman/status/1815801469532266841

    Its a good article, a few thoughts:

    • I don’t like monopolies, but why the sudden unease? The government buys all of its refueling tankers from Boeing, all of the main battle tanks from General Dynamics, all the aircraft carriers from Newport News shipbuilding, all of our air-to-air missiles from Raytheon. The government buys fighter jets from a duopoly that often provides reciprocal work-shares making them a monopoly. Historically, the government had no problem buying launch services from ULA and in fact had to be sued to prevent a continuation of that practice.

    • If SpaceX acts like a monopolist, then they will increase prices to levels that naturally stimulate more competition or risk antitrust actions. However, If SpaceX does not act like a monopolist and the government is getting the best product for the lowest price through open competitions, then what is the problem? As tax payers, we should want the best product/service for the lowest price and delivered as quickly as possible. We probably should not punish the few companies that are actually exceeding expectations.

    I would love to see the government breaking up the monopolies that actually harm the competitiveness of the nation by failing to innovative and consistently come in over-budget and behind schedule and therefor have an allergy to fixed price contracting.

  • llamacoffee@lemmy.worldtoSpaceX@sh.itjust.works•new IFT4 video from SpaceXEnglish
    4·
    4 months ago

    I bet the editor just felt it was better to cut around for the sizzle reel. For the tip-over, I wonder if the booster went kaboom when it hit the water and they want to emphasize the success rather than what could be perceived as a failure. So you’re right, maybe brand image. Maybe one day they’ll finally release the footage!

    I think they were more open when they were developing Falcon 9. Based on all these amazing test flights, the engineers still have that magic SpaceX culture, but perhaps the media department has become more corporate.