Loge Posted December 22, 2022 Share Posted December 22, 2022 Former Roscosmos boss Dmitry Rogozin has been hit in the arse by a shrapnel while celebrating his birthday in Donetsk. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SpaceChampion Posted December 31, 2022 Author Share Posted December 31, 2022 From 2 launches a year from 2010 to 2013, to a record year of 61 launches. And ambitions of launching 100 times next year. SpaceX's last flight of the year 2022: Ser Scot A Ellison 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loge Posted January 5 Share Posted January 5 John Shelby is out. That's very good news for NASA. https://arstechnica.com/science/2023/01/so-long-richard-shelby-and-thanks-for-all-the-pork/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
polishgenius Posted January 8 Share Posted January 8 Not SpaceX, but this is a neat roundup of private-sector space station projects and stuff. Secretary of Eumenes 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SpaceChampion Posted January 10 Author Share Posted January 10 (edited) Unfortunate launch failure for Virgin Orbit of its LauncherOne vehicle. Edited January 10 by SpaceChampion Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BigFatCoward Posted January 10 Share Posted January 10 3 hours ago, SpaceChampion said: Unfortunate launch failure for Virgin Orbit of its LauncherOne vehicle. That is the most embarrassing looking spaceship in the history of the world. Wade1865 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Secretary of Eumenes Posted January 10 Share Posted January 10 Who the fuck puts engines on a glider? Are they bad at math but strong in vroom-vroom engineering somehow? Wade1865 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SpaceChampion Posted January 10 Author Share Posted January 10 (edited) 27 minutes ago, BBB Jacelyn said: Who the fuck puts engines on a glider? Are they bad at math but strong in vroom-vroom engineering somehow? Burt Rutan, 20 years ago? Won the X-Prize with it? I don't know why you're bringing that up though, Virgin Orbit isn't using a glider. LauncherOne is a rocket, lifted to 10+km altitude by an airplane called WhiteKnightTwo, and goes to space from there. That part succeeded, seems the aeroshell failed to separate to allow it to release the satellites. It's a spin-off company from Virgin Galactic, which uses SpaceShipTwo, the glider with rocket engines, also dropped at height from WhiteKnightTwo. I think both companies are dead ends but they're free to try whatever they want. They're burning cash apparently, I don't think either will last as companies much longer. Edited January 10 by SpaceChampion Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Secretary of Eumenes Posted January 10 Share Posted January 10 (edited) 8 minutes ago, SpaceChampion said: Burt Rutan, 20 years ago? Won the X-Prize with it? I don't know why you're bringing that up though, Virgin Orbit isn't using a glider. LauncherOne is a rocket, lifted to 10+km altitude by an airplane called WhiteKnightTwo, and goes to space from there. That part succeeded, seems the aeroshell failed to separate to allow it to release the satellites. It's a spin-off company from Virgin Galactic, which uses SpaceShipTwo, the glider with rocket engines, also dropped at height from WhiteKnightTwo. I think both companies are dead ends but they're free to try whatever they want. They're burning cash apparently, I don't think either will last as companies much longer. I was just being vicious The only cost-effective way to do high-volume space (orbit) tourism is with gliders. Why are you making things out of metal? It's famously heavy. Wind is light, but pushes other light things strongly Wind is free ETA: little grammar. I was being mean, not volcanic Edited January 10 by BBB Jacelyn Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SpaceChampion Posted January 15 Author Share Posted January 15 Falcon Heavy launch today, 5:56pm Eastern Secretary of Eumenes and Ser Scot A Ellison 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ser Scot A Ellison Posted January 16 Share Posted January 16 4 hours ago, SpaceChampion said: Falcon Heavy launch today, 5:56pm Eastern I wish I’d seen this earlier… I wonder if I could have seen the launch. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SpaceChampion Posted January 25 Author Share Posted January 25 (edited) On Monday SpaceX stacked the Starship on Superheavy and did a full wet dress rehearsal of launch procedures, filling the stack with 10 million pounds of propellants. The cold temperatures of the supercooled liquid oxygen and liquid methane caused the stack to shrink by about a half a meter! Nothing blew up! Huzzzah! A further sign that the test went well is they've announced they're moving on to do a full 33-engine static fire test for the Superheavy booster, possible in the next week or two. If that goes well, then next will be the first orbital launch attempt. Could be end of February, could be end of March. Edited January 25 by SpaceChampion Wade1865 and Ser Scot A Ellison 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SpaceChampion Posted January 27 Author Share Posted January 27 Meanwhile, New Zealand's Rocket Lab successfully launched it's first Electron rocket from U.S. soil, at the Wallops Island launch site in Virginia. Secretary of Eumenes and Ser Scot A Ellison 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SpaceChampion Posted February 1 Author Share Posted February 1 20 years ago today, the space shuttle Columbia broke up on descent, losing all her crew. R.I.P. Rick Husband, Willie McCool, Kalpana Chawla, Laurel Clark, Michael Anderson, David Brown, and Ilan Ramon. Ser Scot A Ellison, Starkess and Rhom 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rhom Posted February 1 Share Posted February 1 58 minutes ago, SpaceChampion said: 20 years ago today, the space shuttle Columbia broke up on descent, losing all her crew. R.I.P. Rick Husband, Willie McCool, Kalpana Chawla, Laurel Clark, Michael Anderson, David Brown, and Ilan Ramon. 20 years?!!? Wow. That doesn't seem that long ago to me. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SpaceChampion Posted February 2 Author Share Posted February 2 (edited) Investment in the space industry took a turn in 2019 when Virgin Galactic became the first space technology company to be acquired by a Special Purpose Acquisitions Company (SPAC). SPACs have a long history of being poor investments, as their trading price typically fall well below their IPO. SPACs are a way for private businesses to quickly become publicly traded by merging with an investment company that's already public. Since that first acquisition, more than a dozen other launch or satellite companies have been acquired by SPACs, as listed in the index here. (Virgin Orbit was spun off and acquired by a different SPAC separately.) Well, now Virgin Galactic's shareholders are suing the company's board for withholding information that cost them money, information relevant to assess the company's viability, such as safety defects. Furthermore, VG board members has been accused of insider trading, with the SPAC's CEO and Richard Branson himself both selling off hundred of millions of dollars of their shares right before bad news was revealed publicly. Former Virgin Galactic Chairman Accused of Insider Sale of Shares Worth $315M Virgin Orbit, on the other hand, has recently received some tiny investments from Branson, not enough to pay the payroll for more than a few weeks. What's going on with that? These are secured investments, which if I understand correctly means he has first dibs on assets if VO goes bankrupt. A sketchy and shitty manoeuvre that's going to get him sued for sure. Out of all the other companies on that SPAC index, I only know somewhat of Rocket Lab and Planet as two great companies that actually launch, and have viable businesses. Their share prices however are below their IPO just like all the other ones. This makes me wonder what's going on behind the scenes. Edited February 2 by SpaceChampion Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DireWolfSpirit Posted February 2 Share Posted February 2 (edited) Tangentially topical to a "space" thread. Tonight people in the Northern hemisphere can view a rare sight in the skies, a green comet passing its closest to earth in several millennia. How to view "It's the patch of sky immediately to the right of North, bounded between the Dippers," Ben Burress, an astronomer at Chabot Space and Science Center in California, told KQED(opens in new tab). "Right now the comet is between the Big and Little Dippers. It will look like a small fuzzy patch of light, possibly slightly greenish." Edited February 2 by DireWolfSpirit Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ser Scot A Ellison Posted February 4 Share Posted February 4 On 2/2/2023 at 2:50 PM, DireWolfSpirit said: Tangentially topical to a "space" thread. Tonight people in the Northern hemisphere can view a rare sight in the skies, a green comet passing its closest to earth in several millennia. How to view "It's the patch of sky immediately to the right of North, bounded between the Dippers," Ben Burress, an astronomer at Chabot Space and Science Center in California, told KQED(opens in new tab). "Right now the comet is between the Big and Little Dippers. It will look like a small fuzzy patch of light, possibly slightly greenish." What time is the best view? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ser Scot A Ellison Posted February 4 Share Posted February 4 I just tried to view it… the full moon plus a light haze are making it very difficult. No luck. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DireWolfSpirit Posted February 5 Share Posted February 5 (edited) 23 hours ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said: I just tried to view it… the full moon plus a light haze are making it very difficult. No luck. Eta: Yes moonlight was an issue. Fortunately a symphony of professional astronomist tracked everything for us with telescopes at sites in both hemispheres around the globe. This video explains and shows from various vantages. Edited February 5 by DireWolfSpirit Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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