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Brokedownclimber
Trad climber
Douglas, WY
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Topic Author's Reply - Jun 13, 2016 - 09:57pm PT
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According to Gwen Shotwell, the CEO of SpaceX, the first demonstration flight for the Falcon Heavy is scheduled for November. The Hawthorne, CA based company has already scheduled two more launches early in 2017 for already sold launches for geosynchronys satellites requiring heavy lift boosters.
In a separate interview, Elon Musk was asked whether he would be flying on one of the early trips to mars; he commented that "probably, if he could be certain SpaceX would survive if he got killed."
SpaceX is scheduled to launch Eutelsat 117WB on June 15 at 07:30 PDT; watch thte live launch in a SpaceX live webcast at http://www.spacex.com. This will be the third high energy launch in a 6 week time frame, and another first stage recovery is planned with landing on the autonomous remote drone ship named "Of course I still love you."
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Jun 13, 2016 - 10:20pm PT
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Elon is smart guy, but his rationale and vision for Mars is way off base; ditto for all the folks who think there is any future alternative to Earth for humanity.
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Jun 13, 2016 - 11:01pm PT
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I'm selling! Check out my ebay listing for Io.
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Brokedownclimber
Trad climber
Douglas, WY
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Topic Author's Reply - Jun 14, 2016 - 07:42am PT
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Nobody will buy Io, healyje. Try selling either Ganymede or Callisto, as they aren't within Jupiter's intense radiation belt as are the one you're selling, along with Europa.
Yeah, nobody wants to go to Mars to colonize; after all that crazy Genoese weaver's son wanted to go westward and sail off the edge of the earth. What a nutcase; he belonged on Super Topo.
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Brokedownclimber
Trad climber
Douglas, WY
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Topic Author's Reply - Jun 14, 2016 - 07:48am PT
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healyje-
California should buy Europa and have Elon Musk move it to the state, since the moon has, according to NASA, more water than all on the earth. The figures being bandied about indicate an ice layer several kilometers deep, overlying a 100 km deep planetary ocean of liquid water. NASA has plans to send a surface probe sometime in the foreseeable future. The funding just isn't available to do an adequate surface survey.
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Brokedownclimber
Trad climber
Douglas, WY
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Topic Author's Reply - Jun 15, 2016 - 08:18am PT
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SpaceX unfortunately lost the first stage during the recovery attempt. The mission was successful at completing insertion of the payloads into geosynchronous transfer orbit; SpaceX gets paid.
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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Jun 15, 2016 - 08:24am PT
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Yeah, unf Falcon 9 on landing suffered a RUD (rapid unscheduled disassembly).
But two out of three ain't bad. Chin up!
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Brokedownclimber
Trad climber
Douglas, WY
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Topic Author's Reply - Jun 16, 2016 - 11:28am PT
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Robert Zubrin has suggested a means of mitigating the low gravity/microgravity issues by using centripetal acceleration of the spacecraft on a long tether to a burned out rocket stage, and generating artificial gravity equivalent to Earth's. Vision could be affected by slow retinal detachment under zero-g conditions, as well.
A year in space under ISS conditions would not be great for humans unless mitigating steps are taken, and longer interplanetary voyages are designed to incorporate trajectories for minimal travel times, i.e., Hohmann Transfer flight paths. This means conjunction class missions in contrast to opposition class.
There are also hormonal treatments available for bone loss: Calcitonin, which is well-documented in it's treatment efficacy for osteoporosis.
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zBrown
Ice climber
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Jun 16, 2016 - 12:37pm PT
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Hope they don't lose the black boxes.
Egyptian black box voice recorder found (not in Canada).
Could the data recorder be far behind? Only two weeks left on the batteries.
The committee added that although the black box had been damaged, a search vessel had managed to safely recover the memory unit, “which is the most important part of the recorder.”
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Jun 16, 2016 - 04:21pm PT
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The 'effects' Kelly is referring to are only the most obvious ones and from a limited duration (a year). And those effects are undoubtedly just the tip of an iceberg of untowards impacts from being off-planet. It should be obvious millions of years of evolution have tailored us for this planet's ecology and - by definition - we can't live anywhere else. Want to colonize other planets and star systems? Send fungal and bacterial spores and wait.
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Brokedownclimber
Trad climber
Douglas, WY
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Topic Author's Reply - Jun 16, 2016 - 04:47pm PT
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It's really difficult to make much (scientific) sense from a press release. Living a year continuously in zero g environment is obviously not good for one's health. Both the Mars Direct plan advocated by Dr. Zubrin, and the NASA modified form include use of rotationally induced artificial gravity in order to mitigate the bone decalcification and loss of muscle mass resulting from lack thereof.
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Jun 16, 2016 - 05:18pm PT
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Falcon Heavy is still small compared to what he has in mind...
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zBrown
Ice climber
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Jun 16, 2016 - 05:36pm PT
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The Airbus A320, which had 66 people aboard, crashed May 19 in the Mediterranean Sea on a flight from Paris to Cairo.
Today is June 16.
Maybe there are some problems here on Earth that should be worked on first.
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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Jun 16, 2016 - 05:46pm PT
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I am certain that the obstacles we see today will be resolved... Just because we can't see a solution today, doesn't mean it won't be solved later.
I actually perceive it as a good thing. The more problems we encounter now, the less we'll have to deal with later.
We're on the same team Moose, we just play different positions
most of the time. Imo. Good post.
This should help solve the gravity-related problem...
What, running at 1 G is for pansies? okay turn it up to 1.5 G then.
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Brokedownclimber
Trad climber
Douglas, WY
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Topic Author's Reply - Jun 16, 2016 - 06:24pm PT
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The RUD (Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly) of the Falcon 9 first stage yesterday reawakened my desire to return to doing some hard science again. Apparently one of the 3 engines didn't deliver full thrust in the braking stage prior to landing. They were playing it very close with the remaining fuel onboard the vehicle, and the fuel densification of the RP-1 seems to be a limiting factor. RP-1 is simply rocket grade Kerosene, which solidifies or gels when chilled below -7 degrees Celsius. I believe that adding some synthetic hydrocarbons I have in mind could alleviate the gelling problem. Who knows? Maybe working on these problems could bring me out of retirement?
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Jun 16, 2016 - 09:36pm PT
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The RUD was simply a matter of running out of gas and as you say, the fuel load is definitely a function of densification. Seems like they'll need to come up with something a bit denser for a monster like the Mars Colonial Transporter.
I am certain that the obstacles we see today will be resolved.
Just because we can't see a solution today, doesn't mean it won't be solved later.
Except they aren't 'obstacles' and there are no 'solutions'.
From a cellular matrix level on up, our entire biological fabric is - parametrically speaking - exquisitely tuned with [biological] constants related to life on Earth. Those constants can't be 'tweaked' and there is no way to survive in the equation represented by another planet or an extended intra/inter-galactic voyage.
As has been pointed out, there is also no 'tech' or 'solutions' which will allow for the reduction of an ecology to a miniaturized, self-sustaining, closed-loop system.
The upshot is we can venture out over short distances for brief visits, but we will never successfully colonize anything at a distance further than supply logistics can regularly replenish (at enormous cost) or fading health will allow. Now, maybe there are things to learn that are worth dying for, but that will be the steady, unavoidable and unmitigatable price for extended human exploration in space.
And I grew up on scifi, space travel and science; it's why I got into microbiology, genetics, horticulture and software and I make my living as a technologist. But the combination of all those has taught me the beauty of life on Earth and the [systems] reality of how closely tuned we are to it. We fail to acknowledge that or deny it at our extreme peril.
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