Moon Base 13, The Moon: NASA Is In Kinga Forrester's Pocket

[synistar]

Dang, just looked up her JPL profile. It's actually Planetary Protection, easy to get that mixed up with Defense. Must be fun working on this:

She is currently involved with the planetary protection implementation team for the proposed Mars 2020 mission. She is also working on Break the Chain projects which address backward contamination of the Earth for future sample return missions.

[TsingTao]

NASA announces SpaceX will launch a crewed flight before Boeing.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...eing-nasa-says

Here's hoping that everything progresses well and they make their deadline. Launching a crewed flight first would be a pretty big deal for SpaceX.

[TsingTao]

Another SpaceX launch soon, in the wee hours of Tuesday morning. First reflight of a Block 5 booster, less than 3 months after its first flight. Quite a snappy turn around!

Launch window opens at 1:18am ET Tuesday from Pad 40, recovery at sea on Of Course I Still Love You.

[Zetanio]

Those turnarounds are getting faster and faster. I can't wait when they do it twice in a week.

[TsingTao]

Boy, that fast of a turnaround would be staggering. Maybe on the vehicle that replaces the Block 5, once they've had a couple hundred flights to know for sure what needs inspection and maintenance and what will always make it 10 (or however many) launches without mucking about.

In the near term we could see a couple launches a week as they build up stock of Block 5 boosters. I expect at this point the bottleneck is having enough support around the pads to have multiple rockets being staged at once. I wonder how fast they can roll in a booster and get it and its payload ready for launch...

[archibaldcrane]

There just isn't enough launch demand to make rapid refurbishment/refueling necessary or desired really.

[Zetanio]

There just isn't enough launch demand YET to make rapid refurbishment/refueling necessary or desired really.

Once the price starts dropping, that changes very very quickly.

[archibaldcrane]

They're already the cheapest in the game by far, it's not like competitive pressures are going to push their launch price lower. They'd only do so if there's such demand below X price level that the volume would be worth it.

[Zetanio]

No competitive pressure?

Fam, I feel like you don't understand the next 30 years of space travel. Look at Blue Origin, Boeing, the latest ArianeGroup rockets. They are all pushing ahead at full tilt. Japan is getting in the mix. The UK's latest partnerships come to mind as well. Also, SpaceX's flights are fully booked for the foreseeable future. Being able to up supply with minimized cost is the goal of every service provider isn't it? If they had capacity to double their launches, those launches would be bought immediately.

[Zealot]

Plus there's that guy who built his own rocket to prove the Earth is flat.

[archibaldcrane]

No competitive pressure?

Fam, I feel like you don't understand the next 30 years of space travel. Look at Blue Origin, Boeing, the latest ArianeGroup rockets. They are all pushing ahead at full tilt. Japan is getting in the mix. The UK's latest partnerships come to mind as well. Also, SpaceX's flights are fully booked for the foreseeable future. Being able to up supply with minimized cost is the goal of every service provider isn't it? If they had capacity to double their launches, those launches would be bought immediately.

It's all theoretical until the satellites are getting put into orbit

[archibaldcrane]

imagine being the richest man in the history of the world and getting space-cucked by the paypal guy

[Fiye]

imagine being the richest man in the history of the world and getting space-cucked by the paypal guy

Pretty sure he don't care because cities are selling themselves out for HQ2

[TsingTao]

Reporters got to tour the SpaceX factory floor Monday. Crew selected for their first manned launch were in attendance, some neat shots of various things included. Dragon capsules being assembled, control mockups, the suit, that sort of stuff. Hope we see more as we approach next year's manned launch.

https://arstechnica.com/science/2018...he-first-time/

Sad to see them officially give up on a controlled landing and fall back to an ocean, splash down type recovery. Worth to not be a couple years behind someone else's capsule, but I hope they keep working on a rocket return to a pad type vehicle.

[Salodin]

Being able to splash down probably saves them years in RnD though.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G935A using Tapatalk

[archibaldcrane]

SpaceX is revealing the identity of their first paid astronaut - for a mission around the moon using the BFR. At 6pm pacific time, spacex.com

[archibaldcrane]

Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yusaku_Maezawa will be the first paid astronaut to travel around the moon.

[TsingTao]

A 2023 launch for the BFR is the most interesting part of the announcement. That sounds pretty aggressive, even for SpaceX.

[Zetanio]

I, for one, am excited by this choice. This guy is a complete weirdo by all accounts. His twitter handle is yousuck2020

[TummieGaruda]

Space X launch in 10 min from Vandenburg...probably going to see a lot of people freaking out on Facebook cause of the contrails