Recent content by DanIAm

+1 on the quantity is a quality all of it's own in relationship to this. They are choosing materials with a manufacturing mindset instead of high tech/unobtainium (coz, you know, "space") which brings costs and reliability issues down (not reliable if there is no replacement part available)...

Spacex said only a few months back, that their ambition was to send 5 of these to Mars in the next launch window. 5 with up to 140 tons each, that's a serious bit of payload already there prior to any human astronauts. One successful launch like tonight isn't a guarantee of repeating it, but...

I was an infant during Apollo. But grew up in it's shadow and expected (due to Apollo, Space Shuttle, Starwars, Space 1999 etc) that we would be there, I spent decades dissapointed. I was happy to see this work, or for a big kablooey, all fantastic entertainment via social media. But where...

Have we heard any explanation from the FAA about why November (at the earliest) just suddenly got shifted to now?

It's fine to disagree, but keep it respectful.

This is done differently to how NASA or Roscomos would do it. i.e. launch 1 rocket, throw most of it away in the process and presumably return, where that 1 ship has a tiny payload, is obscenely expensive and 1 use. Any human to Mars plans were an extrapolation of the Moon program - as was...

They're a government agency and their fundamental mission is determined (and funded) by the government, so they don't get to change their focus. They are Aeronautics & Space, so, not Mars specifically, if you want your tax spending changed, lobby the politicians. The Aeronautics department...

This line "the SpaceX satellites have been forced to move over 50,000 times to prevent collisions." This is making an inference akin to hitting the brakes when a deer jumps into the path of a car. That is not how it is, they know the paths of all tracked objects (operational and junk from 5cm...

I'm Australian, NASA isn't part of my tax bill. So, I guess, none of my business... I get that space was so expensive, so exploration and science were government funded, it needed the likes of NASA to do the moon missions etc. Stay in the policy space for the regulation of space activities...

If... Spacex get's NASA's astronauts to the moon in it's lunar variant of their Starship successfully, then this is such a needless mission. Spacex will have already privately landed thousands of tons of cargo and possibly hundreds of people already onto Mars by the time this mission launches...

I don't think it is so straightforward. The OP discussed repercussions on the environment, pollution isn't only about the launch fuel, it's in the whole chain of manufacturing rockets and satellites, the facilities, what happens to it after launch etc. Examples of factors at play. We just let...

You could ask NASA. https://science.nasa.gov/about-us/contact-us

Are they a foreign national that is a NASA employee and sent as part of their job? If so, then absolutely NASA is paying. As for the employees of other space agencies, speculation on my behalf here, a quick googling of NASA documents didn't reveal anything. But I would not think that NASA is...

The promise of what Starship can be is mind blowing for launching cargo and people. If they can't stick landings and end up only as expendable rockets, it will still be a large capacity and very cheap rocket that opens up myriads of possibilities. But if they can nail the landings and...

There are a lot of positives to the environment from the space industry. Yes it is polluting to make a satellite and put it into space, it needs mines, fuel, manufacturing, transport etc. But loads of our tangible measuring on the environment is done by satellites. A lot of the reporting on...