Recent content by rarchimedes

Elon is spamming those into orbit with the only reusable booster on the planet, something NASA and most others said wasn't possible. He is about to return U.S. astronauts to the ISS using U.S. equipment for the first time since the last Shuttle flight. ULA's Starliner is thrown into orbit by a...

I believe that Elon at one time said that Starship would have the ability to independently reach LEO, but with a much reduced payload. I don't know whether he will attempt that, but it seems reasonable. The last pressure supported rocket design, the Atlas, could do that and did. Also, I don't...

Whatever the universe is doing, vast expanses of that universe are inimical to life of any kind. We are finding that planets are everywhere, but only a tiny fraction are even faintly friendly to life of any kind, much less intelligent life. Our Earth has been here for around 4 billion years, and...

A drone makes sense, but is going to need ultrasonic or lidar or radar sensors to maneuver in the cave and return. Power usage is going to be a major consideration for all of the instrumentation because it takes so much energy just to fly in that atmosphere. There is some possibility that the...

If life's signature cannot be detected from the mouth of a cavern it will require drilling into or driving into the cave. Finding a cave with a drivable entrance seems possible, but requires a level of driving around and checking that is not likely to happen before there are people who can walk...

As I have commented elsewhere, the building techniques for the Starship are primitive and will not achieve the goal of a unit that can readily do continuous service for years. Elon is a genius on materials and design, but as in the original factory for the Tesla, he is just learning about...

Finding water appears to not be a problem on Mars. We need a small nuclear reactor to make chemical processing fast and simple, using heat derived from the reactor or electricity from a generator attached to the reactor to produce heat. Life on Mars and especially the Moon will not be possible...