Ontopic Mission to Uranus

man.... the lift capacity of the Falcon Super Heavy (starship) is 150-200 tons to luna.

Thats approaching the capability to lift a spooled kevlar or zylon space elevator cable into geosync.

Although with 200tons of lift per launch at a price of less than 10 dollars a kg, and a reusable rocket, a space elevator is actually far less palatable these days.


Also shows how amazing Saturn V was back in the day, since Starship is the first rocket to even come close to its lift capacity (at 800X the price per kg though)
 
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Isn't that 35,000kms up? How would the geopolitics work for something like that? Is it possible to guarantee that if it fails, it will remain within it's owners borders?
Definitely complicated. likely location is on the equator, in an area not prone to typhoons with a failure mode over the ocean.

Its not a huge heavy cable, and while theres a chance it could fall on something, the likelyhood of damage is reasonably low. I imagine it falls into the same realm as rocket launches crossing international borders, above a certain altitude that nation doesnt have authority anymore
 
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Man, sad to see the Russian troll groups targeting ISS and RosCosmos. Its always been a precedent that civilian and scientific space is immune to politics and astronauts are astronauts.

Theyre spinning conspiracy theories about a US astronaut going nuts in space and drilling a hole in the capsule in an attempt to cause a mission abort so she could go home early.
 
Man, sad to see the Russian troll groups targeting ISS and RosCosmos. Its always been a precedent that civilian and scientific space is immune to politics and astronauts are astronauts.

Theyre spinning conspiracy theories about a US astronaut going nuts in space and drilling a hole in the capsule in an attempt to cause a mission abort so she could go home early.
Saw that too. Infuriating.
 
nervous too though. This is a one shot thing on par or exceeding the difficulty of a mars lander. If it fucks up in deployment, its done. There is no repairing at L1
 
nervous too though. This is a one shot thing on par or exceeding the difficulty of a mars lander. If it fucks up in deployment, its done. There is no repairing at L1
Very nervous. However, I find it hard to believe that we would just give up if it doesn't work. I mean, repair isn't impossible, we just haven't engineered anything to do it. And hopefully won't need to.
 
Isn't that 35,000kms up? How would the geopolitics work for something like that? Is it possible to guarantee that if it fails, it will remain within it's owners borders?
Seems reasonable to assume it could fall as far as 35,000kms away. I don't care if it's dental floss, that much of it could squash someone like a bug. idk,
 
Very nervous. However, I find it hard to believe that we would just give up if it doesn't work. I mean, repair isn't impossible, we just haven't engineered anything to do it. And hopefully won't need to.
oh, i misspoke.... its not L1, its L2

l2.2.jpg


Thats insane.

I mean, if we can land Osirus Rex on a fuckin comet in flight we can get something robotic out to L2, but almost all the Hubble repairs have been people repairs, and we're not gonna send people out to L2.
 
oh, i misspoke.... its not L1, its L2

l2.2.jpg


Thats insane.

I mean, if we can land Osirus Rex on a fuckin comet in flight we can get something robotic out to L2, but almost all the Hubble repairs have been people repairs, and we're not gonna send people out to L2.
True, but we are worlds* better with robotics than we were when we had to do most of the Hubble stuff. I'm not that concerned.





*ha!