• PrincessLeiasCat@sh.itjust.works
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    8 months ago

    Michael Collins covers the White House. Follow him on X, formerly Twitter, @mcollinsNEWS.

    Can we just talk about the fact that the guy who wrote this article has the same name as the Apollo 11 Command Module pilot?

  • werefreeatlast@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    Ah yes! It’s Pepe Julizio Del Bardon y Paz. I know, long name but the guy can tell you if anyone has ever pooped the water you are about to drink or the dust in any room. If they can get him fresh lunar dust he can tell us if indeed no one has ever lived on the moon and for how long. This is what I like to call the best Sarcastic Journalism of the night. (It’s night here). Anyway, for just a reply and 5 easy payments of 1$, I can keep bringing you up to date with all the bullshit floating in my brain. Operators are standing by…sorry I meant Surgeons, it’s the translation. Sometimes words translate but stripped of their meaning.

  • Edwardthefma99✡@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    The USA is in the lead we allredy have the tools and know how to make the trip and back and its being improved upon by elon musk and space x who is allredy setting up the trip getting things ready for frequent trips carrying cargo and such

        • intrepid@lemmy.ca
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          8 months ago

          I’m a bit skeptical though. Forget the fact that the crew will still be carried by the Orion (equivalent to Apollo’s CM) and only the landing part is provided by Starship. Two small unmanned lunar landers already toppled on their sides because they couldn’t get a proper footing on the uneven and loose lunar regolith. The Apollo LM had a very low C.G. Starship on the other hand, is a full long rocket stage with enough thrust to dig a hole at the landing site. How confident are we of a proper vertical landing? A topple would be a death sentence for its crew.

          Another big problem is their choice of propellant. Boil off is a well known issue with cryo propellants like LOX and liquid methane. So far, no rocket has used cryo propellants for any stage that doesn’t use it soon after filling. The longest wait after filling is done for stages that coast for a few hours. SpaceX plans to have a fuel depot in space that’s filled by multiple (12?) other starships. Even if we assume that SpaceX eventually gains the ability to rapidly reuse Starships, there is going to be practical limitations on how fast the orbital fuel depot can dock with refuellers. Considering that the refuellers themselves need part of the propellant to reach space, and that the fuel depot is going to have boil offs, how many actual flights and time will it take to refuel the depot to full? And remember that after all that, they need 2-3 days to reach the moon before executing the orbit insertion, deorbit and landing burns. Further, the lander will need to spend some time on moon (which depends on their mission and presence of a moon base). What about the boil off during all that time?

          What about the engine relight? They were supposed to demonstrate engine relight during the last mission. But they abandoned it because the propellants were nearly fully consumed and they were tumbling out of control (which is weird because I couldn’t see anything like an RCS that could arrest the rotation). Let’s assume they would eventually demonstrate a raptor relight in space. That still doesn’t solve the full problem. Cryo engines need to be chilled and purged prior to any relights. For in-space relights, part of that is usually done on the ground. But that won’t help if you need to relight after several hours or even days. Where do you get the propellants for all that?

        • otp@sh.itjust.works
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          8 months ago

          I’m guessing the 99 in your username isn’t an indication that you were born in 1999, lol

        • Bo7a@lemmy.ca
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          8 months ago

          Learn to fucking spell before you start denigrating other people’s intelligence.

          Yes, I am being condescending. And in case that is too big of a word for you - It means I am talking down to you.

    • nomad@infosec.pub
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      8 months ago

      To be fair: spacex is doing amazing things and Elon is just the face of things.