/r/spaceflight

282,954 Subscribers

10

Humanity's potential, a what if

Just now, if had a strange thought pop up in my head. It made me wonder what humanity would be capable of, if it suddenly devoted all resources to spaceflight.

Here is the scenario:

Earth is contacted by an unknown alien entity.

"We have found some primitive, slow moving object that was launched from your planet, 47 of your years ago. On this object there is a golden disc, apparently meant to brag about your civilization. We find your arrogance unacceptable. But we offer you one chance to prove yourselves:

If you can manage to salvage that golden disk and bring it back to your planet within 100 years, you have proven your potential for progress. If you fail, we will eredicate all life on your planet."

It quickly becomes clear to everyone that this is not a hoax. Scientists and governments invest in spaceflight like never before. The public offers full support, as there is no choice but to try.

Would we be able to do it?

8 Comments
2024/03/23
20:51 UTC

4

The Atlantis Shuttle Last Flight

0 Comments
2024/03/23
20:38 UTC

180

July 20, 1969 Landing on the moon - how did this age?

51 Comments
2024/03/21
18:45 UTC

2

Delta IV Heavy - heavyweight reign

Is it correct that Delta IV Heavy was the highest capacity launch vehicle from Dec '04 to Feb '18? Just over 13 years?

1 Comment
2024/03/20
22:39 UTC

30

Lasers in Space: Inside the NASA LISA Mission

1 Comment
2024/03/20
16:40 UTC

1

List of daily launches

Is there a realtime minimal bullet-point type list of all daily rocket launches in the US? Like only launch company, location, vehicle, and payload/purpose? I find it hard to track all launches.

3 Comments
2024/03/20
03:59 UTC

651

Looking back at this historical moment for the space industry- how did it age?

166 Comments
2024/03/19
18:51 UTC

0

More efficient ascent and descent?

Hi, long time lurker firt time poster here. I've just had a random thought and maybe you can let me know if I'm on to something or if and how my idea is flawed. So, I was thinking about how terribly inefficient rockets are when used to get to space. I mean, all that thrust that's needed to get that thing airborne, let alone e into space from a complete stand still is mind boggling. What if we were to use jet propulsion up to the maximum altitude for it to be effective then switch to a much smaller jet engine for the remainder of the ascent. Tye amount of fuel needed would be dramatically less leaving room for more supplies and other cargo. We already have passenger jetliner that reach pretty staggering altitudes on the regular. So what if we were to design. A jet that would take off normally from a runway, ascend to say 600000 ft., shut off the jets, engage a secondary rocket, with a comparably smaller burst of the rocket, blast off into orbit. Of course it would need have heat shielding for reentry among other things. But I feel like it would be a lot less expensive and more efficient than what we have going on now. And after seeing Virgins space craft succesfully make it into orbit after being dropped from a jet and engaging its rockets for the last leg of the journey up. I don't see why we can't build an interorbital jet that can make round trips to the ISS or make satellite drops. Or am I just totally wrong here

22 Comments
2024/03/18
20:37 UTC

0

More efficient ascent and descent?

Hi, long time lurker firt time poster here. I've just had a random thought and maybe you can let me know if I'm on to something or if and how my idea is flawed. So, I was thinking about how terribly inefficient rockets are when used to get to space. I mean, all that thrust that's needed to get that thing airborne, let alone e into space from a complete stand still is mind boggling. What if we were to use jet propulsion up to the maximum altitude for it to be effective then switch to a much smaller jet engine for the remainder of the ascent. Tye amount of fuel needed would be dramatically less leaving room for more supplies and other cargo. We already have passenger jetliner that reach pretty staggering altitudes on the regular. So what if we were to design. A jet that would take off normally from a runway, ascend to say 600000 ft., shut off the jets, engage a secondary rocket, with a comparably smaller burst of the rocket, blast off into orbit. Of course it would need have heat shielding for reentry among other things. But I feel like it would be a lot less expensive and more efficient than what we have going on now. And after seeing Virgins space craft succesfully make it into orbit after being dropped from a jet and engaging its rockets for the last leg of the journey up. I don't see why we can't build an interorbital jet that can make round trips to the ISS or make satellite drops. Or am I just totally wrong here

2 Comments
2024/03/18
20:37 UTC

5

SpaceX Starship Re-entry

On the side note, what do you think it is most likely cause of re-entry failure?

3 Comments
2024/03/16
18:37 UTC

2

How will Starship fix the lack of control that we saw on flight 3? How big of a problem is this?

By watching the videos it looks like the craft was just flopping all over the place, and the flaps were moving accordingly, but they weren't making a huge difference. Was it because they just didn’t do a boost back burn to slow down more? Were the RCS thrusters that should have been working not working? Maybe if none of these are the answer, they have a bigger problem with the concept of starship. Making the flaps way bigger could make a large performance hit.

9 Comments
2024/03/16
01:29 UTC

12

Footage of the IFT-3 Booster or Ship breakup?

In this day in age it seems every meteor or rocket part deorbiting of any note is caught by a hundred cameras, weather radar and NOAA satellites. Therefore my question is:

Has anyone seen any footage / news of IFT-3 booster or ship breaking up? They should have near complete tracking on the booster from NASA observer aircraft. The ship is harder and broke up over unpopulated ocean. I am not questioning if the ship and booster broke up, they did, I am just interested in seeing the debris and public's video of the events. It seemed like last time this stuff popped up pretty quickly as both video and washed up debris.

I recognize that last time may have been a best case scenario for data and recovery as both the booster and ship were lost over the calm, shallow, populated, Caribbean. But it can't hurt to ask.

6 Comments
2024/03/15
21:15 UTC

15

SpaceX Starship IFT-3 liftoff is seen from Mexico, about 4 km from the launch pad.

0 Comments
2024/03/15
01:51 UTC

0

SpaceX - Starship Flight 3 - Orbital Test Flight & Reentry

2 Comments
2024/03/14
22:20 UTC

20

SpaceX Starship Third Test Flight Recap

1 Comment
2024/03/14
19:43 UTC

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