Random thoughts.

Imagine a spacecraft can’t get back to Earth. Or is sent tumbling off into space for whatever reason. Have they planned ahead for suicide options?

Clarification: I meant a painless method. Wouldn’t opening the hatch cause asphyxiation and pain?

This has just been something I've been thinking about - it seems like, in a lot of fictional sci-fi scenarios, you see lots of missiles and guns firing at other ships. However, in the real world, that seems like it would cause quite a lot of orbital debris that would only come back to hurt your own side potentially cutting off access to certain orbits for a substantial amount of time.

Is there any way around that? Will countries ever legitimately fight wars in space(even if there are no missiles and guns), or is it all just fiction?

I have some random thought regarding Chinese sea launch. Most of Chinese sea launch are done not far from shore, rather than idea of traveling far away to location like the equater to launch rocket. I wonder if currently Chinese sea launch are essentially their solution to having limited coastal launch site. Sea launch rocket are still predominantly launch close to shore, sometime even be able to view by those on the mainland.

I know Wenchang have some problem expanding such as populated area around it or the ocean adjacent to it not being suitable for land reclaimation.

So essentially rather than it main purpose being to sail far away to equater to launch payload more efficiently, as it stand currently it act more like coastal launch site. Albeit one that can have more flexible launch azimuth. which is pretty good since it mean less rocket launch from dangerous inland launch site while Wenchang launch center is still expanding to accomodate more frequent launch. So in most case rather than needing dedicate sea launch vessel China can just requisite a barge for rocket launch, or when they design dedicated ship perhaps long distance journey beyond coastal region is not require in consideration. Perhaps this is why the cost could be lower than something like Sea Launch (the company) was doing. At least for the time being, since I know some Chinese company definitely want to do sea launch closer to the equator.

China is also scaling up their sea launch rate it seems, someone posted on Nasa Space Flight forum showing clipboard of Haiyang spaceport (essentially the main Chinese sea launch port) and they aimed to do 17 sea launch this year (with 3 already complete) assuming there is no delays. Even if some don’t make it on schedule it seems Chinese sea launch are growing very rapidly.

I am no expert in this, so mainly this is just a theory by random amateur. For all I know I could totally be wrong.

##EDIT

See the addition of Rule #2 in the sidebar to the right. If you're on mobile, I have no clue what you'd do to see the rules. It's somewhere in the doobly-doo. I'll leave the sticky post up for a while in case anyone has anything to add to what I think is a consensus. I appreciate the guidance.

Hi everyone. Your friendly neighbourhood self-deprecating r/spaceflight moderator here.

Since taking over moderation duties a while back, and aiming to (at some point) bring on more moderators I've been trying to nail down consistent and fair moderation practices and so far I've not had too many complaints. I've made an effort to keep the low-effort crap to a minimum. If you've been using the report button---keep using it. It helps.

One of the outstanding issues that's popped up a few times, though, is dealing with (for lack of a better term) political comments primarily related to a particular CEO of a successful orbital launch provider. Now, regardless of my personal views on the guy, and regardless of how you might feel, I would hope that it's not controversial to say that Elon is divisive. By that I mean he has people who really like him, and people who really don't. Both groups are very happy to share their feelings on the matter.

There are also people who would rather not hear about him at all, or at the very least would prefer to only hear about factual things he says or does in the context of spaceflight news and events.

Making this post and saying these (hopefully uncontroversial) things will probably piss some people off. Sorry. I'm trying to be constructive.

My goal here is to be a custodian and not an arbiter of truth. I'm concerned that I've received a few reports from different opposing camps complaining about comments one of the other camps made and that they should be removed. There are a few practical challenges with this:

1. I don't think I can please everyone. Different people have different ideas about what constitutes something that doesn't belong.
2. It's hard to be consistent in this environment, regardless of how I personally feel about the guy.
3. I don't think censorship is practical. I don't think you want /r/spaceflight to get a reputation for being a place where criticism of Elon is forbidden. Maybe I'm wrong---now's the time to tell me.

I'll point out, however, that the rules should apply equally to people like Tory Bruno or Peter Beck. If we're genuinely interested in fairness then rules should apply to discussion of any of these people.

Anyways, that's me trying to be transparent and forthcoming. I appreciate thoughts and advice. Please keep the discussion civil, lest I be thought a tyrant.

They've been in emergency ops all day today, and people are working from home. But I only know this because I was able to find the emergency order to employees online. Not a peep on any public channels. And nothing here on Reddit. How is ISS mission control operating? There is or was an emergency center in Alabama, I believe. Isn't anyone else interested in how Beryl is affecting NASA?