A space station that's supposed to be the replacement for the ISS, called Starlab, is (allegedly) going to be launched in one shot on SpaceX's giant Starship rocket. It's half the size of the ISS. Maybe after the lanch they'll make it larger in space? They're trying to avoid the cost of in-space assembly by launching everything in one shot.

"Starlab is a joint venture between the US-based Voyager Space and the European-based multinational aerospace corporation Airbus. The venture is building a large station with a habitable volume equivalent to half the pressurized volume of the International Space Station and will launch the new station no earlier than 2028."

"SpaceX's history of success and reliability led our team to select Starship to orbit Starlab."

Starlab -- with half the volume of the ISS -- will fit inside Starship's payload bay

#astronomy #rocketry #spacetechnology #iss

So, we may be able to make tetraneutrons:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ioh2irpW_YI

Is this something we can use for spaceflight?

Let's suppose it's possible to make long term stable tetraneutron matter. Is there some way we could store it in some sort of containment trap?

If so, could it be used for some sort of cheap powerful fission drive? I'm thinking the fuel is cheap uranium 238 or thorium maybe combined with lithium deuteride. The tetraneutrons provide a burst of neutrons to "catalyze" fission ... the charged particles from the reaction are deflected by magnetic field for thrust.

Basically, I'm thinking something similar to anti-matter catalyzed fission, but with tetraneutron matter ... of some sort. Somehow?

Is this an idea that even makes sense?

#Space #SpaceExploration #SpaceTechnology #Fission #Neutrons

Interstellar Space Isn't Trying Hard Enough to Kill Us

Scientists calculate whether it's just plain impossible to survive interstellar
journeys, as a solution to the Fermi Paradox (spoilers - it isn't).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wdP_UDSsuro

The amount of shielding the ISM eats away during a 4.3 light year
journey is on the order of maybe a mm to cm or so. This is much
smaller than the roughly 1m thick water shielding you'd want all
around, for long term GCR shielding, anyway. (That GCR shielding
assumes no medical advances with respect to cancer, and also that
you aren't willing to accept some increased cancer risk.)

So basically, if you care about long term cancer risk shielding, the best
shape for your crew habitat is roughly spherical, rather than the long thin
shape often assumed to minimize frontal area while plowing through
the interstellar medium.

#Space #SpaceExploration #SpaceTechnology #SpaceScience

So, as a big fan of orbitals, I might accuse some of "planetary chauvanism".

However, there's also the opposite, all you "space-ship-chauvanists"

https://www.universetoday.com/156081/civilizations-dont-even-need-space-ships-to-migrate-from-star-system-to-star-system/

Basically, the idea is to hitch rides on rogue planets and/or comets and stuff, instead of using space ships (like some morons, I guess we are).

Still ... not as radical as my own pet idea of interstellar X-ray laser lithography. My idea is to create probes in situ using extreme long range X-ray lasers, carving up probes and all their electronics directly out of iron-nickel asteroids. I've been most heavily leaning into this idea in recent years, out of desperation because all relativistic interstellar propulsion concepts require so much energy and power.

#Space #SpaceExploration #SpaceTechnology #gizmo

Here's a nice summary of different rocket engine cycles:

Rocket engine cycles: How do you power a rocket engine?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Owji-ukVt9M

I particularly like the idea of a dual expander cycle.
It feeds gaseous propellant to the combustion chamber
and it seems relatively simple and elegant compared to
other high efficiency alternatives.

#SpaceTechnology #Space #SpaceExploration #RocketScience

Hey everyone, I’m #newhere. I’m interested in #6502, #amiga, #c64, #commodore, #commodore64, #retrocomputing, #retrogaming, #spaceexploration, and #spacetechnology. Thanks for the invite, @Andrew Pam!

Around the World in 80 Minutes

Challenge - with existing or past manned spacecraft technology, could someone go around the world in 80 minutes? How best to do it?

See, the fastest orbit takes 90 minutes to go around Earth. You need to beat that by 10 minutes, and I'm not entirely sure it can be done with a reasonable amount of chemical rocket fuel.

#SpaceExploration #SpaceTechnology #Space

"Wind Rider" magsail propulsion

https://www.centauri-dreams.org/2021/11/19/wind-rider-a-high-performance-magsail/

This sounds very interesting. Any numbers on mass or ballpark acceleration?

Depending on the specifics a lot of the "problems" could be solved by using
a Jupiter flyby. You wouldn't want to aim for Jupiter at full speed, but rather
encountering Jupiter with a low enough speed that it can sling you almost
straight for the Sun. At that point, you just turn on the drive again as you
approach the desired anti-Sunward vector.

In particular, you can aim toward the future position of Earth, to deploy a
payload of kinetic impactors to power launch from Earth (kinetic impact
powered propulsion).

Although depending on the specifics, it may not be necessary to use Jupiter
for this. You could use kinetic impact powered propulsion to directly boost
a payload into an elliptical orbit initially lagging Earth. In 3 months, the
payload is directly sunward of Earth (even though it was initially slower than
Earth, this caused the orbit to fall closer to the Sun and in the process it
speeds up and catches up). At that point, you turn on the Wind Rider drive
and it zooms anti-sunward toward Earth. Deploy the kinetic impactor drones
and it's ready to power more launch from Earth.

All this said, I'm not so enthusiastic about kinetic impact powered propulsion
for Earth launch as I once was. It involves lots of expended electronics,
whereas something like hypersonic skyhitch only consumes fluid fuels.

Anyway, Wind Rider propulsion could be really good for Postcards from Cutty
if it scales up well.

#Space #SpaceTechnology #SpaceExploration #PostcardsFromCutty

I just found out that @Winchell Chung (Atomic Rockets) is in the hospital with a terminal prognosis. I can't say what I'm feeling, so I'm just passing it along for those who don't already know.

#SF #ScienceFiction #OGRE #Space #SpaceTechnology