Recent comments in /f/space

Selah-Rosa t1_jb9ugmy wrote

"Named the worm moon by Native American tribes in the 18th century in reference to different creatures emerging from their winter hideouts to welcome spring..."

Totally,  I mean,  sometimes time can just get away from us, and you look back on the past few centuries and are just like, man,  I swear that felt like only a few years ago. It happens.

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Tycoon5000 t1_jb9rgr4 wrote

There is a similar phenomenon that occurs with clouds that form in the upper atmosphere. They're called noctilucent clouds. This is the same concept that causes the exhaust to glow when the rockets are launched. The sun is below the horizon but the clouds/exhaust is high enough where the suns rays will refract off the clouds and give it an iridescent look or at least make it appear bright in the sky.

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space-ModTeam t1_jb9kk22 wrote

Hello u/sah1lga1kwad, your submission "Can a Ion Thruster ever Match the Thrust of a Chemical Rocket? What are the alternatives?" has been removed from r/space because:

  • Such questions should be asked in the "All space questions" thread stickied at the top of the sub.

Please read the rules in the sidebar and check r/space for duplicate submissions before posting. If you have any questions about this removal please message the r/space moderators. Thank you.

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ImJKP t1_jb9ebvm wrote

Light travels at a constant velocity in a straight line through space. Gravitational lensing is an artifact of the kinks in spacetime created by massive objects; those kinks change what a "straight line" is for the light passing through that area of spacetime.

Time isn't affected by gravitational lensing per se. Gravity warps spacetime, and light is distorted (lensed) by the warped spacetime.

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The_Solar_Oracle t1_jb9dd4f wrote

While there have been recent breakthroughs in improving the thrust of ion drives, they and all other electric rockets still invariably have inferior thrust when compared to chemical rockets.

That doesn't mean they aren't competitive, however, or that there are not drives with decent thrust.

Magnetoplasmadynamic drives, for instance, could boast better thrust and specific impulse than existing electric rockets, and some electro-thermal rocket motors coule have impressive thrust at the cost of specific impulse.

However, higher performance electric rockets in turn require more electricity and operating temperatures. While this may require the use of nuclear power plants per given mission requirements (increasing cost and vehicular mass), their higher specific impulse relative to chemical rockets means they could employ higher energy trajectories and ultimately get to their destinations faster for less propellant.

Some kinds of nuclear rockets can also rival chemical rockets in terms of thrust, but they also tend to be very heavy (courtesy of the reactor and shielding) and expensive. Nuclear thermal rockets have been tested on Earth, though, and NASA has recently shown renewed interest in their use.

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triffid_hunter t1_jb9d00k wrote

> Can a Ion Thruster ever Match the Thrust of a Chemical Rocket?

In theory, sure, but in practice the VASIMR project is trying to approach that threshold and already has numerous drawbacks.

Haven't heard much out of them lately though, and the power requirements make it pretty impractical.

And that power requirement is always going to be an issue with electric thrusters: objects in LEO have about 32MJ of energy per kilogram vs an object sitting on the earth, and launch to LEO takes about 8 minutes, so you're looking at 67MW per ton (first approximation crude napkin math) with even a 100% efficient ion thruster just to match already existing rockets - and I don't think we have any source of electrical power that gets anywhere near that requirement.

As a cross-check, this post says Falcon 9 is pushing 26GW at launch, and with its ~545 metric ton launch mass, that's 47MW/ton so apparently my napkin is a bit off, but well within an order of magnitude.

Seems like we're gonna be sticking with chemical fuels for a while, and using ions for more sedate in-orbit maneuvers where a small thrust for a long time is just as useful as a lot of thrust for a short time.

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aaronzig t1_jb9czs4 wrote

Ion thruster and chemical rockets are for different purposes. I don't think they'll ever replace each other for the roles they are designed for.

Ion thrusters are good for control when in space (like controlling the movement of a satellite) because it doesn't need large solid fuel reserves to operate, but it's also not strong enough to push through the atmosphere.

Chemical rockets are powerful enough to push through air, but they take too much fuel and burn too uncontrolled to be useful for control once in space.

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BoringEntropist t1_jb93bgt wrote

Atheism doesn't propose such a thing. It's just the philosophical standpoint that denies the existence of deities. That's all. Topics such as afterlife, souls and other metaphysical stuff is outside of its scope. There are schools of Buddhism that deny the existence of god but believe in reincarnations.

Atheism isn't a believe system. Same as "not stamp collecting" isn't hobby. Not believing in god doesn't mean a person can't believe in other supernatural stuff (UFOs, chakras, whatever).

BTW, the view that you describe about reality not existing outside of your own mind is called solipsism. That position stands on epistemological shaky grounds though.

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