Recent comments in /f/space

Anonymous-USA t1_jdjn6pb wrote

Reply to comment by Raging_Skywalker in So from what I understand Sagittarius a is in the Center of Milky Way. If any planets orbit this black hole would there be time dilation? by EarthInteresting9781

What??? I don’t know how you came to that conclusion. The time dilation is basically negligible unless very close to the gravity well, even if there is some residual effect past the event horizon or heliosphere (for a sun). In fact, there may be advantages in energy access closer to a major interstellar object.

So I doubt it would make any difference. Rather, any intergalactic species (even our own) would want to mathematically account for time dilation from both sources — velocity and gravity — when communicating data and positioning. Which we already do ourselves. GPS wouldn’t work without accounting for time dilation. So accounting for it, yes, strategically designing around it, unlikely imo

2

3SquirrelsinaCoat t1_jdjme5l wrote

Reply to Rocket Lab targets $50 million launch price for Neutron rocket to challenge SpaceX’s Falcon 9 by cnbc_official

I'm a huge fan of Rocket Lab. I'll admit it. Some people are SpaceX diehards. I really want to see Rocket Lab thrive, and I expect they will. They can absolutely compete in the small sat market, and their Photon spacecraft is more or less unique in the commercial market. Even SpaceX doesn't have that. Starship can land a lot of mass on orbiting bodies, amazing. Photon can deliver science experiments to other planets at a price far less than a space agency. Also amazing.

What a time to be alive. How cool, how dramatic and enthralling.

13

Bewaretheicespiders t1_jdjeias wrote

Reply to comment by New_Poet_338 in Rocket Lab targets $50 million launch price for Neutron rocket to challenge SpaceX’s Falcon 9 by cnbc_official

There is a market in being number 2. By being a telecom, SpaceX has become a competition of a lot of its clients. Which would like to launch with someone else if there was a decent option. Ive met with many clients in the software world that didnt want to have their stuff running on AWS because they compete with Amazon on the retail space.

20

HolyGig t1_jdjcyo8 wrote

Reply to comment by CurtisLeow in Advisory group backs European human spaceflight program using commercial approaches by Zhukov-74

CRS is not that expensive on its own, but the ISS won't be around for much longer and it does cost a lot to maintain a crewed presence. In other words, Europe would be spending a lot on hiring Dragons/Starliners for crew plus the cost to orbit a new station, whatever that would look like, just in order to necessitate the need for a European CRS in the first place.

NASA seems to be going all in on commercial station(s). How that will work exactly is a bit of a mystery but there seems to be at least three (Axiom, Orbital Reef and Starlab) that seem fairly serious and are all getting some NASA funding. Mostly looks like private investment though. Looks like Airbus is a partner on Starlab so perhaps that is the one angling for ESA patronage the most. If that is the case, ESA wouldn't have control over the services contract since it would be commercially operated.

Its all interesting stuff but its still pretty early

4

robotical712 t1_jdjcmn1 wrote

Reply to comment by CurtisLeow in Advisory group backs European human spaceflight program using commercial approaches by Zhukov-74

ESA's problem is that, while it has 22 member nations, two of them provide more than half its funding and its primary contractor is majority owned by one of the two. It doesn't really matter what the Director General thinks of geo-return, he's ultimately beholden to ESA's member nations, and they're happy with it.

8

cnbc_official OP t1_jdjakh1 wrote

Reply to Rocket Lab targets $50 million launch price for Neutron rocket to challenge SpaceX’s Falcon 9 by cnbc_official

Rocket Lab is building a bigger, reusable launch vehicle called Neutron, and it’s targeting a price point near $50 million per launch to challenge Elon Musk’s SpaceX.

“We are positioning Neutron to compete directly with the Falcon 9,” Rocket Lab Chief Financial Officer Adam Spice said earlier this week, speaking at a Bank of America event in London on Tuesday.

The company announced Neutron when it went public in 2021, with Spice saying the rocket remains on track to debut in 2024. During its fourth-quarter report last month, Rocket Lab said it had begun producing the first tank structures of Neutron, as well as construction of the launch pad for the rocket. The company plans to conduct the first “hot fire test” of an Archimedes engine, which will power Neutron, “by the end of the year,” Spice said.

Read more: https://www.cnbc.com/2023/03/24/rocket-lab-neutron-launch-price-challenges-spacex.html

12

sryforcomment t1_jdja2og wrote

Reply to comment by CurtisLeow in Advisory group backs European human spaceflight program using commercial approaches by Zhukov-74

> So the ESA Director General has made clear he isn't interested in reforming geo-return.

A recent article on the geo-return policy written by ESA's DG sounds a lot more nuanced and promising, though:

> To enhance compatibility between geo-return and competition, the policy of geo-return should increasingly shift towards a ‘fair contribution’ principle, that is to adjust the contribution of each Member State according to the outcome of the industrial competitions and to the actual share gained by its industry in these competitions. Several ESA programmes, especially in close-to-market sectors such as telecommunications, are already built in this manner.

Source: Josef Aschbacher - "The competitiveness of ESA’s Geo-return policy", 20 Mar 2023.

3