18 years ago... the Columbia destroyed.

I did ordinary daily shopping, where the radio was turned on

There I've heard what happened. The blood has left my head on the spot.

It was played some music or so. Then they broke the ordinary program and said that the Columbia destroyed on arrival. They also said, that there is no news about the astronauts yet, but experts say no survivors.

It was clear on the spot that the consequences will be radical. It was also very likely that the Space Shuttle is over.

18 years ago, on this day.

Later... I remember as a braindamaged media said that the Columbia has flown with 19 times of he speed of light. It explained, why the STS did not get too much money from the - elected - government.

should be deleted

And SN9 flight is pushed out to Tuesday at earliest, due to weather I believe this time.

Has it got FAA approval now/

@JCRM No clue. The TFR keeps getting cancelled and reopened. So Monday is cancelled, Tues is new. We shall see.

@uhoh ah! thanks for sharing it here! I actually had no idea how to find this chat, but the link was on the bottom of the page! :) Would've just ask here in the first place instead of posting a full question!

@geoffc I see the live cam and the weather is the best since a week.

Actually, it is so good that I believe, even a Space Shuttle launch could be risked. :-)

Any idea, why at the SLS, not even the first stage reuse was considered?

Yes, I know, they had not enough money for that. ;-)

Or there was the STS. Why they did not made liquid fuel boosters, with ejection system and reusable main tank? The liquid boosters could have given enough power to make it possible.

All what they needed, is an ejectable pilot cabin with parachutes.

And now, that Musk seems doing it........ his company somehow does not get FAA approvals for the test launches and no one really knows, exactly why.

@peterh-ReinstateMonica You really need to think about recovery/reuse at design time, not once you have a vehicle. For example: Falcon 9 - the engine size is designed for reuse. 9 smaller engines, vs Atlas/Vulcan/Antares that use one or two large engines. With 9, you launch a large payload and one engine has low enough thrust you could possibly land.

Water recovery won't really work for anything larger than a bread basket. SRB's which are pretty heavy steel (I think?) cases, still got bent out of shape. an Al-Li tank? Ain't gonna take bashing fo waves or the water very well. Ignoring what an SSME in the salt water would look like after.

SLS was a bad decision in 2010, and still is today. It is a launch vehicle. It just does not seem like a good choice.

Super Heavy BN1 under construction. That is only about half the total height!

@geoffc Someone peeked it with a drone? :-)

No, drones are not allowed. However, Cessna's with a human pilot, following flight rules is allowed. RGV (RioGrandeValley) Aerial guy (his Youtube channel name) does these flights daily or weekly.

youtube.com/channel/UCQbKe0RZ62u47TZ8vmKNnRA

Good channel to sub to. Really good spy videos.

@geoffc Right. Then, what about this: Space Shuttle, but orbiter is on the top. First stage is done solely by LOX/LH rockets, they come back vertically as the Falcons. Second stage is coming back like StarShip will do it. Orbiter is coming back as usual, except that it has an ejectable pilot cabin with parachutes. -> no more astronaut deaths, and all is reusable.

Actually, orbiter does not even need to be so big. Such a costruction would allow to have cheap launches -> first, cargo launches go to the ISS, then crew goes in crew-only launches where they have place for the parachutes. If anything goes bad, then either only cargo is lost (U.S. voters have zero interest), or the astronauts come back with parachutes (U.S. voters applaude).

Another thing what annoys me: honestly, ISS has a very obvious function. Things can be transported there, then assembled there. Like big ships capable to visit Mars with crew, and then come back. Somehow... exactly this was the last for which the usage of the ISS was ever considered.

My impression is that ISS was created to show to the world, that the cold war is over. The concept of using it for something, somehow... somehow no one thought on it. ;-)

There is a regularly occuring nightmare what I see. This is the concept of that the USA gives up human space exploration, and NASA is converted to a minuscule budget weather observation bureau. I think, this could be easily done, but it requires time and many small steps. Using cheap, reusable, but small falcons instead of the ancient, large rocketry (STS, SLS) would be actually well communicatable step into this direction. But, if Musk wants to build big vehicles, cheaply...

We will see that in this week.

I wait 3 days... 1 is already over, weather is good, but no launch happened. Would you bet that no launch will happen this week, too?

Hehe. I have no bets on this one. I do not have enough info to make a bet yet.

The rest of your comments are basically wishful thinking. Could you design the STS better? You bet. Did they? No they did not. Could you do it? No. Could it be done. Of course.

@lawndownunder good job! This room is sometimes active, but there aren't more than maybe a half-dozen users that are particularly active here. I think you can sill think about posting a real question and referencing your project.

You should read some Bob Zubrin on Mars Direct. He discusses most of these topics. He has been refining the argument since the late 90s.

No, I could not. I read the Mars Direct.

What does he write from the ISS?

That it was unneeded?

@peterh-ReinstateMonica Wrong orbit. Of late, on the topic of the Lunar Gateway he is also clear... When you have the ISS (or Gateway) it becomes a toll booth. They just spent 100 billion on the ISS so your mission better use it to justify the 100 billion.

It is the wrong orbit for leaving earth orbit, so why even go there. No one is suggesting a BattleStar Galactica Mars mission anymore, so launch and go is Zubrin and Musks' approach.

@geoffc Ad Astra could move it to a good orbit.

Musk has discussed that he looked at doing a mission assembled by Falcons vs a large fully and rapidly reusable booster, and the choice was obviouos.

But Ad Astra is in retirement.

@peterh-ReinstateMonica No they could not. Then the Russians could not reach it from Baikanor, and then you have no refueling. You lose Soyuz and Progress support. Which basically have been running the station the whole time. ISS is pretty but mostly a waste for anything other than looking pretty.

Consider: going from a 6->7 person crew, as Crew Dragon now enables was a huge deal. Because, with one extra person, they will now be able to a total of 2 person days of research a day. Running/maintaining the station (plus time crew need to sleep and exercize) meant they would do a total of 8 man-hours of reaserch a day, with 6 crew. WIth 7 they will finally go to 16 man hours total.

So is it really doing much research? Maybe.

The toll booth issue is why Zubrin is so vehemently opposed to Lunar Gateway. Why go to lunar orbit to go to Mars. If you want to go to Mars, how about you go to Mars?

@geoffc The Earth has a 23.5 grad tilt. Baikonur is at 45 grad latitude. The difference is 21.5 grad. The delta v difference to an optimal orbit is (my estimation) some hundreds of m/s.

@geoffc Zubrin is pro-Mars. Gateway would be a gateway to a Moon city.

Baikanour needs 53 degrees.

But once you build it, any project will be expected to use it.

mobile.twitter.com/wapodavenport/status/1356290209667837961

FAA license may be available tomorrow.

Nice to hear!!!