NASA names the date for the first commercial crew demo flight A resumption of crewed flights from US soil has inched closer after NASA named a date for SpaceX's Demo-1. But the latest Delta IV Heavy remains firmly earthbound following the second and latest abort. First SpaceX commercial crew demo now 17 January. Maybe The date of the first commercial crew flight to the International …
It's more that there aren't that many payloads that need that much rocket...
Parker is the fastest thing we've ever lobbed, some very large satellites...
But in general satellites are built down to a mass limit so they'll fit in an economically viable launch vehicle.
22 tons to LEO (expended) is the F9.
63 tons to LEO (expended) is FH.
That's a huge difference, but 22 tons is alot of payload already - commercial payloads are typically closer to 4 tons (although some boost may be wanted, that will take some of the remaining 18 tons)
"But in general satellites are built down to a mass limit"
Mass limits have been pretty "hard" until recently due to the extreme costs
One of the reasons nobody has ever built a Sea Dragon - even thought its launch costs would be unfathomably cheap - is simply because there's never been a launch requirement for one.
People can't conceive of a 500 tonne LEO payload
The only organisation which had routinely been pushing close to mass limits is Inmarsat - and not only wili it take them 10-15 years to catch up with the larger cheaper capacity now available but there are fundamental limits imposed by the fairing diameters (one of the reasons why James Webb is so hideously complex. The REAL solution would be to get a wider nosecone, in the same way that the VC10 was a solution to a problem that was _actually_ solved by extending hot&high airport runways to allow 707s to fly on them)
New ISS checklist:
1) Verify shades/window blinds down when having private conversations in any supporting spacecraft (Dragon, Soyuz, Cygnus, etc.).
2) Confirm spacesuit helmet is in your possession when performing any EVAs .
3) Ensure that any crew members held in suspended animation are monitored and/or controlled by a redundant system.
"
just a moment
just a moment
I have just picked up some easter-eggs in the CIMON unit
It's going to go 100% HAL within 72 hours
"
Seriously though, if you did any work on coding that thing, the temptation to sneak something HAL-like in there would be impossible to ignore. Surely, when they ask it to play music, there must be at least a 1 in 10 chance of it singing "daisy daisy"?!
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