SpaceX loses a Falcon 9 booster and scrubs a Starship March 3 was a tough day for SpaceX. The company was forced to scrub flight test 8 of its monster Starship rocket and also lost a Falcon 9 first stage, which landed then caught fire and tipped over. While Starship is still in development, SpaceX has suffered a run of misfortunes with its Falcon 9 workhorse. The latest problem …
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> multi-planetary
Unless we find lots of useful resources on Mars (as in, water, breathe-air gasses) Mars never seemed that great an environment to move into. Its best advantage is gravity, to keep our bones strong(ish). But that also makes getting there and back expensive, climbing up the well. As Mars doesn't have a decent magnetosphere to protect against Solar emissions, getting inside a nice big rock, say Ceres, might be better, if we are going to leave Earth's neighbourhood and have to haul all our supplies from home in the weekly shop.
Gentlemen, start your arguments...
Oh, I never said it was a *good* place to try multiplanetary, just that it was the stated intention.
As you rightly point out the lack of a magnetic field (how much power would it take to generate an earth like magnetic field with a big copper wire laid around the equator?) means that solar wind has stripped much of the atmosphere away, and would do so again.
That alone makes any attempt to terraform mars which doesn't start with a magnetic field upgrade feel rather temporary.
Finally hit google and:
https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/139750/how-much-power-would-be-needed-to-make-a-substitute-for-natural-earth-magnetic-f
One of the half decent looking answers linked to:
https://space.stackexchange.com/questions/5582/what-sort-of-power-requirements-are-necessary-to-create-an-artificial-magnetic-s
That's alot of power, and that's even without the energy required to loop "something" around the equator of mars.
Hmm, where's Randall Munroe when you need him...
As you rightly point out the lack of a magnetic field (how much power would it take to generate an earth like magnetic field with a big copper wire laid around the equator?) means that solar wind has stripped much of the atmosphere away, and would do so again.
I wouldn't worry about the magnetic field. Mars' gravity is high enough to retain an Earth-like atmosphere for geological time scales (100 million-ish years, give a billion or take 99 million), and terraforming only makes sense as a luxury project for highly productive space-based civilizations. If the atmosphere gets a bit thin, then their great great grand clone-uploads can replace the lost nitrogen from Titan's and Venus's boundless nitrogen reserves.
Not that I'd vote for terraforming Mars. The real estate and accessible resources are limited compared to asteroids.
Except it doesn't.
Any people on Mars are going to be 100% reliant on regular deliveries from Earth for a very long time.
There are a lot of things we know we would need that we don't know how to do.
We should research those things, while doing all the research on Mars that we cannot do once any Earth life has approached.
For the next 20-30 years at least, sending a human to visit Mars is pointless. The only thing it would achieve is to make it impossible to ever know if there was - or indeed is - life on Mars.
That said, we probably should launch Musk into space. He could become the fastest man ever to live, and visit the stars.
for a very long time.
But eventually, not any more. Space exploration and colonisation are not short term goals. Hell we've been doing space explortation for almost 70 years now (Sputnik launched in 1957), and we're not even remotely close to having learned everything there is to learn in our solar system. I'd go so far as to say, we havent even learned everything there is to learn about our near Earth environment.
So a colony on Mars would be releiant on Earth for a significant time - maybe 50 years, maybe 100. But eventually it would be independent. And I think you will find it would happen much faster then you expect. When people have to find a way to be resilient, they get on with the job. When Australia was settled it was a 250 day one-way trip to Australia. If they were missing something from supplies, by the time you got a message back to England, and a new supply ship sent, you were looking at at least 2 years until delivery. So like the Aussies you have to get off your bum and find a way to make things work. I dont expect the first Mars colonists will be happy to sit around and rely on Earth to send it everything they need. They will work out the way, to make their colony independent...
> When Australia was settled it was a 250 day one-way trip to Australia. If they were missing something from supplies, by the time you got a message back to England, and a new supply ship sent, you were looking at at least 2 years until delivery.
The BIG difference being, of course, that when Australia was being settled, the things they would be missing were all effectively luxuries. No matter they'd forgotten to bring sewing needles[1] they still had air, water, food and shelter - and a wide variety of life all around[2] that could be used by the resourceful: bone needles.
> I dont expect the first Mars colonists will be happy to sit around and rely on Earth to send it everything they need
The time before the Mars colony is anywhere near able to make everything they need from local resources is a long way in the future. Hopefully we'll get to that point in our abilities.
[1] one of the small things that can make a real difference, sewing up people as well as clothing, tentage, baggage
[2] including the spiders, but let's concentrate on the positives
A small but quite important difference is that the trip from Earth can only start every 26 months.
That is the real difference between settling Mars and America or Australia. Along with the complete* absence of major natural resources to fashion into useful tools.
Imagine for a moment Ray Mears in the Australian bush with a decent knife.
Sorted.
Ray Mears in a spacesuit on Mars with a decent knife.
Decides to kill himself rather than wait for the thirst or hunger to do it slowly.
*The "ice" is expected to be laced with peroxides and the dust is quite like the composition of scouring powder used to clean pots and pans.
Now I'm curious: What kind of "failure" would make Earth less hospitable to human life than Mars exactly?
Even after a global thermonuclear war, it would still be easier to keep humans alive here, cosplaying as IRL Fallout 4 settlers, than on Mars, an irradiated, freeze dried nightmare, with zero soil, no nitrogen to be found, half the sunlight, covered in microabrasive dust, and an atmospheric pressure <0.3% that of Earth.
And besides: No, there will not be a "self-sustaining" mars colony. Ever.
Any settlement up there will either be supported by regular delivery and crew rotations from earth...or it dies. Horribly.
So if Earth goes bye-bye, so does anything we built on mars.
> It nay be rather better on Mars when Earth enters the next ice age in 10000 years.
No, it would not.
During the last ice age, the average temperature on Earth was about 6°C colder than it is today: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Last_Glacial_Maximum
On Mars, the average temperature is minus 63°C. To put that number into perspective: The average winter temperature at Earths south pole, is minus 49°C.
And no matter how cold it gets during an ice age, Earth still has:
- an atmosphere that we can breathe
- a gravity well that doesn't destroy our circulatory system and bone density
- an active core generating a magnetic field that protects us from cosmic radiation
- liquid water
- soil
- plant life
- organic nitrogen compounds
- a microbiome
...and all the other gizmos required for this nice, cozy biosphere that makes our lives possible.
Given how the US tariffs on imports from China / Canada / Mexico / rest of the world are constantly increasing these days, by the time The Orange One finishes squaring the oval office it will probably become cheaper to colonise and annex Mars, then develop and build factories there and then import products from them to Earth, than to import stuff from other countries on this planet.
I think there is already an insightful documentary on the changes happening these days in the states... it's called "Idiocracy".
We ... are developing this technology. All those robots didn't get up there on thoughts and prayers.
And the tech required to keep humans alive up there, is useless in any other context. It also is neither glorious nor particularly interesting, it's essentially space-plumbing.
Fact is, Mars isn't for humans. Keep sending more and better robots, in those conditions they are simply better at the job than people. And developing THAT tech absolutely benefits our total technological progress.
Speaking more generally about space colonization than just Mars, as the saying (well, T-shirt) indicates it's not wise to keep all of a species' eggs in one basket.
Personally, I wouldn't start with Mars. The impact of the long travel time on logistics would be a hindrance compared to, say, lunar settlements. Or if you're willing to go as far as Mars then you might as well head to the asteroids, which have the same resources (water, metals, minerals) but avoid the burden of deep gravity wells.
Hence the spin sections. Asteroids, with negligible gravity, are better hosts for spinning habitats than low-to-mid-gravity environments like Luna and Mars. In the latter cases, you need awkwardly tilted floors that deliver variable "gravity" across the floor.
With an asteroid, you can almost ignore the gravity and arrange a spinning habitat - torus, cylinder, can on a string - however you like. Plus, asteroids tend to be rich in carbon and water, unlike the moon, and have easily excavated regolith for radiation shielding.
As yet, we don't really know if that's possible. The little we do know about asteroids indicates they will probably break apart if we add an artificial spin to simulate gravity inside the hollowed out object you suggest. It may well be possible one day, but i suspect that will be many decades in the future. The ones solid enough to not break apart will be far harder to burrow into them. And yes, I've been reading SF for about 50 years, I'm aware of many of the various proposed methods including nukes and big mirrors to "do stuff" with asteroids. I just don't think we are anywhere close to achieving any of the SF solutions yet.
> Speaking more generally about space colonization than just Mars, as the saying (well, T-shirt) indicates it's not wise to keep all of a species' eggs in one basket.
Yeah, that narrative doesn't work though, because here is the thing:
It doesn't matter if we establish settlements on the Moon, Mars or wherever...none of these outposts will be self sustainable. Ever. There is 1, ONE planet in the solar system with a biosphere capable of supporting human life. Earth. Everything we need to survive originates here, and if we want to go somewhere else, and stay there, we have to ship supplies for as long as we want to be there.
And no, we do not have the technology to terraform other planets. If we did, we would not currently be flabbergasted on how to deal with global warming, and that is here on Earth, where we have all our resources and toys freely available to us. We also don't have the tech to make artificial self-sufficient habitats on other planets. We know that, because when we tried, it turned out, we cannot even do that here on Earth. And mind you, that experiment had all the infrastructure and resources of an established industrial society to set up everything before the "biospherians" arrived.
So whatever outpost is established on Luna, Mars, some Moon of Jupiter, or wherever, will live exactly until the supplies from Mother Earth run out, and then its inhabitants will die of hunger, thirst, or suffocate when the airlock gave out because Earth no longer sent spare parts for maintenance.
So unless we discover how to do FTL travel, and find other Earth-Like planets, we better get comfortable with protecting the planet we have, because right now, if this little blue-green marble goes bye-bye, so does humanity.
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SpaceX and Tesla usually perform better with Musk active elsewhere. Musk thinks rockets are hard and listens so does minimal damage there. He thinks cars are easy so Tesla went through production hell because Musk insisted on robots everywhere even though for some tasks humans are cheaper. At the start of COVID Telsa and government employees worked hard to quickly set up a safe working environment for production could re-start. Musk helped by threatening to sue. The government employees stopped useful work and instead consulted with lawyers to ensure they had all the potentially required evidence ready to file. Cyber truck.
This time it is a little different. Musk used SpaceX, Tesla and Twitter as a hatching ground for DOGE employees. It is possible some of them were doing something useful before they moved. Musk's rampage through government has been destructive enough to have consequences back at SpaceX. There used to be a genuine pretense that launch licenses were required. Now there is less incentive to work through safety checks: the FAA does not have the resources to check as thoroughly as they did before. No point worrying if they are either on the way to being a rubber stamp agency or completely toothless when SpaceX launches without a license. Over the last few months there has been a dramatic loss of interest among space enthusiasts. The same may well be true of SpaceX employees. This has a great opportunity for RocketLab, Stoke, Firefly and European rocket builders to pick up experienced staff.
Instead of raping large parts of the USG to fund his (and his pals) tax cuts.
Still I suppose when you've p***ed away $275M getting the Worlds most petulant, thin skinned and needy man-child elected I suppose you do feel a need to spend a fair bit of time making sure he doesn't cause any messes you don't want him to.
Still I suppose when you've p***ed away $275M
Seems like excellent VFM. After all, it's around $1.3bn less than was spent on the Harris campaign. Then again, $1.6bn to make sure Harris didn't get elected could also be considered VFM.
Meanwhile, here's hoping it launches tonight. I was watching last nights attempt and was interesting to hear that the last launch carried 10 simulated Starlink v3 payloads, with this lauch due to carry 4, with some speculation around why the reduced number. But also thinking that must be fun, ie presumably those can't just be lumps of concrete and would have to be something that can be safely self-destructed.
Multiple sources from both sides of the Great Divide put the number a bit higher than that, inc. HaRRIS campaign raising and spending more than Trump.
Harris raising $2.3bn and spending $1.9bn.
Trump raised $1.8bn and spent $1.6bn.
(Both give or take a few $100m, depending on the website you read)
And yes, Musks contribution was barely a rounding error except for, as others pointed out, the $44B he spent on Twitter and then turned into a breeding ground and advertising channel for MAGA.
Although the numbers may be in dispute (I believe there's likely some double-counting because of the way Harris received Biden's campaign funding, so a single contribution appears on both campaigns, not that the Harris numbers are relevant to Musk's purchase of the Presidency), it's laughable to claim that Musk's $288M is a "rounding error". Even using the (questionable) numbers above, it's 16%. And as you note, it might be argued that he "donated" advertising on Twitter above and beyond that.
Good point.
His latest "Cunning plan" to get this back is supposedly "X-Money," but the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau* might have stopped him ripping off customers data and charging extortionate rates for finance.
They won't do that any more.
Xitters will be able to experience the "Freedom" of a financial offering that charges what it likes to whom it likes and does whatever it likes with their data.
Remember American voters, if you voted 3rd party or for the FOCF this is exactly what you voted for. Good luck with those grocery prices you were soooooo bothered about.
*Which is why his DOGE chums targeted a fairly unknown (but quite effective) govt organisation.
A mere trifle.
But honestly, that's huge and should be a big concern if they don't know he reason for it. Even with a new launch date set, I'd be more confident they meet it if they stated why they had the problem in the first place. Otherwise, it's just Elon rescheduling for the look of the thing and lashing the serfs to get it working to match his stated time. I've worked in an environment before where things like this a scheduled before the gear is ready rather than getting to the point where everything is ready AND THEN scheduling a test. Business majors seem to be taught to create calendars and then come up with a way to execute on their clever timelines. As an engineer, I understand the vagaries of getting a complex system put together and verified. There's no point to putting a rocket on the launch pad and trying to solve problems that one knows are present. Everything takes much longer to do miles from the shed.
if they didnt care about the safety, theyd have attempted to launch, which probably would have been an aborted launch, or one with not enough raptors operating and might have led to another rud.
a scrubbed launch in the context of an experimental prototype test campaign is perfectly normal situation, heck its perfectly normal in a rocket thats considered proven and reliable. and shows they wanted longer to check the data to troubleshoot the problem, though they likely already knew where the issue was but couldnt fix it during the countdown schedule.
as they can only hold at the t-40sec mark, which is a planned hold point if its required, its not some random OMG we must stop the launch now panic just before launch (hold hold hold is the official call for a hold condition as its clearly heard & understood on the flight controllers loop, again not someone just panicking and shouting), for between 5-10mins it seems before temperatures of the propellant load exceed their operating criteria.
it was all perfectly normal and dealt with safely and properly, no ones trying to schedule things for the sake of it. but you absolutely learn way more the more you attempt to launch rockets like this, than sitting on your backside for 2 years.
"rather than getting to the point where everything is ready AND THEN scheduling a test. "
You keep saying, you can't grasp the concept of agile development at all can you ?
SpaceX thing they have a minimum viable product that is ready for a test and no its didn't have known problems else it wouldn't have been out there. There is always a risk of issues but you do a risk analysis and give the green light when the risk is low enough. They know its not production ready but its more production ready then IFT-7 which was more ready then IFT-6, etc and IFT-9 will be more ready then IFT-8.
They don't plan on blowing things up but there is always a risk and if it happens its not a step backward unless they don't learn from it.
Anyway, I assume they think they have solved any issues as they have a new target date of tomorrow and yes they fixed it at the launch site.
"That's nowhere near going to get take off thrust."
There's pressure being supplied from ground support to get the turbo pumps spun up before lighting the engines. It doesn't affect the thrust except in that they wouldn't be able to get the engines running properly and would have to shut everything down if they tried since they wouldn't have a clean start. It took them a while but they did announce the issue and that the problem was a leak that shouldn't be a difficult fix.
Turbo pumps are almost like rocket engines themselves. They burn propellants to power the pump since it takes so much to make them go.
Seen reports in various MSM publications tdy about ydy's scrubbed starship launch that range from "seconds from disaster" to "major setback for musk". Journalists clearly more interested in spouting rubbish & slagging off than objective reporting. My fault too of course for looking at the MSM. I should have stuck with El Reg where no such biases are ever evident.
Anyway, an Ariane 6 was supposed to launch ydy teatime but appears not to have. Anyone know why it didn't go?
Almost seems like unless something involves Musk no one wants to write about it!
Over the last few years it seems like even fairly esoteric articles on the Register attract the dreaded first politically motivated comment, after which we go down the rabbit hole of follow up political discussion. So I was thinking, would it work to come up with a scheme that separates the wheat from the chaff, so to speak? For example, an idea I just came up with (and is therefore likely useless) would be to adopt the following process for responding in the comment section:
1) When you see the first political comment on a technical article, instead of looking up reliable rebuttal references and links, or coming up with a new insult, instead just respond with a standard response, something like this: Title: Absolutely right! Icon: Beer Comment: I am sure that you are 100% correct!
2) Subsequently, if you have read and wish to downvote a political comment, instead of downvoting the political comment itself, instead up-vote (yes) the followup "Absolutely Right!" comment.
3) Conversely, if you wish to upvote the political comment, instead of upvoting the political comment itself, instead down-vote (yes) the followup "Absolutely Right!" comment.
My thinking is this: We regulars then avoid running up the vote totals for the political comment, we can have fun with the inverted scoring, and we can take turns expressing full agreement with even the stupidest political nonsense. After all, nobody can tell sarcasm for sure on the Internet. Of course, if you still feel the need to respond with something serious, then have at it as usual.
Just an idea.
What a good idea!
Suggest you make same comment to a few other articles and see if it can gain traction.
It does though only address the irritation of unnecessary politicization of comments and it doesn't help at all with unnecessary politicization of actual articles. To fix that we'd need El Reg to add a facility for readers to up & down vote articles, not just comments, perhaps with separate scores for different aspects of the writing such as technical merit, political content, humour, etc.
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Well, the problems continues. Attempted to stack the ship and one of the 3 guide / locking pins on the hot staging ring came loose or something when ship was a few cm from mating.
So they aborted the stack and looks like they were putting the ship back down. After swinging it to the side something when wrong with the arms and movement stopped. With the ship hanging in the air they have been working with an angle grinder on one of the arms !!
They seem to have fixed the issues as the ship is now stacked.
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