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Advanced Concepts / Re: low mass inflatable habitats on Moon, Mars, asteroids etc.

« Last post by Twark_Main on Today at 10:38 pm »

Lava tubes always worry me, because the distance for falling debris to build up momentum is larger than zero millimeters. This is especially worrisome because suspending a habitat on wires and dumping a bunch of waste heat into the surrounding rock isn't necessarily benign for the tube's stability. Mounded regolith has the advantage that it's effectively already "collapsed" and so it has zero potential energy that could damage the structure.

Lava tubes aren't really 'free' shielding either, because you need an elevator or similar system for routine surface access, a complex suspension rig to hold the modules, and you need to lower all the modules down into the lava tube somehow during the construction process.

So cost-wise it's not clear that this beats "just" landing modules on the surface and piling screened local regolith on top with a smallish semi-autonomous front end loader. You can pay for the loader with all the mass you saved on elevator and module lowering rig, and after construction the loader is more useful landed mass than that (now unnecessary) dedicated elevator infrastructure.

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SpaceX Starship Program / Re: NSF SpaceX Starbase Summary Videos

« Last post by catdlr on Today at 10:34 pm »

"Love is in the air at Starbase" | SpaceX Starbase | 11-14 February 2026

Feb 15, 2026
Of course, not even Starbase is immune to Valentine's Day, but at least we are edging towards the business end of prelaunch milestones for Flight 12, with engine installation on Booster 19 and rollout to Massey's for Ship 39 upcoming.

Narration by John "Das" Galloway.
🎥 Video from Ceaser G, Gage, Colleen, and Starbase Live.
✂️ Edited by Thomas Hayden  (@_thomashayden).

Timestamps:
0:00 Gigabay Construction
0:46 New Ship Stand
0:57 Road Construction
1:06 Strut Pair Reinstalled on B18.3
1:30 Ship 43’s Nosecone
1:50 Booster 20 Stacked on A4 Section
2:03 Apartment Building Construction
2:58 Orbital Pad 2
3:26 Pad 2’s Chopsticks
4:22 Chopstick Carriage Cleaned
4:30 Pad 2’s Chopsticks Raised
4:53 Pad 2’s Ship QD Arm
5:09 Top of Pad 2’s Tower
5:19 New LR 11000 at Pad 2
6:31 Launch Site Expansion Work
7:29 Pad 1 Construction
7:39 Sheet Pile Work Begins
8:23 Work at the ASU
9:01 SpaceX’s LR 11000 Lowered
9:32 Coyotes Looking for a Snack
10:49 Partially Repaved Highway 4
11:00 B18.1 Lifted Out of the Can Crusher
11:32 Booster Aft Dome Design

https://youtube.com/watch?v=Hztuwi7ZOK0

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Advanced Concepts / Re: low mass inflatable habitats on Moon, Mars, asteroids etc.

« Last post by daveklingler on Today at 10:13 pm »

If I understand correctly, TransHab style inflatables (BEAM, Sierra Space's LIFE, etc) are so thick largely for protection for MMOD, radiation, etc. - you don't need nearly that much material to contain an atmosphere.

So if you put the inflatable not in orbit but on the Moon (Mars, asteroid, other body with regolith) and piled loose regolith on it for radiation and MMOD shielding - with a teleoperated or robotic "earth"mover - could you get much more habitable volume with much less mass brought from Earth (since the shielding is all local)?

Air pressure should be able to hold up a lot of regolith in Moon or Mars gravity.

There are at least dozens and likely hundreds of rilles that are suitable for building large lunar habitats (see work by Cassandra Coombs, ex https://ntrs.nasa.gov/citations/19930008249).

What I think is more likely than burying inflatable habs is locating them partially or entirely inside existing lava tubes, which exist all over the lunar surface.

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ESA Launchers - Ariane/Vega / Re: Ariane 64 VA267 : Amazon Leo LE-01 : 12 February 2026 (16:45 UTC)

« Last post by tigerdude9 on Today at 10:10 pm »

https://twitter.com/andrewparsonson/status/2023114887128355100

The power of four P120C boosters! Video credit: ESA / ArianeGroup / Arianespace / CNES

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SpaceX Starship Program / Re: My biggest Starship program pet peeves

« Last post by Twark_Main on Today at 09:43 pm »

Mine would be why SpaceX didn't construct a catching barge, similar to China's Ling Hang Zhe.

Because the goal is rapid re-launch, not multi-day maritime operations for every launch.

By now SpaceX could have recovered a couple of Starships, reflown a few vacuum Raptors and performed in-depth post landing inspections, potentially catching issues before they cause RUDs.

If that was so valuable they'd simply catch it on the tower. I expect the actual value of such data is lower than you're suggesting.

While not optimal long term regarding utilisation, it solves the current issues of having to overfly populated areas of Florida, disrupting busy airspace and associated sonic booms before Starship's reliability is dialled in.

Is that the "current issue?"   

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SpaceX Starship Program / Re: Starship V4

« Last post by OTV Booster on Today at 09:35 pm »

Catdir, couldn't get 'reply' to work on your message.


For LNG offloading or for launch platform clusters?

For offloading, where to do it is the question.

For platform clusters I had nothing in mind other than vaguely 'in the Gulf' but really, anywhere that works. Maybe P2P could piggyback.

Or did I completely miss what you're getting at?

That post I made about the Austin pipeline was about Starship at Starbase. Isn't this discussion on this thread about the Cape?

https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=64334.msg2760706#msg2760706

I was responding to your msg 437 in this thread, which is about Starship V4 without reference to any specific location. Yes, this thread rambles about. IMO, within limits this can be a strength, not a weakness.


If these forums were a means for the project engineers to communicate, tight topic control would be absolutely necessary. In a community of enthusiasts with widely differing levels of technical acumen, too fine a topic splitting robs the topic of the context necessary for some to understand the issues.


That said, sometimes things do get out of hand. IMO, the best approach is to let a sub thread ramble on a bit to set a clear context for those who need it, then point a specific sub topic to a new or existing discussion. YMMV.

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Advanced Concepts / Re: low mass inflatable habitats on Moon, Mars, asteroids etc.

« Last post by Twark_Main on Today at 09:35 pm »

The 3D that [​I] have seen in concrete is not a baby that will grow into an adult so much as an ivory tower solution that sounds good but can't address the real issues.

Which one was that?

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Commercial Space Flight General / Re: Esrange Space Center

« Last post by StraumliBlight on Today at 09:07 pm »

Adrienne Murray travels to the spaceport for Tech Now to explore the tech being developed and tested on site, and to witness their latest rocket launch.

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SpaceX General Section / Re: Bahamas Ministry to allow SpaceX dronships to land F9 at Exumas

« Last post by StraumliBlight on Today at 09:02 pm »

Tribune: SpaceX could resume Bahamas booster landings next week [Feb 12]

Dr Neely told The Tribune that environmental clearance has already been granted for the scheduled February 17 landing, but other regulatory approvals are still pending.

“There are actually quite a (few) bodies that need to sign off on their own regular regulation,” she said. “You have Foreign Affairs first of all, because this is two countries doing work with each other. You have civil aviation. You have BANSA and I’m pretty sure they don’t have all of their approvals as yet.”

[...]

SpaceX officials have said that future landings would all use the Exuma Sound site and that SpaceX expects to perform “an additional 20 landings here in The Bahamas on the Exuma Sound landing site” once approved.

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Space Science Coverage / Re: NASA - Habitable Worlds Observatory (HWO)

« Last post by Don2 on Today at 09:01 pm »

My guess is that x-rays and far infra-red are each about 10-20% as important as the UV-Vis-NearIR range.

I don't really think you can put objective numbers on something like this.

Space agencies produce documents every year that do exactly this. They are called budgets. Somebody in politics once said, "Don't tell me what your priorities are. Show me your budget, and I will tell you what your priorities are." If you went back over the past thirty years of budgets, and added up the spending on UV/VIS/NearIR and compared it with the spending on X-rays then you would get an objective number on the relative importance of the two fields.

If you look at the current and future budgets it is pretty clear that NASA has no long term commitment to either X-ray or FIR astronomy. They will hold a competition to decide which has more promising science. And the field they select won't get anywhere close to the funding that will go to HWO.

The situation in Europe is stranger. They are allocating most of their future budget to things that involve black holes (and other compact objects). Their next large astronomy missions are the Athena x-ray telescope and a gravitational wave observatory. When it comes to FIR, an area which they pioneered with the Herschel observatory, they have no future plans to pursue it. They seem happy to let their expertise evaporate. When it comes the the vital UV/Vis/NearIR wavelengths, they seem happy to reply on collaborations with NASA and their ground based telescopes.  There is no plan for a independent European space based capability. I think ESA is going down the wrong path with their future projects.