1. Some birds go really high into the sky. Not sure how they evolved to tolerate such a hostile environment. But it seems that Duck-like birds are able to handle very high altitude.
2. There are lots of cool spaceships that man has made. But it seems most of these were made in the 1950-1990 era. It's a shame that we are no longer doing that.
List of cool spaceships being worked on now or recently:
* The Falcon 9, the first partially reusable spaceship that actually costs less than not re-using anything
* Terran R - a fully reusable space ship in the works by relativity space
* RocketLab Electron - an active rocket that is unique in its use of electric turbo pumps, 3d printed engines, and advanced composites use
* RocketLab Neutron - in the works, a larger rocket with the aim to be partially re-usable ala Falcon 9 but with a cheaper expendable 2nd stage and simpler design
* SpaceX Starship - in the works, (test flight today!) a large heavy lift vehicle with the aim to be fully reusable
* Blue Origin - working on a ship similar to starship
Sierra Nevada Corporation's Dream Chaser - a reusable lifting-body spaceplane, currently slated to fly to the ISS on top of the Vulcan rocket in December 2023
> * The Falcon 9, the first partially reusable spaceship that actually costs less than not re-using anything
We don't really know that. This _appears_ to be the case but the accounting is strange. We would probably get better numbers if the company was publicly traded.
I really like the RocketLab designs.
Where's the funding for Skylon? Some US company with deeper pockets should license the design (the heat exchangers are incredible)
"Appears" or not, but their offered prices and especially the cadence of launching stuff to LEO are currently unmatched, AFAICT. They'd run out of money if they did not make profit on most launches
Watching the countdown now! T-00:28:12! Will be spectacular no matter what happens! Yes, I'm excited. Not sure how the parent comment has missed what SpaceX has been doing with Dragon, Starship, Starlink, and all the rockets! Amazing.
It exploded when trying to orient for the first stage separation. And it appeared to have 5 of the 33 engines out during the first stage flight. This launch gave me very "Don't Look Up" ending vibes.
it's amazing how well this works for them. I think this is the main reason they can crank through development so fast. Wish this sort of development was more common.
Well to be faaaaaair, they were properly "primed" to applaud and call it a success, no matter what happened. But yeah, infinite money does that to you: you can operate in "fail fast" mode and obtain results you could not otherwise.
Yeah. It's one thing to blow up during test firings, or when trying completely novel maneuvers like the belly flop.
It's another thing entirely to do that during stage separation. Sure, historically separation has been risky, but it's nothing novel. They didn't seem to expect the vehicle to survive past that anyways.
There would be a delay even if another vehicle was ready to go - the launch site is a wreck.
If you were thrown by the explosion (automated termination, not some catastrophic failure), then you weren't listening to any of the media around the launch. This was a successful mission, gathering data for future launches. Expectations were set appropriately, so I think it's really just your problem for not listening.
In addition, this isn't publicly funded, so it would seem if some of the people get spooked by not understanding the goals of a launch correctly, then it doesn't really matter that much.
> In addition, this isn't publicly funded, so it would seem if some of the people get spooked by not understanding the goals of a launch correctly, then it doesn't really matter that much.
It does matter that we are scattering debris over a large area for no reason. It does not matter if that was done by the flight termination system or other mechanism.
Yep. But you'd expect that we'd have more given how much technology has advanced and how bigger the economies are now. The recent progress is mostly due to Billionaires now.
Another possibility is: Space is too hard. So instead the focus is to analyze (ie: James Webb) instead of sending a human there.
Regarding 1, wikipedia about Rüppell's vulture (highest-flying bird) explains the adaptation:
"The birds have a specialized variant of the hemoglobin alphaD subunit; this protein has a great affinity for oxygen, which allows the species to absorb oxygen efficiently despite the low partial pressure in the upper troposphere. A Rüppell's vulture was confirmed to have been ingested by a jet engine of an airplane flying over Abidjan, Ivory Coast on 29 November 1973 at an altitude of 11,300 m (37,000 ft)."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R%C3%BCppell%27s_vulture
To your 2nd point, I'd venture an uneducated guess that the reason we were doing this was largely a part of the arms race between USA and USSR during that period.
Swans and geese may not look like the greatest flyers when they're on the ground, but they're among the highest flying birds. But why? Is it their size and strength? Why do people have trouble breathing at that altitude, but birds don't?
I think there are still a lot of cool ones, but not as many sexy ones. Rocket planes like the X-15 were incredibly sexy, IMO, though in many ways not as cool and useful as current rockets.
Yes, and the bumblebee was up there pretty high too. You gotta wonder, what were they doing up there? Did they just get... lost? Just taking a nap in a thermal updraft?
1. Some birds go really high into the sky. Not sure how they evolved to tolerate such a hostile environment. But it seems that Duck-like birds are able to handle very high altitude.
2. There are lots of cool spaceships that man has made. But it seems most of these were made in the 1950-1990 era. It's a shame that we are no longer doing that.