Well that was awesome. Starship SN8 just made its first (and only test flight). Really does make a return to the Moon and on to Mars seem so much closer than the Team Artemis announcement.
T - 2m16s
That belly-flop was just awesome
Imagine that filled with a platoon of Imperial Marines!
Just about to touch down when the fuel pressure goes
OK so it didn't end well but it proved so much, just seeing the belly flop and swing actually work was quite something, and I'm sure SN9 will nail it on the next test.
Starship SN8 was finally assembled early on Friday morning (c. 0100 UK time) - bit annoying as I'd stayed up to midnight just before hoping to see it! Awesome photos that morning - screen-grabs from LabPadre's YouTube stream. Can't wait to see the 15km hop.
After at least 3 false starts and two 1 AM bedtimes SpaceX's Starship SN5 prototype finally made its first 150m hop. It really was quite awesome (just see Everyday Astronaut's cam for how he was reacting - I wasn't far off), and just like last year's Starhopper the SN5 flew "in exactly the same way that bricks don't". As the dust cleared we weer all hoping to see it upright - there'd been no bangs - and sure enough, there it stood as proud as punch on the landing site.
I watched Lapadre's Sapphire cam - probably had the best view - legs coming out clearly visible.
Official SpaceX video is here:
I know that Elon was giving it the "new era of spaceflight" speech when they welcomed home "Bob & Doug" from Crew Dragon Demo 2 - but the SN5 fight is far more the beginning of a new era as the complete Starship system promises to open up the inner solar system to us once he cracks in-orbit (or on-planet) refuelling.
It's been a long just-under-a-year since the Starhopper flight and we've seen Mk1 and SN1/2/3/4 all fall by the wayside, but hopefully SN5 and probably SN6 can prove the 150m hop solid (I expect Elon will test to destruction rather than retire SN5), and then it looks like SN8 is being prepped with cone and flaps for the 20km tests some time in the autumn.
It's also still less than 11 months since the Mk1 rollout and its worth revisiting what I thought there in terms of future timeline.
Nov 19 - first flight (10s of km) of Mk1 - 3Q20 with SN8
This year - 200km flight of Mk1 - 1H21 - SN12ish?
Mk2 then probably takes over testing, still suborbital, no heat shield
Mk3 makes first orbital flight ~ 2Q20 - Early 2022? SN15ish?
Mk4 joins testing programme
Work starts on the first Super Heavy booster - Looking like 2H20 with HighBay going up
Work starts on a "production" generation of Starships - 2022?
Lunar orbital flight ~ 2021 - Late 2022/Early 2023?
Lunar landing ~ 2023 (prob before NASA) - ~2024 (prob as part of NASA Artemis plan)
Unmanned flights to and landing on Mars (and return?) before human landing
Of course sending a rocket straight up and down is something Elon's being doing reliably with Falcon for ages now, and Blue Origin has done the same, but the mass of Starship will be on a totally different scale, and with his rocket factory behind him he may well get to the Moon and Mars before NASA does (or with NASA hitching a ride). And I'm still taking bets that the Perseverance sample containers will be plucked off the Martian surface by the gloved hand of a SpaceX astronaut!
Spent a fair chunk of the weekend watching the live coverage of the SpaceX/NASA Demo-2 mission with Crew Dragon heading up to the ISS. Just as Musk intended the whole thing looks worthy of a "modern" spaceship, and it as fascinating to watch the crew pretty much do the whole thing with their arms crossed, and then give a tour of a half-empty capsule.
Great to see the actual control screens, still haven't played the docking simulator, and the over-the-shoulder view above could be from any SF movie. I assume someone somewhere on the Internet has documented all the screens shown and tried to enhance the text on them!
Despite all the talk about this being "the beginning of a new era", that new era is really of the principle of commercial spaceflight, not of Crew Dragon - it's Starship that will user in the real "new era". Just a pity that SN4 blew up - and about 30 secs after I stopped watching the static-fire live feed! But SN5 pretty much good to go, SN6 almost built and SN7 started. As Musk has said, it took at least 4 goes to get Falcon to orbit, and the hard thing is building a rocket factory, not just building the rocket.
Space exploration continues to frustrate me ever since my Countdown poster (or was it Brooke Bond Tea Cards) promised Humans on Mars by 1980! But momentum does seem to be gathering again and 2020 looks like being a good year. Things I'm looking out for are:
SpaceX's Starship making its 200km hop some time in Q2, and possibly even an uncrewed orbital flight by end 2020. That will be awesome as Starship seems to open up space in a way that SLS/Artemis totally fails to do.
Crewed Dragon does its in-flight abort test some time this month hopefully, and then starts flying crew to ISS well before the end of the year.
Boeing Starliner does its in-flight abort in Q1, and if it doesn't have to repeat its failed IS docking flight also gets crews to ISS by year end (and perhaps even if it does have to).
Another crewed Chinese flight in preparation for their space station?
India tests its Gaganyaan spacecraft in an uncrewed mode
Nasa launches Mars2020 and ESA luanches ExoMars
The UAE may launch to Mars, as may China
China does a Moon sample-return and India re-attempts a moon landing.
Virgin Galactic takes paying customers to the edge-of-space, and Blue Origin takes its first crews a little further,
NASA CLPS progresses ready for the first two deliveries for NASA payloads to the Moon in July 2021.
And SLS/Artemis may get EM1 on a circumlunar test flight (although latest rumour is that even this might now be pushed back to 2021!)
It still seems to me that SpaceX is going to just leave NASA standing when it comes to the Moon and Mars. Here's hoping they manage to do it safely!
Spent most of the last week watching the Lapadre Live YouTube feed of the assembly of the SpaceX Mk1 Starship. All week it seemed like they were about to mate the two halves, and you've never seen so many cranes and in the end I managed to be out at the shop for the 5 minutes it took to lift the nose section up!
This is just before assembly as they put the 2nd canard on the nose cone. That big yellow crane in the middle was used to do the main lift. Great (clean) chatter on the YouTube channel with all the cranes named and the different types of worker.
The finished result the next day after Elon Musk's presentation where the forward plan seems to be:
Nov - first flight (10s of km) of Mk1
This year - 200km flight of Mk1
Mk2 then probably takes over testing, still suborbital, no heat shield
Mk3 makes first orbital flight ~ 2Q20
Mk4 joins testing programme
Work starts on the first Super Heavy booster
Work starts on a "production" generation of Starships
Lunar orbital flight ~ 2021
Lunar landing ~ 2023 (prob before NASA)
Unmanned flights to and landing on Mars (and return?) before human landing
That Starhopper flight was just awesome. May take was obviously the same as Scott Manley's - it hung in the air in exactly the same way that bricks don't (TM Douglas Adams). As with most things that Eoln Musk does it looked like something straight out of SF (50s SF at that), and you can just imagine a bunch of Imperial Marines storming out into the dust cloud as it lands! Can't wait for the 3-engined Starship launch, hopefully this side of Christmas.
Actually ties in with my last post, but also indicative of the fact that I will (as the blog banner text declares) start to do more non-wargaming blog posts here, particularly as the space activity hots up over the next few years.
If you want to view just the wargaming post then just follow (or bookmark) the "just wargames post" link at left.
So first up is the proposed Project Artemis timeline for the USA's proposed return to the moon in 2024, and yearly moon-landings thereafter, with a very simple moonbase in 2028.
The Ordnance Survey has just done a moon map of the Apollo 11 landing site, at 1:1,470,000, but to support my moon gaming I really need something like a 1:25,000 of the south polar regions. The area around Amundsen and Shackleton sounds a possibility, here's a 150km map of part of Schrodinger crater from Google Earth/Moon - the real polar area around Amundsen is too distorted to see well.
Most views of the moon seem pretty fractal though - see the recent Chinese landing, with just more and smaller craters appearing as you zoom in, so UFO-style, if you haven't got a frame of reference you can't tell what size area you are looking at.
I finally found the time to try out the Project Sansar "virtual world"/"social virtual reality" - the latest offering from the operators of Second Life. I was disappointed and can't say it scratches any particular itch I have in the VW/SVR space. You can read my full write-up on the Daden blog.
The one high point though was a really nice Apollo 11 virtual museum with a huge 3D model of the timeline and earth-moon trajectory - complete with mini-models of the LEM/CM/SM.
Some lovely images of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko coming in from Rosetta. Just image what they will be like when the probe drops down to 10km, and when Philae lands. Just makes you want to put the whole thing in a space sim or even my Port2Jump and set a Traveller adventure there.
The misleadingly titled "The Global Exploration Roadmap" is a nice report from the International Space Exploration Coordination Group - a group that includes NASA, ESA and other national space agencies looking at the two possible paths to Mars, one via the Moon and one via the Near Earth Asteroids. Each route is well described, and the following graphics summarise each option:
Moon Next
Asteroid Next
Whilst emotionally I suppose I'm a Moon Firster (or even a Zubrin style Mars Firster) the NEAR case is well argued and in cash constrained times could be attractive - although its lack of real pazzazz may mean its actually a lot harder to fund. Another way of looking at it is that just as NASA is surrendering orbital space to the commercial operators perhaps it should leave cislunar space and Moonbases to them too.
Finally got hold of the High Frontier supplement for the GURPS Transhuman Space RPG. This is still one of the best "realistic" imaginings of a near-future solar system - probably circa 2150 or even 2200 given current rates. It's certainly on a par with Paul McAuley's Quiet War series.
One thing that also struck me about recent SF I've read:
- Cyberabad Days by Ian McDonland is all about future India - Quiet War is about a dominant Brazil in space - Transhuman Space is all about a dominant China in space.
In other words it looks like the BRICs countries will inherit and dominate our SF future.
The Augustine Commission has released its summary report on the future of US manned spaceflight. The key points appear to be:
Finish Space Shuttle ops as planned in 2011
Extend IISS to 2020
Abandon Ares 1 and probably Ares V to develop a new Ares V Lite mid-range booster
Hand man to LEO operations over to private contractors
Shift the emphasis from Moon then Mars to "flexibility", which may include both, plus L5, near earth asteroids and even Phobos and Deimos, but no dates
Looking to commercial contractors to do the lift to orbit is a nice step - but:
The assumption still appears to be that the contractors will use rockets, and not any form of re-usable system (a super Spaceship 1)
Although there is some talk of in-orbit refueling for lunar/mars injection, it appears to be discounted in favour of the single lift approach
Although Orion (the new crew capsule - a big Apollo CM) is seen as possibly too big and in need of a trim (everything is "lite" in this report), there still appears to be an acceptance of the "apollo" model rather than going for a spacecraft that only travels orbit to orbit and never has to re-enter
Be interesting to see what extra detail/decisions there are in the final version.
I've started work on a pet Futurology project called Five by Five - five themes over the next five half-centuries.
As a first element I've just updated my future timeline - mainly focussed on space exploration and AI development. Other issues like poverty. the environment and politics will be added as part of the larger project.
BTW the wiki that the timeline on is one of the reasons there are less posts to the blog - the wiki is a better tool for some of the writing I'm doing at the moment - and easier to use from the iPhone!
Every so often you follow a link to a great location in SL, and then stumble on something else (almost) as amazing.
Followed the link from New World Notes to NOAA's stunning Second Earth. I've seen a sculptie earth before, but this one is huge and has live data (and satellites) on it. Stunning build and makes me want to renew our efforts to find a (UK) sponsor for a 1 - 6 sim scale UK model. Next time I visit I must put my spacesuit on too!
Looking at the local map I saw some ship and aircraft shapes on an island to the East (this is all around Scilands - where else!). What I found was a whole sim of very high quality, full size transport from NOAA exploration ships (an a wonderful rusting hulk), to trains and Concorde and even an Imperial shuttle. The island is owned by the EPA, so would love to know what they have in mind! Note the parcels are private, but you can hover over and cam in to see the detail.
Stunning places, and the potential applications enormous. I'd challenge anyone to go visit them and then not see just how important virtual worlds are going to become!
Well that was awesome. Starship SN8 just made its first (and only test flight). Really does make a return to the Moon and on to Mars seem so much closer than the Team Artemis announcement.
