The Astronomy Thread

God I fucking love shit like this. Few things get me really excited, but I get pumped whenever new space technology gets deployed and works right. Moon/Mars within the next decade please!

Brings up good points. The Soyuz is extremely dependable and gets the job done for the purpose it was built for. However, it is also 50 year old technology at this point and (hopefully) soon space flight is going to start to look beyond low Earth orbit again, at which point many of the limitations of the Soyuz will become more pronounced. By staying complacent, they risk being left behind. NASA was honestly in the same boat, but companies like Space-X are injecting that much needed innovation (and cost effectiveness) into the equation. I really do believe that private industry is going to be one of the best things to happen to manned space flight in terms of progress and the Russians encouraging those types of industries on their soil will help them in the long run stay competitive in space.

NASA to consider use of private rockets for first Orion lunar mission

Not good for SLS.

Space-X has moved past proof of concept, so it would be kind of dumb to ignore that.

Cybsled said:

Space-X has moved past proof of concept, so it would be kind of dumb to ignore that.

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Well, NASA could go with the Delta-IV heavy. However, those apparently take 2-3 years from order to availability, so unless they have two of them in process right now (usable for this), then no.

I could see one being used (politics) along with a Falcon-Heavy, somehow. Any use of a Falcon Heavy would assume no problems with the upcoming launches of that vehicle, of course.

And this all assumes that the Orion for the mission would be ready by 2020, which (knowing the SLS wasn't likely to be ready) might not have been too serious a priority for Boeing. Who knows.

SLS will finish development but never be used beyond one are two missions. NASA has basically already said as much. Its really just a show down between Blue Origin and Space X at this point. Airforce has already begun work on almost all solid Omega rocket that will remove the need for SLS to continue in order guarantee production of solids. That was how SLS survived for so long in the face of all evidence that it was nearly useless for any non government missions.

meStevo said:

Looks like SpaceX may have a manned mission before Boeing can get their test mission off the ground.

Boeing delays by months test flights for U.S. human space program: sources

Boeing Co has delayed by at least three months its first uncrewed flight to the International Space Station under NASA's human spaceflight program, and pushed its crewed flight until November, industry sources said on Wednesday.

www.reuters.com

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I'd noticed that there wasn't much out there about the upcoming Boeing mission prior to this announcement. I had wondered if 'behind the scenes' the delays with Nasa and SpaceX from December to March were quietly meant to give Boeing more time without announcing they needed more time.

Well, probably will never know, but sorry to hear of this really.