David King
8.5K posts
David King
@Spaceception
Engr student, SF writer, & space nerd. My favorite person is @veejericaodd ❤ The universe is probably littered with the one planet graves of cultures... - R.M.
One AU, more or less Bergabung Aralık 2015
273 Mengikuti257 Pengikut
not doing so well right now, could use some happy things, please 🥹
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We need telescopes in L3/L4/L5, clones of Webb, Nancy Grace, and eventually HWO surveying many chunks of the sky at once, without needing a year to pass over the same spot.
Who knows how many astronomical discoveries we've missed because we're not pointed in the right direction?
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@astro_jaz It's a really cool telescope. 100,000 potential exoplanets!? Especially with Webb studying the sky in tandem, this is amazing for astronomy.
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@NASA @NASARoman Will it be able to focus on the Kepler field from time to time in its orbit? Maybe confirm some KOIs, or get more data on existing systems?
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David King me-retweet
Our @NASARoman space telescope is officially slated to launch on Aug. 30!
Get the details and follow Roman's journey on our new Roman Space Telescope blog: go.nasa.gov/3RQxDIc
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@Truthful_ast It was great! I like how you add the music of the different countries that do these missions.
Does their mission work like Apollo, where 2 Taikonauts go to the surface, and 1 remains in Mengzhou? Or are they only sending up 2 Taikonauts.
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I worked very hard on my latest video detailing China's Mengzhou and Lanyue lunar lander, let me know what you guys think ❤️
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@Truthful_ast Project Daedalus, because it's something people designed to be a spacecraft, and it likely inspires some design choices in art to this day, like those spherical tanks. deviantart.com/blikjebier/art…
Or for a modern example, Firefly.
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Chat, send your favourite Interstellar ships below, i’d like to have some nice references for a future KSP project that I plan on doing
Artist: Louis Rtr
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@zoi716 Super Falcon-1
I wonder what you could do with that. Similar to the Delta IV? W/ a weaker 1st stage, much more powerful 2nd
The BE-3U would be comically overpowered, even if it set to >1/2 throttle.
The overall vehicle would be >2.5m diameter to be flush with the upper stage.
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@SpaceKoala Neutron in the 1st poll, NG on this one.
I don't know where Starship will be. We'll be more than halfway through the year when F13 goes, and even assuming F14 is orbital a month later, that leaves 3-4 months in the year. They could fly the the long duration flight in Q4 26.
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Which do you think will be most delayed if it hasn't happened by the end of the year?
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David King me-retweet
@Gateway2Space Less than a year is different than before 2027. I think it could very well slip into next year, but would overall take less than a year if their optimisim is warranted.
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@deltaIV9250 Assuming $214m/launch (based on NSSL contracts last year), that's $6.8b a year. A lot, but for $3.4b per Lunar mission, and being able to do 2 a year, that's a bit better than today. Cost can be lower too (NSSL went as low as $119m, 3.8b total here).
How long are the missions?
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Napkin-mathing a reusable NRHO->Surface single stage lunar lander for an alt hist timeline
15 tons dry, 55 tons wet. However, needs as many as 8 Vulcan/Atlas V Phase II tanker launches per sortie
Mind you, 2 crew sorties and 2 cargo sorties per year. 32 Vulcans a year. Grim
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I fully understand New Glenn booster "No, It's Necessary" now, it took out the horrible horizontal infrastructure forcing them to move to vertical integration earlier
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@NeuralinkApe @SawyerMerritt They were already planning to do it, and had some of the upgrades on the side ready to go. But it still took them 7 months. And as much damage as IFT-1 caused, a lot of it was repairable, not just broken. The tower, for instance.
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@SawyerMerritt How come SpaceX fixed theirs and added water cooling in like couple of weeks
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@TAbusnardo I wonder how many will be active in a decade, or how many will be canceled.
Like the small lift rocket 'boom' we saw a while back. A lot of different rockets, but only a handful of companies are left standing (and almost all pivoting to medium lift).
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List of recent and upcoming new Chinese launch Vehicles as of June 2026.
Chinese launch companies organised 8 maiden launches in the past 6 months, and dozens more are planned over the next few years, this list gives an overview of the various current project.
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So what's the next reusable launch vehicle from the US? China has 3 active now, and the US also has 3*. Terran R progress looks good, but I'm wondering when the launchpad will be ready. Neutron's page says everything up to 1st stage static fire is in progress, how close are they?
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@Echo5550 @ThePrimalDino They don't need to make a launch window for TLI, so a day launch is definitely possible!
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@ThePrimalDino I’m for it as long as it's also a mandatory day launch
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David King me-retweet
They should give Artemis III SLS the white paint scheme.
Reasons:
> It’s not launching until a lander is ready so there’s plenty of time to do it
> It’s not sending anything to TLI, so mass is not a concern
> It looks cool
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@BenHsiao0522 @pintleinjector Does Mk 1s diameter of 3.08m not include the legs? Or are they not retracted on launch?
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@Spaceception @pintleinjector FCC documents indicate that Blue Moon MK1 Mission 1 will be deployed to LEO, which is feasible in terms of payload capacity, but Vulcan fairing may not be wide enough to accommodate the landing leg.
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Actually nvm Vulcan makes so much more sense for this if ULA can lock in and get that thing flying again and add an LH2 line for fuelling the spacecraft
Pintle@pintleinjector
They should weigh flying blue moon mk 1 on a falcon heavy tbh, just to see if theres any way to keep making progress on their lunar ambitions.
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