David King

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.

[David King @Spaceception]

@astro_jaz https://t.co/Wt4kCUMRwh

[David King @Spaceception]

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?

[David King @Spaceception]

@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.

[David King @Spaceception]

@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?

[NASA @NASA]

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: https://t.co/72iud38kMm

[David King @Spaceception]

@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.

[David King @Spaceception]

@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. https://t.co/sz0pkx5DYu

Or for a modern example, Firefly.

[David King @Spaceception]

@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.

[David King @Spaceception]

@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.

[Eric Berger @SciGuySpace]

This is ... ambitious.

https://t.co/Ns3Y2HLyeP

[David King @Spaceception]

@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.

[David King @Spaceception]

@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?

[David King @Spaceception]

Can I get a hell yeah.

[Dave Limp @davill]

Some LC-36 updates. Now that we’ve had access to the pad and integration facility we can share a bit of good news. The propellant farm, oxygen, liquid hydrogen and LNG tanks are all in good shape. This is good luck because these are very long lead items. The water tower is also good. The big support tower is damaged, but it can be repaired in place rather than torn down and replaced. The booster “Never Tell Me The Odds” and the three GS-2s that were onsite in the integration facility also look good.

I’ve seen some speculation that we might move directly to the 9x4 configuration, but we won’t do that. Rate manufacturing of 7x2 is going well, and we’re going to continue that at pace as planned and store the stages for use. In addition, we had already been working for some time on eliminating our transporter-erector in favor of an alternative vertical conop, and we’ll now go directly to that; so we don’t need a new transporter-erector.

We will fly again before the end of this year. Gradatim Ferociter.

[David King @Spaceception]

@Truthful_ast

[David King @Spaceception]

@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.

[David King @Spaceception]

@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).

[David King @Spaceception]

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?

[David King @Spaceception]

@Echo5550 @ThePrimalDino They don't need to make a launch window for TLI, so a day launch is definitely possible!

[David King @Spaceception]

@BenHsiao0522 @pintleinjector Does Mk 1s diameter of 3.08m not include the legs? Or are they not retracted on launch?

[David Willis @ThePrimalDino]

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