Talk-Polywell.org

Yeah.. I may have watched that a few times

I’m pretty sure I recall reading that they abandoned cross feed— it was adding too much complication for not enough benefit in performance. Musk said they ran out of igniter for the engines and I don’t see a good reason not to believe him. https://i.imgur.com/y8eRL2M_d.jpg?maxwidth=640&shape=thumb&f...

Update on SSI experiments from Heidi Fern: https://youtu.be/B1KfN7y4y4I http://ssi.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/ssiapw2017_12_fearn.pdf I continue to be hopeful about his, but when asked about doing an orbital experiment, she suggests they don’t have near enough money to do that. I find it hard to...

Two of three engines failed to light on the center core and it hit the ocean at more than 300mph.

On the other hand, how cool is this?:
https://youtu.be/4nx_Xh4WW2I

Musk: looks like development of BFR is moving quickly, and won’t be necessary to qualify Falcon Heavy for crewed spaceflight.

Interesting. All the rumblings about whether a successful FH launch spells the demise of SLS, but Elon has already moved on to BFR.

Yeah, I’m sure we all got the joke (was a good one). At this point, it’s anybody’s guess as to what, if anything, happened to Zuma. But I agree it now seems clear that if something did go wrong, SpaceX was not at fault. That doesn’t mean it wasn’t an open question in the days immediately afterward, ...

The is pictures of stage 2 deorbiting over Sudan at its scheduled time 2 hrs after liftoff. It’s surprising to me that if there was failed separation, why did they deorbit so quickly?

According to a source familiar with discussions on Capitol Hill, both SpaceX and Northrop Grumman are blaming each other for the failure.

https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/01 ... a-payload/

Now, for the similar launches of NROL-76 & OTV-5 (2nd stage de-orbited), the catalog shows 2 objects from each launch, one labelled as the payload and the other as Falcon 9 Rocket Body.....

http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index. ... =44175.240

Interesting that it's status is also listed as +/operational. It seemed like there was too much noise for there not to have been something that went wrong, though.

Rumors are that Zuma is dead. Conflicting as to whether it is dead in orbit or burnt up with the 2nd stage. At least one source says that, if true, SpaceX is not at fault... but would we every really know?

2nd image is super cool how u can see all 3 post separation burns on the first stage and when the reentry burn goes from 1 engine to 3 and back again.

Is Yucca really the primary hurdle for nuclear? It seems reality has come back with a different verdict than the answer I got to this question earlier this year. (edit: last year!) The only two ongoing US nuclear projects (approved in 2009 and 2012) bankrupted builder Westinghouse due to billions i...

I do wonder if the FH launch fails if they might cancel the FH program. They’ve worked F9 up to a fairly hefty capability and already launched at least one payload that had been slated for FH. How many launches will they need FH for before BFR comes online? I’m actually a bit surprised they’re even ...