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Thread: First commercial spacecraft to dock a space station.

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    Default First commercial spacecraft to dock a space station.




    I will be watching the docking live, hoping that they don't miss or wreck the ISS.
    Despite all the haters who call him a nutter, if Elon Musk's SpaceX pulls this off tonight and later land the thing safely, this will be a major break though to trigger a new era of manned space transport and exploration, awoken from a much too long hiatus.
    If all goes well they will be using real crew only 3 months later!
    His 'mass production' reusable rockets/spacecraft could enable bigger Space stations much cheaper and Moon bases before China does.


    What do you think makes more sense first: a big comfy Space station or a Moon base?


    I think the whole idea of just hopping into a high altitude jump pointless.
    Convince the way too mega rich to fund a Space Hotel that has labs attached.
    Last edited by Uncle Fester; 03-03-19 at 06:12 PM.
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    I saw the launch on the news. So far, so good.
    I'm out of my mind, but feel free to leave a message...

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    Hes making sure he goes into history good luck to the venture i say

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    Better than F1, they are doing over 27,000km/h and can open it's nose cone

    Last edited by Uncle Fester; 03-03-19 at 09:23 PM.
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    Soft Capture was over Melbourne to New Zealand



    Wonder if it was visible
    If u want to go on an expedition get a Land Rover, if u want to come home from an expedition get a Landcruiser!

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    To me it looked quite fast as it came in shortly before soft capture. The soft capture absorbs the 'impact' and it did wobble a fair bit.
    Wonder if the ISS is now on a slightly different orbit?
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    Ah dam, we forget the USB to Micro USB lead

    I really like the Port and Starboard signs

    Last edited by ol' boy; 03-03-19 at 10:14 PM.
    If u want to go on an expedition get a Land Rover, if u want to come home from an expedition get a Landcruiser!

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    Quote Originally Posted by oceanboy View Post
    Ah dam, we forget the USB to Micro USB lead

    I really like the Port and Starboard signs
    Not a problem, we will just pull the USB lead off Ripley once we get in, SpaceX won't notice, too busy celebrating.

    I liked the big red and green LEDs on Dragon.
    OVHD, kind of makes you wonder in a weightless environment if it is even relevant
    Last edited by Uncle Fester; 03-03-19 at 10:34 PM.
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    Quote Originally Posted by nomeat View Post
    ~ What do you think makes more sense first: a big comfy Space station or a Moon base? ~
    Space Port all the way. Unless somebody discovers some rare elements on the moon that require mining I don't really see the point of having a base there at all.

    Eventually long range space craft will need to be manufactured / assembled in orbit, something capable of many-years flight time with a larger crew would be too big to get off the Earth's surface in one piece.

    It would also serve as a launch platform for unmanned missions such as probes, landers, even supply runs to the Mars expedition, as well as R&D. After all, where better to design and test zero G propulsion systems than in space!

    The bigger problem that needs addressing is the orbiting debris field, somebody needs to launch a garbage scow into space (no not literally), something that collects and compacts space debris, then maybe ejects it into a steep decaying orbit so it burns up on reentry?

    Andrew
    Last edited by Bigfella237; 04-03-19 at 06:11 AM.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Bigfella237 View Post
    , somebody needs to launch a garbage scow into space (no not literally), something that collects and compacts space debris, then maybe ejects it into a steep decaying orbit so it burns up on reentry?

    Andrew
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    Quote Originally Posted by oceanboy View Post
    Soft Capture was over Melbourne to New Zealand

    Wonder if it was visible
    Can check here

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    Quote Originally Posted by nomeat View Post
    To me it looked quite fast as it came in shortly before soft capture. The soft capture absorbs the 'impact' and it did wobble a fair bit.
    Wonder if the ISS is now on a slightly different orbit?
    I have to think about that one for a minute. The obvious answer is yes, but not really.
    Opening the air lock when they go outside changes their orbit, so it's really how you split hairs.

    However, if you just want to simplify it to Newton's laws of motion, then the answer is yes.
    When I was in the USA last year, one of the things my son and I had a bit of fun on was a docking simulator.
    The first attempt for each of us was funny. He came crashing in too fast, Mario-kart style.
    I on the other hand have a good spatial awareness and I was cruising in for a nice soft docking when I ran out of time by about 2 seconds before capture.
    His second turn he run out of fuel maneuvering and I cruised in second go with a few extra seconds to spare.

    While he was determined to catch up to the old man, I went and did some reverse engineering the capture and airlock system.
    They build in a reasonable amount of tollerance into the docking port, so there is a range of offsets, speeds and angles that you can approach from.

    But basically it's nothing more than a big spring loaded push clip.
    If the docking pin doesn't have enough velocity, the spring will make the incoming ship bounce off the docking port. Too fast and it go crashing through .
    The incoming spacecraft is also not perfectly aligned, and you often see a side slide as the spacecraft docking ring pushes it into the correct position at the last second.

    My favourite is the spacecraft angle, when it docks, the spacecraft tail waggles until it loses energy. But the whole space station wobbles like jelly.
    Another interesting thing is what happens inside the ISS when the dock happens. It also happens when the ISS does corrections. You're floating happy and somebody slams on the brakes for a second and your shit goes sideways.

    OK.. so back to the docking.
    M1 + M2V2 = Mt
    M1 is the ISS's momentum. For simplicity we can consider it's velocity to be zero.
    M2 is the incoming spacecraft that is about to dock. It's mass and velocity add to the ISS because the docking behaves like an inelastic collision.

    So if the ISS is 10 tonnes and the Soyuz is 1 tonne traveling at 1 metre per second. When it is docked, the new mass is 11 tonnes and the new velocity is 0.0909 metres per second faster (if the docking is from directly behind).
    This raises the orbit slightly, the ISS is now in a higher orbit.

    If the docking is from the front, then obviously, the orbit is ~0.1mps slower after and the ISS is now in a lower orbit.

    If the docking is from side on, then this changes the inclination of the orbit slightly in relation to the equator of the earth. Brings the orbit closer to or further from the poles.

    If the docking is from above or below, this puts the ISS into a more or less eccentric orbit. It makes the orbit more or less elliptical.

    OVHD, kind of makes you wonder in a weightless environment if it is even relevant.
    It does surprisingly. They learnt this lesson on MIR. They had a window painted on the inside. From memory it was of green grass, a tree and blue sky.
    It gave the cosmonauts a sense of reference. It makes things easy to find where there is no real sense of direction.

    With my good spatial reckoning and sense of direction my brain does this automatically. It's like I have a compass in my head, that's what it feels like.
    But there is no magnetic field involved. My spatial awareness is a subconscious construct and I've tested out in the real world.
    My favourite place is shopping centers. If I am in a shopping center and the building is not aligned with north/south grid square, my sense of direction makes the inside of that building the reference.
    If I step outside, I'll be disorientated for a few seconds.

    My favourite is where a shopping mall changes direction and I don't notice. Slight more or less than 90 degress or subtle bends. 45 degree bends don't throw me out, but if I make a 90 degree turn after a 45 degree turn, it's messy.
    My head realigns to a new frame of reference (which is usually the walls).

    Another fun one is watching video tours of the ISS. Provided the video does not cut, I build up a great sense of direction inside the ISS.
    If they point the camera out the window port and show the earth..... I lose the reference in my head. Everything gets messed up because my head is trying to align it to the ground.
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    I love it when trash smokes a spliff
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    If u want to go on an expedition get a Land Rover, if u want to come home from an expedition get a Landcruiser!

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    Quote Originally Posted by trash View Post

    If the docking is from side on, then this changes the inclination of the orbit slightly in relation to the equator of the earth. Brings the orbit closer to or further from the poles.

    If the docking is from above or below, this puts the ISS into a more or less eccentric orbit. It makes the orbit more or less elliptical.
    That's strange I would have thought it would be the other way around.
    Would docking from above/below cause some wobble in the orbit, like a precession?
    There is a gyroscope spinning in my head right now
    Last edited by Uncle Fester; 05-03-19 at 12:15 PM.
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    I haven't considered procession.
    But thinking about it, procession requires energy. Since a body moving in orbit is just moving in a straight line in warped space.
    In order of procession to occur, the shape of space has to change or orbital energy has to continuously come from somewhere else like a gravitational tug.

    I always liked the idea of being in a spaceship in orbit and you throw a ball at the planet. It comes back 45 minutes later and you catch it.
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    If u want to go on an expedition get a Land Rover, if u want to come home from an expedition get a Landcruiser!

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