Starskips Adventures

Commission by SilFoe
(The original was 30.8MB, this is just a thumbnail)
Evasive action
Every so often something crazy happens in space. Small things like solar wind or a burst of background radiation; or big things like flares or meteorite swarms.... — Commission by SilFoe
(The original was 30.8MB, this is just a thumbnail)
Evasive action
Every so often something crazy happens in space. Small things like solar wind or a burst of background radiation; or big things like flares or meteorite swarms. If you can get the heads up, avoidance is the best policy.
There aren’t too many ways to change direction in space. Riding solar wind sails has been a thought for deep space missions but it focuses on slow acceleration over a lot of time. Firing the main engines will get you moving in a hurry, but if this is your only means of course correction you would need either a gimbaled engine or rudder vanes in nozzle bell. The most common approach on modern space craft is to use vernier micro-thrusters in addition to the main engines, this has become the most tested and proven efficient way to maintain a pre-set course for both military and civilian applications. When unpredictability becomes the rule, explosive charges on the hull are the way to go. Sounds crazy I know and I didn’t just pull that out of “Fall of Reach” (good book tho), do a google on PAC3-MSE. On images you’ll see a bunch of little circles near the tip, basically they are shotgun shells (any more details and I’m up a creek-sorry) this missile is designed for kinetic kill on tactical ballistic missiles that have already entered the atmosphere. The system has to fight the effects of wind and drag not only on its own frame but that of its target, which are both hypersonic-hence the explosive steering.

With space being so open that a relatively decent radar can see near limitlessly in all directions, blasting caps on the hull should not be a frequently used necessity. The two things to keep in mind are where you want to end up, and how to best avoid the things that cross your path.
(I know this one is really short-I got a big surprise coming next week to make up for it, see you then)

Solar flares
Request by: Professor Ponyarity
Space weather is a little different than on the ground, but it runs on the same basic principle-the distribution of energy. Solar flares happen when a star shoots out charged plasma into space with enough... — Solar flares
Request by: Professor Ponyarity
Space weather is a little different than on the ground, but it runs on the same basic principle-the distribution of energy. Solar flares happen when a star shoots out charged plasma into space with enough power to escape its gravity field. When they hit Earth the northern and southern lights go crazy, transformers explode, satellites fail, and communication networks get a good bit of static. Having experienced a few over the centuries, we have learned how to make things more resilient. Grounding electrical appliances is a great way of stopping a voltage over flow from damaging more than the immediate area involved. But spacecraft typically do not carry jars of dirt (que Captain Jack Sparrow) and spacecraft charging is a very real problem.
Here are a few solutions:
An effective power distribution unit would be able to not only manage the directed output from an electrical power source to 1st priority systems, but also to direct excess power to batteries for situations where the main power source is not usable or is down for services.
A 0V reference point would not be the same as plugging your device into the dirt (remember that third prong on your refrigerator’s plug?) but it does serve as an effective guideline to keep components from running themselves to burnout. For further reading look up single-point, multi-point and hybrid ground schemes.
And if all else fails, a extra output device could handle all the power the ship can’t. When we test our generators-we simulate the load of our equipment with a combination of heating coils and fans. So that in conjunction with all of the above-you have an outlet for what would otherwise cook the system.

Space stations-truck stops in space
Commission: MetaDragonArt
Space stations offer many capabilities and are relatively simple to put together. Essentially it’s a large ship that spends just enough fuel to stay in orbit.
So what’s the big deal? It... — Space stations-truck stops in space
Commission: MetaDragonArt
Space stations offer many capabilities and are relatively simple to put together. Essentially it’s a large ship that spends just enough fuel to stay in orbit.
So what’s the big deal? It gives you more options than a single launch can. Saturn V will never fly again, so until Falcon heavy, Energia, or the SLS come on line there are no heavy lifters capable of putting an Apollo size ship in orbit with one shot.
Stations give you the option of piecing together components from several launches into a larger vessel that can go farther and do more. This is why the MarsOne program wants a three part station to carry its people to Mars (Dutch company, totes legit, trying to land people on Mars by 2025) a lander section (a Spacex Dragon, possibly version 3), in-flight mini habitat, and main engines.
Being able to stock equipment and supplies in advance gives you the ability to move around obstacles. For MarsOne or any plan that uses a station as the main ship or a hub, the big plus is that you get around most of the violent shaking of launch. The downside is that launching piece by piece takes a lot of time, just look how long it took us to build the ISS.
Eventually it comes down to limited construction methods and understanding the space environment, and apart from the moon missions no human has left Earth’s orbit so there’s not much to go on that doesn’t come from SKYLAB, MIR, ISS, or TIANGONG (that’s china btw). Which means if you’re building something in the same size range you’re not too far off development wise, so long as you plan on staying local.
Stations are also be a big resupply point, let’s face it ships need fuel. You can grow your own food, but if you start drifting launching crew mates out the back is not the best way to get thrust. Also there;s a limit to what duck tape and WD-40 can fix, like broken circuit cards or burnt generators… yeah that’s happened
Lastly stations make for great observation platforms. Ground stations can see their targets really well but they lack mobility, and what a station lacks in massive redundancy they make up in spades by being outside the atmosphere. And, as it is said by many, when you’re in orbit-you’re half way to anywhere.

Muscle memory
Commission by: shadow_as_somberdark
Brief intro:I can’t tell you guys what I do for a living just yet :( and I’m really sorry about that-it’s not that my job title is classified but that some of my co-workers love to backstab. All I can... — Muscle memory
Commission by: shadow_as_somberdark
Brief intro:I can’t tell you guys what I do for a living just yet :( and I’m really sorry about that-it’s not that my job title is classified but that some of my co-workers love to backstab. All I can tell you for now is that it’s a related field on a lower scale, my rockets don’t leave the atmosphere-yet, I’m hoping for a transfer but those slots are hard to come by.
The good stuff:
I’ve been around big equipment for a few years now that has taught me a lot of the big picture of what is needed in space. Boil it all down, & a ship is just a sealed jar surrounded by equipment encased in a hardened shell.
It gets cramped.
It gets heated.
It gets busy.
Moving things around and setting up takes practice and rehearsal. As time goes on you develop a rhythm that lets you get faster and add more tasks and awareness in the same amount of time. It really helps to see it as a game and not as a chore-those who do pass, those who don’t fail.
Putting the pieces together is like a relay.
Running the controls is basically a video game.
When new crews start training together they feel overwhelmed, they’re slow, they miss things, and sometimes stuff breaks. After a month of medium pace practice they understand enough to pass a basic certification, but it takes six months for them to be good enough to do their part with everyone else, then you have the crazy people who want to do it all at night wearing the bulkiest gear-got dragged into that, such pain!
The temptation is, once you have the steps down, to kick back and relax. All skills are perishable, use'em or lose'em. Your brain adapts over time; so you can be the best at anything you devote your time and energy to, or sit on the porch. But hey, to each their own.
Bottom line is this, changes don’t come fast-but steady. Time and effort are the currency, excellence is the purchase. You get what you pay for.

NavigationCommission: talkingfornothing
Sextants have guided sailors around the world for centuries and the basic idea of figuring out your location by finding the intersection of two known points is used from school-day maths, to military ‘landnav’,... — NavigationCommission: talkingfornothing
Sextants have guided sailors around the world for centuries and the basic idea of figuring out your location by finding the intersection of two known points is used from school-day maths, to military ‘landnav’, and in space as early as Apollo-when ground based navigation would have become a problem on the dark side of the moon. Apollo relied heavily on earth based guidance, but periodically they used a heavily modified sextant to both verify their position and as a critical backup in case of communication loss. The Apollo sextant used the horizons of the moon, earth and a set number of stars picked out for reference. What they used was a dual telescope system of a one power star finder and a 28 power precision cross-hair scope that determined angles for intersection. The main issues they had were determining stars from specks of ice and dealing with the refraction of earth’s atmosphere in finding her horizon. Using a gyroscope as a zero, several entries of numbers as a control, and the different angles the sightings came out to be as a standard-the outrageously under powered computers of the 1960’s were able to reliably find accurate position and speed.
Now given that our ship is in space we can skip over initial guidance (take off) and focus on mid course correction (steering) and inertial guidance (drifting)- leaving terminal guidance (landing) for another day. The gist of mid course correction are finding your position turning your boat and pushing yourself to where you want to be, hopefully with enough precision that you don’t have to keep making minor adjustments back to back and run out of fuel-that would suck. Keeping track of the stars by eye is one way to go about things and certainly a needed backup, but having an automated system that keeps making steady measurements not only give you a good idea of where you are-but a very good idea about where you will be in the very near future. Having this information at hand quickly can mean the difference between a cool fly by, a near miss, and going splat on something bigger than you. No for drifting in space “Basically, an inertial guidance system consists of three accelerometers mounted on a gyro-stabilized platform, and some form of computer” (www.hq.nasa.gov…) I really couldn’t think of a better way of putting it so there you go. Remember when I said a gyroscope is like a zero*? A gyroscope will only give you data on how much force is applied when it is being acted on. So if you were to have one right now it would show 1G towards the floor. But in space, most of the time, only the most minuscule forces are acting on your ship, like radiation or solar wind and every now and then a micrometeorite. A gyroscope navigation set with enough robust sophistication could go it alone as far as determining true position, but lets be honest-they are rather expensive & stuff breaks, so it’s better to double up.
I’ve tried dead reckoning on a landnav course, it never seems to work out well for me, what gets a lot of guys is they drift way off course from what point they were aiming for. Integration drift is kinda the same thing, small errors add up until the become really big ones that make bad things happen fast. Hence the need for regular adjustment, and a progress log to make sure nothing out of the norm goes unnoticed. At the very end of this process the data is more or less averaged together (much more Math involved obviously) and you get highly precise readings on your position and how fast you are moving, and from there you chart your course.
Sources, I paraphrase a lot
http://www.ion.org/museum/item_view.cfm?cid=6&scid=5&iid=293
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/pao/History/conghand/guidance.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inertial_navigation_system
* my mentor was big on having zeros in experiment design, what it means is that you are testing for the effect of your experiment on your materials-his go to example was injections of saline, alcohol, and adrenaline: adrenaline is a stimulant & alcohol is a depressant so you could figure which between them would be the control based on what you were looking for; the difference between them would be your standard of measurement; but saline has no effect at all so it’s testing the effect of being injected on the subject, and when you subtract the effect of your actions on the experiment from the results-you gain a greater understanding of what’s going on inside the system.

Maintenance
Commission by skyeypony
Maintenance is a fact-o life for any kind of equipment and the general rule of hoof goes that the bigger it gets, the more that it needs. The big issue is knowing what needs the most TLC. Ignoring the obvious trail... — Maintenance
Commission by skyeypony
Maintenance is a fact-o life for any kind of equipment and the general rule of hoof goes that the bigger it gets, the more that it needs. The big issue is knowing what needs the most TLC. Ignoring the obvious trail of smoke or the sound of something going bonkers you usually want to try to find the problem before it becomes a problem.
Diagnostics can be done one of two ways: you hook something up to something else, or you use a built in test. Having an external test set has advantages in that it is easy to upgrade and if you have a lot of a particular piece of equipment on hand you can cut down on what you have to carry if you can use the same test unit on each one. A built in test unit (BIT test for short) is a common choice for civilian and military heavy equipment because of its reliability and hardiness. Each version does basically the same thing, runs parts through a series of tests and measures their response against a pre-set standard. When a test fails, you found a part you need to check/adjust/replace.
When you have equipment that either moves or shakes a lot, there is an inevitable point in time where cables and fluid lines get loose and causes faults in tests. It can even be as simple as going old school Nintendo on a circuit card.
When you put a system in a variety of different conditions and you need it to work the same way, periodic tweaks need to happen… or everything just decides to stop working. Bells and whistles go off, people lose their temper, the fault bleeds over to other components and causes actual damage from either too much power or too little-it’s a mess, but usually you can see it coming and prepare ahead of time.
When you use the equipment, sooner or later it breaks. Circuits burn out, wires fray, cable heads fall apart, bulbs die, and of course eventually something always seems to catch on fire. Take the best care of everything that you can, but always bring a few spares.
Every now and then you will see a result that says something is broken when in fact it’s not. When this happens you’ll want to see if you can move the failure around by changing settings, eventually it will help you narrow in on what is really broken. This requires in depth know-how of your systems set-up and can take up to a few hours if your rig is really complex, which is why simplicity is much, much better.
If you have to have something running constantly (like life support) you are going to want to have a way to know when things break, or when they start to wear down as it’s happening. Like the dashboard light in a car that tells you to head to the mechanic, each subsystem needs it’s own way of saying hello.
You will notice I left engines out of this weeks post-that will get it’s own post very soon. I apologise for rambling, it’s late and tomorrow will be early-feedback is always appreciated, Cheers!

Programming Space!
Commission by Chirpy-chi
What is the difference between a missile and a satellite? A missile is either aimed at a point on the ground oh so many kilometers away, with a 50/50 chance of landing within a given radius based on known... — Programming Space!
Commission by Chirpy-chi

What is the difference between a missile and a satellite? A missile is either aimed at a point on the ground oh so many kilometers away, with a 50/50 chance of landing within a given radius based on known performance balanced with Murphy’s law, or it uses a seeker to reduce the distance to its target to zero (basically-if I expound I get in trouble here). A satellite uses a comparable amount of fuel and similar thrust (depending on the missile in question: RS-20 yes NO-DONG [never gets old] not so much) and does something completely different-namely not go burny flashy bang kill.

So it must take an enormous amount of processing power to fly one right? WRONG! The basics can be done with consumer level hardware bought from your local dealer. Barring scientific specialization you can run a whole ship off of a decent laptop. *FORESHADOWING* . So the general trend is to stick to what we know works-think how long we have had the Atlas5 the Delta4 the Soyuz the Airiane and the most recently retired Shuttle. Check wikipedia and get a feel for how often their hardware was given an update, hardly ever really. Building the same thing over and over just so you can break it in new ways is never a good sales pitch. But nothing gets to fly if you don’t have a 100% warm and fuzzy that it will work without a hitch.

Controls on the other hand has always been improving, lines of code are much cheaper than designing new parts. And you only have to write it once, after that it’s copy paste. You can test code over and over again without having to worry about wear and tear the same way you would testing fuel mixtures or engine efficiency. You can write new abilities for existing hardware with out physically changing it (though still recommended). And finally you can replace entire hardware systems with nothing but code.

Case in point the ISEE-3 International Comet Explorer probe currently under the control of college students (where was that class when I was in school?) Check them out at spacecollege.org/isee-3/ . You know I don’t know what’s cooler: the fact that they crowd-funded a zombie satellite, or that their mission control is a refurbished Mcdonalds (can’t say I mind the pirate flag in the window XD ). Anyways all of the communication equipment that was used when this thing went up no longer exists and so everything has to be emulated. Thanks to technical data from NASA, help from the staff at the Arecibo telescope in Puerto Rico, and a small list of organizations and Universities, this now awakened satellite is now being readied for its new instructions and its new mission. Compare that to the Heat2X (Copenhagen Suborbitals) static engine test that was canceled yesterday for a bad sensor-sad times.

It is interesting to note that DARPA has recently built a program for the Oculus Rift that would allow a military hacker to conduct cyber-warfare without ever touching a command line. Perhaps this is more than laziness, not many people have the patience to type line after line of code. Learning to code is one thing, actually doing it is another. Could you imagine a symphony of nothing but the recorder flutes you had in elementary school? No doubt you could get a good beat, pace, or melody by the simple number of players available. But what of the richness of sound that separates the Tuba from the xylophone? What of the depth of Beethoven’s fifth? Also great musicians did not always sit still in fixed posture getting tendentious from predictable functions of this tone or that! Each had ways to move with their medium, in dreams, on the walls of their homes, some sing, Lindsey Stirling dances, Einstein broke into a chicks house to play the violin with her at the piano (how could you be pissed at that?).

Elon Musk also put something out with the Occulus in tandem with gesture recognition software which he purported to be the future of designing hardware (I get it I’m a drooling fan boy- suck my hoof!) what is to stop us from applying the same to software? Code is linear, like computer DNA, think of strapping on the soon-to-not-be-motion-sickness-causing goggles and playing sorcerers apprentice with sections of code that we can plug and play like Lego Jenga? We have the Dragon microphone voice-to-text software available at stores in every city that I have had the pleasure to be in and amazon delivers! Why must we be stuck with one instrument when we have the whole symphony to play with(more foreshadowing if you haven’t guessed already)? Why settle for the cubicle when we can make technological mastery the Dance Floor of Legends!

We have more to interact with than just eight fingers and two thumbs, why not use them? Think but for a moment of waving your hands and carving an object out of the air, and from this being able to seeing it come into reality. Not just wire frames and circuit maps but a beating pulse and flexing servos. A transparent artwork only until you hit print-but that comes later ;)

Schedule Hiccup

Okay, on the off chance a commission comes through this weekend there will be another post-it will just be later because I have to cover down for a co-worker.

But there is too much going on in the next few days to wait for a commission to come in behind schedule so you get so you get a time sandwich of posts-yay!

In less than 12 hours of this writing there will be an unveiling of the Dragon Capsule Mark 2 which if you’re lucky (and possibly luckier than me) you can watch it live here http://www.spacex.com/webcast/ I am foaming at the mouth over this hardware-but just this once I’ll let you see it first before I say my piece.

This Saturday another live event is going down, this time with Copenhagen Suborbitals. They are testing a new rocket called the Heat2X, which you can watch here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fG1qVhJ961U . They don’t plan to launch it yet (bummer), this test is to verify progress towards the specialized recreation of the V-2/redstone engine strong enough to put a human in space on a shoestring budget. These guys run off donations and are opensource- literally anything they could do you can take it, switch it up how you like, and do better (provided you know what your doing and you saved up enough). These guys are heroes of mine and I wish'em luck!

Now for the question, ‘Why are these links important?’ well let’s look past the fact that they are incredibly techish and consider two points. First, name the last production ready spacecraft you saw unveiled in the last 25 years… sad isn’t it? Second, how many options do you have in buying a car? now how many different ships do you see? The general trend is really lazy. All of our advances in technology and practically the same fleet in the skies we had 40 years ago, minus software patches-those you see a lot of.

You have a handful of companies that start up for the prospect of getting a prize, and you know to each their own. But to actually see these guys rise out of nowhere and actually build first & talk later… ah screw drugs gimme science any day!