Russia to target SpaceX Starlink Satellites

[WotTen]

The thing is that China is not covertly supporting Russia as they should, if China wants to avoid encirclement then this is the right time to counter it and keep it's enemies at bay.

China, like any other country, will keep its real capabilities close to its chest until its own security is at stake. Also, it doesn't want to needlessly antagonize the whole West, especially Europe.

 

[jamahir]

Russia have tested ASAT in past but where the project stands is another thing, also does Russia have soft kill capabilities against Stats??

Not sure. It's hypothetical anyway.

Russia has soft kill capabilities. Please read post# 26.

Transit time to/from Earth. For critical supplies in and patients out.

A regularly equipped Starship in Mars orbit is good enough for emergency needs. In what ways would a Moon emergency be different ?

 

[raptor22]

Well they should have thought it through before sending the ship there .. even American navy get at least 1000 km away from Iran's coast after their terrorist attack against Sardar Solemany in Iraq ..
As if Russians have been sleep whole time since 90s and just woke up ... targeting SATs would not solve their problems as it comes from their command and control system ...

 

[WotTen]

A regularly equipped Starship in Mars orbit is good enough for emergency needs. In what ways would a Moon emergency be different ?

There are some things only Earth will be able to provide for a long, long time. Specialist medical care for one. Room and weight on spacecraft are at a premium and will remain so. No spaceship will have every imaginable medical equipment and personnel.

P.S. Until cost to orbit goes down to under $10/kg we won't be building Star Trek Enterprise style spaceships any time soon.

 

[jamahir]

There are some things only Earth will be able to provide for a long, long time. Specialist medical care for one. Room and weight on spacecraft are at a premium and will remain so. No spaceship will have every imaginable medical equipment and personnel.

P.S. Until cost to orbit goes down to under $10/kg we won't be building Star Trek Enterprise style spaceships any time soon.

Regardless of what Capitalism-derived costs-to-orbit are ( which SpaceX and others are driving down ) there would be no point in venturing out to Mars if we go by your argument. Why can't a Starship be reasonably medically equipped and use the benefit of telemedicine too ? What are you trying to say ?

 

[WotTen]

Regardless of what Capitalism-derived costs-to-orbit are ( which SpaceX and others are driving down ) there would be no point in venturing out to Mars if we go by your argument.

I didn't say we shouldn't go to Mars. I said it makes more sense to gain experience running a research station on the moon before going to Mars. I am sure we learned a lot of lessons from keeping people on space stations in orbit. The next logical step is the moon.

Why can't a Starship be fully medically equipped and use telemedicine ? What are you trying to say ?

Even at light speed, a 2.5 second (roundtrip) delay to the moon is annoying. For Mars, it would be 6 minutes plus (roundtrip), which is an eternity if you are doing an operation on someone.

 

[jamahir]

I didn't say we shouldn't go to Mars. I said it makes more sense to gain experience running a research station on the moon before going to Mars. I am sure we learned a lot of lessons from keeping people on space stations in orbit. The next logical step is the moon.

I agree that the Moon can train people for certain things : low gravity, the need to wear spacesuit outside the craft for long durations, the presence of high radiation, electrostatic dust that can get into the suit's joints, dangerous but useful superoxides lying on the ground, the training to everytime get in and out of airlocks and keeping a person psychologically and physically healthy in an environment not on safe Earth and possibly attending to medical emergencies. But these elements can be trained on by having a big spacecraft like Starship on the Moon for a week or two. There is no need for a base on the Moon.

Additionally, the environmental conditions on Mars are different than on the Moon and probably this is why Elon is pushing more for a Mars station than for one on the Moon. One close analog for Mars on Earth is Antarctica which has cold and storms ( but snowstorms, not sandstorms ). if you want more extreme cold on Earth the people going to Mars can train for a bit in Yakutsk in Siberia in Russia where in winter the temperature can be -71 celsius.

Are there other situations or conditions on the Moon that you think can train people for Mars ?

 

[WotTen]

I agree that the Moon can train people for certain things : low gravity, the need to wear spacesuit outside the craft for long durations, the presence of high radiation, electrostatic dust that can get into the suit's joints, dangerous but useful superoxides lying on the ground, the training to everytime get in and out of airlocks and keeping a person psychologically and physically healthy in an environment not on safe Earth and possibly attending to medical emergencies. But these elements can be trained on by having a big spacecraft like Starship on the Moon for a week or two. There is no need for a base on the Moon.

Additionally, the environmental conditions on Mars are different than on the Moon and probably this is why Elon is pushing more for a Mars station than for one on the Moon. One close analog for Mars on Earth is Antarctica which has cold and storms ( but snowstorms, not sandstorms ). if you want more extreme cold on Earth the people going to Mars can train for a bit in Yakutsk in Siberia in Russia where in winter the temperature can be -71 celsius.

Are there other situations or conditions on the Moon that you think can train people for Mars ?

Sorry but all the things you mentioned are trivialities as far as I am concerned. We already deal with most of them on existing space missions. Any station on the moon or Mars would be underground or, more likely, built sideways inside a crater wall. Nobody's going to be taking evening walks outside just for the fun of it.

The big experiment would be to run a self-sustaining ecosystem with maximum recycling. Both moon and Mars have local water so that's.good, but other things will need to be self-sustaining. The space stations don't count because they got regular food shipments from Earth.

As far as I know, all our Earth based experiments with self-contained biospheres have failed. We have a lot of learning to do before trying it out on Mars.

 

[Hamartia Antidote]

It depends if Russia have Air launch ASAT / Interceptor, then it may be possible to take out few rockets but US will not sit idle on that.

Are they going to have some plane flying circles in the Atlantic waiting for the launch?

 

[jamahir]

Sorry but all the things you mentioned are trivialities as far as I am concerned. We already deal with most of them on existing space missions. Any station on the moon or Mars would be underground or, more likely, built inside a crater wall. Nobody's going to be taking evening walks outside just for the fun of it.

No, underground stations on Mars is not the way to go. What will you do if there is a quake and the underground station collapses on you ? Please read this post onwards.

And why can't there be a regular evening fun walk ? After all what would be the point of going to Mars and not taking in the sights and build knowledge for your team and for those who will come after you, though of course done with discipline and precaution ?

The big experiment would be to run a self-sustaining ecosystem with maximum recycling. Both moon and Mars have local water so that's.good, but other things will need to be self-sustaining. The space stations don't count because they got regular food shipments from Earth.

As far as I know, all our Earth based experiments with self-contained biospheres have failed. We have a lot of learning to do before trying it out on Mars.

Yes, Mars has water which can be used in hydroponics-based Vertical Farming. I think Kimbal Musk is learning such techniques on the job. I am sure that in four to five years there will be Moon-testing-ready varieties of wheat, potato, green chilli, beet ( for sugar ), ginger, lemon, tea, "nutritional" yeast ( which I saw just now on Google that is an alternate for salt ), cocoa etc.

 

[Basel]

They have Tu-95s, Tu-160s to do very long range missions

 

[Hamartia Antidote]

Another 53

SpaceX launches 53 Starlink satellites; lands booster for 115th time