(Part 3) Top products from r/spacex

Came here to say the most in depth and likely realistic protrayal of how a planet would be settled and likely how it's politics would evolve has been done by the "Red Mars, Green Mars, Blue Mars" trilogy by kim stanley robinson.

It goes from early settlement military vs scientific type government to democratic evolutions to control issues between earth and mars (self determination) to building huge space infrastruture to suppor tthe planet like a space elevator etc to fights with terrorists about the degree of environmental distruction vs preserservation that should be allowed.

read those books.

One of the best book series I have ever read - sci fi or not. Great for political study as well as planetary engineeering and space settlement and more.

It's like having the experience of having actually done it once and then considering doing it better the second time around.
If you have any interest at all in this subject matter you simple have to read those books (and you'll love them).

It gets you your Ph.D. in "Mars settlement".

Then you'll be ready to talk without repeating what has already been extensively thought about ( not that there is anything wrong with that)


Red Mars ( book 1 of 3 link)

"In his most ambitious project to date, award-winning author Kim Stanley Robinson utilizes years of research and cutting-edge science in the first of three novels that will chronicle the colonization of Mars.

For eons, sandstorms have swept the barren desolate landscape of the red planet. For centuries, Mars has beckoned to mankind to come and conquer its hostile climate. Now, in the year 2026, a group of one hundred colonists is about to fulfill that destiny.

John Boone, Maya Toitavna, Frank Chalmers, and Arkady Bogdanov lead a mission whose ultimate goal is the terraforming of Mars. For some, Mars will become a passion driving them to daring acts of courage and madness; for others it offers and opportunity to strip the planet of its riches. And for the genetic "alchemists, " Mars presents a chance to create a biomedical miracle, a breakthrough that could change all we know about life...and death.

The colonists place giant satellite mirrors in Martian orbit to reflect light to the planets surface. Black dust sprinkled on the polar caps will capture warmth and melt the ice. And massive tunnels, kilometers in depth, will be drilled into the Martian mantle to create stupendous vents of hot gases. Against this backdrop of epic upheaval, rivalries, loves, and friendships will form and fall to pieces--for there are those who will fight to the death to prevent Mars from ever being changed.

Brilliantly imagined, breathtaking in scope and ingenuity, Red Mars is an epic scientific saga, chronicling the next step in human evolution and creating a world in its entirety. Red Mars shows us a future, with both glory and tarnish, that awes with complexity and inspires with vision."


Green Mars (book 2 link)

"In the Nebula Award winning Red Mars, Kim Stanley Robinson began his critically acclaimed epic saga of the colonization of Mars, Now the Hugo Award winning Green Mars continues the thrilling and timeless tale of humanity's struggle to survive at its farthest frontier.

Nearly a generation has passed since the first pioneers landed, but the transformation of Mars to an Earthlike planet has just begun The plan is opposed by those determined to preserve the planets hostile, barren beauty. Led by rebels like Peter Clayborne, these young people are the first generation of children born on Mars. They will be joined by original settlers Maya Toitovna, Simon Frasier, and Sax Russell. Against this cosmic backdrop, passions, rivalries, and friendships explode in a story as spectacular as the planet itself."

Blue Mars (book 3 link)


"The red planet is red no longer, as Mars has become a perfectly inhabitable world. But while Mars flourishes, Earth is threatened by overpopulation and ecological disaster. Soon people look to Mars as a refuge, initiating a possible interplanetary conflict, as well as political strife between the Reds, who wish to preserve the planet in its desert state, and the Green "terraformers". The ultimate fate of Earth, as well as the possibility of new explorations into the solar system, stand in the balance."

"Ignition" is a popular one that can get technical in the physics and chemical sections, but has a lot of great historical and technical information.

If you are interested in a structural and comprehensive book on flight vehicles, look into what we engineers call "The Bruhn" or more accurately "Analysis and Design of Flight Vehicle Structures". I could not do my job without this nearly every day!

A good free NASA e-biography, PDF warning, of a vehicle in flight now is "Taming Liquid Hydrogen" which is the history and a lot of technical information about the Centaur upper stage (used on Atlas V even today)

EDIT: A 5-part comprehensive video history of the Atlas ICBM up to the Atlas V can be found here. I uploaded a DVD from a friend that worked on the program for 35 years.

Related topic - this is a fascinating thread:

Thought some of you might find this interesting: Elon Musk on ASATs and active defense possibilities. ... the video is of a discussion Musk was a part of in 2011, and it appears to be gone ... anybody know where to find it? /u/toomanynamesaretook ? /u/FoxhoundBat ?

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These were my initial take-aways to the video, then:

> So (in 2011) Elon has two ideas for threats to satellites, and two ideas for defending against these threats.
>
> he mentions missiles / interceptors as the more likely threat, and for defense he talks of "dodging" / evasive action ... well, I say it's a good first step, but if a weapon uses a "net" at such speeds (read chapter 8 of Victor Sheymov's Tower of Secrets ), even this might not always work ... but again, it's better than nothing
> he mentions lasers / directed-energy weapons as more of a future threat, and for defense he talks about having a good heat shield, such as the one used on his Dragon capsules ... wow, I never considered that possibility
>
> I like how he said "It's a lot easier and faster to shoot down a satellite than to send a new one back up." Kinda obvious, but well stated all the same.
>
> It's a little sad (or, predictable) to hear him say in 2011 that SpaceX might be ferrying astronauts in probably 3 years.

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Some wise replies came to me stating an energy weapon need not destroy the bird; pushing it off course or into a spin, or sabotaging its sensitive optics / antennae would be enough to accomplish the task ... and then there's jamming.

There is a book about Iridium that came out recently called Eccentric Orbits by John Bloom. I recommend it if you are interested in commercial space companies or the communications business generally. I also recommend it if you're interested in endless bureaucratic manoeuvring -- which I'm not but I found those parts tolerable enough to enjoy the book overall.

Links:

Wall Street Journal article about the story and the book: http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-fall-and-rise-of-iridium-1464980784

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Eccentric-Orbits-Iridium-John-Bloom/dp/0802121683/
(If you click "Look Inside" by the cover I believe you will be able to read the beginning pages of the book, which Amazon has as a "Kindle Sample".)

I'm sure you've been taught a lot about them in your education, but I very much recommend Undaunted Courage by Stephen E. Ambrose to anyone interested in the whole story, including the political background of the expedition and the relationship between Jefferson and Lewis.

Have you read Asteroid Mining 101? It's by the Chief Scientist at Deep Space Industries and is a fantastic breakdown of the industry from a very technical and practical perspective. Closely related to that proposal and maybe helpful too.

This is the phenomenon of Nominative Determinism, of which examples abound, perhaps the most notorious being a study of incontinence published by A. J. Splatt and D. Weedon. You may also be entertained to note a book on the Arctic and Antarctic by Mr Snowman, or the head of dairy company Danone UK, Bruno Fromage, or (my favourite) Belgian footballer Mark De Man.

And personally I am of course, like many of us, most looking forward to Elon Musk confirming that this phenomenon is real and not merely a serious of amusing coincidences with the launch of his own line of fragrances

With this new BFS design, Elon is definitely channeling his inner Tom Swift.

https://www.amazon.com/Tom-Swift-His-Rocket-Ship/dp/0448091038

He also mentioned during his interview with Kevin Rose that he highly recommend Benjamin Franklin: An American Life by Walter Isaacson.

Switching to 1TB microSDXC cards (5 g mass), you could ship 20 EB of data and bandwidth would be 1.286 TB/s for a 180 day trip.

The storage would probably cost around $4 billion (or 2 SLS launches).

you should read the book; http://www.amazon.com/Case-Mars-Plan-Settle-Planet/dp/0684835509/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1421005661&sr=8-2&keywords=the+case+for+mars

or at least watch the video; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mm34Muv6Lsg

Leaving aside the Mars part, it's similar to Oryx and Crake by Maragret Atwood: http://www.amazon.com/Oryx-Crake-Margaret-Atwood/dp/0385721676

Oh?

> "where does it come from and where was it first used in this way"

From John Young book, Apollo CSM (?or LM?) had blocks, but that term must have predated space programs.

> You're thinking of STS-27. Over 700 tiles damaged by debris from one of the SRBs.

NASA astronaut Mike Mullane flew on that flight, and he goes into detail on that incident in his memoir 'Riding Rockets: The Outrageous Tales of a Space Shuttle Astronaut'. Let's just say he wasn't a happy camper.

It's one of the better astronaut memoirs out there. Mullane has an extreme sense of humor. A Highly recommended insider view of how NASA really operates...

https://www.amazon.com/Riding-Rockets-Outrageous-Shuttle-Astronaut/dp/0743276833

No, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams

Greg Bear's War-Dogs, where marines fight aliens on Mars while colonists ('Muskies') try to remain neutral.
Neal Stephenson's Seveneves has a main character (Sean Probst) who is basically Elon Musk.
Steven Gould's Exo mentions SpaceX repeatedly.

Here's a more comprehensive list.

That's totally wrong, does google have any competitors in the last decade? was the search engine collapsed?
I'd recommend you to read this book.

This just strikes me as funny considering that I'm currently reading a book on the Apollo 8 flight called "Rocket Men". The prior flight of the Saturn V had encountered pogo oscillation issues with the first stage that nearly shook the rocket apart. Two of five motors failed on the second stage and they were unable to restart the engine on the third stage. So eight months later, after major revisions almost every system, they not only put men on top of it, but sent it to the moon. To say that NASA was less risk adverse during the space race is a bit of an understatement.