Post

More from @peterrhague

Peter Hague

@peterrhague

Jun 10

We could have had the stars.

The NASA budget in 2024 was $24.88bn - or £18.42bn at current exchange rates.

I'm going to break down what the UK government spends in increments of the annual spending of the worlds biggest space agency.... 🧵

My sources are the OBR forecast:
obr.uk/forecasts-in-d…

and where I can't get information there, slightly older figures from IFS: ifs.org.uk/taxlab/taxlab-…

First, government debt interest: 5.7 NASAs

The amount we spend just servicing our debt, not even paying it down, due to previous mismanagement is larger than the amount NASA was spending at the peak of the Apollo program (about 2.5 times current NASA spending)

Read 9 tweets

Peter Hague

@peterrhague

Jun 1

I know I shouldn't. I know its bait. But you have to engage with critics. Even if its abundantly obvious, from even the thumbnail, that these guys I've never seen before will likely be dishonest idiots.

He's "calling BS" on... oh no, wait, he is selling a book. Maybe I should review it to save others from giving the guy money

"Whose right, the astrophysicist or the billionaires?"

Well guess what. I'm also an astrophysicist, and I think space colonisation is a great idea, so you can stick that appeal to authority where the Sun doesn't shine

Read 17 tweets

Peter Hague

@peterrhague

Dec 7, 2024

I alluded to the NHS experience being shocking, here is what happened. This is "the envy of the world"

My wife has been ill so tried to get a GP appointment. Normal process of phoning at 8:30am and staying on hold for an hour to speak to someone.

She gets through, tells them her symptoms, and they promise a call back. She then heads into work late - I suspect the 8:30 call thing is a way of rationing care in favour of the elderly who don't need to take a morning off.

Finally, late in the afternoon she gets a call back.

They tell her to come in for an in person appointment. She doesn't see a doctor, its a nurse practitioner, who is fairly helpful. Suggests a few things it might be and orders some blood tests, which my wife then gets done (although it takes them several attempts to draw blood)

Read 14 tweets

Peter Hague

@peterrhague

Nov 16, 2024

I’ve been pushing for some time now for the UK to do more in space, including launching payloads from our country. People with a bit of knowledge of the physics of spaceflight object on the basis that the UK is too far north to host a spaceport. This isn’t really true… 🧵

A launch site close to the equator gives you an eastward boost from the earths rotation, and lets you easily access a wide range of inclinations. This is why Kennedy Space Center is in Florida and not Maine, for instance.

But for polar orbits, this doesn’t help you.

If your orbit is close to ninety degrees to the direction of earths rotation, it’s actually a hindrance. From the UK perspective, we also have a lot of sea heading north from our island, so we are in a good place for polar launches.

Read 13 tweets

Peter Hague

@peterrhague

Sep 23, 2024

So after @elonmusk laid out the plan for 5 Starships to Mars in 2026, I went to crunch the numbers. Happily I was already working on this, but now I’ve got a specific number to work with. So 🧵 time…

Here are the three upcoming Mars windows. 2026, 2028/29 and 2031.

Each window presents a chance to go to Mars on a reasonably quick transfer for a delta-v of about 4km/s from Earth orbit. Starship can easily handle this, if it has enough propellant. But because it reaches orbit with its tanks nearly dry, orbital refilling is needed.

There are a number of technical issues to sending a ship to Mars - most of them are not too hard and solvable in the time allotted. The but logistical issue is getting enough tankers though. I have enough information to estimate how many…

Read 8 tweets

Peter Hague

@peterrhague

Sep 12, 2024

So @AlbertBurneko has rather brazenly tossed us hat into the ring as a critic of Mars colonisation. Let’s see if he does any better than others… 🧵

Dripping with snark, he brings up the old magnetosphere chestnut as if it’s obvious and advocates are stupid for not knowing it. He clearly does not understand space radiation, and makes a fool of himself.

Earths magnetic field is not what protects us from GCRs, it is our atmosphere. This is basic knowledge one should have before strutting into the argument with what you falsely believe is a mic drop.

Mars has very little atmosphere, but even there at shallow angles there is some shielding. Most of the risk comes from near zenith, and piling sandbags on your roof mitigates this, without a magnetic field.

When he says “solar radiation” he is either talking about intense UV radiation or solar proton events - both of which are easier to shield against than cosmic rays.

So actually, contrary to the imagine interlocutor stumped by his clever question, it is fairly easy to design a habitat that protects against radiation indefinitely - and many studies have done just that. Albert has not read any of them.

A second bizarre “zinger” is delivered whereby a Mars habitat would be like a freezer, and completely supplied from Earth. It obviously wouldn’t be, so this is just a silly strawman.

But it’s also worth noting the “9 months” is a reference to a minimum energy transfer, which is a textbook exercises never used in practice. Once again the very basics of even travelling to Mars are beyond him.

Read 8 tweets

Share this page!

Enter URL or ID to Unroll

Peter Hague

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

More from @peterrhague

Peter Hague

Peter Hague

Peter Hague

Peter Hague

Peter Hague

Peter Hague

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Don't want to be a Premium member but still want to support us?

Send Email!