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Comment by bryanlarsen | Hacker News Reader

This is also good news for SpaceX. Satellite and payload designers generally design to common fairing sizes so they have a choice in launch providers. The 8.7m 9x4 fairing is similar to the 9m Starship fairing so more designers will now be designing payloads that use the full Starship capacity.

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I agree, though I think the real winner here is the customers. The New Glenn 9x4 has a higher targeted payload capacity that an expended Falcon Heavy. Mission design takes years, and payload mass is the most important constraining factor. So it'd now be fairly reasonable approach to start building now for 9x4's constraints, and then fly on it or Starship depending on readiness and price. If customers start doing this now, that also means a quicker pickup on using the increased launch capability.

On a funnier note, the 9 in Falcon 9 is the number of engines. So blue origin is somewhat picking up on their naming scheme. Or, by BO's scheme, it'd be the Falcon 9x1, or the Starship 33x6.

> Falcon 9x1, or the Starship 33x6.

...and we'd be back to steam engine wheel formulas: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whyte_notation

Though not identical, more commonly well known are the 4x2 and 4x4 designations for vehicle drive wheel specification.

Such standardization will set a design envelope for the Golden Dome weapons..

Indeed, exciting times! What looked like science fiction in Reagan's era (brilliant pebbles)? now seems almost too banal and simple to even build.

Launch cost was already a single digit percentage of total cost when using Falcon-9s. Reduction in launch cost doesn't really change anything at that point.

Ignoring that weaponizing space would backfire badly (you want hundreds of nukes in orbit? yeah actually let's just not do that) and thus no one considering it either.

> you want hundreds of nukes in orbit?

If you think about that, a lot of fuel for in-space nuclear reactors will already have been launched, so, if a new peace treaty outlaws them, it'll be a boon to whoever operates fission reactors in space. Or wants to use them for propulsion.

Once in space, they can't be disposed of - deorbiting is a big no-no, as it's blowing them up.

If one is using a nuclear reactor for long term power or propulsion you shouldn't need to be disposing of it in the Earth's vicinity anyways - there is plenty of solar in Earth orbit. Not that peace treaties around nukes will inherently ban reactors.

If the nuke is already in orbit, harvesting it for fissile fuel seems like a sensible way of decommissioning it. They you can power your NTR (or RTG if you must) from its fuel. It'll require some in-orbit metallurgy work, to get it in the proper shape and composition.

Shh. Forget the physical limits. Just tell him that everyone is working on his golden hat idea. Thats what everyone did the last time an old man demanded space lasers. In a few years, one way or another, someone new will come along who might understand math well enough that we can explain why it wont work.

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