As the title asks, if you were to build a generation ship and solved the many issues with long space travel concerning the human body et al., how do you keep the ship itself functioning over a very long time? For example, 20-year-old cars are already rare as they start deteriorating after heavy use/time, home appliances as well, work machines, you name it, if a machine is a few decades old chances are it's either decommissioned or in maintenance hell. Heck, ISS has gotten pretty crappy and that was only launched 27 years ago and about to be decommissioned.

So, how do we build a spaceship that's still livable for unmodified humans, at least until it leaves the solar system's influence, and, hopefully for the humans aboard, even after the journey through the stars? Because we can't exactly have pit stops on the way, unless we somehow keep island hopping through the Kuiper Belt/Oort cloud..

Would the knowledge and experience be worth it? You'd be the first to see if the theories are complete nonsense or accurate.

You'd be paying the ultimate price. However, you may well get to see a singularity 😐

Both HLS and Blue Moon, at least from what i can find, both seem to use liquid chemical rocket engines driven by Methalox and Hydrolox respectively.
The plumbing required to run/start those engines is more complicated, and i'd imagine has more failure-points to take into account than the hypergolic engines used by the Apollo lander.

I was wondering if Hydro/Methalox turbo-pump engines ever have actually, successfully been tested on the moon before, because i can't find anything on it.

The story of the three machines that made the journey to space possible for 60 years:

Saturn V, the rocket that took humanity to the Moon and was never truly surpassed.

The Space Shuttle, the workhorse that built our presence in orbit over thirty years.

And SLS, the Space Launch System that carried the engines of the Shuttle and the ambitions of Apollo, all the way back to the Moon.

Hello cadets! I need to know if this rocket is also going to be a strap on side booster for the new Angara Super Heavy? Not much information is surfacing yet on this development. At least Google is saying that this Soyuz 5 will be a "booster" , but was clear on it being a side booster or core booster for the super heavy. Thanks all

I built a real-time Lunar Flyby & Reentry simulation entirely in vanilla JS / Three.js (No scripted animations, real N-body physics!)

Hey everyone,

I've been working on a project called Lunar-Flyby-XR, and I finally managed to record a full 17-minute flight from Trans-Lunar Injection all the way to a precision splashdown on Earth. I condensed it into an 8x timelapse so you don't have to watch me coasting through the void for 15 minutes or awaiting splashdown after the main chutes have deployed!

What makes this cool:

None of the orbital paths or reentry sequences are pre-animated. The Earth, Moon, and spacecraft all interact using genuine Newtonian N-body gravitational physics and atmospheric drag math. I built the entire thing in vanilla JavaScript and Three.js so it scales seamlessly from desktop browsers down to mobile and immersive WebXR headsets without requiring a game engine download.

I actually completed the flight right around the time of the Artemis II mission success and it definitely served as major inspiration. I'm currently getting the project ready to showcase at the Seattle Indies Expo and looking for other events to exhibit at!

🎥 Gameplay Timelapse (2 mins): https://youtu.be/bdHbIKcqRBs

🎮 Play the Live Demo in your browser: https://wulfdesign.github.io/lunar-flyby-xr

💻 Open-Source GitHub Repo: https://github.com/wulfdesign/lunar-flyby-xr

🐺 My Portfolio: https://wulfdesign.github.io

Would love any feedback from the community, especially from any folks working with WebXR, Three.js, or orbital mechanics! Let me know if you manage to stick the landing!