Slashdot Mirror

Let's not forget 01-27-1967 when we lost three on the pad...

Besides, I would argue what destroyed the US space program has deeper roots than Dan Goldin, Deeper than Challenger, Deeper than the Decision not to build the F1 flyback option, Deeper than the decision to scrap the X-20, All the way back to the decision to seperate the civilian program from the military programs and have NASA place spam in a can in orbit instead of the progression from X-1 to X-15 to X-20 to a truely reusable space vehicle. Instead we wasted our money on Spam in a Can and made a partially reusable white elephant. We can thank Kennedy (oh and he's dead to).

TastesLikeHerringFlavoredChicken

Let's not forget 01-27-1967 when we lost three on the pad...

Besides, I would argue what destroyed the US space program has deeper roots than Dan Goldin, Deeper than Challenger, Deeper than the Decision not to build the F1 flyback option, Deeper than the decision to scrap the X-20, All the way back to the decision to seperate the civilian program from the military programs and have NASA place spam in a can in orbit instead of the progression from X-1 to X-15 to X-20 to a truely reusable space vehicle. Instead we wasted our money on Spam in a Can and made a partially reusable white elephant. We can thank Kennedy (oh and he's dead to).

TastesLikeHerringFlavoredChicken

Let's not forget 01-27-1967 when we lost three on the pad...

Besides, I would argue what destroyed the US space program has deeper roots than Dan Goldin, Deeper than Challenger, Deeper than the Decision not to build the F1 flyback option, Deeper than the decision to scrap the X-20, All the way back to the decision to seperate the civilian program from the military programs and have NASA place spam in a can in orbit instead of the progression from X-1 to X-15 to X-20 to a truely reusable space vehicle. Instead we wasted our money on Spam in a Can and made a partially reusable white elephant. We can thank Kennedy (oh and he's dead to).

TastesLikeHerringFlavoredChicken

Let's not forget 01-27-1967 when we lost three on the pad...

Besides, I would argue what destroyed the US space program has deeper roots than Dan Goldin, Deeper than Challenger, Deeper than the Decision not to build the F1 flyback option, Deeper than the decision to scrap the X-20, All the way back to the decision to seperate the civilian program from the military programs and have NASA place spam in a can in orbit instead of the progression from X-1 to X-15 to X-20 to a truely reusable space vehicle. Instead we wasted our money on Spam in a Can and made a partially reusable white elephant. We can thank Kennedy (oh and he's dead to).

TastesLikeHerringFlavoredChicken

Let's not forget 01-27-1967 when we lost three on the pad...

Besides, I would argue what destroyed the US space program has deeper roots than Dan Goldin, Deeper than Challenger, Deeper than the Decision not to build the F1 flyback option, Deeper than the decision to scrap the X-20, All the way back to the decision to seperate the civilian program from the military programs and have NASA place spam in a can in orbit instead of the progression from X-1 to X-15 to X-20 to a truely reusable space vehicle. Instead we wasted our money on Spam in a Can and made a partially reusable white elephant. We can thank Kennedy (oh and he's dead to).

TastesLikeHerringFlavoredChicken

we have lost 7 on the challenger and 3 in apollo ground fires... Compare ours with the Russian or Chinese

Russians lost 4 during flights and 1 in Apollo 1-like oxygen fire.

Technically, they lost no manned ships in space (one smashed in the ground, and one returned intact with 3 dead bodies).

Two launch aborts resulted in no casualties: Soyuz 18-1, Soyuz T-10-1.

There were a number of ground crew casualties during ICBM and equipment testing; I don't think this counts as manned flights casualties, does it?

This is tough for Americans to swallow. So, there are urban legends about Soviet secret space accidents. So far nothing was confirmed. If you have any hard facts, let me know.

we have lost 7 on the challenger and 3 in apollo ground fires... Compare ours with the Russian or Chinese

Russians lost 4 during flights and 1 in Apollo 1-like oxygen fire.

Technically, they lost no manned ships in space (one smashed in the ground, and one returned intact with 3 dead bodies).

Two launch aborts resulted in no casualties: Soyuz 18-1, Soyuz T-10-1.

There were a number of ground crew casualties during ICBM and equipment testing; I don't think this counts as manned flights casualties, does it?

This is tough for Americans to swallow. So, there are urban legends about Soviet secret space accidents. So far nothing was confirmed. If you have any hard facts, let me know.

we have lost 7 on the challenger and 3 in apollo ground fires... Compare ours with the Russian or Chinese

Russians lost 4 during flights and 1 in Apollo 1-like oxygen fire.

Technically, they lost no manned ships in space (one smashed in the ground, and one returned intact with 3 dead bodies).

Two launch aborts resulted in no casualties: Soyuz 18-1, Soyuz T-10-1.

There were a number of ground crew casualties during ICBM and equipment testing; I don't think this counts as manned flights casualties, does it?

This is tough for Americans to swallow. So, there are urban legends about Soviet secret space accidents. So far nothing was confirmed. If you have any hard facts, let me know.

Even seen a Mercury capsule? They really arn't all that much more complex than some of these. Guess you could say this has been done 7 times already.

Mmm.. mush go watch "Right Stuff" now...

And let's not forget the space diving scene that Voyager's Torres does. Hopping out of a shuttlecraft and doing reentry wearing a spacesuit covered with heat tiles.

It can carry two to three, perhaps four people, Clark said. "The Chinese are starting with what are 'second generation spacecraft' compared with the Soviets and the United States," he said. You gotta give them credit. Whether or not they benefited from existing technology (the US and Russian Space agencies) or developed this *cough* all on thier own this is a great acheivement for China. China is certainly not aiming low by building a craft for 3-4 people. This design is very workable and will save them the steps of building up to a craft this size vs. the way the us did Mercury and Gemini to build upto Apollo. The article was sparce on details so here are a few links for those interested: Shenzhou
Shenzhou Gallery
An older article on SpaceDaily.com
Shenzhou: A Model Program
China launches second unmanned space test flight Lucky for them the Russian Space program is not as picky about design 'borrowing' as say Apple is because the design is strikingly similar to Soyuz in many ways. It wouldn't surprise me if China becomes a major player in the space game. China has the money and infrastructure to make things happen and is not dependent on the rest of the world. (Personally, I think that is the real message they are sending by building this program.) They are geared towards building thier own space station which indicates some real sense of vision and they have a very cheap labor force (err forced labor?). If they get the program fully up and running it wouldn't be inconceiveable for them to build mass produced versions of thier craft. This design and the launch technology they are using may give them an edge similar to the Russian program: launching at a much lower average cost per kilo of payload than the US.

Buran is extremely close to the Shuttle in general design, although quite a few details are different. It had exactly one flight (unmanned) before the USSR ran out of money, so all the hardware has been mothballed (at best). One of the testbed spacecraft is now in Gorky Park, used as an amusement ride...

So you're correct in a way: The Russians don't have an active shuttle at the moment. But they do indeed have one.

---

Buran is extremely close to the Shuttle in general design, although quite a few details are different. It had exactly one flight (unmanned) before the USSR ran out of money, so all the hardware has been mothballed (at best). One of the testbed spacecraft is now in Gorky Park, used as an amusement ride...

So you're correct in a way: The Russians don't have an active shuttle at the moment. But they do indeed have one.

---

> The Russians lie.

Whoops. I am Russian. Can't trust me. Duh.

> Actually, your statistics rely on "public data."

Where have you been for the last 10 years? (sorry, couldn't resist).

> There were at least two capsules that never made it up

Soyuz 18-1 and Soyuz T-10-1.

A lot of rockets never made it up. See this list. Only a few of them were manned: Soyuz 18-1, Soyuz T-10-1, STS-51-L. It so happened that 7 astronauts died, but 4 cosmonauts survived.

> a fair number that died on the ground (one of which, if I recall correctly, actually took out some high level brass observing nearby.)

This one: The Nedelin Catastrophe.

> Not to mention at least one that we heard of where the astronauts died in the capsule, because of leaks

Georgi Dobrovolsky, Viktor Patsayev, Vladislav Volkov (Soyuz 11, Jun 6 1971) - on descent. Public record as of 1971.

> Of course, these events never made it into the "public record."

But they made it into state records, which eventually became public.

> The Russians lie.

Whoops. I am Russian. Can't trust me. Duh.

> Actually, your statistics rely on "public data."

Where have you been for the last 10 years? (sorry, couldn't resist).

> There were at least two capsules that never made it up

Soyuz 18-1 and Soyuz T-10-1.

A lot of rockets never made it up. See this list. Only a few of them were manned: Soyuz 18-1, Soyuz T-10-1, STS-51-L. It so happened that 7 astronauts died, but 4 cosmonauts survived.

> a fair number that died on the ground (one of which, if I recall correctly, actually took out some high level brass observing nearby.)

This one: The Nedelin Catastrophe.

> Not to mention at least one that we heard of where the astronauts died in the capsule, because of leaks

Georgi Dobrovolsky, Viktor Patsayev, Vladislav Volkov (Soyuz 11, Jun 6 1971) - on descent. Public record as of 1971.

> Of course, these events never made it into the "public record."

But they made it into state records, which eventually became public.

> The Russians lie.

Whoops. I am Russian. Can't trust me. Duh.

> Actually, your statistics rely on "public data."

Where have you been for the last 10 years? (sorry, couldn't resist).

> There were at least two capsules that never made it up

Soyuz 18-1 and Soyuz T-10-1.

A lot of rockets never made it up. See this list. Only a few of them were manned: Soyuz 18-1, Soyuz T-10-1, STS-51-L. It so happened that 7 astronauts died, but 4 cosmonauts survived.

> a fair number that died on the ground (one of which, if I recall correctly, actually took out some high level brass observing nearby.)

This one: The Nedelin Catastrophe.

> Not to mention at least one that we heard of where the astronauts died in the capsule, because of leaks

Georgi Dobrovolsky, Viktor Patsayev, Vladislav Volkov (Soyuz 11, Jun 6 1971) - on descent. Public record as of 1971.

> Of course, these events never made it into the "public record."

But they made it into state records, which eventually became public.

> The Russians lie.

Whoops. I am Russian. Can't trust me. Duh.

> Actually, your statistics rely on "public data."

Where have you been for the last 10 years? (sorry, couldn't resist).

> There were at least two capsules that never made it up

Soyuz 18-1 and Soyuz T-10-1.

A lot of rockets never made it up. See this list. Only a few of them were manned: Soyuz 18-1, Soyuz T-10-1, STS-51-L. It so happened that 7 astronauts died, but 4 cosmonauts survived.

> a fair number that died on the ground (one of which, if I recall correctly, actually took out some high level brass observing nearby.)

This one: The Nedelin Catastrophe.

> Not to mention at least one that we heard of where the astronauts died in the capsule, because of leaks

Georgi Dobrovolsky, Viktor Patsayev, Vladislav Volkov (Soyuz 11, Jun 6 1971) - on descent. Public record as of 1971.

> Of course, these events never made it into the "public record."

But they made it into state records, which eventually became public.

> The Russians lie.

Whoops. I am Russian. Can't trust me. Duh.

> Actually, your statistics rely on "public data."

Where have you been for the last 10 years? (sorry, couldn't resist).

> There were at least two capsules that never made it up

Soyuz 18-1 and Soyuz T-10-1.

A lot of rockets never made it up. See this list. Only a few of them were manned: Soyuz 18-1, Soyuz T-10-1, STS-51-L. It so happened that 7 astronauts died, but 4 cosmonauts survived.

> a fair number that died on the ground (one of which, if I recall correctly, actually took out some high level brass observing nearby.)

This one: The Nedelin Catastrophe.

> Not to mention at least one that we heard of where the astronauts died in the capsule, because of leaks

Georgi Dobrovolsky, Viktor Patsayev, Vladislav Volkov (Soyuz 11, Jun 6 1971) - on descent. Public record as of 1971.

> Of course, these events never made it into the "public record."

But they made it into state records, which eventually became public.

> The Russians lie.

Whoops. I am Russian. Can't trust me. Duh.

> Actually, your statistics rely on "public data."

Where have you been for the last 10 years? (sorry, couldn't resist).

> There were at least two capsules that never made it up

Soyuz 18-1 and Soyuz T-10-1.

A lot of rockets never made it up. See this list. Only a few of them were manned: Soyuz 18-1, Soyuz T-10-1, STS-51-L. It so happened that 7 astronauts died, but 4 cosmonauts survived.

> a fair number that died on the ground (one of which, if I recall correctly, actually took out some high level brass observing nearby.)

This one: The Nedelin Catastrophe.

> Not to mention at least one that we heard of where the astronauts died in the capsule, because of leaks

Georgi Dobrovolsky, Viktor Patsayev, Vladislav Volkov (Soyuz 11, Jun 6 1971) - on descent. Public record as of 1971.

> Of course, these events never made it into the "public record."

But they made it into state records, which eventually became public.

> The Russians lie.

Whoops. I am Russian. Can't trust me. Duh.

> Actually, your statistics rely on "public data."

Where have you been for the last 10 years? (sorry, couldn't resist).

> There were at least two capsules that never made it up

Soyuz 18-1 and Soyuz T-10-1.

A lot of rockets never made it up. See this list. Only a few of them were manned: Soyuz 18-1, Soyuz T-10-1, STS-51-L. It so happened that 7 astronauts died, but 4 cosmonauts survived.

> a fair number that died on the ground (one of which, if I recall correctly, actually took out some high level brass observing nearby.)

This one: The Nedelin Catastrophe.

> Not to mention at least one that we heard of where the astronauts died in the capsule, because of leaks

Georgi Dobrovolsky, Viktor Patsayev, Vladislav Volkov (Soyuz 11, Jun 6 1971) - on descent. Public record as of 1971.

> Of course, these events never made it into the "public record."

But they made it into state records, which eventually became public.

Russian naval radarsats had an actual nuclear reactor aboard. The radioactive stuff landed in the Northern Territories in Canada were the remains of the reactor core.

I think the reactor was called Topaz.

US-A radarsats were not small - 3800 kg.

I wonder if they will post a doctor on ISS. It would be a bummer to get a heartattack 20 miles above the closest hospital...

That's one of the reasons for the development of the Crew Return Vehicle (CRV), AKA "SSI lifeboat" or X-38. Until the CRV is operationally deployed (2003, last I heard -- but it may have slipped again), they'll use a couple of Soyuz spacecraft as lifeboats (but since they have to be refurbed after six months or so on orbit, it really makes NASA nervous -- that means a lot of Russian launches and operational expenses, and if there aren't functional, in-date lifeboats on station, the crew can't stay...).

---

For the ultimate adrenaline rush, check out Project MOOSE. A system that was developed in the early 60's that would have enabled a person wearing a space suit to re-enter the atmosphere and land from low Earth orbit.

You think that's wacky? In the early 60's, there were a number of designs for a single-person bailout device, for "bailing out" from *orbit*. MOOSE was one such design, where the astronaut was enclosed in a foam shield.

Mach 1.5, bah! Try Mach *25*! :)

They'll send the winner to the bottom of the Pacific instead? A month aboard Mir is a month aboard Mir, after all. Assuming it crashes where it's intended to, I mean Skylab was supposed to come down in the ocean too. (But I think Skylab was completely uncontrollable at the time, unlike Mir.)

I was interested to see that they're not considering air-bag landings for the robot landers, as they apparently add too much weight to the package.

I think there are a couple of reasons why they want to use active-landing systems instead of the passive airbags -- and I don't think that weight has much to do with it. First, they're interested in landing within a much smaller footprint than is possible with a purely-ballistic system (with the airbags, all the aiming is done prior to entering the martian atmosphere -- they want fine control for return missions). Second, I suspect that most of the people involved with Pathfinder were holding their breath, hoping the airbags would work -- you have no idea how much finagling it took to make them even halfway acceptable, once it was clear there would probably be a large horizontal velocity component on impact (which the system wasn't designed for!). I know I nearly had a heart attack before the beacon stopped moving, but didn't stop broadcasting...

Guess they're going to have to work a lot harder on those thruster-assisted landings then!

Oh, they know how to do those -- they did it twice in 1976, with the Viking& lt;/I> landers. The problem with the Polar Lander was that they didn't use the proven technology, but instead went with something quick and dirty^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H I mean "cheaper," which turned out to have one of the most predictable failure modes around... but they didn't budget time or money to check for that, it seems.

They don't have to go to the moon to find the flaw in the MPL design: it was clear to the investigators what had happened, once people actually looked at the test results. Besides, it's almost as expensive landing something on the moon as it is on Mars -- the extra velocity needed is actually fairly small. Nah, the better way to design a lander is with your eyes open!

---

This Soyuz TM-26 is one in a long line of Soyuz capsules starting with Soyuz 1. Soyuz 1, had a number of problems, the most prominent, was having the drouge, primary and secondary parachutes all fail, sending the descent capsule into the steppes, Cosmonaut aboard, at a speed, probably around 450-500mph. http://www.friends-partners.org/~mwade/flights/soy uz1.htm PICTURES!

In an age where manned exploration of space seems to have taken a slug to the guts since the Apollo days, there is something quite sad about seeing an actual spacecraft, the product of a once proud space program being sold off as "a nice playhouse for kids".

I'll agree that it's a shame, but it's not new: the Russians already have a Buran (the "Russian Shuttle") in Gorky Park as an amusement-park ride (although I believe this is a static-test article, not one of the flight spacecraft).

And the US's very own NASA took the last two fully-functional Saturn V lunar boosters and laid 'em down as lawn ornaments in Huntsville and Cape Canaveral;a static test item is also on display in Houston (it's been alleged -- accurately, I believe -- that NASA did this to reduce competition with Shuttle).

From my POV, I don't know which is worse: selling the hardware for cash when you're broke, or disabling it for motives less admirable...

---

In an age where manned exploration of space seems to have taken a slug to the guts since the Apollo days, there is something quite sad about seeing an actual spacecraft, the product of a once proud space program being sold off as "a nice playhouse for kids".

I'll agree that it's a shame, but it's not new: the Russians already have a Buran (the "Russian Shuttle") in Gorky Park as an amusement-park ride (although I believe this is a static-test article, not one of the flight spacecraft).

And the US's very own NASA took the last two fully-functional Saturn V lunar boosters and laid 'em down as lawn ornaments in Huntsville and Cape Canaveral;a static test item is also on display in Houston (it's been alleged -- accurately, I believe -- that NASA did this to reduce competition with Shuttle).

From my POV, I don't know which is worse: selling the hardware for cash when you're broke, or disabling it for motives less admirable...

---

Soyuz rockets don't use amil/geptil pair. Instead they use liquid oxygen and kerosene. Hardly a dangerous fuel :-) Details are here.

You've got far far to much to worry about in those 4 minutes of liftoff to add a large container of combustables to that cargo bay. Better to design a resupply ship and send up all the feul without people being anywhere close to it.

Do you really think that the amount of fuel on board a space tug that can fit into the Shuttle cargo bay is at all consequential compared to the 102,619 pounds of liquid H2 and 1,359,142 pounds of liquid O2 onboard the external tank at liftoff?

However, an unmanned shuttle equivalent is always something that I've thought would be a good idea. One concept that was floated around in the early 80s was the Shuttle-C ("C" for cargo). Also, what about Robert Zubrin's Ares booster idea? The Ares would simply be a cargo section attached to an STS external tank and SRB package with Shuttle main engines strapped to the bottom of the ET.

Phil Reed wrote [responding to someone else]:
>>Everyone keeps trying to do these space stations that keep failing and falling apart.
>Uh, exactly HOW MANY space station has there been? I count one.

Actually, there have been several Soviet-Russian stations over the years, of which Mir is merely the latest.

The International Space Station is not yet commissioned

Commissioned? It isn't permanently occupied yet, but it's certainly operational.

so the only example I can think of is Mir. To ask why it's falling apart, you only have to look at the government that's running it. One example does not make a trend.

More pointedly, Mir is well beyond its planned operational lifetime. When ISS is 10 or 15 years old, it too will start to have "issues". You simply can't bring a module back to earth for service -- so if something breaks, well, it breaks in orbit. What else would you expect?
Nevertheless, Mir-Shuttle (otherwise known as ISS Phase I) was a valuable learning experience, and ISS will not run anywhere near the energy starvation levels of Mir, and NASA has plans to give ISS much more redundancy in propulsion and control as it grows.
----

The Proton uses nitrogen tetroxide (N2O4, oxidizer) and unsymmetrical dimethylhydrazine (UDMH, fuel). See this page. Both of these chemicals are highly toxic. They were popular for liquid fueled ICBMs because they were non-cryogenic and storable.

• The first attemp was made with Venera 3 (contact lost after entry of the Venus athmosphere).
• Venera 4 was working for about 94 minutes in the atmosphere,
• Venera 5 and 6 as well for shorter periods of time.
• Venera 7 landed and keept sending datas for 23 minutes, Venera 8 for 50 minutes.
• Probably the most famous were Venera 9 and 10, since they were able to sent a few pictures back to earth. (black and white)
• Venera 11 and 12 failed (no data after landing).
• Venera 13 and 14 were successesfull, first color pictures. (Venera 13 survived over 2 hours! Venera 14 did not so well and some experiments failed).
• The last landing attemp was made with Vega 2 wich failed (experiments were accidently activated 20km above surface. I guess the lander went out of power before it reached the surface.)

This is a short summary of this page.

6. The first craft to flyby Venus.
7. The first craft to flyby Mars.

It would be nice to know how many failures the Russian rockets have had, compared to the western (USA and Europe) rockets.

Check out Mark Wades's great Encyclopedia Astronautica. It lists success/failure for nearly every launch system.

E.g. the Proton 8K82K wich is used here (I guess, since the 8K82K has been used vor the Zarya as well) has had three failures and 26 successfull launches (the statistics were up the year 1989).

6. The first craft to flyby Venus.
7. The first craft to flyby Mars.

It would be nice to know how many failures the Russian rockets have had, compared to the western (USA and Europe) rockets.

Check out Mark Wades's great Encyclopedia Astronautica. It lists success/failure for nearly every launch system.

E.g. the Proton 8K82K wich is used here (I guess, since the 8K82K has been used vor the Zarya as well) has had three failures and 26 successfull launches (the statistics were up the year 1989).

Frodo writes, incredibly:
Russians are dealing with lauching spacecrafts since early 40's at least (even earilier, but in 40's they had results). So they probably have couple of clues. I don't know how much spacecraft did you launch, but they did launch a couple successfully, didn't they?

While I certainly would agree that in fact the Russians probably know a little more about space stations than we do, you should check your facts once in a while.

The first Russian spacecraft was Sputnik, which was launched in 1957 ... hardly the "early 40s".

Anyway, the question eellis asked was a little uninformed but it was a good question. The power requirements for a space station are a critical factor and should not be overlooked. The Russians do have some issues with the Proton launch vehicles. Despite the basic design being in use for four decades (though upgraded frequently), Proton vehicles have been blowing up or detonated by range safety at a disturbing rate the last couple of years.

Kazakhstan even required the Russians (whose Baikonur space complex ended up in another country after the USSR broke up) to halt launches until they could solve the safety problems. Meanwhile, the Zvezda -- which was much delayed in building -- was also delayed due to US concerns that launching it on a Proton was too risky.

The Proton got a hasty upgrade to a new propulsion system design and has launched successfully with that new design a couple of times now, which is why Zvezda is finally scheduled to go up.
----

Someone's taking a hint from Prince Sultan Salman Al-Saud who bought a space shuttle ride in '88.

Unfortunately, due to incorrect assumptions at design time, the Shuttle now has costs very similar to the Saturn V, but boosts less cargo.

The Saturn V derivatives, such as the Saturn V-D could have carried 326,500 kg to orbit! And some of the Nova series boosters could have boosted over a million lbs into orbit in one shot!

Unfortunately, Congress decided to shut down the Saturn line. To avoid any conflict, they ordered the tooling and dies used the create these incredible vehicles destroyed and sold as scrap. Scrap metal!

Now, we have an expensive white elephant (in a distinctly non-elephant like Delta configuration) in the form of the space shuttle. It costs over $500 million to launch, and carries about half of what the original expected payload capacity was supposed to be. It requires extensive refitting between missions, too. The motors need to be pulled and rebuilt each time, and the re-usable solid boosters get so contaminated by salt water, they need to be extensive refurbished before re-use, and that gets rid of almost any benefit from re-usabillity.

The future is Rotary Rocket with their SSTO manned vehicle (small payload, smaller price) or the Energia w/ their succesful Proton heavy lift launcher and their new Fregat stages and Zenit.

I hope that one day nanotechnology realizes the potential we all think it has. If so, maybe hobbyists will use nanosites to construct a new generation of Saturn V boosters from reconstructed blueprints (a set still exists in the Library of Congress) and launch them from the beaches of America.

I hope I live to see that day, so I can see that huge booster my grandparents helped design lift off the pad like my parents and the rest of the generation before me did, and then, maybe, I'll know that our day in space is truly here.

You should check your facts better before making sweeping statements like that.

The site references this, but provides no link. You can visit it here. Quite a bit of information can be found there. Pictures, articles, etc.

Work up a chart of MSFT stock price over the three year period that this DOJ case has been "haunting" investors and major stock-holders like Paul.

I did a neat little overlay for all you Andover fans (ANDN). It's been a plummeting stone since it opened. I added on RedHat (RHAT), and it looks like the path of a Scud missile. Up to dizzying heights, then a fall back to its opening neighborhood.

Some of Paul Allen's holdings, as found on this site on www.friends-partners.org:

Paul Allen ranks as the third-richest American with a fortune estimated at $7.5 billion.

Paul Allen owns a majority stake in TicketMaster

Paul Allen owns a chunk of Egghead Software (150 stores), and PetSmart retail businesses (397 stores internationally).

He has holdings in StarWave, Dreamworks SKG, and Trilobye Software.

He has six acres on the not-cheap Lake Washington coastline, 60 acres on the lake closer to Boeing for a business site, and 385 acres for a "family retreat" on the beautiful San Juan islands near Victoria Canada.

He buys and sells companies weekly. I doubt the MSFT "slump" (gee, back to the December 99 price) affected his decision to sell off holdings in a small one-product toy company.

Sorry 'bout that! (at least you made me look)

---

Hey!
I just saw this one and this one flying out behind my trailer stealing my cow!

Hey!
I just saw this one and this one flying out behind my trailer stealing my cow!

There are several designs described on Mark Wade's site:

http://www.friends-partners.org/~mwade/craftfam/re scue.htm

According to this Expendable Launch Vehicle Cost Comparison, Soyuz is actually one of the cheapest ways to orbit at US$18M a pop. (It's those 27 years to depreciate base manufacturing costs that helps.) And each flight could presumably carry one cosmonaut and two passengers. I'm not sure anyone has a good way to estimate Energia's numbers, though: Russia's financial situation is such that cold hard American cash is worth far more than its paper conversion value, and they've probably run flights at a worse loss basis for the Russian government. Besides, this will help subsidize a running production line (more vehicles == cheaper costs), as well as advertise their satellite launch services.

I wonder what makes space travel so expensive? Is it the fuel (liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen I believe), the cost of the vehicle itself (the various booster stages and so on) or the maintenance costs(engineers, repairs and general upkeep).

Fuels differ. LOX/LH is what the shuttle rockets use, but Soyuz uses a LOX/Kerosene fuel in all 3 stages. Figure 30 cents/kg for the combination, and you'll need something like 270,000 kg., but that's less than $100,000. The Soyuz crew vehicle is theoretically reusable, but they tend to land hard and space-rating afterward would be tricky. In practice Energia probably salvages what they can and sticks it back in the assembly line. What you're looking at are the overall costs of running the infrastructure. The shuttle has basically the same problem: if you look at pure materials and other "just this time" costs, you can come up with ridiculously low numbers (say, $60-100 million); but when you have 5 launches in a year and pay $5 billion for the privilege, you know there's more to it than that.

Soyuz launch vehicles (the type that go to Mir).

Why haven't we developed cool spacecrafts like they had in Star Wars:TPM that can go straight into the atmosphere? [you mean out of?] It would seem to be more an economic issue as opposed to a technological issue. I guess they can't develop quite enough thrust to escape the Earth's gravity without using those huge rockets.

SSTO (Single Stage to Orbit) vehicles have been on the drawing board since the earliest days of NASA, but none has ever been built. The closest prototypes from recent years have suffered from the existence of the shuttle and other working launch systems. The DC-X was a promising vehicle, but it was damaged during a hard landing. The VentureStar project is billed as a next-generation shuttle, but since STS will be around for at least another 15-20 years it's not imminent. The X-33 is a prototype of some of its technology, but it's been delayed by problems of its own. The X-38 is a similarly-shaped (flying wing) vehicle, that would be a lifeboat for an ISS crew of up to 7; but it's an orbit-to-ground vehicle only.

Meanwhile, the non-governmental "space launches for profit" crowd has a number of possibilities close to reality. Kistler Aerospace has a two-stage reusable design, and Rotary Rocket uses an innovative rotor design to land a cone-shaped vehicle straight up (just like those 50s sci-fi flicks). The main obstacle remains a robust launching industry, with competition keeping the prices of expendable rockets low. Boeing and LockMart pretty much have this market sewn up; in fact there are more launches than can be accomodated at American facilities. A company called SeaLaunch partners with Boeing and Ukraine to orbit satellites from a floating oil-derrick-platform that lives in Hawaii. Launch facilities are being worked on in Canada and Alaska (to serve the polar orbit market), while India and China beef up their launch facilities. Indonesia and the Phillipines are proposing launch sites. It's really a wide-open market, as long as you're not talking about people yet. Give some of these systems a couple of years to mature and lower costs, and you'll have $1000/pound to earth orbit. That's when launching people will become easy.

http://www.space.com/business/launching/new_rock ets_wg.html
----

"...It was a stepping stone to later developments - either an X-15 launched atop Navaho G-26 boosters, an X-15 scramjet version, or the X-20 - that would lead to manned orbital spaceflight. This stepping-stone approach was abandoned and the crash programs of Mercury and Apollo initiated instead..."

• Russia & Kazakhstan pull out of the space business.
• NASA and the ISS partners say "oh shit, we're stuck and can't build the space station anymore!".
• China demonstrates Shenzhou as a viable alternative to Souyuz & Progress.
• Politicians in Washington decide to strike a deal with China.
• Nike pays $ 2.5e6 to paint a big swoosh on the side of the next Long March rocket.

As for Solar Power Satellites, the concept still exists. Various designs exist. They await a way to get enough material cheaply enough into orbit without using a surface-launched Orion Drive.

The term "Solar Power Satellites" or "Satellite Power Stations" comes up with a bunch of web pages. Browse.