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First Privately Funded Manned Space Mission
Ragetech writes "CNN.com has a story about two Russian astronuts (yes, I say nuts) blasting off to dock with the Mir station to evaluate it, rescue and possibly operate it for profit. What I'm wondering, really, is why they don't pick up a few Iridum satellites while they're up there and really pick up the profits. I mean, that stuff is salvagable now, isn't it? "
It did fly. You are sitting at a computer connected to the Internet and there are vast resources available to you if you just use them. I will make it easy for you. Here is some information on the Buran , the Russian space shuttle. It had a lot of potential but was canceled due to lack of funding, and by no means technical difficulties.
I missed something. What Russian space tech does the US need to catch up on?
Well they have run a space station for nearly one and a half decades. If you can't figure out the answer yourself then I'm not going to bother explaining it to you.
"a very good safety record. There have been some near disasters, a crash and a fire"
Ummm... What? No, re-read it three times. You'll have to explain this
Ok. These were "near" disasters because nothing truly disasterous happened. That is to say, there was no loss of life and the damage was minimal enough that the station continued to function. I say the Mir has a very good safety record because although there have been some close calls, the expertise and professionalism shown by the Russian pilots prevented a "true" disaster from happening. This does not take anything away from the Americans. The Apollo 13 near disaster was handled with at least as much professionalism as was demonstrated on the Mir. I am glad that we didn't cancel the Apollo program out of cowardice and I couldn't expect the Russians to cancel their program because there have been some close calls. By the way, the crash of the supply ship with the Mir was caused by human error whereas the Apollo 13 explosion was due to faulty equipment. As was the Challenger explosion. Both sides have had bumps in the road but that can be expected with any technology of such tremendous complexity in such a state of infancy. There will be more problems with both the Russian and American space systems and the chances of loss of life will always be there for anyone venturing into space. To sum it up for you, I say that the Mir has a "very good safety record" because nobody has been killed or even seriously injured there. They know what they are doing due to lessons learned through the bravery and courage that some in the West have chosen to describe as foolishness. There is sometimes a fine line between courage and foolishness. Call it what you will, but the Russians have gained quite a lot of expertise because of it.
Andy Griffith, not Dick Van Dyke. And that was the late 70's IIRC.
Started with a made-for-TV movie about going to the moon in a ship they build from salvaged bits to get all the old Apollo trash and resell it. The series had them wandering all over in their strangely-reusable Saturn-V-looking craft, getting into all sorts of interesting adventures. Great fun show for preteens of that era....
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So - heavy boost is a bad idea... What about an ion engine? Light boost = no damage, high efficiency, slow adjustment of orbits, nice and easy.
And the concept of a tranfer point for to change vehicles is valid - vehicles that are designed for takeoff, rentry and landing at 1G (with all the added equipment/mass) are simply not efficient for deep space and low-G landings. And fuel/consumables can be delivered to the transfer point with cheaper unmanned vehicles (like the Progress does for supplies for the Mir) this too is more efficient.
Actually, continuing this chain of logic says that a second station in lunar orbit would raise efficiencies even more, but we were talking about the Mir here, and the first gives the biggest win.
(Though I am not so clear about all the tradeoffs between LEO and a higher orbit. How much higher would be good? It's true that LEO has problems because of resudual drag, especally during solar maximums; but put the orbit too much higher and many launch vehicles (including the shuttle, darn!) would have trouble reaching it. Suggestions?)
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An esoteric scratched itch:
Homeworld Map Maker Tool
His name is Hagbard Celine, and he also also happens to own a golden submarine ...
--
An esoteric scratched itch:
Homeworld Map Maker Tool
Well, it really seems that points 2) and 5) are largely in place not because the equivilent US technology is not capable of doing the job but because buying Russian equipment helps the Russian economy, and the West doesn't want to see Russia go back to a controlled economy. Plus, it keeps Russian engineers employed doing peaceful things, and not tempted to accept job offers in places like Iraq
It was Andy Griffith. Dick Van Dyke was a dentist in Arizona at the time.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
"Matlock is not thin."
Matlock wore those baggy suits. The Salvage 1 character wore snug flannel shirts. Andy Griffith's appearance changed considerably prior to the "Matlock" series due to a medical condition. Also, he got older.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
> I missed something. What Russian space tech does
;-)
> the US need to catch up on?
>
> "a very good safety record. There have been some
> near disasters, a crash and a fire"
1. Russians have the ability to put a sattelite
into an orbit launched from a submerged submarine.
2. Russian engine R-180, a descendant of the R-170
rocket engine will power future US rockets.
3. The Russian space shuttle is the only space
shuttle capable of unmanned landing.
4. The Mir space station is not in as bad of
shape as you suggest, nothing a bunch of duct-tape
rolls could not fix. That technology they can by
from US
5. Key components of the International Space
Station are those which were originally destined
for Mir-2.
I wish you better luck in this catch-up game...
I am all for progress, I just don't like these
pissing contests, they wind me up for the rest of
the day.
Pavel.
It means:
Several glasses of vodka. For the health! (The last sentence is a literal translation, it has no meaning in English).
U etogo yest' khorosheye nazvaniye - "Ruglish" (Writing Russian in English letters, as well as using English word directly in Russian is often called "Ruglish" language...)
<^>_<(ô ô)>_<^>
That would be neskolkO stakanov vodkI. Na zdorov'ye!
<^>_<(ô ô)>_<^>
but, being russian makes them cosmonuts, not astronuts.
:P
thanks.
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blue
i browse at -1 because they're funnier than you are.
In response to your reason number 3.
I am sure it could make an unmanned landing but you have to put it in space first. There shuttle never flew.
Don't forget the Russians just land there capsules in the snow not he ocean like we did.
Then again those satellites could well serve as spare parts for MIR, and heck it could certainly improve the communications systems onboard :)
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
You couldn't put a linux box up there since it wouldn't have enough hardware fault tolerance to be reliable enough. Also I belive you'll probably want a rad-hardened system if its going to be up there for a while. This means that whatever you put up there will not be off-the-self stuff unless you want to go up there and fix it after every solar flare and gamma ray burst that occurs.
"When you sit with a nice girl for two hours, it seems like two minutes. When you sit on a hot stove for two minutes, it
I'm not a rocket scientist, but it occurs to me that they'd need to match orbit with every Iridium satellite they wanted to salvage. And if all the Iridium sats are in the same orbit at different places, that'd make the job even harder! It probably wouldn't be cost-effective if you add in fuel costs and flight time costs.
[To answer your question, you can't pick up an Iridium because it's in a different orbit...if it is aimed to pass nearby it will vaporize your arm if you grab it. You'll have to launch a remote-controlled "space tug" to go grab the birds...and fuel tanks to keep refueling the thing.]
Quark
With Richard Benjamin
http://www.bullnet.com
They're russian. The only smell that would seem "funny" to them would be deodorant.
That's his backup plan.
Will in Seattle
I think WillAffleck is investing in MSFT at $80 share based on speculation that Gates funding of Mir and resulting technological, patentable, market cornering spinoffs.
...
Actually, I'm just trying to make some bucks off of Bill G's misery. Plus, I figure that maybe he'll sell his house and I can use it to store my canoe in and for interactive MUD hosting. But I'm holding out for $74 1/2 pricing for my hostile takeover [grin].
Then maybe we can hack Mir and reset the environment to make sure Bill G's nice and comfy at a balmy 65 degrees Celsius. After all, it's not a bug, it's a feature
Will in Seattle
You won't see ads on Mir, but anyone ever see edTV? There could be broadcasts from Mir, and advertisers could pay to have a banner ad on the screen somewhere during the broadcast. kinda like an orbital jenny cam?
I think this is tradition without any specific purprose or reason
Sort of like the tradition of cosmonauts pissing on the tires of the ready trailer before boarding the capsule.
"White Sun of the Desert" is a film with very good sense of humour that made smart and not-transparent jokes about the whole revolution story and soviet era (although it was written and shown during the soviet era). It's one of the "cult" movies which are important part of Russian culture, independent of age. I don't think Russian cosmonauts were forced in any way to see this film - I think this is tradition without any specific purprose or reason - just a very very good film.
MIR orbits at an average of 333 km above ground, while Iridium satellites orbit at about 780 km above ground.
One of the sources of revinue they suggested was sending up scientific experiments. Its already very hard, and takes a long time, to get anything sent up on the shuttle, there are companies doing research that would be willing to pay to get it up sooner.
Andy Griffith. You can have a look at the TV-Guide advert ABC took out here. The POS spaceship he flew looked pretty much like Mir does; Hacked together from whatever garbage happened to float by.
.sig: Now legally binding!
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Time is Nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once... the bitch.
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Time is Nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once... the bitch.
It's only "ironic" if you consider the fact that capitalism out-produces command economies to be a surprise. A bankrupt economy will sell anything to stay afloat, and the Russians have spaceflights to sell. If the USA was in the same situation, you'd see a price schedule for Shuttle rides.
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Time is Nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once... the bitch.
But you're being silly, 'cause you're a troll. Oh, something I missed:
I mis-read that and missed the word than, which reverses the entire meaning. I'm sorry I attributed one iota of sense to anything you've posted here. Mea culpa.--
Time is Nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once... the bitch.
- Mir is not designed to be boosted, period. It has things hanging off at all kinds of angles, and high thrust along any line would over-torque some of the junctions. This would rip the spacecraft apart at the joints. To boost it, you'd need to take it apart into modules, attach the modules to some kind of frame, boost the modules into the new orbit, and re-assemble the spacecraft. As long as you were doing that, you might as well junk the old Mir and use brand-new modules.
- 20,000 miles is inside the outer Van Allen belt, IIRC. This is not a healthy place for people to spend any length of time.
- It doesn't make any sense to pause at 20,000 miles on the way to the moon. Circularizing your orbit to rendezvous would take almost as much, if not more, fuel than going direct to Luna. Once you've spent that fuel to get there, you do what... re-fuel? Where does this fuel come from, if not from the spacecraft going up there?
You would have known how silly these ideas are if you knew some orbital mechanics. It isn't that hard to teach yourself a heck of a lot about orbital mechanics from the twin principles of conservation of energy and conservation of momentum and a little bit of algebra. If you're unable to do algebra you're either not smart enough to be posting here, or you're wasting your time looking foolish when you could be spending the time needed to analyze concepts and actually have informed and worthwhile opinions.--
Time is Nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once... the bitch.
The only way anything gets done is for people to push and poke at the problem, to see where it's vulnerable. Not everybody finds a soft spot, but you've just started toward being part of the process. Congratulations, and may you go far.
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Time is Nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once... the bitch.
On the shuttle? If they do something interesting enough (save mir, go to Mars, etc), the public will be watching. And reading the newspaper. And talking to each other about who is sponsoring the mission (remember the EDS "herding cats" ad during the superbowl?).
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The shareholder is always right.
> Maybe America will catch up.
I missed something. What Russian space tech does the US need to catch up on?
"a very good safety record. There have been some near disasters, a crash and a fire"
Ummm... What? No, re-read it three times. You'll have to explain this.
Jon Sullivan
Jon Sullivan
www.jonsullivan.com
I have already seen one ad last year that was partially filmed on MIR. Unfortunately it was for Australian Rules Football so most here probably haven't seen it. It actually wasn't too bad.
Not much sense. I'm prety sure he could figure out telecomuting.
So you'd rather have the price higher so that Bill Gates is the only person on the planet that can go for one night? That doesn't make sense.
I wish i could buy stock in them! I think this kind of thing should continue to happen!
Mike Roberto (roberto@soul.apk.net) - AOL IM: MicroBerto
Berto
link clicker
Mike Roberto (roberto@soul.apk.net) - AOL IM: MicroBerto
Berto
Maybe they are going to once again screw the US and start up Mir again rather than work internationlly.
Time will tell.
If you want my respect, give it first...
If you don't want my respect, expect mine before you give it.
CSG_SurferDude
LongTail SSH Brute Force analysis tool is here!
I saw the premier, but blew off the rest of the series. Totally implausible but fun. Griffith builds a moon rocket in his salvage yard while hiding it from a suspicious FBI agent, and flies two people to the moon to salvage equipment from the NASA moon landings. I liked the way they gave a semi-plausible scenario for doing this with simple technology and little fuel, yet didn't actually follow the scenario in the script.
No sig? Sigh...
You mean they put a brzzzing neon sign up there that sez 'Jury's all-you-can-eat Diner' (featuring the pan-galactic gargle blaster) or have the guests watch anti-gas commercials while we dimwits down here are obscured by clouds? Jeez...
How about making it the next peace talk hotel (where contrahents are only released after signing on that dotted line) or the next Big Brother show environment?
Use The Source, Luke!
hm...a privately funded mission? you'd think that with the russian economy doing so poorly as it has been, that hardly anyone would have money to fund so expensive a venture...- ---------
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(((one more time to kill the pain)))
According to the bottom of the story, Miles O'Brien contributed!
Why doesn't the gene pool have a life guard?
I can't see how anyone could possibly think that this is a bad move... we need to see A LOT more of this happening to really get the space program moving... I would pay whatever price it takes to goto Mir. Think about it for just one second... how many times does the average (rich) person get to go stay in space...?!?!?!?!!?!?? Boo to all you naysayers...
What are you talking about... DISAPOINTED?!?!?! He gets to travel into space!!!!! I say for the price you are getting quite the deal... How often does that happen? Never. We need more of this type of business to get the space program properly funded. So we can reach the glory of the Apollo days.
You could make a profit by:
(1) leasing "space" for scientific experiments requiring zero-gee and/or without the interference of Earth's atmosphere.
(2) like you mention (and as they plan), advertising revenue.
(3) tourism. According to the story some guy is willing to shell out 15 million to visit Mir. The total amount of venture captial put into the project currently is only 20 million. Remember the old rich guy in Contact?
(4) use it as infrastructure for training your own astro/cosmonauts, for future private ventures. Gives you a big head start on your competitors if you already own and operate a space station.
(5) if you are an evil genius planning to take over the world, Mir may make a nice orbital weapons platform :)
NO CARRIER
Isn't it ironic that the first private commercial manned launch is russian?
No, it's not ironic. It's symmetric. The first man in space was Russian, so it's only fair.
I'd almost be willing to wager that this privately funded space flight may have something to do with the reason Richard Garriot left Origin last week (see previous /. story). Richard has been pushing to be on a space shuttle for years, even going so far as to bribe mission astronauts to take scraps of stuff up for him, or so legend has it...
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WWhhaatt ddooeess dduupplleexx mmeeaann??
This sig intentionally left justified.
Top 5 Things To Do With People on Mir Who Run out of Money
5. Tickle them until they either cough up more money or die.
4. Send them on a spacewalk and then cut the tether cord to the suit while jeering them through the radio.
3. Tell them that you're sending them home to Earth because they have no money. Then put them into the escape pod and aim it towards the sun.
2. Stuff them into an airlock and suck all the air out of the airlock. I won't go into what happens next.
And the #1 thing to do with a person on Mir who runs out of money is...
1. Use them as an electrical conduit when something (inevitably) breaks.
Well, it did say in the article that they were currently 'in talks' with advertisers and with a 'potential space tourist' who would pay them $15 million to take him/her up.
However, this makes me wonder two things:
1) Where do they plan on placing advertising? It doesn't seem like billboard-type ads on the side of the space station would get much exposure to our mostly earth-bound consumer market.
2)How many people can they find who are willing to pay $15 million for a trip to Mir? I think that market would dry up fairly quickly.
They had better come up with some long term revenue generating plans, and quick, or Mir just might meets it's fate of burning up in the atmosphere on the way back to Earth!
It is estimated that if a private company owned a space shuttle, it would see profit within the first 18 months of operations. Missions would be launched at a rate of four missions a year.
So why hasn't anyone done this yet? Well, it is rumored that a certain shuttle operating company looked into this possiblity. They even had the funds neccessary to acquire a shuttle. Apparently all went awry because they failed to talk to the right people. When a few key people found they were bypassed, they decided to axe the attempt. Apparantly this is the real reason the CEO is no longer with the company.
Wigs
--Support better legislation for the privatization of space. Visit Pro Space today.
From what I've heard (say from my parents) they say that White Sun of the Desert is the best Russian movie ever made. It's kind of funny and there is no communist propaganda in it (apart from superficial stuff). It also has some deeper meaning, etc. Me personally, I like the Russian movie Kin Dza Dza, which involves wooden spaceships, and an alien language having only two words (Ku and Kyu IIRC). Yeah, and I'm not Russian, but I speak the language.
I'm sure that they'll make you sign a waiver of your rights to sue. For example when you go for a simple vaccination you have to sign a statement that you realize being vaccinated may result in death in rare cases and you/your relatives will not sue the person who administers the vaccine in such cases. At least they make you sign in this country (US), I think not in other countries, because people are not as sue-happy as in the US.
I claim Mars for Gravis. Finally a place big enough for all my stuff. I will let the Hilton set up a hotel in the red district zone. I will make my money off of saleing advertisements that are viewable from Earth (with the Hubble on a REALLY clear day). For a mere (or a Mir) amount of money that would pay off the US debt 100 times over, you can be the first advertiser. I will use that money to set up "away missions" to start building structures. There will be research done as to make spacesuits suitable to working on Mars be less bulky so we can accomplish more. Now, you can be the first to hike Olympus Mons or the ancient pyrimids. Futer advertisements will go to fund Terreforming activities. Even futehr research will go to research on suspended animation, and to make launches cheaper, so we can get people there and back. Oh, it will no longer be called Mars, it will be called Planet Gravis. I will buy the trademark from Kingston or whoever owns Gravis now, and then sue anyone who says the name Gravis without paying me royalties. I will be in total control of this, so I will set up my own government. Christiananity will be the state-supported relegion, but they cannot tell you how to worship. We will set up Massive servers to mirror all Internet on Earth (since a signal takes 4 minuets to get tehre and 4 minuets to get back). They will all be Linux and Amiga servers. Age of consent will be 14 (anything younger is icky, older is a bit restrictive, unless you are like 60, then you shouldn't even be around 21 year olds). Maybe age of consent should be set to seeing anyone within a 10 year age span of yourself, as long as it does not go below 14. Ah, we got to get people there first, will worry about this later. Whatever it is, someone is going to throw a fit about it. Censorship will not be as heavy on Planet Gravis, but there will be a line drawn, because if you don't people are going to abuse it. Main line that will be drawn is with porn, where does it turn from being art to being errotic, to being illegal. Art can be viewed by anyone, errotic by people of a certain age, and illegal as in sex with minors and such. One would hope that people would be able to conduct themselves reasonably where you do not have to draw lines, but we all know where that leads. Now, when NASA gets board of the Hubble, I will purchase that as well. I will then rotate it and use it to take pictures and spy on you on the earth. An X-Ray lense will be used to see what you are doing in your house and such. Some material may be posted on a pay voyerism site. Some will be sold to companies who want to know about you. The rest will be handed over to Microsoft (at a price) so they can kill all Linux users. No, I don't like that. Oh well, surely you can have some fun with Hubble if you turn it arround and look at the earth with it. Well, later guys, and remember, don't mess with fake memory implants. If you truely want to visit Planet Gravis, just book the next flight out.
Cosmos (kosmos) is a Greek word for "Order" or "Harmony",
and Astro - (Aster) is Greek for "Star".
The space missions don't go to stars, why
call them Astronauts?
travelling in "Order" not travelling in "Stars"
You can't handle the truth.
Every single astronomer I talk to (Michael Allan of UofT for example)
is happy to tears that IRIDIUM satellite network is going down.
YEAH, BABY, DOWN IT GOES, IT'S GONNA B-U-R-N in HELL!!!
IRIDIUM is not only using its own radio bandwidth given to them for use but they are blocking other bandwidths as well, for example the 18MHz OH bandwidth and even coming close to 21MHz cold hydrogen wave.
This really screws up SETI observations and many other astronomers' observations too. I mean, don't you think it is more important to find intelligent life in the outer space than trying to dial 1800biteme on your IRIDIUM telephone?
You can't handle the truth.
No, it came from Greek "Kosmo" - Order
You can't handle the truth.
Sure, they'll have banner adds streaming accross the outside of the station. For every minute of adds you whatch, you get a minute in space. :)
Why is it that people always hear what I say, and not what I mean?
Anyone remember Quark? From late seventies...maybe early 80's? Richard Benjamin as a garbage scow captain, twin clone hotties, some guy that was a plant, and the Conrad something-or-other---the guy that played Mindy's dad on Mork and Mindy. Or did I hallucinate that?
Leia: You came in that thing? You're braver than I thought!
Han: Nice.
Astronaut: You DOCKED with that thing? You're braver than I thought!
Cosmonaut: Spasiba!
...Is apparently the story of a Red Army officer during the Russian Civil war (I presume they mean the early days of the revolution). The article said that watching this film is a pre-launch tradition.
This is not available at your local Blockbuster. Apparently it is available at Boston University (http://www.geddes.bu.edu/). So, if you understand Russian (I assume they haven't dubbed it) you can probably go there and capture some of the cosmonaut experience.
These days, I wonder what these guys will feel like watching this Soviet era film. I can only presume the tradition started to inspire the cosmonauts that they were working for the "glory of the revolution". Can anybody else offer further insights into this?
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
I know people will pay millions to go into space, but not on something they perceive to be totally unsafe.
Then again people will pay tens of thousands to climb everest.
tcd004
LostBrain
Ignore the "p2p is theft" trolls, they're just uninformed
He could buy it now.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
If they could make it safe, clean it up. Then just put in some 'Hotel comforts'. Then sell rooms for $250,000(US, because thats what I know) per 24 hour period, 96 hour minimum. they could put 2-3 guests up a shot. When they have had a few success, sell it to some big Japanese hotel firm.
Of course I'm the guy who thinks NASA should have a Lottery, drawn yearly, for a free 7 day trip into space. Providing the winner can meet minimum training requirments. If they can't, just give them 10% of the 'pot'. Also give people the option to choose between space and the cash.
A 20 min space walk would be a nice touch as well.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Must stop flashbacks..
Must stop flashbacks..
had magic liquid for fuels
Must stop flashbacks..
used fuel tanks as storage as they used up fuel
Must stop flashbacks..
please god, make it stop
used cement mixer as capsule..AAAAAHHHHHGGGGGHHHHHHhhhasa hehehehe i'm better now, hehe, really heh.
Why did I watch that show?
Now my cubicle comrades KNOW i'm crazy.
Oh well, they're corporate droid coders anyways.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
They'll make a profit by sending up individuals for a $few million each. There are plenty of people willing to pay to travel into space (wish I had the spare cash).
What'll be interesting though is when they send someone up and that person gets hurt/killed. Then the law suits come. What country's court system is in control if some is hurt in space? The country that launched the ship? The country that owns the ship and station? Etc, etc.
"something witty here" -- mikewood
Phase 1: Collect underpants Phase 2: Move underpants from underground to Mir Phase 3: Profit The gnomes were right all along.
Why are they, to quote the lead, nuts? It sounds like a perfectly sane plan to me, and you'll notice that these two "astronuts" actually made it to space, while we're huddled in front of our computers on earth. Making out better than us it looks like.
I think that Slashdot should send a mission to Mir to broadcast Geeks In Space from Mir. If the Russians can do it, why can't we:P Well, besides the fact that Mir isn't ours. Did anyone hear if Mircorp had to pay anything for Mir? I can't immagine that they could get posession of Mir for nothing. I'm sure that Russia is glad to see Mir not burning in earth's atmosphere quite yet, but would they really let them have it for free just to keep a little bit of pride?
- Stop praying for someone to save you, and save yourself.-
KMFDM
- Think for yourself, question authority.-
Americans (and people from other countries) who go into space are called astronauts. Russians are called cosmonauts. (Probably because one of the two countries wanted to be different than the other because of the Cold War tensions-just my theory)
"Control the media, control the mind."-Cabal
Geeze, I can only imagine what would happen if US companies started to lanuch their own missions (when they do, rather).. It's gonna get mighty crowded. Still, I hope there's a Hilton in Earth's orbit before I die, because I think it would be kicky if I could spend a night in space.
-stuckpixel-
Since Iridium has a plan to deorbit the sattelites, I don't think they are salvagable. They haven't been abandoned, but are instead scheduled to be destroyed. Iridium may well have confidential design issues with respect to the sats. themselves, and may wish to destroy them. As an example, if I want to blow up my car, I'm free do so. You can't claim that you have the right to "salvage" it just because I've chosen to destroy it.
I think WillAffleck is investing in MSFT at $80 share based on speculation that Gates funding of Mir and resulting technological, patentable, market cornering spinoffs. And of course in order to fit all of Redmond into space, the refurbishing of the MIR into a massive city size space station would obviously by far outpace the international spacestation effort, and would produce many jobs and much demand for space based componentry... Doesn't Boeing make any of that stuff? There'll be so much demand for space ferrys they'll retrofit 767s with shuttle boosters and ceramic tiles. And all of this will somehow be of great benefit to the free world and open source community (even if purchasing MSFT does initially appear to be signing a pact with Satan himself).
The Iridium satellites aren't digital, they're analog. But you could still get a decent 9600 baud connect through them, with a few seconds of lag :P
--
Soma: because a gramme is better than a damn.
According to my memory, and the IMDB, it was Andy Griffith, not Dick van Dike.
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
actually, if you really want to know the truth...the scientists on earth poisened her before her trip so that she would die in space. Cruel, yes...but it beats dying of dehydration, lack/excess of heat, or hunger...
-bugbbq
while on the topic, I do believe that there is a estimate floating around that 50 years we will be unable to get to space without hitting a man made object. At 500,000 thousand miles per second, the various nuts, bolts, tools, and former presidents that where accidentally lost in earths orbit are going to do serious damage. Various agencies track what they can, but radar isn't effective if something is only 6 inches in length. Personally I have only read sci-fi stories about vacuum ships to collect these micro moons, but I have yet to see one design even approach a design board. And usually detailed plans for even the most ludicrous non military space ship plans are available as soon as postulated by a mission control janitor. Also, with the suns 11 year solar cycle entering the high energy stages, and MIR's inadequate radiation protection, isn't this pretty dangerous? And considering this will continue for a few years, won't this affect any visitors, especially the peopel vacationing, who will most definitly be wanting a SpaSeWalk(tm) during their trip? Space suits aren't exactly made of a couple thousand gallons of water to prevent those pesky alpha and gamma rays from crisping a unforunate caught in a solar storm, which unless there are solar sattelites I don't know about, your not going to have more then 3 secs warning MAX (see below ascii drawing) to avoid.
/****\ ######## /
############### sat
|__Sun_|#######* # {e} .
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MIR
Now, best scenario as I see it, a solar storm knocks out a sattelite which is instantly noticed, this info is sent to MIR which radios everybody to get inside. and this is if MIR is farthest from the sun and directly opposite a sat which is being monitored. note this is with current sattelites and would work only if everytime a sat was knocked out (and the solar radiation might be lethal and still not get a sat, people in mir got inside, real quickly and seriously battened down.) all in all this ain't good. Just some thoughts and yes my grammar and ascii are attrocious, but you try it on here.
http://www.santacruzbynight.com/index.shtml Santa Cruz By Night Vampire Larp
I just don't understand how they intend to make any profit from a failing space station... Think of all the costs they have to pay, flight into space, fuel, permits, repairs, insurance, etc. Unless their doing something phenomenal I don't see much room for a profit margin.
The neatest idea of what to do with Mir is to send up one of Russia's freaking-big Energya heavy-lift boosters to give Mir a push out to about 20,000 miles up.Strap fuel tanks to it,and replace the damaged Spektr module or the ancient Mir Core Module with a new crew facility/dockink port.Tada!From here Mir can serve as a refuling/resuply station for travelers to the Moon.
Yes,I am fully aware of Russia's financial situation.This is why private companies(Energya NPO,MirCorp,et al.) have taken an intrest in Mir.My sugestion is that American corperations ask to partcipate in expanding and reparing Mir and then establishing it as a Lunar "Train" Depot.Believe me,investing the ressources nessecary to fix up Mir,an existing space station,is a much better than building a brand new station from the ground up,(which,more and more,doesn't look like the ISS-Alpha ever be built)
So quit yapping about how Mir "is unsafe and a danger to space flight"...the thing is built on experience the Soviets had when they built the military/civilian station Salyut.It's designed to automaticly set itself in a neutral position with Mir Core Module pointing to Earth should cosmonauts lose control of the station.The Russian Cosmonauts have proven themselves capable of handeling most problems on board.The Soyuz-TM is always docked to the station,providing a means of escape if something were to go catastrophicly wrong(which,without refits to older modules,could happen).Mir has outlived Skylab,which by the way was a Saturn V third stage.Americans hadn't really given a damn about space stations until Salyut had already proven the ability to live and work in space.While Space Station Freedom was being bounced around in Congress (between 1984-1991) Mir had already been launched and Kvant-1 and Kvant-2 had been docked.Only very recently(1995)had the ISS been born.
Darn I got sidetracked.Well to sum everything up,The Earth-Mir-Moon idea should be considered.We've explored the Moon,it's now time to go there and start moving people and industries out there.Earth is crowded.It's dirty.How can you pollute the air and water of a world with none of these?That's right:you can't.You could suck the resources dry,so we'd need rules against that.But we needn't worry about that now...that comes later in the effort,so we needn't worry about it right away.The most important thing is we go.Mir provides us a useful refuling/resupply station for Lunar travel,but we've gotta fix it first.So lets down to business folks.
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Thus Spake ComradePenguin
I'm just wondering if anyone remembers this cheesey series from '79 starring Andy Griffith? Sounds like it's coming true.
From the report, it seems the Russians are also in active talks with a potential space tourist who is willing to shell out $15 million for a trip up to the ill-fated station. I have a feeling, for 15 mil, he is going to be very disappointed at what he finds up there.
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Suppose they're going into space to blast a big asteroid to pieces and save us all? Why on (or off) earth do the Russians always get to have all the fun?
www.e.magazine.dk
This station had been deployed in 1986, it has been specced for about 5 years of operation, so now it is at about 300% of its projected lifetime. Any other operation like this (those two kosmonauts IMHO are risking their lives) would be called irresponsible... Refurbishing MIR to extend its lifetime again will be costly... The russian modules for the new space station allegedly (that is what the "news" feed me) not meeting spec and delayed due to funding problems - to me this whole MIR operation looks like a publicity stunt. IMHO the money would be better spent on the new station...
in Russia? Are you kidding me? If I had the money these people are about to waste I'd spend it on somthing useful, like a WAVE protest (or maybe a WAVE IPO ;)
And I looked, and behold, the pokemon all spontaneously combusted.
Well, this seems all well and good, but I'm concerned about their extensive use of the new Co2 based plastics. Though these are cheaper in the short term (the corporation which devolped the new plastic is selling at a loss right now, in an attempt to gain market share), their durability and strength is questionable. Since their introduction one year ago, there have been no controlled scientific studies to determine its abilities! Given the importance of this mission, to the space-going community as a whole, I'm very disappointed in their choice to use these questionable materials.
Yes, for the low low price of $50,000 US you too can own your very own e-copy of War and Piece (Iridium modem not included).
For merely $100,000 US/month you can have access to our huge pr0n library, circumvent any information restrictions your government might have! (check or money order only please, not responsible for government interception of your money at the border.)
I read the internet for the articles.
The major error here is that Russian space travelers are Cosmonauts and not Astronauts. That makes these gentlemen Cosmonuts and probably related in some strange way to Cosmo Kramer from Seinfeld.
Of interesting note concerning Cosmonuts is the first Cosmoanimal. Many of us might remember that the Russians were the first to put an animal in space back in the 50's - Lieka the space dog. A few years ago I came to sudden realization... Lieka was put into space in a modified Sputnik! A spacecraft that had no means of reentering the Earth's atmosphere.
MY DOG! IT'S FULL OF STARS!
What the Hell happened to Lieka? How come nobody ever mentions what happened to that damn dog!?! Did he burn up in reentry, starve to death, or become one with the "Space Baby" from 2001? He can't possibly be in orbit can he? Or maybe he is still circling the earth at thousands of miles per second along with Gene Roddenbury and Timothy Leary.
Forget rescueing Mir! SAVE THE DOG!
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It's not quite as dumb as it sounds. I recently saw a History Channel show on the Russian space program. Apparently they were occasionally using Mir for filming TV comercials (you know, the kind where there's little balls of milk floating through the air, etc). So, when they talk about advertising deals, I don't think they are talking about slapping giant bumper stickers on Mir.
> CNN.com has a story about two Russian astronuts (yes, I say nuts)
Last time I checked, Russian astronauts were called cosmonauts.
Wouldn't that make them cosmonuts? (yes, I say nuts)
Isn't it ironic that the first private commercial manned launch is russian? It is very disappointing. We should have been doing this 20 years ago with skylab.
How in the world are they going to do this for profit? I've thought about this over the course of the past few seconds, and have come to a conclusion. Without significant government subsidies, the only way would be: advertising revenue.
Or, it could just be the old "give the space station away, sell the transport shuttles" thing.
-JD
"The space station has been empty since it was placed on autopilot seven months
ago."
I feel sorry for those guys... You know it's got to
smell real funny in there.
AdFuel
Sorry.. New webhost policy, I guess..
Here
I gotta start checking my links again.
.sig: Now legally binding!
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Time is Nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once... the bitch.
Shoot, they're sending two Russian men this time.... uhhm.....
Mike Roberto (roberto@soul.apk.net) - AOL IM: MicroBerto
Berto
I thought Iridium's orbital inclination was 86.4 degrees. Not quite a polar orbit.
And let's not forget that all of those satellites are in different orbital planes than Mir.
Perhaps when he have massive energy reserves available (like on Start Trek) we would be able to change orbital plane and inclinations and perform such a salvage. But not yet.
Ignore Alien Orders
OK, I know you are joking, but (a) the Iridium statlites aren't that useful anywhere other than right where they are now and (b) they weren't that useful anyway.
Why do you think Iridium went out of business? I took too long to get going, cost to much to run and hence too much to attract any customers. Reading all this stuff about re-using the satalite network for something else makes me laugh too. Do you know that there was no data call facility on Iridium? The thing was designed in the '80s before anyone considered mobile datacoms.
I did read a story about a guy that was going to fly his airplane to the north pole and make an internet connection from there, but since Iridium had no data mode he was going to have to use an accoustic coupler! 300 baud here we go!
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Is this life imitating art, or art just being thought of first.
Fight Spammers!
It was Salvage One with Dick VanDike. Their base was a junk yard. In one episode, they picked up some satelite (irridium?) that was about to fall from orbit. It was on the way back from saving some people from a Space station (Mir?).
Fight Spammers!
Screw Iridium, BUY MIR!
The BBC has been covering this story for a few days. There's a good story here
The cosmonauts have almost no idea what they're going to find. The station has been unmanned for about six months. They have no idea whether it is still presurrised, whether the hull has been compromised or anything. Mir also needs to be *flown* by using it's gyros to keep the solar panels pointing at the sun. How well this is working now is anybody's idea. Rather them than me.
What's not mentioned in the CNN story is that MSFt has a majority interest in the corporation that's funding the space mission. They plan to retrofit Mir for Bill G to live in, move MSFT's corporate HQ there (to avoid the DOJ reprisals) since it's extra-national, and use all the satellites to bombard their enemies with.
Will in Seattle
Space, and rural roads should be governed by the salvage laws of the sea!
You abandon it, it reverts back to the chapter of law defined under "Finders Keepers caveat emptor".
Wanna leave that nice new Expedition stuck in a ditch by the side of the road? No prob! Me and the boys have some winches!
Wanna leave that space station unlocked? Well we'll just move in and squat!
Wanna leave a few satellites unattended? Fine! We need the Sci-Fi channel up here too!
"History doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme." Mark Twain
a former communist country which has switched to the much touted capitalist sytem and is now mired in economic misery is the first nation to take a major step towards privatizing their space program.
er...
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A few years back, I read an autobiographical book called "Two Years Before the Mast". The author was an 1830s Harvard student who dropped out for a few years to become a sailor -- not an officer but a regular tar. It really opened my eyes to how different our attitudes towards safety are than our relatively near ancestors.
When they sailed around the tip of South America in July, they knew they'd have to make men climb up into rigging during a raging gale to wrestle bare handed with frozen rigging -- you simply can't control the ship without sending men aloft. It was no unusual thing to lose one or two sailors overboard during a voyage.
And this was routine travel. Exploration was an order of magnitude more dangerous.
In a sense, the "comsonuts" really have a more normal view of risk and safety than our own, when viewed against the backdrop of human history. I'm not saying they're right, but it's something to think about.
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Refit Mir to be an orbiting data library, free of any national jurisdiction. Utilize the abandoned Iridium satellites so users worldwide can access it. Charge for Iridium-based net access, use profits to pay Mir operating expenses.
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Online gaming for motivated, sportsmanlike players: www.steelmaelstrom.org.
As far as I know, MirCorp (the Holland-based consortium backing the mission) is mainly planning to make money by selling advertising space and by taking people up for a few days. The figure I've heard bandied about is around $600K/day. Although, they're being very tight-lipped about who, if anybody, is signed up to go ... which I tend to suspect means that they don't have any committed clients. That is why the RSA is being circumspect about the role of the cosmonauts up there right now - they might just fix some things and come home having prepared the Mir to go swimming in the Pacific, or they might stay up to get the place ready for guests.
Another thing that troubles me is that Energya is one of the largest members of MirCorp. As we all know, Energya (which has very tight connections to the Russian government) has significant motives other than profit to see the Mir stay in orbit, i.e. national/corporate pride, plus the possibility of revenue from a continuing stream of resupply missions to the station. In short, it's worth a lot to them for political and economic reasons, regardless of whether MirCorp ever succeeds in getting people up there.
I've seem lots of complaints about the safety of Mir, here and elsewhere. I might point out that, for the most part, there's nothing wrong with Mir that a good fixing-up and a regularly changed crew wouldn't solve. Yes, it leaks air, but not as fast as the Shuttle; plus, it doesn't leak corrosive volatiles like hydrazine, which the shuttle does. I heard that Energya, in fact, had considerable safety concerns with docking the shuttle to Mir for just these reasons, out of worry that the assorted stuff the Shuttle puts out might damage the station. As for the fire, etc, this mostly had to do with ancient equipment up there, which should certainly be replaced - and will be, if MirCorp can come up with the kind of money it seems to believe it can.
Quantum mechanics: the dreams that stuff is made of.
havne't seen this here yet.
MirCorp is at www.mirstation.com
They do confirm backing by the eerily named Gold and Appel Transfers Fnord. I really wonder if that is a complete coincidence or just a very rich baby boomer with a sense of humor.
They also have some info on the the crazed fools (or visionarys) backing Mir Corp. Why does everything about this remind me of Heinleins 'Man who sold the moon'?
Good luck to em, personally if it gets things happening in space sooner I don't mind even if mir ends up plastered in golden arches and windows logos.
Yes, I'm sure Hemos is aware of the fact that "picking up some Iridium satellites while they're up there" is a silly idea. But for the humor impaired, here's why -
Conclusion: why bother? It would be a very expensive, very silly operation. Though now that I think about it, Red Hat might be interested. Rearrange their orbits just right, and they'd flash "LINUX" in the evening and morning sky every 90 minutes around the world. I envision Redmond being the first target. :-)
Quantum mechanics: the dreams that stuff is made of.