Slashdot Mirror
Atlas V's Maiden Launch a Success
PyroMosh writes "The next generation expendable heavy lifting rocket, the Atlas 5, lifted off today from Cape Canaveral Air Station. The American rocket, built by Lockheed Martin, sporting Russian RD-180 engines carried the Eutelsat Hotbird 6 telecommunications satellite into orbit. This next generation heavy lifter can out-lift any rocket built since the Saturn V 'Moon rocket', including the shuttle." Spaceflightnow has extensive coverage.
Sorry, not trying to be a troll, but I'm no rocket fan...
..but we have a new rocket, guess that's better than nothing.
More Thruster, more lift... great *insert golf clap*
We need new ideas and bold steps in propulsion if we're ever going to graduate from the rocket age into bonafide space travel.
We've been hooked on rockets as the ultimate in propulsion since WWII and though ideas have come forward, some very radical ideas even in the last decade, NASA is hesitant to pursue these ideas due to concerns of cost and even more so, concerns of failure due to high Gov't scrutiny.
It's sad that the US Gov't, being the only body with enough power to really do something for our future in space keeps things on such a short leash. Perhaps they should just kick back and play the "grant-daddy" and let private companies work hand in hand with them to speed things up a bit and share in the risk.
Damn, do something to get capital interests involved... Even if it's just to mine rocks on the moon, I'd volunteer to work there for a lunar year.
Fuck you. You are a shithead cunt. Why don't you move near a fucking airport and watch the planes, that an everyday "air flight." You stupid cunt bitch fuck. And moderators? I mean, don't mod down [like you zit case teenie bopping wanna be losers who mod down and Euro trash fucks with your highfalutin superiority bullshit, fuck all you down modders you insecure totalitarian fascist censoring fucking PRICK FUCKS] , but mod up twice as interesting?
What's so fucking interesting? The degree of this pricks stupidity? FUCK YOU all you whore born assfucking troglodytes! You wanton son of strumpet fucksticks!
I hope a 1st stage falls on your fucking head, pissfuck.
Atlas 5 rockets are overprices. Nice but overpriced. Fucking fake 21st century, the century where everyhting costs TOO FUCKING MUCH, its a metal pipe with gas in it. Why is it so expensive. Cunts.
"can't you Americans bloody go metric like the rest of the planet"
We could, but we're afraid of being a nation of gay-boys, like the Brits.
What the fuck is the difference between "3.281 feet" and "1.000 meters"? Do you smug, mealy-mouthed Euro-trash losers with superiority complexs think we all go around saying "5 miles, 32 feet, 3 inches"?
Get your empire back and THEN you can talk!
Hey, I've been thinking this for a long time! (Well, except for the part about Brits being gay-boys, of course. Goat molesters, probably, but not gay-boys.)
A slight correction on the national aerospace plane project...
The engine was a liear aerospike, which the design had being fueled by a Hydrogen slurry tank. The tank was not buildable with current material science, after a number of tries. *THAT*, NOT September 11th, was why it was cancelled (yes, I know they could have used a different fuel tank technology; they didn't).
Personally, I think some non-Berne signatory country should build a DC-X with a linear aerospike, and screw the U.S. patents.
The (unfortunately) winning contractors design called for a runway, which meant building additional hardware, if you ever wanted to go any place interesting. A DC-X ("Delta Clipper") could have, with 3 launced for orbital refueuling on the
way in any out, put us back on the moon very quickly (and once in orbit is halfway to anywhere in the Solar system). You're not going to the moon in something that lands like an airpane, ever... no runways, gas stations, or air to hold the wings up.
-- Terry
Careful investigation proved that a _second_ rocket was blasted into space ever since the traffic control teams got into a fight on who crancked up the Texan airconditioning, freezing the coffee machine.
Apparently one team didn't know of the launch of the previous shift.
On a related note, the publishing of news on the slashdot site seems be become more and more troublesome ever since Moderaters stubbornly refuse to read the news themselves.
Genius doesn't work on an assembly line basis. You can't simply say, "Today I will be brilliant."