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Energiya Pushes For A 6-Person Space Capsule
voss writes "Apparently the Russians want to build their own reusable capsule called the Clipper that can be used up to 25 times and can fit 6 people. They also say they can build their ship in 5 years. The key here is if they can get the funding. The shuttle will be retired in 2010 and with no credible replacement on the horizon...why doesn't NASA give the Russians a chance?"
Maybe now NASA will stop dilly-dallying around and get some new technology other than the outdated space shuttle. We've really been slacking ever since we stopped going to the moon, and maybe international involvement will help us get back on track.
Accepting someone elses design is almost admitting that a under funded agency can bring up better plans than NASA.
And what makes you think NASA does not have a better one on their plans.
But how important will famine, disease, and war be when 90% of the population has been wiped out by a massive asteroid and the effects after the collision? I'd say this is far more important.
These problems are insignificant in the grand scheme of things.
"So Andy got hold of a camera that takes 750 frames a second and recorded some rather gorgeous video clips of what was happening."
So quit hoggin' it and let us have some of that sweet sweet goodness.
That would be ideal.
(since then the 'casual' user could benefit from using it, without undue difficulty in configuration of mail delivery programs, which are notorious in general..)
Anyway something 2000km in diameter is hardly small. Aren't astoroids that could kill earth just a couple of kilometers accross?
Anyway excluding it is sizeist. Can't have that. If you are going to classify keep it simple. Object larger then a rock orbetting the sun and being close to round. I think that is what most people consider a planet.
So welcome sedna.
"I wonder what is so important that NASA is going to wait until Monday. Maybe they will be unveiling something else at the same time?"
It's the monthly bug-report announcement. "A local root vulnerability has been found in the astrology community. NASA rates it as non-critical"
It's known for that Torvalds kid that worked there
I have seen bubbles moving down at the edges of my Guinness. This latest "discovery" seems to be common sense to me, and is exactly how I have explained the phenomenem to other drinkers down the pub.
Shame I wasn't paid to do my "research", and that no-one would have listened to me because I didn't have a 750-frame-per-second video camera.
Now, this story would have been really interesting if it had a link to the videos of it happening 'cause it really is a sight to behold!
If I had any doubts that MS is helping OSS and slowly erasing itself, it is now clearing:-) Jokes aside, this will seriously affect businesses that have paid for their upgrade licenses, as the licenses will expire before the sql server is released. This will make decision makers view Open Source in a new light. Atleast, in Open Source you don't pay for future vaporware in the present.
In Russia, chances give you a.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
At CES, they had one, and it was absolutely dwarfed by my Nokia 6360 phone. Take a look:
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=13578
While the phone is a 'big' one the laptop was thinner, and it weighed nothing. Very cool.
These ultra-light models don't click until you hold one, but when you do, you look at the standard ultra-lights and wonder how people use them.
-Charlie
I'm Rick James, BITCH!
Come on, editors- this is news? We have already researched laser technology, so SDI defense is available. It should only take 2 or 3 turns to equip all of our cities with this technology.
http://almostsmart.com
Zelenshchikov said Energiya engineers were also working on a huge spaceship for a flight to Mars, set to weigh 660 tons, the Interfax news agency reporte
660 tons? Wow. That's a lot of hard currency at work there. You think maybe the Chinese have put a back-order in for a ship to beat the US to the red planet?
But will it keep all those GNAA posts out of slashdot? ;)
First off, I was really pissed off at NASA and the media outlets for the scant coverage of the mission results concerning water on mars. All we got was a 4 minute introduction and one panelist into the release and it was back to the CNN/FOX 30 minute cycle of endless Pro-Bush news bits and Iraq coverage. Luckily, I have the NASA TV channel on satellite, so I was able to flip over -- but for the >95% of americans without NASA tv, they missed out on an hour's worth of enlightening details of Mars, straight from scientists and not tabloid writers with no understanding of science.
Now, this release isn't even going to be televised. The only initial outlet is a conference call for reporters only.
I'm ashamed of NASA and I am ashamed of our media coverage of science. When I was a kid, every space shuttle launch was televised. Taking 10-30 minutes of time out of my day to watch the occasional launch helped inspire me to think above the quagmire I was born into, to know there was something greater. Kids today get MTV and 24 hour news spin channels in 30 minute loops.
But hey, at least they get a nice, fast Internet and ~225 national channels of garbage via satellite.
Would you really want to be the guy using it the 25th time?
-- If it aint broke, fix it till it is. --
Out of the 14 people who have been killed inflight in Spacecraft, all 14 died in Shuttle accidents.
The shuttle program is expensive. And, with Mars missions also on the horizon, it is high time we considered a replacement for both the Shuttle and the Soyuz. Otherwise, space may just become the final frontier, in more than one way.
Indefinitely Detained US Citizen
Just like *most* plumbers or electricians, shouldn't there be license granted by the state or other civic government for in-home techs? I say ABSOLUTELY!
Consider the case where a so-called digitician shows up at grandma's house, does essentially nothing, and gets paid, then grandma, or her linux-loading, do-gooder grandson, should be able to file a grievence to have their license revoked.
Overall, there should be some type of code enforcement.(pun!=intended).
it can't help but be buyassed? not unlike the moon/mars/bars shot.
consult with/trust in yOUR creators.... get ready to witness the disempowerment of unprecedented evile.
Ok, everybody seems to knocking LilyPond so far, so I thought I'd put out my initial opinion. I've been learning LaTeX recently, and in spite of the waves of horror you feel the first time you look at it, it is actually extremely good at what it does. Revelation, I know, but the point is it ISN'T made for high schoolers writing their history reports. Same thing with LilyPond here. It doesn't look easy, but then, typesetting music isn't easy. LilyPond and LaTeX are an order of magnitude less complex, even if the coefficient is higher than, say, MS Word or Finale. I know I would die if I had to write a book in Word. :) I thought, "If someone did it for typesetting, can't it be done for music?"
Also note that this is not intended to be a replacement for Finale, but rather an entirely different way of getting the job done. They've taken to engraving what TeX took to typesetting.
The coolest thing about this project to me is that I was wondering earlier if anything existed.
the prices are:
You get 5 tracks for $6.99 and $1 per each track after 5. With your CD you get a custom designed cardboard package with user designed 4 color insert) plus a four color image (and your CD title) printed on the CD itself (no sharpies used here).
Here's a company with many thousands of employees, more money than God, and a dominant position in almost every market segment they're in. And they STILL can't write secure code OR meet most of their delivery deadlines (deadlines which they set themselves, not ones that were imposed on them).
Meanwhile, the groups that produce products like MySQL and PostgreSQL have had steady releases, a wealth of needed features, and relatively few security incidents.
Unless you're already so heavily bought in to their infrastructure that any change would be prohibitively expensive, I can't see how it makes any sense to base your business on Microsoft's products. They're expensive, they're insecure, they're performance laggards, and you just can't rely on them for support.
Cheers,
Guess flexible wiring is more pleasant to be strapped into than a squid or a cuttlefish, though I doubt it'd be as fast. Cephalopods have very fast nervous systems, they're lightning quick partly as a result.
WHy don't they use that?
"This one time, at band camp... I got a BJ from a trumpet playing robot!"
sorry...
After all, Legolas's antics were not far off....
I'm not sure it's that simple. There are tons more regulations that manufacrurers must meet today - from safety regulations to pollution measures. Throwing a 440ci engine with a four barrel carb into a light car simply isn't possible anymore.
How many missions have the Russians launched with 7 people on board? How many manned space missions have they made? And how many trips to the moon have Russian cosmonauts made?
Seriously, how many legal car repair shops do you think there are? A million is most likely a conservative figure. The car computer legislation is happening because there are a lot of people in the car repair business, and have been in the car repair business for generations. But, suddenly (last few years) they've been unable to fix cars because they don't know the secret codes for the cars' computers.
This isn't "I want everything, like MP3s and DVDs, for free". This is "I want to fsck-ing survive here.
get fine people like these to help them.
"How many companies these days are willing to drop money into some technology that may not turn a profit for many years?"
The kind that is already doing very well financially and wants to solidify a reputation of innovation. Similar to Microsoft's $1 billion donation to Africa.
Why doesn't Apple get any heat for including iTunes, iMovie, iDVD, QuickTime, Safari, etc?
Because Apple doesn't control 90+ percent of the desktop. Because Apple isn't trying to leverage an OS monopoly into other market segments. Because Apple doesn't have a history of trying to "cut off the oxygen supply" to their competitors through use of monopoly.
"It's based on the idea of what goes up has to come down. In this case, the bubbles go up more easily in the center...than on the sides because of drag from the walls."
Is it just me, or is anyone else reminded of their sex education lessons?
I have no idea why they called it a "bubble" though.
The ship date news had already been reported by Mary Jo Foley, The reporter of Microsoft news, on the 10th.
1 54 6601,00.asp
http://www.microsoft-watch.com/article2/0,1995,
Steven
Gads, I've had my hotmail account since before Microsoft bought them. It makes a useful account to hand out on Usenet posts, Slashdot or on web pages--I can quickly give any emailer a real address for contact--mainly it's a spamtrap. But I would never ever depend on it for email or cry if it died.
The article states that Starbucks is working in conjunction with Hear Music. I know that in Chicago, there is (or was, havent been there in awhile) a Starbucks that had a Hear Music CD store next door. The two stores were connected, and you could bring your coffee in with you while you browsed for CDs and listened to music at the listening stations. Sounds like this is just a natural extension of that. And I think its a great idea. I'm not too optomistic about getting one in Pittsburgh, however, where the only common record store chain (NRM) is long since gone and bankrupt and a Virgin Megastore or even a Tower Records has never touched the shores of the Mon River. But I digress.
If I were the dictator, MS would be forced to document the file formats it is using (including all WMV formats, of course), all network protocols, and to provide sufficient NTFS documentation so that I can finally can mount/dev/hda2 with read-write soonish.
I can think of a LOT of reasons.
Such as...?
The first thing that comes to my mind is that while Russia is now a democracy, they are still communist. Ronald Reagan must be rolling over in his... oh, he is still technically alive? Crap.
24 beers in a case, 24 hours in a day. Coincidence? I think not!
<sarcasm>
because they're obviously commies.
and everyone knows america is the bestest, smartest, and coolest place around.
</sarcasm>
Here's the text.
MOSCOW, Russia (AP) -- Russian designers are working on a replacement for the veteran Soyuz spacecraft, the mainstay of the nation's space program since the 1960s, officials said Friday.
The new spacecraft, called the Clipper, will hold a crew of six compared to Soyuz's three. It will have a takeoff weight of 16 tons -- more than twice its predecessor, Nikolai Bryukhanov, deputy chief designer at the RKK Energiya company, told the ITAR-Tass news agency.
Unlike the Soyuz, which can only be used once, the Clipper will be reusable and capable of making up to 25 flights, Bryukhanov said.
The new spacecraft also will be more comfortable, significantly reducing G-forces on the crew during re-entry in comparison with the Soyuz, he added.
Energiya can build the Clipper in five years if it receives sufficient government funding, said the company's vice president, Nikolai Zelenshchikov.
Russian Soyuz and Progress spacecraft have served as the only link to the international space station since the U.S. space shuttle fleet was grounded following the breakup of the Columbia during its return to Earth in February 2003.
Zelenshchikov said Energiya engineers were also working on a huge spaceship for a flight to Mars, set to weigh 660 tons, the Interfax news agency reported.
Ahh !! Typical US arrogance.
NIH syndrome.
The world makes far better things than US. Please remember that!
...it looks like a giant pencil.
As much as NASA would like to send some much needed $$$ to the Russian space agency, they're banned by non-proliferation restrictions. The same reason NASA was unable to spend any money to help fund ISS hardware. NASA had to trade things with the Europeans so *they* could pay the Russians.
It sure would be nice if people would be a little more educated before they made stupid comments.
660 tons? Wow.
No kidding. According to some rough calculations I did, it's about five times the mass of Mir. Now that is a spacecraft. I hope they get the funding to build it.
"...always new atoms but always doing the same dance, remembering what the dance was yesterday." -Richard Feynman
You just don't get it, do you?
Let me spell it out for you: we are the good guys.
As long as you don't live by the Constitution that guarantees freedom of speech, freedom from oppression and free practise of religion you are not one of the good guys. This makes your point about China, North Korea, Norway and Australia a moot point.
First the obsession with Clinton's sex-life and now you're after Kerry's language (F-words on his website and now this)? Who gives a shit?
We're we're electing a president not a saint or a priest.
OK, if it is designed to be used 25 times...I sure wouldn't want to be on flight 25.
What do you mean?
We've always known about the Planet X.
It is you sceptics and scientists with shallow, materialistic minds who are truly ignorant.
Any reason behind this thought, or is it just because Reagan is still the left's favorite target? They have mostly a market economy, not a great one but growing. Most importantly, the people in Russia and the former soviet bloc (E Germany, Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic) are free of the brutal rule they lived under for 50 so many years. While I wouldn't credit Reagan with freeing those people, his policies did help.
Wait so CNN says that Interfax reports that Zelenshchikov said that engineers are working on a huge spaceship? They probably are, but this presentation of it just amusses me.
-Arn out
I've seen a lot of figures that show how the space race in the 60's helped grow the economy here. Personally I think we should take the time to help ourselves. If we don't and we all starve to death, you can be sure that no one is going to help us.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
I think the U.S. is a little suspicious of a government that is only a dozen or so years old, a technology base that basically copies others, and an ecomonic base that almost always needs bailing out.
NASA may have lost more people in the space race (numerically) than the Russians, but we've always felt our basic safety standards were a lot higher.
And on the conspiracy theory side, there are those who think the Russians have lost many more cosmonauts than they're letting on they have.
I say we let private industry get into the fray, see what they can build...
A nice picture and more information on the plan are in astronautix.com.
The 14.5 tonne reusable lifting body would be used as a space station ferry and lifeboat, or could operate independently to shuttle tourists to space.
This is mainly based on proven technology, so there is a chance it may actually be built. Space tourism is also getting quite hot lately. They are planning to use another Russian designed spacecraft.
Auferre trucidare rapere falsis nominibus imperium, atque ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant.
Who went there on Russian spacecraft. I am not talking about who is in space. I am talking about who sends them there. Now who's the troll?
Indefinitely Detained US Citizen
Their ground record isn't so great either. The disaster at Baikonur in 1960 killed at least 165 people. So I guess they don't really have a better safety record.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
1971 eh? The other occasion being Soyuz 1 in 1967...
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.
"Kinda like the ISS did?"
Too bad the ladies don't think of it the same way...
"why doesn't NASA give the Russians a chance?"
:)
Very simple - Americans will never admit that Russians did something Americans failed to do.
That's one of the key issues of American public image - supernatural allmighty overdemocratic divine beings. If they can not do something - no one shall!
The Russians are a smart people, they are the only country that are flying( Yeah China are flying but 1 flight ) and have contuined no matter what the public think of them or what weather condictions are like.. -40oC and a snow storms had not stop the Soyuz from being launched in to orbit. The country has always lacked the funding for its space program, they have beaten all other countrys in a number of races ( frist satellite, animal, man and woman. ) also they are the only country to have a long term presence in space, the Mir space station comes to mind. I beleave that they have proved themselves over the years. I am not saying they should revice full funding from NASA or anyother country.. but certnely a few bucks in the right direction would help, even to a design stage.
To per it in perspective, the statue of liberty is 225 tons I believe. The best argument for lunar orbit recovery was the amount of fuel required would blow up the cape if there was an accident.
The Saturn I's empty weight is about 85 tons, about 650 tons fueled... with a payload capasity of 120 tons into earth orbit, 45 tons to the moon.
While I'm all for a Mars mission... I'd rather that such a launch vehicel were to rendezvous with a space station, tank up, then launch.
There is no sanctuary. There is no sanctuary. SHUT UP! There is no shut up. There is no shut up.
tell the government where their money should go? It's not related to Energiya, or whatever, just a general thought. I'd happily contribute $1K out of my yearly taxes to space exploration. It's a much wiser investment than $500 (average among tax paying americans) I indirectly spent last year on Iraq war.
Imagine what kind of amazing technology could NASA put out if they were getting $100B budget each year. We'd be all over the place in Solar system already and shuttle would be the most reliable thing in the world. Of course they will fail if you run them for decades!
Because NASA will probably be busy developing their own Crew Exploration Vehicle. I think that a partnership between ESA and Russia could work out well in this case. It will help the russians build a new spaceship, and it might help speed up ESA's Aurora programme.
Actually, Russian treasury is relatively full of money, and they had positive budget for several years. That is, in fact, not very good (limits investments), and the new government is being assembled now that knows how to spend. The previous government was stuffed with ex-bankers who, from all arithmetics, only knew how to add and multiply :-) These bankers fixed the economy, and now it's time to use that money. Space is as good technology investment as any, if not better (because it affects many areas of science at once.)
Regarding the generalizations for strength/weaknesses in Russian and American aerospace products, particularly aircraft:
Russian airframes, landing gear, gearboxes... built tought to work in shitty conditions.
Russian turbojets, great while they work, but need to be rebuilt every few hundred flight hours.
Russian avionics/radar: relatively primitive and prone to crapping out.
American airframes: finely engineered and can take a licking. Landing gear: engineered for whatever a particular design's expected environment, pick one: candy-ass smooth USAF tarmac, a carrier deck, dirt strip.
American engines: reliable, last long time, 1000's hours between rebuilds.
American avionics/radar: used to crap out regularly, even if not as often as Russian... until Hughes and Westinghouse got their digital h/w worked out in the 80's, now tough as nuts and runs for weeks w/o swapping out.
Just as an example, ask the Royal Malaysian Air Force. They fly F-18 and MiG-29. Sure, the 29's were about a quarter the price of the 18's, but it's the 18's that are flight-ready almost 24x7.
Luke, help me take this mask off
How many of you are actually involved in the space business? How is that you know certain things about this and that with such a total confidence? Easy! And to the Americans in the forum - you are not so great, because if you were, you would clearly see the advantages of outsourcing - the others do the job, you - innovate. But you cannot, can you? What is the percentage of foreign scientists contributing to the "American" science? Scientific way of thinking is an irregularity and is naturally distributed, means you, being a power must encourage such irregularities everywhere else. Cheers, slashdot. I better dash..
Such a mass can be trivially [now] assembled from many pieces sent up separately. And the spacecraft, once launched and assembled, will stay up there forever (as long as you care to maintain it), and can travel wherever you want, as long as it has enough fuel (which you are free to send up from Earth, or gather anywhere else, technology permitting.)
Well I'd hate to be on the crew for mission 25. "Hey guys, this is the last mission before your ship wears out and has to be scrapped! Who wants to fly her one last time?" No thanks, I'll take one with fewer miles on the clock!
Why would they design something which has to be 100% safe and say it will only last 25 times?
Watch my YouTube atheist video blog (user NickGisburne2000) for arguments against religion
Unfortunatly, I think the US, Russia, China and India are all going to get tied up in a "Vaporware" space race. That is the country that can draw the best plans and PR will win.
I have no faith that manned space flight will ever get passed LEO in my lifetime
Sure. But also keep in mind that Soyuz spacecraft have always been a part of the overall strategy for the ISS. Without Russian craft, the NASA administration would have to cross their fingers and take the risks needed to bring home their people (whether the ISS would have been re-manned would be in question). As it is, they can fall back on their international partners. Who, incidently, are currently orbiting in a structure funded and built primarily by NASA.
Such a mass can be trivially [now] assembled from many pieces sent up separately. And the spacecraft, once launched and assembled, will stay up there forever (as long as you care to maintain it), and can travel wherever you want, as long as it has enough fuel (which you are free to send up from Earth, or gather anywhere else, technology permitting.)
There is wisdom here. I'd still say it would be a wise move to focus on putting fuel into orbit rather then a space craft. The spacecraft is a trivial mass in contrast with the fuel required.
Someone wiser in this field then my self would have to answer the question about how long one can expect let's say a fully fueled rocket engine to safely spend time in orbit without the seals going bust. This is why I would think that storage only solution would be wiser.
There is no sanctuary. There is no sanctuary. SHUT UP! There is no shut up. There is no shut up.
Just like a bridge engineer would design a bridge for 30 tons and rate it for loads up to 20 tons.
The owls are not what they seem
More likely the Indians - India and Russia are supposed to have had strong technical ties from pre-cold war era, not to mention that they have collaborated on research on cryogenic technology.
Or yet, think of an Indo-Sino-Russian collaboration - although its unlikely given that China and India are loggerheads (because China supports Pakistan).
Makes one wonder, hmmm.
www.astronautix.com has a good description of the design with a cut-a-way drawing. It's a great web site.
I would not be too concerned about seals. In low-G environment, and with low thrust, you get very low acceleration - and low vibration. Your washing machine probably has more stress on its pipes than a zero-G rocket engine.
A properly constructed rocket engine, which stays at 50-100K all the time, will be fine for many years. Satellites also have small engines for orbit correction, and they seem to be OK. All modern rockets (incl. Shuttle) have cryogenic fuel, experience thermal shock of 300 degrees C during fueling, and still work fine.
A U.S. law known as the Iran Nonproliferation Act prohibits NASA from making cash payments to the Russians unless the president certifies to Congress that Russia is not providing missile or other sensitive technology to other countries(=Iran).
Here's an interesting article on Russian Space Dogs
and some interesting facts? about the Russian Space Program.
Perhaps the answer is for the Russians to suggest that the program should take place on a site close to continental US, perhaps on an island where there is already a large US military base. Yes, that's it. Fund the program, do the work on Cuba.
Panurge has posted for the last time. Thanks for the positive moderations.
Assuming 1 ton = 2000 pounds, the orbiter for the NASA shuttle weighs in at 47.5 tons.
The lift-off weight (standard maximum payload) is 2219.6 tons.
Mir was around 135 tons.
The International Space Station is about 450 tons.
The big question, though, isn't the tonnage... it is what makes up that tonnage. That's what I'm waiting to see.
>As long as you don't live by the Constitution that guarantees freedom
>of speech, freedom from oppression and free practise of religion...
too bad the USA doesn't do that...
If you do, try this:
Stare at her until she says "What?!" and then reply "It's not going to suck itself."
Hilarity ensues.
This site - which I highly recommend - may describle something similar to this Mars ship:
http://www.astronautix.com/craft/marpost.htm
To quote a little from this site:
In December 2000 Leonid Gorshkov of RKK Energia proposed a manned Mars orbital expedition as an alternative to Russian participation in the International Space Station. The expedition would also provide the means for reviving Russian ascendancy in space.
The Marpost (Mars Piloted Orbital Station) spacecraft would have a total mass of 400 tonnes and be assembled in low earth orbit from components assembled in four launches of a revived Energia launch vehicle. As in the 1989 Energia Mars design, it would be powered to and from Mars by matrices of hundreds of solar-powered ion thrusters using xenon as propellant.
There are two achievements of particular importance that come to mind as well:
- first probe to enter another planet's atmosphere and return data (Venus) - Venera 4 (1967, USSR)
- first remote-controlled vehicle on another planet (the moon) - Lunokhod 1 (1970, USSR)
Give people an open forum to debate something, and they'll bring a prepared argument and talk about it all day, even if the topic has very little to do with their speil. MOD PARENT DOWN OFFTOPIC! Repost from last week.
Did anyone looking at the Space Adventures website notice the press release stating that they are currently "aggressively seeking a location" to build a spaceport?
Not only does Space Adventures accept cash payments for travel into space, they also allow you to cash in your American Express points for travel!
ESA and RKA did partner up in the early nineties to do exactly that. After the Europeans had shifted their efforts away from Hermes (the European mini-shuttle), the Russians bailed out due to economic concerns and left Europe nowhere.
I can understand why ESA would be a little reluctant to try that stunt again.
Come on, we Brazilians have the most advanced space program ever. While NASA/ESA/etc spends billions of dollars in research to launch five to seven astronauts, we accomplished to launch 21 people into space and beyond. Getting them back is another story.
Dear aunt, let's set so double the killer delete select all
Two (russian budgetary) Words;
Massive money overruns that break ability working goodly.
I'm a concientious
How the FUCK are they going to accelerate something of that size to Mars. You are looking at ~3,500m/s deltaV, assuming it'll be built in orbit and then fired out to mars, and the fuel for pushing that much weight that fast will take up lots of room. You wont be able to do that without designing a new propulsion technology.
TheHustler
http://www.elmarko.org/ - Useless bilge
http://www.asylum-games.co.uk/ - Co-Founder
First off:
Your numbers on deaths in space are bullshit:
Soyuz 1 April 23, 1967 Komarov died during reentry
Soyuz 11 June 30, 1971 Patsayev, Dobrovolsky & Volkov died during descent
Secondly, WHO IS GOING TO FINANCE IT? Russia? Fat chance, russia just doesn't have the money to do ANY development anymore. For over a decade, close to half of Russia's space program has been financed by NASA! Every single module the Russians furnished to ISS was delivered late and only after Nasa coughed up the funding to finish their construction (the later modules were financed in majority with US money).
The only reason Nasa was financing the russians was so that the tons of money they sunk into Freedom/Alpha/RAlpha/ISS would have a result & not end up as a gigantic boondoggle. There is no way in hell that the burocrats at Nasa will allow a signuificant slice of their budget to be siphoned off & no american politician is going to finance russian pork.
Democracy is a sheep and two wolves deciding what to have for lunch. Freedom is a well armed sheep contesting the issue
I would not be too concerned about seals. In low-G environment, and with low thrust, you get very low acceleration - and low vibration. Your washing machine probably has more stress on its pipes than a zero-G rocket engine.
Assuming we are talking seals on a typical H O2 type rocket, wouldn't it be a legit concern for seals having a limited lifespan due to what the tank contains, or just break down over time? After all, while an ion engine would be just spiffy to get to mars and back, I don't think they have quite the thrust to get off the ground.
All modern rockets (incl. Shuttle) have cryogenic fuel, experience thermal shock of 300 degrees C during fueling, and still work fine.
Except the Chalanger, which had issues with the O rings.
There is no sanctuary. There is no sanctuary. SHUT UP! There is no shut up. There is no shut up.
but I am going to try that on the next female I come in contact with.
--
the strongest word is still the word "free"
Since we're all friends now and trust former KGB officers turned quasi-dictators, how bout the Russians give us some of the advanced weapons they've developed since they decided to become friendly members of the world community.
For isntance, how about they give us the new Topol-M road mobile super accurate nuclear missiles that can wobble in flight to avoid ABM systems.
They could give us the supersonic sea skimming nuclear tipped Sunburn missile which does a maneuver before it hits so it can slam into the decks of carriers.
They could give us the docs on how they make their high-speed cavitating torpedoes work.
Or their new Tupelov supersonic bombers.
Or the new Russian Infantry carried fuel air weapons that they used so well in the war in Chechnya.
When NASA first started sending up astronauts, they quickly discovered that ballpoint pens won't work in zero gravity. To combat the problem, NASA scientists spent a decade and $12 billion to develop a pen that writes in zero gravity, upside down, underwater, on almost any surface including glass and at temperatures ranging from below freezing to 300 C.
The Russians used a pencil.
Point well taken. The issue remains, however, how much aggregate time in depot does it take to support a squadron of (in this case) 29's vs. a squadron of 18's. The Russian parts may be cheap, and the rebuild quick, but is it really that great of a deal for the ground crew to be constantly taking aircraft off of flight status to yank one set of engines and drop in another? God help 'em if for some reason the tempo of operations picks up during, say, a war.
Luke, help me take this mask off
Are you related to Dubya?
Ion engine is indeed useless for a planetary launch. However it is kinda possibly OK for a long haul. All depends on what you want to accomplish. It is quite efficient, since its reaction mass is thrown away with a very high speed. But probably it is still too weak for any meaningful flight to Mars. I'd say, H2+O2 would be the best choice, especially if you can refuel on Mars, and because planetary landers can also use this fuel.
Challenger never had a problem with cryogenic pipes. The part that failed was designed for room temperature, and it was used in an engine (solid fuel) that won't be used on an interplanetary craft. Generally, you rarely get a fault where you expect it (and prepare for it.)
Crew of six Russians circumcizes the Earth in 90 minutes in their new craft, "The Clipper." Zero-G vodka and caviar party to follow.
Good thing the Cold War is over, huh? Painful imagery ...
The official site of RS-84 does not mention it but it seems to be true. I saw the announcement in usenet .
The Russians [former Soviets] have the largest flying object in the world - the Antonov-225. I once witnessed its smaller cousin the Antonov-124 land with over 100 SUV size vehicles and extra crago. It was an amazing sight. Even the airport staff who see aircraft of all sizes and types of craft were amazed. This aircraft handled itself and took off in just 90 minutes! For any person who saw the amount of cargo it put on tarmac, they could not believe it. I understand its wheel alone weighed in at more than 180Kg! Russians are amazing people. I also once had them as class mates, but they always produced better and more efficient code even compared to the lecturer's code. I have always respected them. But the problem, they are not good at PR.
Cb..
maybe there should be a part of the UN for international space exploration? Sort of de-couple the use and exploration of space from mega-corpoartions? Well, on second thought, I think it's impossible. There will never be another era of altruistic exploration, as all of the vehicle makers are publicly traded. Where's the profit in funding a Russian corp? Get a grip, folks, it's all about return on investments. Nobody wants science for knowledge, it's science for profit! Maybe the Russians could make an expanded rerun of 20 year old technology, but as long as Wall street doesn't care about it, it ain't gonna happen in any big way. Just a thought...
- God is pretend...
This did not happen. Instead the shuttle became the one and only workhorse of the NASA and was badly funded while its controllers changed from techs to beancouters. Two accidents were the result and while the russians loose at most 3 crew members the americans whipe out 7 at a time.
However there is an other point. Russians are more practical people. Their capsules got escape options. They can eject the capsule from the missle giving them at least a change to escape. Further more the capsule is designed to come down by parachute so possibly they could have recovered from an accident like the first shuttle accident. Fact is that the crew of that shuttle didn't die until they hit the ground. Had the shuttle been fitted with an ejection system they could have had a change. (Kinda like the F111 where the entire cockpit is ejected)
Instead silly enough the americans built themselves a system with no escape and the russians have succesfully used their escape system.
Kinda like some people claim the russian fighter ejection system is currently the best in the world. (At least the claim made in an american documentary on the history of ejection seats).
Anyway the numbers that you mention are silly. Not only because they don't count the number of accidents but also since you seem to believe the russians never lost people in flight but other already pointed that out.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Or by "give them a chance" do you mean "give them a container-ship full of greenbacks collected from American taxpayers?"
A manned mission to mars would take a spaceship weighing at least 300 tons to escape earth orbit to coast to mars. During the moon landing era the Saturn V could put 125 tons in earth orbit and send a 45 ton payload on escape. If the russians are designing a 660 ton spaceship to go to mars that means that, if using conventional chemical propulsion, the payload to orbit would have to weigh about 2000 tons. No one on this planet has the capacity to do this today. Witness the enormous effort to build the space station which weighs 200 tons. Its doable but probably at a cost of about a trillion dollars. Unless their are aliens on mars trying to take us over, it is not going to happen.
why doesn't NASA give the Russians a chance?
Because NASA is primarily another big subsidy program for the miltary-industrial complex of the US. NASA isn't primarily interested in science (e.g. the Hubble). And they're sure as hell not interested giving money to other countries. NASA gets money so they can give it to the large aerospace corporations that line your congressman's pockets.
while Russia is now a democracy, they are still communist
That's a good one; they're actually neither. They're rapidly morphing into the same kind of post-capitalist information oligarchy that everybody else is heading towards, wherein a veneer of democracy and free markets thinly disguises the fact that whoever controls the mass media has all the power.
Consider: China is heading towards free markets and (local) elections but keeps a tight grip on its media. In Italy the media czar is also the president, and brazenly changes laws so as to evade corruption charges. Across the Anglo-Saxon world, virtually all the mass media are in the hands of only a half-dozen moguls, and religiously toe the government line.
This new game is played by smart people, they've all read the sign of the times. It's the post-capitalist feedback loop of money and power: the media shape public opinion, public opinion elects politicians, the politicians decide where the money goes, the money buys control of the media. Welcome to the information society.
Be faithful to your obsessions. Identify them and be faithful to them, let them guide you like a sleepwalker. JG Ballard
If only Koroliev was still alive today...
When I started writing this post, I was going to show how the Russian approach care less about the lives of the astronauts, treating them like expendable components, and thus wasn't suitable for a country like the US that puts more of premium on human life.
Then I did the math.
They've done about twice as many manned launches as we have, but lost only 4 people, while we've lost 14 so far. (Not counting Apollo 1.)
Maybe we should be looking more closely at their approach.
I prefer the slogan "Lick Bush in 04", but this is /. and I think most of the geeks here wouldn't get it.
First, in 1965 the national budget did not include much money for certain programs which have exploded since then (for example, most of the Great Society stuff like Medicare). Comparing fractions of the budget without adjusting for huge changes in the portion of GNP which goes through the government makes any comparison suspect.
Second, the economy is several times as big now as it was then. Is something less important if you allocate 1% of 4*x to it instead of 4% of x?
Third, we have already solved many of the technical and engineering problems required to do the things we want to do in space (I think we should put a permanent population on Mars, others may differ). For instance, we already know how to maintain people in space for months at a time. We know how to handle ultra-cryogens such as liquid hydrogen; we now use them routinely in rocket boosters and other applications. We don't need to spend money to re-invent these wheels.
What NASA really needs is a mission and a reform of its bureaucratic mentality so that it can pursue it properly. It doesn't need more money, it needs to shed the albatross of the enormously expensive and obsolete Shuttle program so that the money can do something more useful than paying for an army of government contractors.
Time is Nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once... the bitch.
I've heard 'as smooth as a baby's ass' before, and 'as sweet as candy', but never 'candy-ass smooth'.
A 'candy ass' is a wimp in rasslin terminology. Is USAF tarmac as smooth as a wimp?!
Or, was it as smooth as an ass... covered in candy? By my reckoning, that would be sticky and potentially smelly, not smooth.
wtf?
why not see if Bill Gates or Paul Allen wish to fund it? Paul is currently funding Burt Rutan's X-Prize effort.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Why not use Russian developments? Something called "a design" would be one reason. They build a laundry list of thing they need cramed into a round tube, then cheap labor comes in and crames.
Want somemore Challenger, or Columbia disasters go right ahead and off-shore it.
Oh how did those pictures from the Beagle2 turn out, you know the UK's mission to mars? Oh, that's right it never made it!
Nasa's doing fine, they need some more money and scientists with bigger bawls! Remember Columbus, set out on a voyage that everyone thaught would lead to his death as he fell off the edge of the earth. Instead he lives on in the history books.
Risk, smisk, the US need to explore is what we should be building not terrorist nations. We should be building our own Aerospace programs not others. We should help Americans, and tell the rest of the world to go take a flying leap.
Well I don't know about you alls, but if we can't do it and be safe, we should just hold off until we can. I would think that a year off of launching shuttles would mean that NASA would have a good chunk of change sitting around for R&D, and there really isn't a time factor involved.
So?
With enough funding, I could build a space program replete with cool toys, too. Heck, give me a bank account large enough and I could have a whole interplanetary space fleet up and running MOO II style in a decade or so!
Can you imagine? If the Earth was set up like one of those resource-strategy games, with one smart person at the helm, the trains would run on time, everybody would be well fed and we have stopped using fossil fuel about thirty years ago.
Ahhh. Sunday mornings. Time for hot coffee, snow gently falling beyond my window, and day dreams. .
-FL
The major difference between Energiya/Buran and Shuttle is the choice of configuration; an Energiya can carry anything within certain size/mass/CG constraints because the cargo is just cargo, while Shuttle can only fly with the Orbiter because the hydrogen engines are attached to it. This does not mean that it would be overly difficult to bolt a bunch of SSME's onto a different airframe so that we could fly 100 tons of cargo instead of 20 tons of cargo inside 80 tons of obsolete spaceplane; on the contrary, putting a new vehicle together would probably be cheaper than keeping the Shuttle program going until 2008.
Could we use Shuttle components to put together a rocket that would launch 660 tons? If we scale from the 3-engine, 100-ton Shuttle we'd need to cluster 20 SSMEs for such a thing. I don't think this is within the realm of practicality, but 200 tons looks fairly reasonable from my relatively in-expert point of view. (Goodness knows what you'd do for the boosters to get the thing off the ground; clustering so many solid rockets would have a very high probability of failure.)
Time is Nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once... the bitch.
Why cant japan with its billions of spare cash, put some $ in russia, its own 2b program is a joke, so why not go in partnership with russia for $20b a year. Bargin... better spent cash than buying US$ in currency markets to make sure the US$ doesnt fall too far compared to the yen ($300b so far).
Unless there is some obscure treaty after WW2 that said Japan can only get help from USA.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
Perhaps thats why it's called the NATIONAL Aeronautics and Space Administration. Sure we've worked with other nations before, seeing as how ISS is basically stuck out there. Should we continue with this? ps: save the Hubble
Get up!
Unpopular as it is to say it -- NASA puts too much of a premium on human lives. This is an unfortunate system that has been produced by any fuckups from NASA reaching the press resulting in NASA losing funding.
So you get situations like the current one, with the Hubble not being taken care of. How many shuttle flights have been made *without* insulation falling off and causing the shuttle to crash? Lots. Pretty decent odds, when you consider the fact that it's pretty certain that there are all kinds of problems that *haven't* been addressed on each flight because they haven't become critical before. Don't get me wrong -- I think that NASA should keep looking for good solutions. But that doesn't mean that everything should be grounded. There's risk inherent in everything, and anyone who wants to be an astronaut has a pretty good idea that he's putting himself in a potentially fatal situation.
That doesn't mean that it's acceptable to start throwing people into shuttles and cover up known problems. But I think that it's a pretty far jump for NASA to start doing that. If an astronaut is willing to go along with a system that might potentially die, I think that should be his call. Heck, in orbit, you have no way of knowing whether you might get whacked by a micrometerorite that will take out your shuttle or your suit when on a spacewalk, and no way to really do anything about it.
I might get hit by a car when I walk across the street tomorrow. I'll do what I can to minimize the risk, but I'm going to take acceptable risks for gains.
I also find it funny that it's entirely acceptable for thousands of people to die in the Middle East to enrich a few rich men, but entirely unacceptable for ten men and women to take a risk that has *always* been present and do something significant for the sake of human knowledge like take care of the Hubble. I mean, where are our priorities?
May we never see th
Uh, because the people who hold the purse strings (congress) don't like the money going to people who don't vote for them.
Mix the failings of Usenet with the shortcomings of the World Wide Web and the result is slashdot.
The previous government was stuffed with ex-bankers who, from all arithmetics, only knew how to add and multiply :-)
<wistful>I wish Our Glorious Leader in the US could at least manage the same...</wistful>
May we never see th
Saturn I wasn't a lunar ship.
The Saturn V's fueled weight was about 3000 tons (6 million pounds).
The only reason we have the rights we have is that people just like us died to gain those rights. -- Cheerio Boy
Grandparent post is making a foolish comparison. It's talking like old folks who go on about how a coke cost 5 cents "back then" but forget that they earned $4 per day.
Blaze a trail to the New World
Some of those are just stunts.
Dual flight? Woman in space?
Spacewalk isn't much of an accomplishment either, no matter whom is doing it.
Furthermore, if you had continued the list, the Russians did very little before us (other than their Venus probes) after that.
Evidently you haven't been paying attention or have forgotten the billions of dollars that were sent to Russia for work they were supposedly doing on the International Space Station. Much of the money basically disappeared. This was a Klinton administration boondoggle run by Algore. Still think its a good idea to involve the Russians?
uhm. I think you forgot to carry the 1.
CSM-107, Columbia/Eagle (CSM+LM), went to the moon with a fueled weight of 63,493 pounds - and that was on a Saturn V whose first stage had 6 times the output of the Saturn I.
kulakovich
Russians, having had more budgetry constraints that the Americans, always had to do things more efficiently than the Americans. And, believe it or not, they have a better safety record.
I hate to be brisk, but this is incorrect - over 100 people died at Tyratam in October of 1960 because they did not offload the fuel from a launch vehicle before making repairs. The explosion and fire were horrible. Everything in a football-field radius was incinerated instantaneously. Very, very sad.
kulakovich
Nasa has no real problem with Russian designs, they recognize that Russia has produced some of the brightest scientist and engineer braniacs in the history of mankind. What scares the crap out of Nasa is the Russian manufacturing processes and materials quality.
Your numbers are all over the place, friend.
also, there were more dead at Leninsk than total Shuttle missions - I have heard as many as 160. Please see previous posting or Google
kulakovich
Excuse me, but "give them a chance"? What is this, the lottery?
How is it 'free trade' if companies ship all the decent jobs overseas, but unfair if someone with an advantage technically/militarily (the US) doesn't want to let others catch up?
Makes a lot of sense.
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
I'm no linguistic expert, so I might be wrong, but "Clipper" doesn't sound very slavic to me. What's the deal, are they naming this thing to market it more effectively to an anglo audience? What's the explanation for the name?
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
Sorry to clue you guys in, but Russia has been using the Soyuz capsules ever since the days when we used the Shuttle, that's right, they are over thirty years old and relatively unchanged. One major problem with the systems that they use is the fact that don't exactly have the best track record either. Look up logs for Soyuz missions and see just how many ended in tragedy. The difference being that they only would lose three cosmonauts at a time, where the US has a bad tendency to lose a shuttle that is fully loaded. That would be seven astronauts for all of you who want to do the math. I am not exactly optimistic about Russia building our next space vehicle. Nor am I excited about Russia being the only method back and forth to the current space station. I say blow the cobwebs out of a couple of Saturn 1Bs and readapt our docking docking module and use it to ferry back and forth.
The whole idea for Energiya of a reusable space capsule is not new. It was infact noted in National geographic in 1986. Look it up, use the term "Buran" for some help. Buran is almost 20 years old, and is just now getting to slashdot, this is a surprise. One of the fascinating things about the project is that the Americans wanted to use it to get pieces of the ISS into space. Funny how that didn't really happen though.
Place something witty here
This all sounds vaugly familiar, does anyone remeber that book that Buzz Aldrin wrote about space exploration? I think the re-usable space craft the built in that story was a combined effort of french american russian and/or british. And there was something about a craft called a "Clipper"??? Wow it's like Buzz saw the future!
Not one person has been killed during a manned Soyuz launch since 1971. I believe the last fatality related to the space program over there was some ground crew when one of their unmanned rockets exploded on the launch pad last year.
I'd take their modern safety record over NASA's any day.
The Russians don't get fancy. They figured out what works and stuck with the same design with only very slight evolution over the decades. That helps eliminate the variables. No foam or O-rings or other nonsense.
Even when things do go wrong like it did with the ballistic descent of the Soyuz coming back from the ISS, it only resulted in minor injury for the capsule crew.
I think it would take quite a dramatic mishap for a Soyuz to actually disintegrate on re-entry the way Columbia did.
Just because NASA sucks, does not mean that russians are better. If we look at the history carefully we will see that every time they suck immeasurably more.
All seven missions took place within a space of just a couple of years. Was there enough time to learn from the previous missions to guide and tune the goals of the later missions?
Don can we state more clearly, for other readers, something I think you are skating over here. With the exception of Jack Schmitt, weren't all the other astronauts in your list military officers?
Correct me if I am mistaken. When I was younger I read a number of biographies of ww2 military figures. And, my impression was that the education provided by the US Service Academies, was basically an engineering degree, with some courses in "military science" and "political science" added on. That was a long time ago. Maybe things are different now? Mind you, those guys all went to school a long time ago too.
Well, Engineers, god bless them, aren't Scientists. And I like the suggestion from Gerard Weinberg, that "any field of study with science in its name probably is not a science". Ted Nelson said that these disciplines are trying to "wrap themselves in the patina of respectability associated with Science". If the LEM was still staffed by test pilots, proving the technology, then, let me suggest, it wasn't truly ready for real science.
We have all helped newbies use computers. So long as someone is spending their energy thinking about the technical details of how to perform a intellectual task, rather then performing that task, they are still a newbie. It is only to the extent that the technical details can be forgotten that real work can get done. I believe this is as true for word processing -- or web exploration -- as it is for moon exploration.
Making the moon effort a race for prestige short-changed the science aspect, reducing it to a mere afterthought.
For the record, I am sure that the Apollo astronauts were all brave men, intelligent, and maybe a lot of fun to share a beer with. I don't mean to be criticizing the astronauts when I say they are not scientists.
> To per it in perspective, the statue of liberty is 225 tons I believe.
To put it in a further perspective, the status is hollow though, so it might be not best example.
Congress is going to have to shit or get off the pot soon. As a result of their budgeting decisions since the Moon program, the US is *this* close to not having *any* manned spaceflight capability. If they chose to have Americans in space for next to no money, they may finally decide that Soyuz (or Soyuz NT ;-)) looks pretty good. Or, they may decide to get out of the biz, and leave manned space flight to a government that gives a damn, like the Chinese.
Luke, help me take this mask off
Let's remember that the Russions almost killed the ISS due to cost overruns and overly optimistic projections. NASA had to bail them out again and again with U.S. taxpayer dollars.
Besides, even if this were feasible (and it isn't) it would be insane for the US to spend US tax dollars on this kind of R&D in another country. If the Russians can do it let them spend their own cash on it and persuade the Russian government to fund it.
Let's remember people that the space program is a gigantic job creation scheme, it takes money from us and uses it to fund jobs and development domestically. When it starts spending that money abroad we're all thoroughly screwed.
The key here is if they can get the funding. The shuttle will be retired in 2010 and with no credible replacement on the horizon...why doesn't NASA give the Russians a chance?"
This might be a better opportunity for the Europeans. They have long had good launch capability but no manned program beyond tagging along on shuttle missions. Russian knowhow with manned spaceflight combined with Europe's Arianne launcher and equatorial launch site would be a strong combination.
Perceived US failures to replace the shuttle were due to the desire to create a single stage to orbit vehicle with similar palyload capacity to the shuttle (X-33/Venture Star) - a tall order. The Bush administration has wisely called for the abandonment of the shuttle philosophy and seeks to build on Apollo's successes more directly. Boeing concepts of the Crew Exploration Vehicle are much more capable than the Russian proposal.
an ill wind that blows no good
Just to add to your point.
Let's compare the AK47 vs. M16. The M16 is more technically advanced than the AK47 but while the American ligher M16s were jamming as soon as they got into some sand the AK47 were still working.
I think the expression was Keep It Simple Stupid!!!
Russia is not a democracy. It's a totalitarian state, where the man (Mr. Putin) has literally all the power. Not only is he a president, he with his allies also controls 60% of the parliament (if I remember correctly), so he can make whatever changes and laws he wishes.
All of the major TV stations are also OWNED by government corporations nowadays.
Media is also basically not allowed to talk about presidential candidates, because they have to treat everybody "equally" (which means that if you write about one candidate, you have to write about all of them, which is impossible).
Putin wasn't even elected by the people at the first place, he was chosen by former president Boris Jeltsin!
It isn't hard to imagine that Putin will make a chance to constitution which allows him to continue his presidency for more than two terms... And when he eventially resings, he will without a doubt pass his presidency to some of his buddies from KGB.
So Russia a democracy? My ass it is.
SSMEs (and their turbo pumps etc etc) are ment to be reused, Energias are not .... that means (I'm sure) that Energias can afford to be a lot cheaper ....
Anybody? Really? You'd prefer anybody no matter how bad they were over Bush? Now THAT is profoundly stupid.
The pathetic part is that you're actually bragging about out here in public. Proud moron, aren't you?
The story told by James Harford (1997), Korelev, Wiley is that the Russians crunched the numbers on the Shuttle being a "reusable" and low-cost "space truck", and they didn't add up, so they figured there was some secret military mission to the thing so they decided they needed one of those things of their own, for whatever it was supposed to be used for when they found out.
That aside, I've looked over their Mars plan recently (Clipper/Mars stuff rolled through sci.space.policy weeks ago), and it looks pretty good conceptually. 660 tons would be Low Earth Orbit departure mass. It is assembled onorbit, like all Russian stations. The system would be built around a GIANT version of the FGB/Baseblock/Zarya line of craft - 70 tons and probably 20-25m for the new baseblock.
The beauty of their plan is that most of it is demonstrated technology. The life support, engines, hull and docking ports are already in use on ISS, formerly Mir and Salyut/Almaz. It would use solar-electric propulsion, demonstrated in numerous com sats, and something based around Soyuz for Mars ascent. The plan is to put a space station of Grand Soviet Style in orbit around Mars - it looks longterm like Mir. Instead of concentrating on something really hard - landing & surviving on Mars - the Energia plan focuses on demonstrated capabilities in a new environment. The craft is to mostly do remote-ops with surface robots (in realtime) with one or two surface excursions (per 2-year crew-mission?). They say the craft would be able to return to Earth if necessary.
IMHO, it actually makes sense to accelerate such a plan - put AresStation1 into construction NOW and worry about the lander on a later flight. Imagine what 10 people working in Mars orbit could accomplish with a fleet of balloons and robot rovers - again, in realtime. Establish the new station, get as much robot horsepower their, then work on reasonable Mars capsules. Basing from Mars orbit instead of the surface has advantages: Phobos and Diemos are nearby, global perspective for science and colony/base site selection, known working environment. Gonna need a personell centrifuge, though.
Their plan can be viewed at Energia Mars Plan. It may look like vaporware, but remember that Energia, of all companies on the planet, has the hardware heritage to actually do it.
-josh
gigantino.tv - Heavy but weighs nothing.
Will NASA allow money to be allocated from the ISS budget to build this? If they do, then maybe they can scrap the Shuttle, not worry about the ISS & pay the Russians to keep it going, and concentrate on pushing boundaries with things like the Hubble, Deep space probes, Manned colonies on Moon, Mars, etc..
But they need to swallow thier pride & allow someone else to do some of the work at a cheaper price..
"You lied to me! There is a Swansea!"
My hope is that a major American aerospace company with sufficent access to capital and technology can joint venture this project with Energia.
A joint project would avoid a lot of nationalistic issues, which probably look pretty stupid when you are floating around in space, and would have better access to technology. This way NASA would have a usable vehicle long before it could design and contract one and probably at a lower cost.
In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.
I'm sure the NASA which put Apollo on the moon could have put together a vehicle built from Shuttle engines at least as fast as the Saturn 1B was cobbled together. If it took 4 years to go to first flight, I'd be surprised. (It would not be flying people, so you could risk a lot more on the first flight. Or you could fly a couple modules and use the balance of the mass-budget to loft a few tons of food and some big honkin' tanks of oxygen and water. If a Shuttle got stuck at the ISS after that, they'd have the supplies to wait for a good long time.)
I doubt it. The biggest liquid motor that I know of that is still in production is the Russian RD-180; as used on the Atlas III it has a thrust of 860 klbs. The SRB has 3.3 million pounds of thrust at sea level, so you'd need approximately four RD-180's to replace one SRB and the 660-ton vehicle would need more than 50 of them. This looks like a recipe for death by complexity. Even if you could build F1's again, you would need about 29 of them to loft that 660-ton vehicle. This calls for another solution.Long ago, someone put forth a proposal for what they called a Big Dumb Booster. The concept was to build tanks out of steel plate, fill them with diesel oil fuel and nitric acid oxidizer, and pressurize them with steam (no turbopumps). The affair would have been built in a shipyard rather than an aerospace factory, launched from the ocean and recovered by impact into the water (I have no idea how it was supposed to avoid damage from this). No turbopumps means no pumps to fail; if I am not mistaken the combination of nitric acid and diesel will self-ignite (or you spike the first slug of fuel with UDMH, I'm not sure which), so you just open the valves and go. The simplicity of the affair makes it look like it would scale very well. If you were seriously going to make a booster to put 660 tons into LEO, this sounds about like the ticket for the first stage; they would be too dumb to fail easily and cheap enough that you could afford to lose (or discard) them regularly.
Doing a quick Google search for "big dumb booster" I found this history which happens to mention the 550-ton-to-orbit Sea Dragon. I can't seem to find any reference to the concept I remember, so I might have it wrong.
Time is Nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once... the bitch.
Let's tell the government toadies and rent-seekers to fuck off and see what that money will buy when we apply all of it to the goals we really want. I'm sure that those of us who actually care about space would be thrilled by the answer.
Time is Nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once... the bitch.
Eventhough the cold war is long over it looks like some people at the Kremlin still want to match the White House for irresponsible spending. There are many worthy things for *people* sorely lacking funds in the US while Bush has had one of the biggest budget deficits of all time....AND he wants to build moon bases, missions to mars. Not to be outdone, Putin, who can't get a flagship submarine to launch a missle during a high profile photo-op.......with Russia in *tatters* is deciding to build a reusable space capsule? Last I heard the Russian space program was financing itself by giving joy rides to rich Americans. No wonder Bush and Putin get along. They have no concept of basic fiscal management.
It's an example of "galloping irony" that the Russkies have chosen "Clipper" as the name or their proposed next generation spacecraft. Reason is that we already used that name for a 1/3-scale demo singe-stage-to-orbit vehicle in the 90s. It was called the DC-X or "Delta-Clipper", and it was made by McDonnell-Douglas under the direction of McD VP Pete Conrad, the former astronaut. You can read about it at: http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/x-33/dc- xa.htm
There's also an interesting "first-person" account of the first publicly-viewed flight of this vehicle at:
http://media.armadilloaerospace.com/DCX/
A little later on, when NASA let a contract for a demo vehicle for a replacement for the Shuttle, the contract went to Lockheed-Martin in Marietta, GA. The fact that Bill Clinton needed to win GA in the 1996 election is said not to have anything to do with the fact that Lockheed got the contract, despite the fact that they had a paper vehicle, and McDonnell-Douglas had an already-flying vehicle! The Lockheed-Martin program never did anything but squander our money, and was later cancelled.
Rather than pay the Russians to build their vehicle, we ought to have a crash program to build the next generation version of the DC-X!
The dollar may buy more technology - but at the same time, it buys less materials and labor. Again - you've missed a very important piece in that run of numbers... the comparitive buying power of past and current budgets.
Furthermore, space technology isn't all pushing bits. So while there is a proliferation of microcomputers within the Agency... it doesn't mean anybody is going to be pushing out spacecraft according to Moore's Law.
Not that I mind seeing things like the X-Prize try to prove differently.
Indeed. From the Report:
NASA a change. That change begins with proper support from Congress. And a real budget.
I'd rather spend $100K on a NASA screwdriver than on another super-heavy bunker buster. Hard to argue with this one, eh?
I think the key difference between Russian and American engineering is what they consider acceptable risk. Just like in investing, each one has a risk threshold that they are confortable with and design for. The greater your risk, the more you can accomplish with limited resources when things go well. When things don't go well, your loses are greater.
Even when things do go wrong like it did with the ballistic descent of the Soyuz coming back from the ISS, it only resulted in minor injury for the capsule crew.
A lot of the deaths in the Soviet space program were not publicised. I saw a documentary that mentioned a rocket blowing up during a PR event that killed over 100 people, many civilian. Just because you don't see it on the front page of USA Today doesn't mean it didn't happen.
Vote in November. You won't regret it.
The link you provide is exactly the accident I was referring to. You substantiated my statement for me. The fact that it happened in 1960 is irrelevant, because the post I originally replied to was trying to say that the Russians were somehow safer through simplicity, when it is easy to show statistics that show that big rockets are just plain dangerous. Instead of counting from 1971, if the whole history of manned space flight were counted, that one incident in 1960 makes up for all Space Shuttle and Apollo accidents easily.
Vote in November. You won't regret it.
And yes, it is POKET CAEHC!
GS