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The Darth Vader Blog
miller60 writes "Darth Vader has launched his very own blog: The Darth Side: Memoirs of A Monster, in which the Sith Lord holds forth in posts such as "Christmas on Hoth" and "I Am Surrounded By Idiots." The comments are a hoot as well. The homage appears to be the handiwork of Canadian Matthew Frederick Davis Hemming."
Definitely a slow day - Google stories, Dupes, Kevin Smith's reviews and now this. We won't complain if you don't post stories, may be the wait will be worth a good story.
...separating a slow news day and moronic rampage. With all the dupes and non-stories, readers are lately better off just checking aggregating sites such as daily rotation.
I remember this cool news blog that would post interesting news for nerds.
wouldn't it be cool if it were still around? THAT would be a h00t!
and was taken over volatile world of flaws in the BSD would take about 2 hear you. Also, if However I don't percent of the *BSD rivalry, and we''l wiil not work. And website Third, you
Now AOTS is actually scooping Slashdot instead of just reading it verbatim during the show.
Would take about 2 were co8pouMnded
..allow me to present a quote from Burt Rutan at a recent congressional hearing (please bear with me):
... just about ruined my program," he said, referring his experiences with the office of the FAA's associate administrator for commercial space transportation...'
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'"The process
Virgin Galactic is delaying by a YEAR the start of their sub-orbital service - because of our (U.S.) government's red. Tape.
Yeah, I'm off-topic, but if we want such services to start (and then drop in price as they expand), such that WE can actually get into space, we need to help - by contacting our elected officials and letting them know how we feel.
Watching actors and reading fictional blogs by fictional characters isn't going to help.
For more on this, read: http://www.spacedaily.com/news/spacetravel-05y.ht
Airplanes were not "just for joyrides" - the military began looking into them almost immediately, as just a single example. Phones were not curiousities - they quickly became essential tools for relaying information, being much more efficient than telegraph for relaying information.
SS1 has no applications, except possibly an incredibly limited role for carrying sounding rocket equipment inefficiently, beyond joyrides.
Carmack, as much as I really like the guy, is futzing around in a garage and has no hope of achieving anything even Rutan-level significant. He can't even settle on his propellant combination to use, for YHVH's sake, after years of working on it. It's almost a completely different rocket every six months, and he's using fuels and technologies (like vanes instead of gimballing) that were long rejected for use in large-scale rocketry (and he's been learning why the hard way). Rutan is making joyrides. SpaceShipOne's ilk can never make it to orbit - it's what happens when you make your design around a heavy tank and a low ISP engine in order to save money.
The funny thing is, when people advocate "private" rocketry, they always point to those who have done rather meager accomplishments, and ignore the private companies that have done great, *real* accomplishments. Why is it, for example, that Boeing and Lockheed are ignored? Even though they used government funding, they built a good number of our nation's major rockets. The Pegasus rocket, built by Orbital Sciences, was built entirely with private funding; it is a rocket that actually *does something useful*, and should be heralded by those who seek private rocketry to bring down costs. But they instead ignore it, and instead cheer for those who accomplish almost nothing in terms of technological issues involved in getting to orbit or reducing costs, like Rutan.
My initial point, however, was that Star Wars has nothing to do with real-world access to space, and it was stupid to bring it up in the first place.
Hmmm, then your history texts are different from mine. Regardless.
Pegasus can't launch a human into space (or orbit). Besides, how much does OSC charge for a Pegasus vehicle & launch? What man-rated vehicles do Boeing and Lockheed produce currently? How much do they cost to buy & launch? How often does it happen? How much cheaper and more frequent are these launches now compared to, say, thirty years ago?
Those who you berate as having "rather meager accomplishments" are attempting to break the mold of the ~$125,000/lb cost (lowest right now - Soyuz) of launching a human. Yeah, they are suborbital right now. Yeah, they're climbing a learning curve. Yeah, they're having development problems - like any project.
The Wright Brothers' plane didn't look much like a 747 either.
News for Nerds? Unlike the development of cheap human access to space, Star Wars has nothing to do with Science or engineering. What's stupid again?
space (or orbit)
;) There's a good reason for that.
And right there you display your fundamental lack of knowlege of the difficulty between the two. A person is just a cargo; it is absolutely nothing in comparison to the technical challenges in getting to orbit vs. taking a suborbital trajectory.
how much does OSC charge
To accomplish something (i.e., get to orbit)? A lot more than you'd pay Rutan to accomplish nothing (i.e., suborbital). In general, accomplishing something costs you a lot more tha accomplishing nothing.
What man-rated vehicles do Boeing and Lockheed produce currently
The total US demand for new orbital manned vehicles: zero. The US demand is met. As for the joyride business (i.e., sticking a capsule on top), they're not intested. As for *REAL* space applications, they produce almost everything. Launches are far more frequent than 30 years ago (although somewhat down from the peak in the 90s due to all of the new comsat demand).
~$125,000/lb
You *REALLY* should read before you start to post. The global average is about 25,000$/lb. Soyuz is under 20,000$/lb. The cost to, say, go up to ISS will cost you around 20 million, but it won't vary that much depending on your weight; the cost includes all of the cargo you'll need, including waste return, your training and medical work in Star City (which lasts half a year in some rather expensive facilities), etc.
Yeah, they are suborbital right now.
And with any design even remotely like the current one, always will be - read the link provided in my last post to understand why (I don't want to have to retype it every time someone like you comes along).
The wright brothers plane didn't look much like a 747 either
Who said it did? That doesn't change the fact that the Wright Brothers had already sold their first Military Flyer by 1909. The first bombing run had already occurred by 1911, against a small oasis in Tripoli. The first commerical flight - taking people quickly from one place to another - was in 1910. The airplane had *immediate*, *useful* applications (especially to the military).
And it's completely unapplicable to this situation, because the Wright Brothers were a step *forward* in tech, not backwards. The bloody V2, without the benefit of any modern tech and knowlege, performed better than SS1, and cost 18,000$ per launch (190,000$ in modern dollars - a fraction of SS1's successor's target launch price).
Suborbital is cheap and easy, and shoving, say, a parachuting capsule for some people on top instead of a warhead isn't that much more difficult. Or, you can do the approach easier for a hobby aircraft builder like Rutan and make a "rocketplane", the aerial equivalent to a rocketsled, by using an ubercheap (and thus uber-poor performing) rocket engine instead of a prop or jet engine. Both are very simple mods. Again, I refer you to the aforementioned link to discuss the *real* technological difficulties involved in space travel.
>>And right there you display your fundamental lack of knowlege of the difficulty between the two.
And right here you demonstrate your difficulty in comprehension. I am perfectly well aware of the large differences in effort required between a suborbital hop and orbit (both insertion and re-entry). The point I was making is that Pegasus can do neither with a human.
You were the one singing the praises of Lockheed & Boeing. The discussion was about manned flight into space - orbital or otherwise. They currently do neither.
$20M/human to orbit - that's the current cheapest TCO. That is what is important. That is what must be slashed. From among the ranks of the pioneers you slighted might come the one who does that - it is not likely to come from Lockheed or Boeing. Yes - the first flights are suborbital - but at least they are manned. And they'll develop - if government regulation does not stifle them.
And you miss the point about the Wright Bros. plane - you denigrated the suborbital startup operators for not having achieved much. Give them time. It is a work in progress.
Now if you would back off with the attitude, we could have a much more pleasant discussion. As it is I'll stop here. The floor is yours.
And you keep stating this. Now, demonstrate: What is harder about *manned* spaceflight? We've already established, without contest from you, that suborbital flight is very easy, while orbital flight is very difficult. You are trying to append a new "very difficult" in there: having a manned compartment. Please demonstrate why something that actually makes airplane flights *easier* (having humans on board) is supposed to make rocket flights *harder*, by such a degree that an easy task like suborbital flight becomes even remotely comparable in difficulty to orbital flight.
Basically, you need to argue that designing and building a cockpit that needs to only work for a few minutes compares even remotely to the difficulties of thermal loads, rapid temperature cycling, real rocket engines (i.e., a relevant amount of ISP and the huge number of issues that come with that, and low tank mass), etc. It's nowhere close. Building a pressure vehicle with a joystick, while not something you can do on a weekend, is hardly a challenge for someone who runs an a custom airplane company. Please, please, demonstrate why you feel otherwise.
Also, something you keep refusing to address: the fact that a craft that is SS1-style is completely unscalable, as discussed in the article. Please address it, or concede the point.
it is not likely to come from Lockheed or Boeing
Actually, I discuss that in the referenced article as well - something you apparently have not read. Read it, then get back to this discussion.
you denigrated the suborbital startup operators for not having achieved much
You miss a key detail: I denigrate them for taking a route that *cannot* accomplish much, and is the "cheap and easy, but unscalable" way - something that *real* space companies don't do, for good reason. Read the article.