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EU and Russia Show Off New Lunar Spacecraft Design
schliz writes "Space flight planners have unveiled a new spaceship design for a joint EU/Russian trip to the Moon. The EU will be building the crew capsule, using technology developed for the automatic cargo system used to supply the International Space Station." First one to link to decent pics (the article has none) wins undying gratitude and a warm feeling inside.
your liter.
Interestingly, from TFA it sounds like they will NOT use the separate landing craft approach of Apollo.
If the U.S. Government still has the balls for it. Personally I am not so sure, though I am not quite sure where they lost them.
Here
"Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right" - Salvor Hardin
I'll just settle for the warm feeling, thanks. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/spl/hi/pop_ups/08/sci_nat_enl_1216739410/html/1.stm
"...The EU will be building the crew capsule, using technology developed for the automatic cargo system used to supply the International Space Station..."
I thought it is important for Slashdotters to know that when it comes to automatic docking of spacecraft in outer space, Russians have been doing this for decades without much fan fare!
I just do not understand why we in the west always appear to get "full of it" when it comes to technology issues. Why?
Even when we 100% relied on the Russian Soyuz technology not many years ago, this fact did not capture headlines in Russia. If it were the other way round, I am sure CNN, ABC and FOX would inundate us with the story as if nothing else mattered.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7519723.stm
Oh, and Dvorak. Dvorak lets your free mind out. Your atheist mind. Your mind that happens to be completely, mindlessly, and utterly incomprehensibly in love, in deep utter love, with your wife (you being the eunuch). EU and Russia may be planning a trip to the freaking moon. You are planning a trip to nothingness with the wife. To anywhere. As an artificial being. A self. Made not of DNA...
I haven't kept up with the finer details of NASA's moonbase plan. Is it meant to be a joint international project with several countries having independant means to reach it? If not it does seem rather odd for ESA to want to develop this, although I can imagine Russia wanting to play its part in another space race.
Well, large joint missions to space tend to inspire unity in disparate peoples. I think it's great that East and West are working with one another to see the moon again. And I was thinking that we in America really need to rethink our economic system to work when we're all just getting what we need, rather than what we want. Really, even with prices rising, everything is as cheap if not cheaper than it's ever been in history. And not just in America but world-wide. A family of four can eat like kings in America for under $200 a month, which is only 11 percent of their annual income (at the povery line, 20,500).
We could easily go to the moon again. Things cost much less than the estimates when people actually care. That's the thing about the past 30 years, and especially the past decade in America. We all knew that we were going to work and really producing nothing meaningful. Perhaps we might do some sort of creative service, but were we really fulfilling any useful cause? NO! And it was all for selfish reasons. A COLLECTIVE goal, like space travel, inspires people to do more work than what they are paid for. That means more productivity and a lower overall cost for the same work.
In fact, why not OPEN SOURCE the entire lunar thing to colleges and universities, high schools, geeks everywhere. Using version control systems you could allow everyone to put in a patch, and of course it would all be reviewed before anythign was built but why not? The real problem with space travel in America is NASA, because they are so convinced they are the only people who know how to do it. But guess what, it's all old military people mostly (there's some good science, I'm not going to deny that) in the administration, a vestige of the cold war. It's still run like a branch of the military, and the contractors know how to exploit that for maximum profit. What we need is the contractors to ACTUALLY COMPETE, rather than consolidate. We need people to actually care, to bill 10 hours and put in 20, not MILK THE SYSTEM. Actually care about what you're building.
That goes beyond space, to the country itself. It's a radical idea, actually caring. Don't wait for someone else to do it for you. And be persistent.
Cool! Amazing Toys.
I do not think any of these are the circumstance to which I referred, but here are a few examples to back up what I say anyway. I believe one of them refers to the same situation as one of the others, but that still makes 3: http://edition.cnn.com/2001/TECH/space/11/28/failed.docking/index.html http://www.powerset.com/explore/semhtml/Soyuz_33 http://www.powerset.com/explore/semhtml/Soyuz_T-8?query=Soyuz+33 http://english.people.com.cn/200610/28/eng20061028_315800.html I do not know where you got your information, but the fact is that the United States has always had better docking technology than the Soviet Union. In fact, the Soviets have a rather poor record at it.
Looks to me that my food costs have been about 165% what they were last year, and I don't know about you, but most peoples' paychecks are not 65% higher than they were at this time last year.
Not to mention gas prices, and other things as well.
If you call that "as cheap as it has ever been", then if I were you I would pull out my calculator and start re-figuring.
We've been there, and picked up enough rocks to last a while. What else is there to do...?
Until we can build largely self-sustaining colonies and prove them on earth the fuel and resources would be better spent launching probes, satellites, telescopes, etc. - not sending people on moon vacations.
UBU
family of four can eat like kings in America for under $200 a month, which is only 11 percent of their annual income (at the povery line, 20,500).
Eat like kings for under $200 a month!?
That's just over $6 a day for 4 people. No. Fucking. Way.
Let's see you live on $1.60 per day for food. Get back to me on how that works out for ya'.
You can barely buy an apple for $1.60.
I would debunk the rest of your crazy ass bullshit but that sentence alone illustrated just how dellusional you truely are.
// use a pic view smudger here...
Yes, we heard this, but they never returned in quite awhile despite the promise of unprecedented wealth of resources.
Semi-automatic amateur armchair Australian philosopher; conjecture ready at any moment...
Now we can have another source for our funny little comrades...
Semi-automatic amateur armchair Australian philosopher; conjecture ready at any moment...
I hope they install a cannon to shoot frozen monkeynauts at us cuz it's a race now! I mean if they launch at the same time and we're neck and neck, I'm not NASA but I bet there might be some bumping and some scraping and some phaser fire lol.
Google's Super Secret Search Algorithm: SELECT @search_results FROM internet WHERE @search_results = 'good'
Looks like it will not display all html characters after all.
Fact of the matter is, we live in a paradox, we compete for money, but also for technology, and power, it is all a competition. We hurt each other for it and the sense of having everyone work together is the highest ideal that we try to work through laws, but it just isn't the case because certain people want to be "better" than other people by having more material possessions and the social status that accompanies it. Why do we have money that separates us? the same reason we have achievement on xbox360 and trophies on ps3 and why we have different levels of degrees in college. In the end, just look in the mirror, although we do incredible things, we are from a family of monkeys but we are too proud to admit it.
At least they both use metric.
The European Space Agency (ESA) is not the same thing as, or even a part of, the European Union (EU). This iTNews are apparently clueless, and I can't believe that Slashdot fell for it! >-(
Swedish plasma phys. PhD student; MSc EE; knows maths, programming, electronics; finance interest; seeks opportunities
A popular tech website posted news about this a few days ago; there was a lengthy and interesting discussion: here.
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
1989: President (George H.) Bush announces that we're going to Mars by 2020.
2004: President (George W.) Bush announces that we're going to the Moon by 2020. Then to Mars.
2012: Chinese colonists working on the Moon decisively prove that the Apollo moon landings were a hoax by revealing the landing sites to be barren and untouched. Employes of the recently-disbanded NASA have no comments. Chinese claim to the Moon is undisputed.
2014: President (Jeb) Bush announces that the Chinese have agreed to allow us to send one American research crew to their new lunar launch facility, but only if we abandon all remaining manufacturing efforts and surrender the states of Alaska and Hawaii.
2015: To protect the peace of the North American region and avoid the threat of orbital bombardment by Chinese satellite weapons, the United States surrenders all remaining overseas assets to China. The two countries sign a twenty year nonaggression pact. President Bush makes a speech on the matter, noting that "through diplomacy and mutual respect, there shall be peace in our time."
2018: President (Barbara) Bush sadly informs the surviving citizens of the country that the Moon has come to us - the Chinese are dropping asteroid-sized chunks of lunar debris on key population centers. Thirty percent of the population is killed in the first four hours. The Chinese offer to stand down their attacks in exchange for the unconditional surrender of the United States of America.
2025: The last surviving citizen of the United States dies in a forced labor camp on the Moon. The event is celebrated by the People's Republic of Earth as the final victory of the Communist People's Party.
2028: An American finally lands on Mars, although only symbolically. A statue of the final President of the United States, Barbara Bush, is unveiled in the Earth History Museum of the People's Republic of Mars.
http://www.astronautix.com/craft/kliper.htm
And it would be interesting to note that the US stopped the Apollo moon project in the 1970s in part because the Vietnam war was sucking up all their money.
Lol.. I like how the mod system is used to quiet comments that some just don't like. This is about as "off topic" as the one that started the thread and the one it was Replying to.
Oh well, thats what the metamods are for.
http://www.russianspaceweb.com/soyuz_acts_origin.html
"Kill 'em all and let Root sort 'em out"
Sadly, another space related story by someone who is not well versed in the field. First of all, it is not going to be an "EU"/Russian craft. The EU does not have a space program. It's going to be an ESA/Russian craft. ESA membership does not imply EU membership and vice versa.
Second, the europeans will NOT build the crew module, but the service module, which is the part of the whole thing NOT holding the crew.
He who laughs last, thinks slowest.
ESA is not an agency or body of the EU and has non-EU countries such as Switzerland and Norway as members, plus not all EU members are ESA members. So I'm not sure why the article is referring to the EU.
Initial information on the Russian spacecraft was reported on New Scientist in 2005 which includes the ambitious goal of a probes trip to Mars.
"The Clipper, a six-person spacecraft similar to the U.S. space shuttle, is designed to replace the Soyuz and Progress carrier rockets in making regular flights to the International Space Station, and even the Moon and Mars. It will carry two professional astronauts and up to four passengers."
It is said to have an aircraft style hull which is designed as a "Load carrying hull [which] will enable the spaceship to land on any flat ground with a parachute."
Additional pictures can be found on Goolge.
This fact was mentioned in the Wikipedia entry for the Kliper which in turn mentions the Crew Space Transportation System.
Finally somebody will go to the moon. I tired watching some low quality pictures as a proof of some fantasy movie made by Kubrick.
The last warrents more explanations. The DOD wants up their before China gets there. They are already dumping money into spacex and bigelow (Spacex is missing launches, but they are there). My guess is that either Armadillo or Blue origin will join the effort for a lunar transport (I think BO will get the nod due to secrecy). I suspect that Spacex will be given a contract shortly after falcon 9 flies to build the BFR. I would further guess that the initial RD will be done elsewhere perhaps even Kwajalein. These folks will be going there before 2016.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
USA make sci-fi movie forty year gone. Now Russia and France make moon landing real ! Now find no USA junk on moon. Everybody make big laugh ha ha.
You modded down without saying why. What a total putz. At least say why
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I've seen all sorts of people draw pretty pictures of capsules, shuttles, etc. they want to send to the moon, Mars, Alpha Centauri, whatever...at this point wake me up when one is launching. Thank you.
...in bed
As far as larger society is concerned, the cost to produce is pretty much irrelevant. It is the cost of goods at the retail level that matter.
The "distortions in the free market" are largely due to government interference in the free market, not "lack of confidence". The public lacks confidence in it's government policies, which is sad, because if they were allowed to, they could have confidence in a free market instead. Unfortunately, they have not been allowed to.
It's a bit of a far fetched claim - as the EU hasn't unveiled anything. Nor really have the Russians, just more powerpoints that they hope to talk the EU into funding. Someday.
It had a lot to do with the fact that NASA wanted to quit while they were ahead. Apollo XIII scared the crap out of them and they weighed the real possibility that they could actually lose men in a particularly gruesome fashion (having 3 dead men in orbit around the moon for an eternity) vs. just declaring victory and the fulfillment of JFK's vision as a PR point. It is only now coming to light how many close calls they had with every Apollo mission. If they continued, they would have had fatalities, public opinion would have turned against space exploration and NASA would have ceased to exist.
You also have to remember the context of the times with Vietnam, civil rights and Cold War; The space program and Apollo project were the only bright spot. They feard that if that went south there may have been widespread insurrections. There were already mass demeonstrations and rallies that got ugly. Anyone remember Kent state?