Sergey: In Soviet Russia, Rocket Detonates You!

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Sergey: In Soviet Russia, Rocket Detonates You!

Posted by timothy on Saturday February 11, 2012 @09:50AM from the alternative-history dept.

theodp writes "'We were all foolish enough to go on this adventure,' Google co-founder Sergey Brin told the assembled Brainiacs at Google's Solve for X event last week, recalling the time he and Google co-founder Larry Page took their Gulfstream on a $100K journey to watch a 2008 Soyuz launch in Baikonur, Kazakhstan. 'If the rocket blows up, we're all dead,' Sergey overheard a Russian guard say. 'It was incredibly close,' Sergey continued. 'We drove in toward this rocket and there were hundreds of people all going the other way. It was really an astonishing sight. If you ever have the opportunity, I highly recommend it. It's really not at all comparable to the American launches that I've seen...because those are like five miles away behind a mountain, and the Russians are not as concerned with safety.' Sergey received film credit for the recently-opened Man on a Mission, a documentary on the Russian Soyuz mission that wound up putting Ultima creator Richard Garriott into orbit (for $30 million) instead of changing the course of Google history."

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Greenhouse gas emissions by ugen · 2012-02-11 09:53 · Score: 0, Offtopic

Am I the only one whose first thought after reading the summary was - "man, that's a ton of greenhouse gas emissions and wasted fossil fuel for a joyride"?
1. Re:Greenhouse gas emissions by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-11 10:09 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  I'm going to go with yes, Mr. Emissions Police.
2. Re:Greenhouse gas emissions by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-11 10:11 · Score: 0, Troll
  
  go hug a tree hippie.
3. Re:Greenhouse gas emissions by rubycodez · 2012-02-11 10:12 · Score: 0
  
  totally negligible compared to fossil consumed each day, doesn't matter one bit
4. Re:Greenhouse gas emissions by Hentes · 2012-02-11 10:12 · Score: 2
  
  Yes, you are.
5. Re:Greenhouse gas emissions by interval1066 · 2012-02-11 10:25 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  Yes. My immediate thought was on the "...the Russians are not as concerned with safety." comment. After 80 years of Stalinism I think I get that.
  
  --
  Python: 'And then suddenly you have a language which says "we're all stuck with whatever the whiniest coder wants".'
6. Re:Greenhouse gas emissions by circletimessquare · 2012-02-11 10:26 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  not if it leads to those with a lot of money to invest more in lift systems, and get us off this planet, so we have no need to rape it anymore. or to discover a new propulsion system as a side effect of the research that can change transportation, something that doesn't pollute the atmosphere or politically destabilize portions of the world
  it's ok to have a conscience. it's not ok to have no imagination
  
  --
  intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
7. Re:Greenhouse gas emissions by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-11 10:39 · Score: 0
  
  Yeah because they are all going up on several thousand tons of diesel fuel. Or its liquid oxygen set on fire (like most rockets of this type)... Creating mostly water. Which is a greenhouse gas but not as much as co2 or methane.
8. Re:Greenhouse gas emissions by tp1024 · 2012-02-11 10:39 · Score: 1
  
  Actually, it's more like a hundred tons of CO2, or just a bit more than a fully fuelled Gulfstream 650. (Per passenger.)
9. Re:Greenhouse gas emissions by K.+S.+Kyosuke · 2012-02-11 10:49 · Score: 1
  
  Am I the only one whose first thought after reading the summary was - "man, that's a ton of greenhouse gas emissions and wasted fossil fuel for a joyride"?
  Yes, but the mileage is unbeatable!
  
  --
  Ezekiel 23:20
10. Re:Greenhouse gas emissions by tp1024 · 2012-02-11 10:52 · Score: 2
  
  Ok, fine. Just use hydrazine - not turning into any greenhouse gases and merely being poisonous for everyone handling the stuff. Combined with the joys of red fuming nitric acid, you can be sure to save the planet that way. Or how about using solid propellants, spraying the environment with Chlorine and hydrochloric acid?
  
  Seriously, the annual oil production of Germany (about 3mio tons and perfectly insignificant in the grant scheme of things) would be enough to put as much stuff into orbit as people put there since 1957 several times over. Kerosine is among the most environmentally friendly rocket fuels out there - especially since hydrogen is usually (~95%) made by simply turning the carbon in methane molecules into CO2, closing your eyes and pretending that the hydrogen that's left is a clean fuel.
11. Re:Greenhouse gas emissions by djlowe · 2012-02-11 10:52 · Score: 2
  
  Am I the only one whose first thought after reading the summary was - "man, that's a ton of greenhouse gas emissions and wasted fossil fuel for a joyride"?
  Well, speaking only for myself, my first thought was "Wow, I wish I could drop $100K on a whim."
  
  Regards,
  
  dj
12. Re:Greenhouse gas emissions by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-11 11:00 · Score: 0
  
  Eh, rockets don't burn fossil fuels..
13. Re:Greenhouse gas emissions by MightyYar · 2012-02-11 11:02 · Score: 1
  
  Yeah, you probably aren't alone.
  But of course, there were also people saying, "They can't fly to Russia from California because the world is FLAT!"
  
  --
  W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
14. Re:Greenhouse gas emissions by Man+On+Pink+Corner · 2012-02-11 11:05 · Score: 1
  
  Pretty much. You'll get over it.
15. Re:Greenhouse gas emissions by dunkelfalke · 2012-02-11 11:13 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  Get your facts straight. USSR has existed for 73 years and despite many people think otherwise, Stalin died in 1953 and Stalinism died with him, thanks to Khrushchev.
  
  --
  "It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
16. Re:Greenhouse gas emissions by flyingsquid · 2012-02-11 11:17 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  The idea that we can either (a) move off of earth, or (b) economically harvest resources from space using anything like our current technology is almost more fantasy than science fiction at this point. Look at the basic structure of that Soyuz rocket: it's a huge metal cylinder, packed full of propellant, with a tiny capsule on the end. To get that capsule just to low Earth orbit (let alone to another planetary body), you are throwing away all that fuel and metal, not to mention all the resources and energy needed to build and launch each rocket.
  And this is unlikely to change, because rockets are a mature technology, like ships and aircraft. Ships haven't gotten all that much faster over the years; modern container ships are only about twice as fast as the last clipper ships, not ten or a hundred or a thousand times as fast. Similarly, a modern commercial airliner isn't radically faster than the first jetliners that flew in the late 1940s, maximum cruise speed of a 777 is about 600 mph, versus around 500 for the first jetliners. And rockets are the same way: the economics of rockets haven't changed radically since WWII when von Braun was lobbing V2s at London. Back then you were throwing away a lot of fuel and metal to launch a small payload, almost 70 years later we're still doing the same, just with bigger rockets. In short, a mature technology. It was extraordinarily expensive to launch stuff on a rocket 70 years ago, and it's still extraordinarily expensive, which suggests it will be extraordinarily expensive 70 years from now. To make space colonization or resource extraction practical, you'd need to increase the efficiency of space travel by multiple orders of magnitude. That's probably impossible with anything that remotely resembles existing rockets; instead if humans ever leave the planet it will require some completely new kind of technology.
17. Re:Greenhouse gas emissions by Man+On+Pink+Corner · 2012-02-11 11:20 · Score: 2
  
  Well, speaking only for myself, my first thought was "Wow, I wish I could drop $100K on a whim."
  Well, start the next Google and you, too, can do that.
  Personally, I'm not exactly concerned about the environmental impact caused by the number of people who can afford to burn $100,000 worth of fuel per day. Notice that the grandparent poster doesn't mention the much worse effects of a billion not-so-Red Chinese who will soon be driving their own cars and SUVs. That's because it wouldn't give him the same eco-hipster "Occupy Earth" street cred as he could get by directing an equivalent amount of criticism at a couple of rich dudes riding around in a Gulfstream.
18. Re:Greenhouse gas emissions by davester666 · 2012-02-11 11:28 · Score: 1
  
  When it was promptly renamed "Khrushchevism".
  
  --
  Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
19. Re:Greenhouse gas emissions by bmo · 2012-02-11 11:34 · Score: 1
  
  Water vapor is the larges greenhouse gas going, in effect and in amount. It literally dwarfs methane and CO2.
  Without water vapor, we'd all freeze to death.
  --
  BMO
20. Re:Greenhouse gas emissions by bmo · 2012-02-11 11:46 · Score: 2, Funny
  
  The F-1 burned 3,945 pounds (1,789 kg) of liquid oxygen and 1,738 pounds (788 kg) of RP-1 each second, generating 1,500,000 pounds-force (6.7 MN) of thrust
  What's RP-1?
  
  RP-1 (alternately, Rocket Propellant-1 or Refined Petroleum-1) is a highly refined form of kerosene outwardly similar to jet fuel, used as a rocket fuel. Although having a lower specific impulse than liquid hydrogen (LH2), RP-1 is cheaper, can be stored at room temperature, is far less of an explosive hazard and is far denser. By volume, RP-1 is significantly more powerful than LH2 and LOX/RP-1 has a much better Isp-density than LOX/LH2. RP-1 also has a fraction of the toxicity and carcinogenic hazards of hydrazine, another room-temperature liquid fuel. Thus, kerosene fuels are more practical for many uses.
  Now shut your pie-hole
  --
  BMO
21. Re:Greenhouse gas emissions by phantomfive · 2012-02-11 11:57 · Score: 1, Insightful
  
  That's what 1 billion other people say, too.
  
  --
  "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
22. Re:Greenhouse gas emissions by flyingsquid · 2012-02-11 12:03 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  And the fact that you have to retort with personal attacks means that you don't really have a good answer to the argument, so you're resorting to shooting the messenger because you don't like the message.
  The aircraft analogy doesn't work. 100 years ago, the idea that high volume air travel was possible wouldn't be that fantastic given what was happening in 1912. The airplane had gone from a short flight of 120 feet at Kitty Hawk in 1903 to the French flying across the English Channel in 1909, a span of only 7 years. And look at what was happening in 1912 according to Wikipedia: you had the founding of major aircraft corporations like Sopwith and Fokker, seaplanes, carrier tests conducted by the U.S. Navy, the first use of aircraft as bombers. On the engineering end of things, they had gone from the Wright Brother's first use of the wind tunnel to the development of Prandtl's lifting-line theory and theories of supersonic flow. In short, in 1912, aircraft were nowhere near a mature technology. Over the past 50 years, however, the pace of change has slowed dramatically. Rockets show the same pattern: an initial rapid rate of change in the technology's capabilities and efficiency, followed by a longer period of much slower change as the technology runs up against basic limits imposed by materials and physics.
23. Re:Greenhouse gas emissions by siride · 2012-02-11 12:10 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  Dude, it isn't cheap easy pessimism. Travelling around the planet, like we've done for thousands of years, but faster isn't nearly as big a deal as going into space, where everything is hostile to human life and there is no deserted jungle island out there that you can survive on if your plane crashes. The problems of space travel are considerably larger than anything we've faced before and will take considerably more resources and a concerted, well-thought out planning step. We can't just throw some men on a boat and have them survive when they arrive and along the way. We have to plan every detail, plan for every conceivable error and failure step and build very precise machinery using the best technology of the day. Sure, we can do it, but it'll be extremely expensive, very dangerous and unlikely to yield anything more useful than bragging rights.
24. Re:Greenhouse gas emissions by jamstar7 · 2012-02-11 12:11 · Score: 2
  
  And in 1964, that fave of all Russki TV shows came on, "Leave it to Brezhnev" followed immidiately by "Bowling for Food".
  
  --
  Understanding the scope of the problem is the first step on the path to true panic.
25. Re:Greenhouse gas emissions by circletimessquare · 2012-02-11 12:12 · Score: 0
  
  welcome to the internet
  pessimism is cheap and easy, and all around
  
  --
  intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
26. Re:Greenhouse gas emissions by siride · 2012-02-11 12:24 · Score: 2
  
  There was no cheap pessimism before the internet, right? Nothing but unbridled optimism and credulousness, right? Get off it. You're no better than the people you're complaining about.
27. Re:Greenhouse gas emissions by Anthony+Mouse · 2012-02-11 12:28 · Score: 2
  
  That's what 1 billion other people say, too.
  A billion other people don't actually have the money to fly a private jet anywhere.
  And if you try to do something that would cause those billion other people to reduce their oil consumption, like raising the gas tax, they start a lynch mob and accuse you of not caring about poor people and destroying the economy.
28. Re:Greenhouse gas emissions by siride · 2012-02-11 12:30 · Score: 0
  
  Maybe you've forgotten that we've had space technology for 60 some years and none of the amazing things you want us to believe in have come to pass and they've only become more distant the more we've learned about technology and space. The message is not pathetic; you're just an idiot.
29. Re:Greenhouse gas emissions by siride · 2012-02-11 12:31 · Score: 1
  
  Ugh, another human hater. We aren't doing anything different than other life forms on this planet. Unless you think life itself is a virus, then you don't have a point.
30. Re:Greenhouse gas emissions by siride · 2012-02-11 12:33 · Score: 2
  
  Water vapor has different properties, namely that its cycle is a lot shorter and is affected by day to day weather, allowing it to be modulated by shorter term phenomena as well as CO2 and methane. Creating some water out the back of a spaceship is inconsequential, since it will simply rain back out in short order. CO2 doesn't have that property.
31. Re:Greenhouse gas emissions by jamstar7 · 2012-02-11 12:34 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  The cleanest rocket fuel is liquid hydrogen with liquid oxygen as the 'oxydizer'. The reason they use hydrazine is, l-hyd isn't that easy to handle. Fact is, it's a real pain in the ass. You have to store it in a Thermos tank, vented for the boiloff. You can't hope to store it for more than a few hours in a 'fuel tank' on a rocket. Hydrazine can be handled in ambient room temperature, it's already liquid. Saves weight as well on the tankage, you only have to insulate the liquid oxygen. And let's not even go into the problems of cryogenically frozen pump components when dealing with pumping l-hyd. Lox is bad enough, but l-hyd is liquid at -253C thereabouts, almost absolute zero. Materials do strange things at that temperature range...
  
  --
  Understanding the scope of the problem is the first step on the path to true panic.
32. Re:Greenhouse gas emissions by MightyYar · 2012-02-11 12:49 · Score: 2
  
  "Leave it to Brezhnev"
  I like the 4-episode series where he accidentally gets his eyebrows burned off.
  
  --
  W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
33. Re:Greenhouse gas emissions by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-11 12:55 · Score: 0
  
  Yeah, you're just a barrel of positive. Can we hug?
34. Re:Greenhouse gas emissions by Rakishi · 2012-02-11 13:01 · Score: 5, Interesting
  
  The cleanest rocket fuel is liquid hydrogen with liquid oxygen as the 'oxydizer'.
  
  And where does that hydrogen comes from? Magic elves?
  No, as the post you utterly failed to understand already said, it comes from turning Methane into H2 and CO2. Or turning Coal into electricity and then using that to split water. Not very environmentally friendly at all.
  Simply moving the pollution from one place to another is not being more environmentally friendly, it's called being short sighted.
35. Re:Greenhouse gas emissions by sula9876 · 2012-02-11 13:30 · Score: 1
  
  Am I the only one whose first thought after reading the summary was - "man, that's a ton of greenhouse gas emissions and wasted fossil fuel for a joyride"?
  Yep, pretty mutch the only one, everyone else knows that CO2 has no or a very marginal effect on global temperature and that fossilfuels will be replaced with syntetic fuels made from nuclearpower soon. it is not at matter of technology, only a matter of economy.
36. Re:Greenhouse gas emissions by Anthony+Mouse · 2012-02-11 13:31 · Score: 5, Interesting
  
  Ships haven't gotten all that much faster over the years; modern container ships are only about twice as fast as the last clipper ships, not ten or a hundred or a thousand times as fast.
  That's only because nobody cares about making them faster. They already run them slower than their maximum speed intentionally because the primary design consideration for container ships is efficiency, not speed. And if you look at the amount of freight transported per ship and per crew member compared to a clipper ship, I suspect it is in the range of ten to a hundred times more.
  But let's assume you're right:
  
  rockets are a mature technology, like ships and aircraft.
  OK, so don't use rockets. I keep hearing about this magic carbon nanotube space elevator that we'll have Real Soon Now.
  Even if you want to assume that never happens, let's consider another alternative: You pick a proverbial "asteroid the size of Texas" out of the many floating around out there. Find one in the habitable zone. Then you send a team there with some industrial equipment, not to mine the asteroid and bring it home, but to mine it and use the raw materials to construct a large compartmentalized living environment. Start off by building a few dozen acres of greenhouse, and fill it with plants so that you have food and oxygen recycling. Then proceed to build yourself a little home away from home -- but in a place that has lower gravity, so that you can build yourself a space elevator. Create yourself a city in space with a population of a few thousand people.
  That gives you a foothold. You create an industrial city that can export its products to the universe without burning ten thousand gallons of fuel fighting gravity. Then you can branch out. Colonize and mine more asteroids and small planets. Once you have a large enough industrial capacity in low gravity areas, you can build yourself a city-to-go and just land the entire thing piecemeal on a suitable planet. Next thing you know you've got a million people living on Mars and several expeditions on their way to colonizing habitable planets in other planetary systems.
  I'm not saying what I've just laid out would definitely work. Maybe, maybe not. What I'm saying is that we haven't yet exhausted all the possible alternatives, so giving up now is nothing but defeatism.
37. Re:Greenhouse gas emissions by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-11 13:36 · Score: 0
  
  Whoa, wait, it HAS existed for 73 years? I may be wrong but doesn't this imply it still exists? Yikes...
38. Re:Greenhouse gas emissions by phantomfive · 2012-02-11 13:39 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  It all depends on how worried you are about anthropogenic CO2 in the environment. If you are very worried, then space tourism is a *bad* thing, because it releases a lot of CO2, and the more people do it, the more it releases.
  
  If you are not worried about anthropogenic CO2, then increasing the gas tax to stop the increase is a really dumb thing, because it would hurt the economy and poor people for no good reason.
  
  Premises determine conclusions.
  
  --
  "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
39. Re:Greenhouse gas emissions by circletimessquare · 2012-02-11 13:58 · Score: 1
  
  consider what i am responding to
  
  --
  intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
40. Re:Greenhouse gas emissions by DesScorp · 2012-02-11 14:01 · Score: 1, Troll
  
  Get your facts straight. USSR has existed for 73 years and despite many people think otherwise, Stalin died in 1953 and Stalinism died with him, thanks to Khrushchev.
  If you're telling me that after the rule of Brezhnev, Andropov, Chernenko, Putin, Medvedev, and maybe Putin again... that the spirit of autocracy died with Stalin, I suggest you open your eyes. Look at the history of Russia: long periods of harsh rule interspaced with brief periods of liberalization, only to be replaced soon with autocracy again.
  
  --
  Life is hard, and the world is cruel
41. Re:Greenhouse gas emissions by DesScorp · 2012-02-11 14:05 · Score: 2
  
  Yes. My immediate thought was on the "...the Russians are not as concerned with safety."
  But by all means, we should entrust manned launches to them.
  We really, really need to further accelerate devlopment of the Delta Heavy and Atlas Heavy families of rockets, and get them man rated. Stat.
  
  --
  Life is hard, and the world is cruel
42. Re:Greenhouse gas emissions by bmo · 2012-02-11 14:08 · Score: 1
  
  That wasn't the point of my post. The parent declared that Water Vapor isn't as much of a greenhouse gas, when the opposite is true.
  Which is a greenhouse gas but not as much as co2 or methane.
  Water vapor is as much as 72 percent of greenhouse according to Wikipedia.
  Gas Formula Contribution (%) Water vapor H2O 36 - 72 % Carbon dioxide CO2 9 - 26 % Methane CH4 4 - 9 % Ozone O3 3 - 7 %
  Yes, water vapor has a 9 day cycle, but there is so much of it, that CO2, methane, and Ozone are dwarfed in comparison, which the above chart shows.
  And honestly, anyone who has lived out in the desert and then lived out on the humid coast, will tell you that the atmosphere holds a lot more heat at night when it's humid, as opposed to heat radiating directly into space over a dry desert.
  --
  BMO
43. Re:Greenhouse gas emissions by i · 2012-02-11 14:32 · Score: 2
  
  You obviously have no idea of what the Stalin era was about. The bibliography of Yezhov tells a lot: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikolai_Yezhov
  
  --
  Mundus Vult Decipi
44. Re:Greenhouse gas emissions by rubycodez · 2012-02-11 14:50 · Score: 1
  
  really? I liked the later story arc where he get liquored up and goes into the tat parlor and gets the map of the USA tatooed on his forehead. then bribes his mother to say it was "birthmark" . pure genius for the writers
45. Re:Greenhouse gas emissions by rubycodez · 2012-02-11 14:52 · Score: 1
  
  the billion others weren't making notable scientific accomplishments
46. Re:Greenhouse gas emissions by hairyfeet · 2012-02-11 15:29 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  Actually if you read your history, and not just the American propaganda spins on history, then you'd know that for most of his tenure Khrushchev was trying to open things up and be more liberal, with artists and commerce being allowed much more freedom for the majority of his rule, which is why he ended up getting run out on a rail in favor of Brezhnev who was more a classical Soviet style communist which was much more what the old party heads wanted. Of course what followed was a long period of stagnation that was later named the Brezhnev stagnation which lasted for the most part all the way up to the fall of the wall.
  As for TFA it just shows that money can't buy common sense or as we say in the south "Give a billion to white trash and all you get is white trash with a lot of money" or if this case give a ton of money to a dufus and you get a dufus with the money to do really dumb ubernerd things.
  
  --
  ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
47. Re:Greenhouse gas emissions by phantomfive · 2012-02-11 15:54 · Score: 1
  
  If it's a joyride, it's not a notable scientific accomplishment.
  
  --
  "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
48. Re:Greenhouse gas emissions by Johann+Lau · 2012-02-11 15:57 · Score: 1
  
  pah, what a weak strawman. so what was the person I was replying to meaning when they were talking about us raping the planet? how come I "don't have a point", yet you feel the need to refute it with your strawman, not addressing anything I said directly, at all? figures, huh?
49. Re:Greenhouse gas emissions by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-11 16:00 · Score: 0
  
  this is probably the most pathetic comment i've seen today. have fun with your fairy tales, kid, but leave the engineering to the adults.
50. Re:Greenhouse gas emissions by Man+On+Pink+Corner · 2012-02-11 16:13 · Score: 1
  
  So what are you doing right now, besides burning electricity?
51. Re:Greenhouse gas emissions by Man+On+Pink+Corner · 2012-02-11 16:16 · Score: 1
  
  Simply moving the pollution from one place to another is not being more environmentally friendly, it's called being short sighted.
  So I'm assuming you're a big fan of compact fluorescent bulbs.
52. Re:Greenhouse gas emissions by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-11 16:18 · Score: 0
  
  Yow. It will be interesting to keep an eye on CNN, to see what the police eventually drag out of your basement.
53. Re:Greenhouse gas emissions by ugen · 2012-02-11 16:20 · Score: 1
  
  Funny, I meant the private jet ride to view the launch :) But the actual launch will do too :)
54. Re:Greenhouse gas emissions by siride · 2012-02-11 16:27 · Score: 1
  
  Yeah, I see, I was supposed to respond to the GP. Well, pretend that's what I did and maybe you'll feel better.
55. Re:Greenhouse gas emissions by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-11 16:44 · Score: 0
  
  you have not seen this guy's unibrow, it was burning for the first two episodes.
56. Re:Greenhouse gas emissions by phantomfive · 2012-02-11 16:51 · Score: 3, Funny
  
  Ha! Thought you had me, did you? Because you think I'm just sitting on my computer, which burns CO2 for electricity, wasting my time on slashdot. Well I'm also exhaling! So take that!
  
  --
  "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
57. Re:Greenhouse gas emissions by Rakishi · 2012-02-11 17:26 · Score: 1
  
  Since they reduce overall pollution, yes I am.
58. Re:Greenhouse gas emissions by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-11 18:20 · Score: 0
  
  yeah! you tard. Just you wait till we have warp drive then you'll be skiing behind that container ship.
59. Re:Greenhouse gas emissions by TheLink · 2012-02-11 19:02 · Score: 2
  
  Is the Atlas Heavy still going to use russian rocket engines as the Atlas V and Atlas III do?
  --
  
  Too many replies beneath your current threshold
60. Re:Greenhouse gas emissions by ColaMan · 2012-02-11 19:28 · Score: 1
  
  We can't just throw some men on a boat and have them survive when they arrive and along the way. We have to plan every detail, plan for every conceivable error and failure step and build very precise machinery using the best technology of the day. Sure, we can do it, but it'll be extremely expensive, very dangerous and unlikely to yield anything more useful than bragging rights.
  Funny, everything after your first sentence describes early trans-oceanic seafaring exactly.
  
  --
  
  You are in a twisty maze of processor lines, all alike.
  There is a lot of hype here.
61. Re:Greenhouse gas emissions by tibit · 2012-02-11 22:00 · Score: 1
  
  There's nature, and then there's good wishes and optimism. Nature doesn't care about the latter. There's pessimism, then there's being a realist. Chemical rocket technology is going nowhere but where it's been at for the last half century. You want to efficiently travel even within a solar system, you need another technology. That's where there's room for optimism, not where we have all the theory and engineering we need to know that we've hit the limits and that's the end of it.
  
  --
  A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
62. Re:Greenhouse gas emissions by tibit · 2012-02-11 22:02 · Score: 1
  
  It's not about pessimism, you dolt. It's about being realistic. Just because you wish something it won't make it true if what you wish for is not realizable in the universe we live in. Sorry, Nature cannot be fooled.
  
  --
  A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
63. Re:Greenhouse gas emissions by tibit · 2012-02-11 22:06 · Score: 1
  
  Nope. The difference is in the amount of energy needed to go anywhere, but of course it has been left out of the discussion and thus is assumed to be irrelevant. It's not as newsworthy, perhaps -- too bad. The energy expended by the Apollo rockets that got to the moon is probably greater than the total muscle and wind energy used for sailing in the entirety of human history up to say 1500s. All space launches in our history probably expended thermal energy equivalent to all wind, muscle and coal energy used for sailing up to 1850s, by my rather quick napkin calculations...
  
  --
  A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
64. Re:Greenhouse gas emissions by tibit · 2012-02-11 22:08 · Score: 1
  
  It's not about giving up. It's about the reality of chemical rockets. As long as they are the only thing available, we simply don't have chemical energy resources on Earth to move all the people off this rock. End of story.
  
  --
  A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
65. Re:Greenhouse gas emissions by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-12 00:48 · Score: 0
  
  You do realise that comes across as someone who is just jealous they don't have that kind of cash? Your put-downs are just excuses people use when they don't understand where the money comes from and why they don't have any. Just the same as putting others down in any other sense to make yourself feel better. If someone puts in the effort to build a company from the ground up, then I think they've earned the right to spend $100k to go see something they have always wanted to.
66. Re:Greenhouse gas emissions by loufoque · 2012-02-12 01:20 · Score: 1
  
  In Europe, gas is actually expensive (1.5 euros per litre), in part because we don't have our countries constantly attacking the middle-east to secure oil, and because we don't use techniques that ruin the land to extract it; indeed, our land being not as huge as the US, we'd rather take care of it.
  On top of that, gas is heavily taxed, cars are banned from city centres on certain days, and the government strongly encourages the use of public transportation over cars, to the point of replacing car lanes by tram ones everywhere.
  People don't complain that much and it doesn't really cause problems with the economy.
67. Re:Greenhouse gas emissions by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-12 01:28 · Score: 0
  
  Was Khrushchev trying to "open" the table when he was beating his shoe on it?
68. Re:Greenhouse gas emissions by St.Creed · 2012-02-12 03:14 · Score: 1
  
  What about nuclear-driven spaceships? Not project Orion, but the ones that basically vent steam? Apparently they could be very effective.
  And if everyone really wants to migrate off Earth (not bloody likely) then I'm pretty sure it won't be done with chemical rockets.
  
  --
  Therefore, by the (faulty) logic you're using, you're just a cow with a keyboard - osu-neko (2604)
69. Re:Greenhouse gas emissions by tibit · 2012-02-12 03:29 · Score: 1
  
  Yeah, but you're talking about technology that doesn't exist. In terms of space hardware, if it hasn't been to orbit yet, then you don't need to worry about it. That is, unless you're the one who is developing it, in which case you need to worry a lot.
  
  --
  A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
70. Re:Greenhouse gas emissions by siride · 2012-02-12 04:07 · Score: 1
  
  Yeah, not really. I mean, they did have to plan, but they were going to other land, just like the land where they came from. They can breath the air of the ocean along the way, bask in the sun, gather resources from any islands they encounter, etc. Trans-atlantic voyages were like regular voyages, but more. Space travel isn't like that. It's not like airplanes, but more supplies and a little more savvy. It's a hugely different beast.
71. Re:Greenhouse gas emissions by khallow · 2012-02-12 05:29 · Score: 1
  
  To get that capsule just to low Earth orbit (let alone to another planetary body), you are throwing away all that fuel and metal, not to mention all the resources and energy needed to build and launch each rocket.
  
  The only resource that is expensive here is highly skilled labor. As to the rest, they'd probably have to throw away about ten times as much metal or a hundred times as much propellant, to get significant changes in cost.
72. Re:Greenhouse gas emissions by khallow · 2012-02-12 05:34 · Score: 1
  
  As long as they are the only thing available, we simply don't have chemical energy resources on Earth to move all the people off this rock. End of story.
  There's a simple solution to this problem. A few months of solar power falling on Earth can be converted into enough chemical energy to launch everyone and their stuff into orbit. This is not at all the bottleneck that keeps us from putting things into space.
  
  The real bottleneck is that there simply isn't much to do in space that has positive return on investment, either as money or some other thing of value. The economic obstacles are far more serious than the physical ones.
73. Re:Greenhouse gas emissions by khallow · 2012-02-12 05:41 · Score: 1
  
  Rockets show the same pattern: an initial rapid rate of change in the technology's capabilities and efficiency, followed by a longer period of much slower change as the technology runs up against basic limits imposed by materials and physics.
  The fundamental difference is economic. There's not much to do in space that has positive return on investment (either financially or in some other sense of value). If the Moon was habitable with an economic similar in size to Earth, then we'd have passenger rocket services just like we did for airplanes.
  
  That means that developments in space are much slower than they would be for the aircraft analogy. In that sense, you are right. Aircraft ended being different. But in another sense, if there was nowhere to fly to (say aircraft were being developed by a technologically advanced city state living in an otherwise uninhabited world), then aircraft would be as stagnant as rockets are now. The analogy works, but only if you include economic conditions.
74. Re:Greenhouse gas emissions by jamstar7 · 2012-02-12 07:14 · Score: 1
  
  The cleanest rocket fuel is liquid hydrogen with liquid oxygen as the 'oxydizer'.
  And where does that hydrogen comes from? Magic elves?
  
  No, as the post you utterly failed to understand already said, it comes from turning Methane into H2 and CO2. Or turning Coal into electricity and then using that to split water. Not very environmentally friendly at all.
  
  Simply moving the pollution from one place to another is not being more environmentally friendly, it's called being short sighted.
  I never said the process to make the hydrogen is clean, just that the burning of the hydrogen is clean. Read what I wrote already.
  
  It gets me when people claim that electric cars are so much 'greener' than internal combustion cars, patting themselves on the back because they 'don't pollute'. All they're doing is exporting their smog someplace else.
  
  Personally, I'm a big fan of the steam engine. Relatively nonpolluting, and can be fueled with renewable fuels. I read an article in Popular Mechanics a few decades ago about using Freon for the working fluid in a steam engine. Interesting stuff, maybe somebody should have kept on researching that.
  
  --
  Understanding the scope of the problem is the first step on the path to true panic.
75. Re:Greenhouse gas emissions by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-12 08:31 · Score: 0
  
  The Air Force, Rocketdyne, Aerojet, TRW et al have at various times and to various levels of completion, (RS-84, TR-103, Fastrac, etc) tried to build a large hydrocarbon engine. NASA, ATK, and the other shuttle contractors have continually shut them down as a threat to solids.
76. Re:Greenhouse gas emissions by tibit · 2012-02-12 08:35 · Score: 1
  
  Except that to set up such conversion, you'd almost have to deplete the hydrocarbon bootstrap we happen to have :)
  
  --
  A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
77. Re:Greenhouse gas emissions by khallow · 2012-02-12 09:39 · Score: 1
  
  Except that to set up such conversion, you'd almost have to deplete the hydrocarbon bootstrap we happen to have :)
  Why do people think that the only form of energy on Earth is in the form of fossil fuels?
  
  For example, the Delta IV uses liquid hydrogen and LOX. You can get that by decomposing water into hydrogen and oxygen using electricity from solar cells. Or you can use biodiesel in place of fossil fuel-derived kerosene.
  
  Sure these forms of chemical energy storage are somewhat more expensive to obtain and use than fossil fuel derived sources, but that's not much of an issue for rockets where propellant makes up a miniscule portion of overall costs.
78. Re:Greenhouse gas emissions by Tyrannosaur · 2012-02-12 09:39 · Score: 1
  
  Mod parent up!
79. Re:Greenhouse gas emissions by Rakishi · 2012-02-12 09:58 · Score: 1
  
  I never said the process to make the hydrogen is clean, just that the burning of the hydrogen is clean. Read what I wrote already.
  And I called you an idiot for having such a limited viewpoint on what counts as "clean." Please do keep up.
  
  It gets me when people claim that electric cars are so much 'greener' than internal combustion cars, patting themselves on the back because they 'don't pollute'. All they're doing is exporting their smog someplace else.
  People have done the math, even assuming coal power plants it's still better to use electric cars. So congratulations on once again showing yourself to be small minded.
  Electric motors have 80+% batteries-to-wheels efficiency. Internal combustion engines have 20% efficiency gas-to-wheels. Modern power plants get close to 50% efficiency. So basically, electric cars are more efficient and that's not counting the effect of off-peak charging. Or that power plants can put more output air filters in place. Batteries muddy the picture but that's got nothing to do with smog. It's pretty much always more efficient to burn stuff for power in a central location if you plan to convert it to electricity.
80. Re:Greenhouse gas emissions by tibit · 2012-02-12 11:57 · Score: 1
  
  You need hydrocarbons to make all those solar thingies, unfortunately.
  
  --
  A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
81. Re:Greenhouse gas emissions by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-12 14:28 · Score: 0
  
  I thought the charge against Kruschev was 'adventurism' for things like precipitating the Cuban Missile Crisis which might have led to the annihilation of much of the planet.
82. Re:Greenhouse gas emissions by dudpixel · 2012-02-12 15:11 · Score: 1
  
  you're responding to someone more intelligent than you who has been trying to hit you over the head with a clue stick, and is so far apparently unsuccessful.
  enthusiasm and optimism is great, but real advances in technology need a lot more than that. the person/people you've been arguing with have so far shown a fair bit more insight than you have.
  
  --
  This seemed like a reasonable sig at the time.
83. Re:Greenhouse gas emissions by circletimessquare · 2012-02-12 15:26 · Score: 1
  
  this would be the mindless negativity we are talking about here?
  
  --
  intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
84. Re:Greenhouse gas emissions by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-12 22:51 · Score: 0
  
  > Similarly, a modern commercial airliner isn't radically faster than the first jetliners that flew in the late 1940s, maximum cruise speed of a 777 is about 600 mph, versus around 500 for the first jetliners.
  Modern commercial airliners are actually slower than mid-1970s / early-1980s jetliners. The huge diameter, fuel efficient turbofans on today's planes cause large air drag. A turbojet or low-bypass turbofan powered Tu-154 / B-727 flies circles around any Airbus-320 or B-737NG, but consume maybe 50-70% more fuel. The Tu-154 could do 1050km/h, it could easily make up for 20 minutes take-off delay on a nominally 100 minute route, if the pilot decided to push it real hard. Not suprising, since the design was partly bomber-derived.
  Turboprops, like the Dash Q400 are even slower by a little (667 km/h) compared to modern turbofans, but save a further 30-40% fuel per seat. Since they do not fly as high (7km or less, compared to 11km for jets) they can actually arrive the same time on shorter routes, not wasting that much time for climb and descent. They are really cramped however, with their pencil fuselages and cabin noise is quite something, despite DSP-controlled active cancellation.
85. Re:Greenhouse gas emissions by bWareiWare.co.uk · 2012-02-13 02:38 · Score: 1
  
  The are many many reasons why a gas tax to cut CO2 would be a sensible even if anthropogenic CO2 had no effects. The most obvious are the socio-political concerns around foreign sources of fossil fuel and the economic benefits of modernizing.
  Many people who a 'very worried' about CO2 believe we may be too late (already, or will be before anyone bothers to do anything). If this is the case then space travel may be our only hope, even if it contributes to the problem.
86. Re:Greenhouse gas emissions by phantomfive · 2012-02-13 04:20 · Score: 1
  
  The are many many reasons why a gas tax to cut CO2 would be a sensible even if anthropogenic CO2 had no effects. The most obvious are the socio-political concerns around foreign sources of fossil fuel and the economic benefits of modernizing.
  No, you would take different actions depending what you want to accomplish. If you want to reduce CO2, then you would switch to nuclear, for example. If you only want to switch away from oil, you might encourage natural gas or ethanol cars.
  
  Many people who a 'very worried' about CO2 believe we may be too late (already, or will be before anyone bothers to do anything).
  They better find a better way to explain their worries, because right now they haven't managed to convince anyone who matters.
  
  If this is the case then space travel may be our only hope, even if it contributes to the problem.
  Or we could learn to swim. :) I'm totally in favor if space travel.
  
  --
  "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
87. Re:Greenhouse gas emissions by jamstar7 · 2012-02-13 05:08 · Score: 1
  
  Nonono, that was the spinoff, "Mikhail's Politburo'.
  
  --
  Understanding the scope of the problem is the first step on the path to true panic.
88. Re:Greenhouse gas emissions by khallow · 2012-02-13 12:39 · Score: 1
  
  You need hydrocarbons to make all those solar thingies, unfortunately.
  Two things to note here. Hydrocarbons are not a primary input. You need small amounts for insulation, seals, etc. Those don't need to come from fossil fuels. Second, the primary inputs are silica and energy. You can get silica in abundance almost everywhere on land and energy can be obtained from the solar panels you make.
  
  It doesn't make any sense to claim here that we're depleting fossil fuel resources.
89. Re:Greenhouse gas emissions by dudpixel · 2012-02-13 15:15 · Score: 1
  
  all the other guy was saying is that it will take more than the technology we have without our reach right now.
  he was saying we will need something much better than rockets based on fossil fuels.
  anyway this isn't my argument, i'm done here.
  
  --
  This seemed like a reasonable sig at the time.
90. Re:Greenhouse gas emissions by WolfWithoutAClause · 2012-02-15 06:19 · Score: 1
  
  Its a false idea that in absolute terms space tourism releases a lot of CO2.
  That's a bit like saying that Concorde was a massive creator of carbon dioxide. While it produced a few times that of a 700 series flying London/NY, in global terms it was utterly insignificant. And that would have been true even if the aircraft had sold in quantity, there just weren't going to be enough aircraft.
  And space tourism is the same, nobody is going to be building the hulls in sufficient quantity for them to EVER use a globally significant amount of CO2.
  The real battle for CO2 isn't in these exceptional activities it's in the everyday. Driving, heating your houses, the energy embodied in food. These are massively bigger because you do them everyday, for your entire life, as opposed to for a few hours, on very, very rare occasions.
  
  --
  -WolfWithoutAClause
  "Gravity is only a theory, not a fact!"
91. Re:Greenhouse gas emissions by WolfWithoutAClause · 2012-02-15 06:25 · Score: 1
  
  Almost all of the people that have looked at the evidence for AGW carefully enough with any kind of open mind (including some skeptics) have come to the conclusion that it's almost certainly happening. There's virtually no scientific controversy, but that doesn't stop people trying to give the impression (often very successfully) that there's a lot of controversy.
  But there isn't.
  This fact, that there's little controversy over the basic facts, is not well known in America in particular, and that's really pretty sad.
  
  --
  -WolfWithoutAClause
  "Gravity is only a theory, not a fact!"
92. Re:Greenhouse gas emissions by phantomfive · 2012-02-15 14:16 · Score: 1
  
  ok, I'll keep that in mind.
  
  --
  "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
93. Re:Greenhouse gas emissions by phantomfive · 2012-02-15 14:18 · Score: 1
  
  have come to the conclusion that it's almost certainly happening.
  
  This is the most vaguely ambiguous statement I've heard all day. If you actually intend to have a conversation, please clarify.
  
  --
  "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
94. Re:Greenhouse gas emissions by Coren22 · 2012-02-16 03:47 · Score: 1
  
  Not too long ago, there was virtually no scientific controversy that all the planets and the sun revolved around the Earth. They used such things as epicycles to explain why Mars' orbit would retrograde occasionally.
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deferent_and_epicycle
  Real science isn't about appealing to consensus, as that can be way off too. It wasn't too long ago that Pluto was considered a planet either. The unfortunate thing about "Climate Change" (can't call it global warming, that one was shot down too easily) is that we don't have much data to work from. Climate Weather, therefore the few years of temperature measurements we have isn't much.
  Now I will let it go, I just hate seeing people try to use consensus to back their science, instead of science to back their science.
  
  --
  APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
95. Re:Greenhouse gas emissions by Coren22 · 2012-02-16 06:06 · Score: 1
  
  in part because we don't have our countries constantly attacking the middle-east to secure oil
  I would love to see this magical oil the US has secured through war...
  
  because we don't use techniques that ruin the land to extract it
  Oh? The US doesn't use techniques like that, I have heard of Canada producing oil from shale, but it isn't very widespread yet.
  
  our land being not as huge as the US, we'd rather take care of it
  
  and the government strongly encourages the use of public transportation over cars
  
  That right there is the issue, because European countries are smaller, they are better able to build public transport. In the US, it just isn't possible. The major cities have metro rail systems, but you still have to drive your car to the nearest train station if you don't live in the city. The US is enormous, unless you have actually driven around in it, it is hard to imagine. Not knowing which country you live in, I will give an example using Google Maps. My daily commute is 15 miles, this is roughly like driving from Harrow to London every morning and night. Also, this is considered close to my work, many of my coworkers drive 4 times the distance I do. The way the US is laid out, there just isn't workplaces near where the housing is. Housing near areas with lots of jobs is very expensive (~400k for a house for a family) and the houses the average person can afford are far away. I would gladly move closer to my job, or change jobs to work closer to home, but it just isn't possible. All of this describes Maryland, in the Baltimore/DC metro region, widely considered to be a very built up metro area.
  
  --
  APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
96. Re:Greenhouse gas emissions by loufoque · 2012-02-16 06:35 · Score: 1
  
  I would love to see this magical oil the US has secured through war...
  Thanks to war, the US now has very influential connections with the governments and the economies in the middle east.
  
  Oh? The US doesn't use techniques like that
  Shale oil is getting fairly important in the US but isn't properly government-controlled and has serious environmental impacts.
  I don't suppose it is very publicized on TV.
  
  That right there is the issue, because European countries are smaller, they are better able to build public transport. In the US, it just isn't possible. The major cities have metro rail systems, but you still have to drive your car to the nearest train station if you don't live in the city. The US is enormous, unless you have actually driven around in it, it is hard to imagine.
  A public transport network, even a large-scale one, would end up cheaper than everyone having their own car, especially if having low fuel prices requires the government to take important and costly measures.
  It's not going to happen though, because that would against the american way of promoting heavy consumption.
97. Re:Greenhouse gas emissions by Coren22 · 2012-02-16 07:29 · Score: 1
  
  On top of what Rakishi said, you also have to consider, not every power plant is coal. My power comes from nuclear which is way far and above cleaner than even "clean coal". On that case, absolutely the electric car is cleaner. Also, when the power plants get upgraded to better tech over time, the electric car automatically gets a green boost, whereas the ICE car is still stuck in the dark ages.
  What tech are you going to use to power your amazing non polluting steam engine? Last I checked, we don't have nuclear power plants small enough.
  
  --
  APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
98. Re:Greenhouse gas emissions by Coren22 · 2012-02-16 07:37 · Score: 1
  
  In the last few years, you may have noticed a slight change in the space program. Rather then launching crap, and letting it fall back down, they have built this enormous thing up there that you can see with the naked eye. Stop looking at how little a chemical rocket can launch, and look at how many rockets it would take to build something worthwhile. A lack of imagination will never get anything done. Nature isn't against us, people being short sited are against us.
  When you start building stuff in orbit, that is when things progress. It isn't terribly hard to mine, even in space. It isn't terribly hard to build craft, even in space. The next objective is to build a moon base (not too hard) and to build orbital manufacturing and mining. This stuff is rather easy to do, you just do it in stages just like the ISS was built.
  
  --
  APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
99. Re:Greenhouse gas emissions by tibit · 2012-02-16 12:06 · Score: 1
  
  Building stuff in space means you need to have an entire industrial base there. Everything, otherwise you will need to ship stuff from Earth. A remotely self-sufficient industrial base would require quite some energy simply to launch all that crap even to LEO, and don't get me started about designing and manufacturing all this space-worthy hardware in the first place.
  By "quite some energy" I mean more energy that has been expended for propulsion in all rocket launches to date. Oh, duh, I mean to include both space launches and rocket weapons that stay close to the ground. Add to that all the energy the mankind has used so far to fly the jet planes, heck, any kind of a plane, including gains from the tailwinds. Yes, and then add all the energy we have used so far to propel cars and push trains and don't forget the ships. All that energy wouldn't be enough.
  In fact, you'd still be an order of magnitude shy -- but just one order I'd think. Now you know the scale of the problem. Chemical rockets are a dead end. There's no point in developing an alternative propulsion technology in orbit, of course, it's waaaay cheaper to do it down here. So, until we have some alternate propulsion systems and truly reusable spacecraft, this is all a pipe dream. And that's being optimistic. A pessimist would say that due to politics we will never ever truly leave this rock, and when we realize it'd be a good thing to do, it'll be a couple centuries too late for that.
  Do note that Space Shuttle wouldn't cut it even remotely close to being a truly reusable spacecraft. True reusability means something like turning around a modern jet. Do a walkaround, fuel it up, punch in the waypoints, fuel load, weights and loads, and off you go. Now listen to NASA audio from the Space Shuttle, from the moment they touch down. Be amazed how inefficient it all was. And that's just the audio after landing. Then watch some videos of how much effort it took to turn the damn thing around.
  
  --
  A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
In Soviet Russia... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-11 10:06 · Score: 0

Rocket pursues search engine and produces thousands of pieces!
Re:In soviet Russia by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-11 10:07 · Score: 2, Funny

in soviet slashdot , first post gets you
Not Necessarily Dead by Waffle+Iron · 2012-02-11 10:11 · Score: 5, Informative

In 1983, a Soyuz rocket exploded on the launch pad. The crew was lifted to safety by the launch escape system, and there don't seem to be reports about any casualties on the ground due to this this incident.
1. Re:Not Necessarily Dead by roman_mir · 2012-02-11 10:51 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  Well, not all casualties had to be reported in 1983 in USSR, after all, when Chernobyl blew up they covered it up for days and days, people came out to the 1st of May parade (International labour day was always celebrated with big parades then), nobody stopped them coming out even in the surrounding cities and it was very dangerous for people in Kiev for example because of the wind pattern.
  However Brin says they came too close to the rocket, and people don't have to be that close during launch, there is always a command bunker near the launch site.
  
  --
  You can't handle the truth.
2. Re:Not Necessarily Dead by rubycodez · 2012-02-11 11:06 · Score: 2
  
  I added up all the fuel weight, less than 400 tons. You could be quite close to that exploding, really, less than 500 m and survive. That's far different than the 2500 tons of fuel in say a Saturn V, or the 800 tons of all space shuttle engines
3. Re:Not Necessarily Dead by Nimey · 2012-02-11 12:02 · Score: 2
  
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nedelin_catastrophe
  This one had over a hundred dead.
  
  --
  Hail Eris, full of mischief...
  
  E pluribus sanguinem
4. Re:Not Necessarily Dead by tokul · 2012-02-11 17:45 · Score: 2
  
  In 1983, a Soyuz rocket exploded on the launch pad. The crew was lifted to safety by the launch escape system, and there don't seem to be reports about any casualties on the ground due to this this incident.
  
  In 1960 R-16 exploded on the launch pad. Chief designer and 78-150 spectators/staff killed. There don't seem to be official reports about any casualties on the ground until 1989.
5. Re:Not Necessarily Dead by Waffle+Iron · 2012-02-11 18:23 · Score: 2
  
  Luckily, Sergey Brin didn't report that contrary to protocol, he was forced by Soviet commanders to attempt hasty launch pad repairs on the upper stages a rocket while it was still fully fueled with volatile hypergolic propellants.
  Even luckier, more than 20 years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, his secret potential demise hasn't become one of the most widely known no-longer-secret episodes in the history of the cold war.
6. Re:Not Necessarily Dead by jopsen · 2012-02-12 02:19 · Score: 1
  
  I added up all the fuel weight, less than 400 tons. You could be quite close to that exploding, really, less than 500 m and survive.
  Okay, so you could survive :)
7. Re:Not Necessarily Dead by mjwalshe · 2012-02-12 05:05 · Score: 1
  
  They might be referencing an infamous Nedelin catastrophe where around 120+ people where killed when a rocket blew up on the pad
I'm sure it was awe inspiring, but... by fauxhemian · 2012-02-11 10:13 · Score: 4, Interesting

you wouldnt find me close to a rocket launch
Here's a compilation of videos from a failed Soyuz launch - it got up off the launch pad and then came right back down, very close to the spectators. One person died.
Foton M-1 launch failure
If you hadnt guessed, the video contains lots of expletives.

--
I've got news for Mr. Santayana: we're doomed to repeat the past no matter what. That's what it is to be alive.
I'm just glad the summary mentioned the plane. by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-11 10:19 · Score: 0

Who gives a crap how two billionaires got there, and how much it cost? What does that add to this story?
1. Re:I'm just glad the summary mentioned the plane. by Johann+Lau · 2012-02-11 12:01 · Score: 2
  
  what story? the whole thing is pointless.
2. Re:I'm just glad the summary mentioned the plane. by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-12 02:11 · Score: 0
  
  It's about Google, which most people in this site should avoid like the plague due to their shoddy business ethics, but seem to love.
  --
  Say NO to the Google creeps.
If the rocket blows up, we're all dead by game+kid · 2012-02-11 10:23 · Score: 2

'If the rocket blows up, we're all dead,' Sergey overheard a Russian guard say.

A fellow guard responded, "Yeah, if it doesn't fall down on us, Putin will. Reality that doesn't agree with his propaganda of sending rockets to Proxima Centauri and winning 99% of the vote for it? Gulagistan for the both of us!" The guard recounted his story on condition of anonymity to avoid the ex-KGBer's customary punishment of death by judo.

--
You can hold down the "B" button for continuous firing.
America to the Rescue by oldhack · 2012-02-11 10:28 · Score: 5, Funny

What the Soviet ruskies desperately need is more lawyers. Let's ship them at least half of ours, pronto!

--
Fuck systemd. Fuck Redhat. Fuck Soylent, too. Wait, scratch the last one.
Safety by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-11 10:41 · Score: 0

...and the Russians are not as concerned with safety.'

Vodka? Or they're just tougher than we are?
Or maybe the Russians are wise enough to realize that life itself is inherently risky and when you're doing exceptional things, you have to more risk.
Many times I think we Americans have become a bunch of pansies who are too afraid to do anything worthwhile because we're either afraid of getting hurt, killed or worst of all sued.
err by bhcompy · 2012-02-11 10:53 · Score: 2

5 miles away behind a mountain? Maybe from the causeway. I guess the Google guys aren't important like me(haha!). I've been to one on the VIP platform. It's about 3 miles away, and has a great view of the launch unobscured by smoke(unlike the causeway). Seriously, though, I don't see how 2 of the most successful men in the US couldn't see a launch from the VIP platform unless they didn't even try to see a launch in the first place.
1. Re:err by trout007 · 2012-02-11 12:56 · Score: 1
  
  I am lucky enough to work at KSC and I've seen the last couple dozen launches from the VAB parking lot which is 3 miles away. One thing to remember is that the Soyuz puts out about 800,000 lbf of thrust at liftoff. The Shuttle puts out close to 7 million lbf of thrust. So you need to be a bit further away. It's still so loud that you can feel loose clothing shake on your body and triggers all aftermarket alarm systems in the parking lot.
  
  --
  I love Jesus, except for his foreign policy.
2. Re:err by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-11 19:52 · Score: 0
  
  5 miles, 3 miles, does it matter? It's both very far away from the rocket. BTW: Could be conversion / translation error. 5km is pretty close to 3mi.
Baikonur Cosmodrome was always chaotic. by 140Mandak262Jamuna · 2012-02-11 10:54 · Score: 1

That place was known to be very chaotic, with very little supervision about secured area. All top brass move with impunity everywhere and they always have a sidekick or two in tow. There was some apocryphal story about the food meant to be shipped to the IST was pilfered in the Baikonur cosmodrome.

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sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Wow! That's what Sergey's talking about! by theodp · 2012-02-11 10:56 · Score: 1

Amazing how quickly the exhiliration @3:30 gives way to fear and panic @4:15!
Sounds like a lot of privileged corndogging by Gimbal · 2012-02-11 11:16 · Score: 1

I'm not impressed, sorry. If they would've applied that $30 mil as an investment in the development of privatized human spaceflight - considering the number of highly skilled jobs that must naturally result from such efforts - then I might be impressed. Monied showoffs, on the other hand - not impressive, really not impressive.
hahahaahah by unity100 · 2012-02-11 11:30 · Score: 1

All top brass move with impunity everywhere and they always have a sidekick or two in tow
you seem to be speaking from experience.

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Read radical news here
Sounds like a Pack of lies to me by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-11 12:18 · Score: 0

I don't believe a word these two clowns say anymore.
Slashdot goes reality by DerekLyons · 2012-02-11 12:35 · Score: 2

And rich men spending their money on junkets and toys is news how Slashdot? What's next, keeping up the Kardashians?
Mountains in Florida by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-11 14:14 · Score: 0

"...It's really not at all comparable to the American launches that I've seen...because those are like five miles away behind a mountain..."
That's odd. I've lived in Florida and driven past the NASA launch facilities there. I don't remember seeing any mountains. I believe the highest point in the state is a little over 200 feet.
1. Re:Mountains in Florida by baegucb · 2012-02-11 18:48 · Score: 1
  
  "Larry Page and Sergey Brin were on hand to watch the rocket lift off at Vandenberg Air Force Base."
36 mil on a hanger by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-11 14:56 · Score: 0

"If they would've applied that $30 mil as an investment in the development of privatized human spaceflight"
They'd rather spend 36 million to have Hangar 1 at Moffett Field recovered to store their private jets in.
http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=news/local/south_bay&id=8461995
NASA launches can be like this by Zadaz · 2012-02-11 15:04 · Score: 2

(or will be when they get back into the heavy lifting business.)
Get a press pass to a NASA launch. You're close enough that the temperature in the room almost immediately goes up by 20 degrees. Fortunately you're in a reinforced bunker.
This is really rude but.... by axlr8or · 2012-02-11 15:35 · Score: 0

I'm all for rich people taking the risk of going to space. For the most part, they are narcissists. And the world could use less of them. This is likely one chance to lead these freaks of nature to the slaughter house and they will go willingly. Sure, most of them won't blow up, but the chances are much higher than the coddled security and body guarded life styles that they lead. Bad luck!
How to fulfill the prophecy? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-11 17:22 · Score: 0

JCPM: i told your many times that the prophecy can reject mortally these "evil missions" for the prophetic accomplishment.
Take a look at this... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-12 02:19 · Score: 0

This is what your beloved Google hypocrites do: http://cpac2012.conservative.org/sponsorship/2012-sponsors/
Truck Number by plopez · 2012-02-12 03:28 · Score: 1

Two very high ranking members of Google not only stand dangerously close to tons of high explosives but also ride on the same executive jet. If they had both died Google could have been hosed.

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putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
what the heck? by mapkinase · 2012-02-12 04:31 · Score: 1

What on earth this puff piece doing in Science section?

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I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
No need to worry by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-13 21:57 · Score: 0

I don't think we need to worry about greenhouse gases any more. Since Primatene Mist inhalers have been banned the world is saved. Thank your god, those pesky asthmatics were starting to annoy me. Greedy bastards, wanting to breath precious air, who do they think they are? At least they'll die off and that will lower greenhouse gases. Problem solved.