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US Should Use Trampolines To Get Astronauts To the ISS Suggests Russian Official
Hugh Pickens DOT Com (2995471) writes "The Washington Post reports that Russia's Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin has lashed out again, this time at newly announced US ban on high-tech exports to Russia suggesting that 'after analyzing the sanctions against our space industry, I propose the US delivers its astronauts to the ISS with a trampoline.' Rogozin does actually have a point, although his threats carry much less weight than he may hope. Russia is due to get a $457.9 million payment for its services soon and few believe that Russia would actually give it up. Plus, as Jeffrey Kluger noted at Time Magazine, Russia may not want to push the United States into the hands of SpaceX and Orbital Sciences, two private American companies that hope to be able to send passengers to the station soon. SpaceX and Orbital Sciences have already made successful unmanned resupply runs to the ISS and both are also working on upgrading their cargo vehicles to carry people. SpaceX is currently in the lead and expects to launch US astronauts, employed by SpaceX itself, into orbit by 2016. NASA is building its own heavy-lift rocket for carrying astronauts beyond low-Earth orbit, but it won't be ready for anything but test flights until after 2020. 'That schedule, of course, could be accelerated considerably if Washington gave NASA the green light and the cash,' says Kluger. 'America's manned space program went from a standing start in 1961 to the surface of the moon in 1969—eight years from Al Shepard to Tranquility Base. The Soviet Union got us moving then. Perhaps Russia will do the same now.'"
"The Soviet Union got us moving then. Perhaps Russia will do the same now."
Back then those in power and the people in general cared that the Russians could do something we could not. That is no longer the case when it comes to space. Most people don't understand why space is important at all outside of things like satellites that provides communications around the planet.
we are all invisible unless we choose otherwise
That's one helluva double-bounce. Start jumping Russia, well keep up!
Life is not for the lazy.
IIRC, the Ariane 5 launch rocket is man-rated (or at least built, with a view to being man-rated). This was done for the cancelled Hermes spaceplane.
Now actually getting it into the sort of shape to give Europe independent access to space, is another matter. I get the distinct impression that it's going to be very expensive, especially when the usual suspects get their snouts into the trough.
Nedd Ludd, is that you?
If years of Saturday morning cartooning have taught us nothing else, it's clear you would need, like, several dozen hundred trampolines to pull it off.
Yep, trampolines all the way down.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
Did you ever play tic-tac-toe?
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
If by "soyuz", you mean the manned vehicle, it has had two loss-of-crew accidents, and about ten mission failures where the crew survived. In 120 flights.
As opposed to Shuttle's two loss-of-crew accidents and zero mission failures where the crew survived. In 135 flights.
So, no, Soyuz does NOT have a "rock solid safety record".
Nor is Soyuz more versatile than Dragon. Smaller payload, in both men and cargo, and lower deltaV (and lack of reusability) do not make for "more versatile".
The only thing that Soyuz has on Dragon is that it has completed the man-rating part. Of course, with a 50 year head start, we'd expect that as a matter of course.
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
Opposing space exploration does not necessarily mean opposing development of new technologies. Vernor Vinge, that science-fiction writer who has spent so much time thinking about technological singularities, has speculated that an advanced race might simply burrow deep under its planet's surface and move into a virtuality reality instead of expanding outward into space. Such a future would still involve enormous progress in technology, and lead to new discoveries in mathematics etc. There are multiple technological paths open to us.
"Cutting us off from space is the worst thing we can do, and will certainly result in the end of man kind".
Eh? What on earth are you talking about? Please explain how not sending a tiny handful of astronauts into space, at immense cost and considerable risk, will affect the survival of the race. As far as I know no one, not even the most wildly enthusiastic advocate of space exploration, has ever said anything of the kind.
I am sure that there are many other solipsists out there.
On the man-rating...the cargo Dragon is actually already man-rated. Once it's up at the ISS, people have to open the door and go inside to unload supplies and load experiments for return to Earth. What it lacks is a launch escape system. Well, and seats.
On the versatility...apart from carrying more cargo and more crew, the Dragon is equipped with heat shielding that can handle return from lunar or Mars trajectories, and for reuse. It's even adaptable for landing on other bodies such as Mars, as in the Red Dragon proposal. It's launcher can operate in single core or three core variants, eventually with varying degrees of core reuse depending on payload/orbit requirements.
So the OP's claim that Soyuz is "much more versatile" is really rather bizarre...
Simply because the Americans have temporarily abandoned a focus on manned missions in favor of autonomous exploration, you couldn't be more wrong.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
Why do people mod "Troll" or "Flamebait" when I ask them to explain what they are talking about? I'm disinclined to bandy insults in a forum that I thought was aimed at constructive discussion and debate. Maybe I should taper off reading Slashdot, and stop contributing.
I am sure that there are many other solipsists out there.
The U.S. Court of Federal Claims has issued a preliminary injunction that prohibits United Launch Alliance from buying NPO Energomash RD-180 engines from Russia.
http://spaceksc.blogspot.com/2...
#naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
To some extent, I suppose I am a Space Nutter myself. It must have been about 1957 that I first opened some Heinlein, Asimov, Clarke and other SF books and thrilled to the stories of galactic exploration and gigantic interstellar empires. I'm all for manned space exploration, even though I must admit that nowadays I can't entirely justify it in practical terms.
But what's this stuff about "the end of man kind"?
I am sure that there are many other solipsists out there.
According to an article in last weeks Aviation Week and Space Technology - you are ignorant.
The value of commercial experimentation on the ISS has taken an unforseen upswing. Real companies are paying Real money to put experiments of different varieties on the ISS.There is a back-log of customers.
I'm thinking the Dragon from Space-X is a nice answer to the Russian suggestion. I also think their minister needs some remedial science classes to learn about the law of gravitiy.... you can't possibly reach escape velocity with a trampoline ;-)
Have you compiled your kernel today??
...and this gets modded "Insightful".
I know Slashdot is popular with a lot of folks with "a zany sense of humour". But suggesting the nuclear bombing of Moscow - or anywhere else - is not clever and it's not funny. It's wicked, and I say that with no religious agenda. If the word "wicked" has any meaning, this is a perfect example of it.
I am sure that there are many other solipsists out there.
The trick to winning is to choose your opponents wisely. Drunks and small children are easy prey from my mastery of X's and O's.
"Please explain how not sending a tiny handful of astronauts into space, at immense cost and considerable risk, will affect the survival of the race"
If dinosaurs had advanced enough to have a space program, maybe they could of stopped the rock that hit Mexico 65 million years ago, and they would still be alive today.
Sooner or later another rock is going to be on a collision course with the earth, and if we don't stop it, it will wipe us out.
And there are othere problems in the long term, like the sun running out of hydrogen in a billion years...
If we don't get off this planet, then it will be the end of mankind.
Actually, with Moscow in particular, it falls even more into the "retarded" category than "evil".
the Trampoline!
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
“Dinosaurs are extinct today because they lacked opposable thumbs and the brainpower to build a space program.” Neil deGrasse Tyson
“The dinosaurs became extinct because they didn't have a space program. And if we become extinct because we don't have a space program, it'll serve us right!” Larry Niven
As to your follow up post, perhaps if you stopped asking questions with obvious and well-discussed answers, you wouldn't get modded down.
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
You forgot to add "I know I'm going to get modded down for this, but..." at the start.
#naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
In any combination of Boeing, Sierra Nevada, SpaceX, or Lockheed Martin vehicles, we'll get up there with people fairly soon and in modern spacecraft that will be able to do useful things for the next few decades. What we do with them then and how much it will cost is the key question. The NASA program is stuck in pork that traps its potential so we may well lose the Space Station. Not many really care about it anyway, other than those who work on it. Those companies that are innovating for cost, certainly SpaceX, perhaps Sierra Nevada and Boeing, could make the NASA program moot. The Russian problem of access to the ISS might accelerate the non-NASA New Space regime slightly, but it will happen. If our national space program can take advantage of this new capability, if the politics of supporting old players dies, we could be in for an exciting future of human space exploration. That might still happen if human spaceflight becomes a mostly private affair. We'll know in a few years.
Aside from the fact that your post is a pack of lies, we see Russia doing exactly what you say is unfavorable for Russia. The tactics being used are classic Soviet tactics, namely sending in Spetsnaz into an area to destabilize the local government then moving in to "stabilize" the area. So, let's take a look at what happened.
Russia increased troop presence in the Red Sea area.
Groups spring up in Crimea. Masked men take over government offices and terrorize the local populace.
Groups consolidate and take over the local government after a sham election and then asks to become part of Russia
Russia annex Crimea and continues to mass troops on Russia side of Ukraine/Russia border.
Groups spring up in Eastern Ukraine. Masked men take over government offices and terrorize the local populace.
Guess what comes next. Do you see the pattern? My best guess is you are a Russian who can't wait to visit the new acquisitions.
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
Mankind extending its reach out to space is like moving out of your parent's house when you're an adult. It might not make the most sense financially but it's important for you to learn how to make it out there on your own. It's for your own good.
The best thing about UDP jokes is I don't care if you get them or not
No, the thing to do is establish colonies on the Moon and Mars, perform fission experimentation in space vice the Earth's atmosphere, and mine some asteroids.
It would make a lot more sense to kick off a few more Mars missions and learn more about the place before we actually sent humans. Maybe build a better communications infrastructure between the two, first, so that there's always contact. Can't do anything about transmission time, can do something about bandwidth and coverage. A colony on the moon is a really good idea, though. It's nearby, so we could feasibly make a withdrawal plan. Mars is a one-way trip in case of failure. You maybe could bring people back, but not in a hurry, or probably in a timely fashion.
Also, I'd like to see some missions to asteroids which are on the level of this Mars mission, with some kind of rover. Let's get a clearer idea of what asteroid mining is going to look like. If we're really going to get development and exploration of space kicked off, we're going to need to do our heavy manufacturing in space anyway.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
It was a huge boondoggle to keep the skills in place for Russia and the USA.
The US needed to keep its best workers productive as the Shuttle spy satellite boondoggle was slowly ending.
Russia got to keep its best workers productive as the massive science cities/space funding was ending.
A lot of workers got to work with complex metals, fuel, life support systems, complex computer systems... for another few years.
Both countries also invited other wealthy nations in to 'share' in a huge sheltered workshop for years of fancy space funding.
Contractors, gov workers, federal and state political leaders all got the tax payer winnings out of that one last project.
The "diplomatic" charm that went with a modual, flag painted on the side and other national bragging rights seems to be lost on other nations too.
That cash could have gone to their own evolving space projects rather than renting a very expensive Skylab 2.0 experience.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
Europe never got its act together to build a manned vehicle to launch on it, AND they've grown weary of using it in a sub-optimal way as a commercial satellite launcher, to the current plan is to cancel it and replace it with a cheaper, smaller, and NOT man-rated "Ariane 6"
Any time you have two large nation states there is always the possibility of military conflict.
Sure, conflict with China is possible, but with the USSR it was seen as almost inevitable. The USSR had a goal of global communism, and a view for the future of the world very much in conflict with the West. China has no territorial claims outside of Taiwan (which both the US and Taiwan itself acknowledge to be part of China) and a handful of disputed islands. They have no significant ideological differences with the rest of the world, and certainly no ideology that they are trying to push on others. I lived in China for several years, and learned to speak the language. Chinese people like Americans. They don't see us as enemies or even rivals. But they do feel like we consider China inferior and that we don't respect them. I don't think that is true, but that is how most people in China see it. They see their space program as a way to win that respect. But they don't see it as a contest for dominance.
Troll fail:
(1) Entitlement spending doesn't make one bit of difference. These days, NASA gets less than 0.5% of the federal budget. The Pentagon wastes more money in a month than NASA spends in a year. The only reason Congress doesn't double or triple NASA's budget is that they see no political gain in it for themselves without earmarking the money for projects that will never be finished.
(2) Don't know how this is relevant. We knew all along that making ourselves beholden to Russia for manned spaceflight was a bad idea, but Bush and the last Congress did it anyways. If Ukraine hadn't happened, something else probably would have sooner or later.
(3) is flat-out wrong. If you hadn't noticed, the NASA Chief Administrator is a former astronaut himself--not some lawyer who was handed the job on a silver platter for ass-kissing. NASA managers are probably the most competent team in the whole federal government (not least because so many of them are actual rocket scientists), which is why we are able to do so many amazing projects in spite of the idiotic budget cuts that get thrown at us.
Thud's response was far more accurate:
(0) is an accurate characterization of the SLS-Orion project, the official successor to the shuttle and informally known as the "Senate Launch System". This is why we had to contract SpaceX to actually build a rocket, as opposed to pretend to build while distributing pork.
(-1) is really the same thing as (0).
You're also forgetting the stupid decision to start the Shuttle program (instead of using Apollo-like rockets and capsules to launch people into orbit, for far less money), and also the complete mismanagement of our foreign policy by the morons in the Bush, Clinton, Bush, and Reagan Administrations.
Emigration to space never makes sense once you do the maths. The escape velocity of Earth is 11.2 kilometers per second. Assume that a human is around 100kg, the energy required to accelerate the human to escape velocity (assuming 100% efficient propulsion and no support equipment required) is around 6.2GJ, or 1.7MWh to put it into a more consumer-friendly terms. The average American (to pick the country with the highest per-capita energy consumption) uses around 87kWh per year, so the cost of getting a human away from Earth, assuming perfect conditions, is around 20 times their energy consumption living on Earth for a year. Even assuming a space elevator and the most optimistic efficiency numbers, getting into space for less than your lifetime total energy consumption on the ground is difficult.
And that's just the economic argument. The population growth rate is currently sitting at about 1% per annum. That means about 70 million more people are born every year than die. For exporting people into space to be feasible for reducing the population, you need to ship 70 million people into space per year, or around 200,000 per day. That's in the same ballpark as the total number of air passengers today, including short-haul flights.
Combining these two, the total energy cost is 340GWh (1.24PJ) per day, or 126TWh (450PJ) per year. To put that in perspective, the total energy consumption of the world in 2008 was around 140,000TWh, so you're only talking about 1% of the total energy consumption of the world for your colonisation project - assuming theoretically impossible technology and that everyone goes naked. It typically takes a minimum of ten times as much mass for life support equipment as for passengers, so now you're up to 10%. Even optimistic efficiency numbers bump this closer to 50%. If you actually want them to go somewhere with enough equipment to do something vaguely like colonisation, then you're up to over 100% the total energy production of the world today and a throughput of 2-3 people boarding every second constantly, all day, all year round.
A more compelling argument is that having some self-sustaining colonies in space means that a global catastrophe won't kill all humans. We're still a long way away from being able to build one though, and it's not clear that investing in things like the ISS are actually taking us in that direction. Just as NASA likes to tout how spin-offs from space research have helped other industries, significant improvements in technology used in space have come from elsewhere.
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You don't shoot the hand that feeds you.
Sometimes you do. Exactly a century ago, in May of 1914, Britain and Germany were each others biggest trading partners. By August they were killing each other by the millions.
: Until someone can prove that the referendum was done under duress, or the vote was rigged, why will no one accept the Crimean's decision? Putin himself admitted recently that the anonymous "people in green uniform" that seized power in Crimea were in fact Russian military. So that's about duress. As for rigging vote -- Russian authorities routinely do that in Russia on all levels -- from presidential down to local communal elections, so what is to prevent them from doing it on occupied territory?
6.2 GJ is also the heat content of a whopping 51 US gallons of gasoline. I use that much per month commuting to and from work.