Russian Moon Landing May Take As Many As Six Launches (examiner.com)

MarkWhittington writes: Russia has made no secret of its desire to land cosmonauts on the lunar surface sometime in the late 2020s. As the United States, at least for the current administration, has decided to bypass the moon in favor of Mars, Russia could move to wipe out the humiliation it suffered at the hands of NASA when it lost the 1960s race to the moon with the landing of Apollo 11 on July 20, 1969. However, a story in TASS suggests that a Russian moon landing effort would be complex, requiring up to six launches of its Angara rocket.

Comments

They should have gone in '69

[transporter_ii]

Apparently space travel was much easier back then.

Re:They should have gone in '69

[Anonymous Coward]

Apparently, supersonic passenger transport was a lot easier back then too.

Guess Concorde never existed.

Re:They should have gone in '69

[fustakrakich]

I was so much older then
I'm younger than that now...

Re:They should have gone in '69

[AHuxley]

They tried with the N1 testing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Re:They should have gone in '69

[jafac]

Maybe they can buy-back their defective engines from Orbital. I don't think they want them anymore.

Re: They should have gone in '69

[binarylarry]

Von Braun also designed and oversaw the Apollo missions...

Re:They should have gone in '69

[hcs_$reboot]

yeah

Re:They should have gone in '69

[hcs_$reboot]

The motivation was different.

Re:They should have gone in '69

[AC-x]

Faking moon landings was easier then.

And all the Apollo project budget went on bribing the Russians and every other country capable of tracking the mission to play along and lie about tracking the Apollo spacecraft to the moon and back, right?

Re: They should have gone in '69

[LifesABeach]

When it comes to Space Exploration, it would be kind of nice if Ivan would stop talking and start doing.

Re:They should have gone in '69

[MagickalMyst]

"...the Apollo project budget went on bribing the Russians and every other country capable of tracking the mission..."

No, there probably wouldn't have been a massive bribery operation. If the moon landings were faked they would just have launched a real, unmanned rocket and sent it to the moon for other countries and mission control to track.

After it ejected the return module, the rocket would crash on the moon or be destroyed in space (successful landing!).

Then Stanley Kubrick's footage of freemasonic astronauts jumping around the Nevada desert would be broadcast via the controlled mainstream media and be portrayed to the world as a successful moon landing.

The return module would return to earth and the astronauts would travel back to base and be congratulated on a 'successful' mission.

At least that is how I would fake a moon mission.

I would also call anyone who questioned the authenticity of my fake moon landings a nutter and a conspiracy kook; and I'd be sure that the truth was buried under a mountain of 'national security' blankets.

Then I could triumphantly exclaim to the world - "Look, we beat the Russians! Horrah! Horray! For USA!"

Re:They should have gone in '69

[AC-x]

Then Stanley Kubrick's footage of freemasonic astronauts jumping around the Nevada desert would be broadcast via the controlled mainstream media and be portrayed to the world as a successful moon landing.

Hold on now, you can triangulate that shit. So they'd clearly have had to soft land a communications relay on the moon and have it take off again to make sure the broadcast signal was coming from where it's supposed to. Oh and also have some kind of robotic arm to place those retro-reflectors in the right place and pointing in the right direction too.

Hmm, it's starting to sound quite hard, especially with the communication delay and limited computing power available at the time. Maybe it would be easier to stick some humans in there to pilot the thing themselves? We could give them space suites so they could just get out and place the reflectors by hand too!

Re:They should have gone in '69

[OakDragon]

This time it will be the Chinese beating them to the lunar surface, then building a Moon-base to dominate the inner planets with a vast array of Maglev launchers

And an iPhone factory.

Re: They should have gone in '69

[k6mfw]

When it comes to Space Exploration, it would be kind of nice if Ivan would stop talking and start doing.

Yes. Every few years Russians make a grand announcement then few years later it is forgotten. Then another big announcement (rinse, repeat). Meanwhile they are still sorting out problems at Vostochny launch site (NASAwatch and other sites frequently have articles about delays in having that site ready for HSF), I guess Putin and his cronies can't do what their predecessors of USSR were able to do when building and putting to use very large facilities (probably putting too much resources into their personal mansions and diamond covered Mercedes). Perhaps they can't shake Soviet style 5 year plan, or 10 year plan, etc to nowhere but makes good press in Pravda. Meanwhile Soyuzes keep on flying from Baikonur (Korolev lives forever).

Re:They should have gone in '69

[MagickalMyst]

"So they'd clearly have had to soft land a communications relay on the moon and have it take off again to make sure the broadcast signal was coming from where it's supposed to."

I should have been more specific:

"After it ejected the return module" ... the return module would broadcast signals back to the earth for a few hours as if it were coming from a lunar lander. Then it would eventually return to earth and be tracked on it's way back. None would be the wiser.

Re:They should have gone in '69

[MagickalMyst]

"Read about the Illuminati."

A good read is Pawns in the Game by Canadian Naval Intelligence officer William Guy Carr.

Re: They should have gone in '69

[Sperbels]

Every few years Russians make a grand announcement then few years later it is forgotten. Then another big announcement (rinse, repeat).

Remind you of anyone we know? cough-US-manned-space-program-cough.

Re: They should have gone in '69

[k6mfw]

Remind you of anyone we know? cough-US-manned-space-program-cough.

But our delays are better than their delays, otherwise we will have a Delay Gap!

Re:They should have gone in '69

[xtronics]

I'm impressed by what the Russians accomplished - see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Think - a smaller population base to support the project, much less money - and they came close.

Re:They should have gone in '69

[Anonymous Coward]

Von Braun did say that a moon rocket would need to be the size of the Empire State Building - in 1952. But he also said this: “While the designs may be a far cry from what Mars ships some thirty or forty years from now will actually look like, this approach will serve a worthwhile purpose. If we can show how a Mars ship could conceivably be built on the basis of what we know now [in 1952], we can safely deduce that actual designs of the future can only be superior [emphasis added]. Only by stubborn adherence to the engineering solutions based exclusively on scientific knowledge available today, and by strict avoidance of any speculations concerning future discoveries, can we bring proof that this fabulous venture is fundamentally feasible.”

But he never said that a moon landing was impossible. He had hoped to lead a mission to the moon since the 1930s.

Don't hold your breath

[ColdWetDog]

They're talking about 2029 as the earliest launch date with a flyby perhaps a year earlier. All of this, of course, depends on funding. Which doesn't seem like such a bright spot:

n September, Russia’s Federal Space Agency Roscosmos announced that it will send a lander, Luna 25, to the Moon's south pole in 2024. After touchdown, the lander will investigate the lunar surface for future lunar bases. The Luna 25 mission was initially proposed in 1997 and has since suffered a number of delays, but it seems that with Europe's aid the mission could finally get the jump-start it needs. Construction of the spacecraft has already begun.

So, they are trying to send an unmanned probe to the moon that was supposed to be launched 18 years ago in another nine years. And you thought NASA has budget problems.

And they want to send a whole metric shit ton of equipment - six booster loads full. From a scientific point of view it sounds great. But it doesn't sound particularly realistic.

Re:Don't hold your breath

[ravenspear]

It's not really surprising considering that NASA's annual budget is more than triple what Roscosmos' budget is.

Re:Don't hold your breath

[Grishnakh]

Everything costs a lot more in the US though. One US dollar spent by the US government at some US contractor is not going to go nearly as far as the same amount (in Rubles of course) spent by the Russian government.

Just look at how ridiculously inflated defense costs have gotten in the US. An aircraft carrier cost about 2.5B 20 years ago, now they cost 15B. Inflation isn't that high in this country.

Re:Don't hold your breath

[KGIII]

Inflation isn't that high but there are lots of costs associated with such projects. These are not the same carriers purchased twenty years ago - look at the available tech that they can now stuff into one.

That does NOT negate your point about it being too pricey. It just means that the rate would almost certainly exceed inflation because they're not even similar products except they both float and launch planes - not even the planes are the same in many cases. Add in the amortized design changes and, yeah, it's gonna be more costly - tech that we have now simply was not available then. It is still, of course, too damned expensive because, honestly, we've got enough of 'em already and nobody else can even remotely compete with such a class.

We've won... We can trickle along with moderate improvements at much lower cost, at a decreased level of alertness, and be fine. Our military has lots of problems but our Navy is, very much so, far above any other blue-water force on the planet. Bar none.

That said, there's no real comparison between the two types of carriers. Even if we left the design largely the same, the amount of tech that was unavailable for prior inclusion would make it more expensive by default.

Finally, I wonder if the Russians are accepting anonymous donations? I'd throw a few bucks there way. I like space and I like Russia. I've donated to NASA before (I'll skip the novella) and that made me feel pretty good. Donating to Russia would be even more meaningful as they're probably able to stretch the Rubles further even after their administration takes their cut.

Re:Don't hold your breath

[JoeMerchant]

These are not the same carriers purchased twenty years ago - look at the available tech that they can now stuff into one.

20 years ago, I paid $3000 for a 133MHz computer, with 64MB of RAM. Today, I can buy a 3GHz computer, with 4GB of RAM, for $300.

How much thrust does that produce? Payload capacity to orbit?

Re:Don't hold your breath

[KGIII]

Not everything follows Moore's Law. That and they can include *more* tech. We're still being ripped off but not as much as one might think.

Re:Don't hold your breath

[Headw1nd]

Yes, and any Russian project is going to be beset by graft and corruption. Look how much the Sochi Olympics cost.

Re:Don't hold your breath

[Rei]

Indeed, and unfortunately, rocket technology is on the opposite side of the tech/price scaling curve. NASA has their own inflation rate used for budgeting long-term projects, and it trends much higher than the US national inflation rate. The reason is obvious when you think about it: back in the 1950s, many common commercial products were handmade, with domestic labour, but are now mass-produced with cheap overseas labor and advanced labor-saving technologies (depending on the type of product). But just like in the 1950s, NASA still builds things largely by hand, generally in small numbers, and with a highly skilled domestic workforce.

"We've got to get mass production" is often a mantra of the alt-space community, and really in large part what's kept Russian costs down. It's also what makes SpaceX competitive - not only are they set up to make lots of cores per year (last I heard it was something like 40), but they put 9 engines per core, and their upper stages are just short, single-engine versions of their lower stages. And the Falcon Heavy is, to the most part, three Falcon 9s stuck together.

One can of course take the concept too far (OTRAG, I'm looking in your general direction...), but mass production is indeed a key aspect.

Re:Don't hold your breath

[Rei]

Also, it should be noted that mass production hits some obstacles when it comes to upper stages. You need a lot fewer engines, and higher ISP than you need for the lower stages (but not as much thrust requirement). You can do it with the same or similar ISP like SpaceX does (same engine, just vacuum optimized expansion nozzle), but that limits your scaling - it's fine to LEO/GEO but you're never going to get to Mars and back with a practical-sized rocket with those kinds of ISP figures. Which is why SpaceX's future plans hinge around in-situ methane production, so that they don't have to carry all of that return mass. It's a reasonable, although challenging, approach.

There are some possibilities mind you for getting more impulse out of their current designs. They're already taking some interest steps with the Falcon 9v1.2, aka "Full Thrust" - instead of having their LOX near its boiling point, they're supercooling it to just above its triple point and cooling the propellant to the maximum level of viscosity that their turbopumps can manage, so that they both increase in density, thus increasing both tank capacity and thrust. But while they're playing with increased viscosity propellants, they could take it to the next stage and go with mildly gelled propellants. The gelling isn't in and of itself a performance enhancer, but it lets you suspend aluminum (or if you don't mind the handling problems, lithium) particles in your fuel. Aluminum gives dozens of extra sec ISP, and lithium dozens more. Aluminum also increases propellant density, meaning more thrust and tank capacity (lithium unfortunately decreases it). While lithium metal is fairly expensive (a couple dozen dollars per kg), aluminum is cheap, about $1,50/kg.

Another nice thing (according at least to my CEA simulations with lithium) is that the latter significantly lowers chamber temperature, all other conditions (mass flow rate, expansion ratio, etc) being the same. Entering the conditions for the SSME, for example (77,5:1 expansion ratio, mass flow rate per square meter = 2223,8 kg/sec), CEA calculates (if SSME were lossless) 464,5 sec vac ISP (real world, after losses is 452 sec), 0,36g/cc propellant density, 3602,82K chamber temperature (real world 3573,15K) and exhaust of H2O (~76%) + H2 (~24%). CEA says that with a slightly different ratio you could add an extra 1,4sec ISP, but it's basically near maximum. With aluminum added to the ideal mix it calculates Al (43,9%)/LOX (39,1%)/LH2 (17,0%): 544,0 sec, 0,34g/cc, 3689,38K, -> H2 (~91%), Al2O3 (~9%). And with lithium, it calculates Li (30,0%)/LOX (34,6%)/LH2 (35,4%): 583,2 sec, 0,17g/cc, 2362,44K, -> H2 (~89%), Li2O (~11%). Now, these figures assume complete burning of the metals - which is often difficult to achieve in the real world with aluminum as its oxide has such a high melting point - but in general metalized propellants offer huge potential improvements to performance, with non-esoteric technology, and without posing serious pollution problems (like, say, using fluorine as an oxidizer does). So it'd be interesting to see what SpaceX could achieve if they could get their system to handle gelled propellants - the potential is huge.

(Note: these calculations are for adding metals to LOX/LH... but the same thing applies to hydrocarbon fuels, albeit to a slightly lesser degree)

Re:Don't hold your breath

[KGIII]

I think that people just seem to overlook that newer $devices are sometimes much more expensive than their historical levels simply because they contain technology (not just computers) that was simply unavailable or was prohibitively expensive at earlier times. An example might be a high-end luxury car. The car I have with me is a 6-series from BMW and it was more expensive than my last purchase by a large margin. Why? It has features that simply weren't reasonable, or possible, when I last bought a similar model from that company.

Using space technology, at least for the foreseeable future, it's going to be more expensive - like you stated. The reality is that we're going to want to keep stuffing new tech into them as this is the most likely way to achieve bang for the buck. It's not as if we've got daily missions to space for industrial purposes driving the costs down or not needing the latest technology or developing area-specific tech.

Ah well... I changed location over the weekend so I have the slow-and-stupids still. It took me a few minutes to realize what the gist was and I sat here like a confused dog (head even cocked sideways). I mention this because the sometimes-mentioned new young lady hasn't been able to travel much and we're in D.C. and will be visiting the Smithsonian (and a few more touristy places) over the next few weeks and we'll be spending some time at the National Air and Space Museum today and, perhaps, tomorrow. Next week, probably, we'll take a trip down to VA to get to the second one.

Re:Don't hold your breath

[khallow]

Inflation isn't that high but there are lots of costs associated with such projects.

Of course, there are. The thing here is that they'd still cost $15 billion even in the absence of the "tech" because the cost driver is corruption and inefficiency not the tech.

Re:Don't hold your breath

[AmiMoJo]

The CPUs used in space have to be radiation hardened and extremely reliable. They can't use the latest manufacturing processes that let you buy a mass produced 3GHz CPU for a few tens of dollars, they have to have them specially designed and made out of different materials on a difference process and then extensively tested.

Re:Don't hold your breath

[KGIII]

Don't forget graft. That's surely in the budget too.

Re:Don't hold your breath

[swb]

But hasn't BMW a long track record of relatively more advanced engineering in their cars which has more or less always accounted for some of their price premium? Do you think the relative-to-other-cars increases in sophisticated engineering has increased or stayed constant?

I also wonder if BMW pricing (especially for higher-end models like the 6 series) hasn't increased merely to defend its position as a status item? If their market demographic has seen an increase in income, BMW raises their price to both extract more of that income from its customers as well as maintain its status position and exclusivity.

Re:Don't hold your breath

[KGIII]

From what I've seen, concerning pricing, it's about average increases. I've a very advanced "infotainment" (that I don't use, really), advanced pedestrian detection and night vision - including IR use, etc. Additionally, I've got 450 ponies (it's the dual turbo) and the sport package, etc. Those weren't options on my older model (as far as I know) and this one was 'bespoke."

If I wanted a status item then I'd have bought a status symbol. This is pretty tame looking and it only gets "the look" from car buffs - which is why I bought it. So, you might be on to something there - it could be a status symbol but only to those who know anything about the model. You'd not think that the total price was about 120k if you saw it on the corner. Starting it up or giving it some gas may give an indication of this.

However, they've engineered great products and I pay for that. I pay for the advanced tech and the tech is new enough that it's not really impacted by economies of scale to a great degree. Some of it is exclusive and may never be repeated. That's part of the cost. (Not sure if I'm wording this well. I'm a bit distracted. I get to go to a museum today, one I've not been to in years.)

Re: Don't hold your breath

[KGIII]

There are some nice American vehicles. I own a really stupidly large number of vehicles (it's my hobby and a long-winded story) and some of them are American-made. Some of my favorites are American but I have my quirks. I have a 1973 Dodge Dart and, from that same year, a Jeep Wagoneer with the factory PTO. I own a few American trucks. I'm in the market for an HMMWV and I want an Oshkosh of some type before I die (they will not sell me an MRAP even if I pay extra - I have asked, so I'll probably end up with one of their smaller firefighting vehicle).

And some of the US' traditional quality is coming around again. I'm likely to purchase a Tesla this summer - if they get to the promised 500 mile/charge range. There are some new Fords (besides their truck line) that are quite acceptable for the price. Years ago, after my divorce, I was a happy Viper owner until my kids decided they wanted to live with Dad because he had the cooler toys (and mommy was a drunken slut, but I digress). I'd have to either make a call or go home but I'm pretty sure I own a Toyota that was made in the US. I hear that Dodge and Chevy have improved a little. Well, for very small definitions of improved.

They do make, all three of them, a fairly decent SUV but that's largely because there really aren't a whole lot of alternative choices in the US (I do like old Land Rovers and Range Rovers). I do miss the International Scout and I've yet to find one at a price that I'm willing to pay and in the shape I'm willing to accept and have repaired. I like them but not enough to deal with a headache.

Anyhow, from about 1975 to 1995 and I'd agree 100%. After that? Well, I'd agree but to a lesser percent. Prior to that? I'd disagree. Well, I might expand it to about 1972 and 1997. So, I can't entirely agree.

Re:Don't hold your breath

[khallow]

Obama isn't a bad leader (in general, the world hates the US far less now than they did back in 2003-2005), but he has spent his life in an ivory tower, so tends to be like European leaders -- erring on the side of Chamberlain.

Yay for low expectations. "Erring on the side of Chamberlain" is quite the backhanded foreign policy compliment.

Re:Don't hold your breath

[Crowd Computing]

One can of course take the concept too far (OTRAG, I'm looking in your general direction...), but mass production is indeed a key aspect.

It seems the OTRAG failed only because it wasn't tested enough. All new rocket technologies fail at some pont and often spectacularly. There's nothing to indicate that the OTRAG is a particularly deficient design.

For those too lazy to Google or read the link, you can picture the OTRAG as a bundle of pencils or crayons tied together, a rocket that looks almost entirely made up of strap-on boosters.

Re:Don't hold your breath

[Crowd Computing]

Yes, and any Russian project is going to be beset by graft and corruption. Look how much the Sochi Olympics cost.

Yes, and the amazing thing is they still manage to fly. The NASA budget is over 10x that of the Russian space agency, which almost feels like an alt-space company like Space X.

Re:Don't hold your breath

[Rei]

That's part of the problem. Generally when one takes a complex system and focuses in a narrow-minded approach toward optimizing just one aspect they end up blowing it on other aspects. For example, an equally well reasoned but precisely opposite argument to OTRAG is Big Dumb Booster concept, where rather than trying to mass-produce many small rockets, you make singular giant rockets because when you compare the economies of giant rockets to those of small rockets, the giant rockets usually win.

OTRAG has some good concepts, but again I think they went too far. Not only are they pushing their propellant costs way up - which to be fair, is by design, accepting the fact that propellant is only a very small fraction of total costs - but they're also pushing up every last part of the handling costs, which unfortunately is not so small of a fraction of the total costs. And they're incurring a lot of size-related costs - load capacity of the pad and tower, environmental impacts on the surrounding area, etc - without gaining the typical size-related economies of scale, as OTRAG's extreme size only yields proportionally small payloads. It has almost no potential to optimize costs further, as they're willfully making propellant a significant fraction of total costs and the design basically throws away any potential for economic reuse. And with numerous heavy steel stages and the first stages having to separate at low altitude due to the low performance, it's basically a bomber ;) And with all of those stages clustered together they're really putting themselves at risk for cascading failures - stage separations are one of the riskiest parts of rocketry as-is, and cluster elements can interact in unexpected ways even when you only have a few of them.

So no, I'm not a big OTRAG fan, I think the design goes too far. I think SpaceX hit the right balancing point in this regard - enough of a degree of mass production to keep production streamlined (dozens of tanks and hundreds of engines per year), but not so much that you have to have huge numbers of stages and crazy-low performance (aka crazy-huge mass). They did this sort of balancing act in a lot of regards. For example, in rocketry there's often been a conflict between structural tanks (which can bear all of the loads during launch) and balloon tanks (which rely on internal pressure not to collapse). Balloon tanks have much better performance (meaning that they save you a lot of mass and thrust requirement - aka money), but they're a pain when it comes to handling because you have to keep them pressurized at all times after construction, even during transport, and if you have to do repairs, it's expensive. SpaceX uses a sort of semi-balloon tank design - their tanks are strong enough unpressurized to hold themselves up, but not to bear the forces of launch - they require internal pressure for that. So you can transport and handle them without hassle, but they still get excellent payload fractions - to the point that that if they were to launch their first stages without upper stages or payloads on them, they'd nearly be SSTOs. And the design is of course aided by their use of aluminum-lithium alloy - which normally is expensive to work in a reliable manner (it doesn't take well to being melted), but the friction stir seam welding system they use is really near ideally suited for it.

Just like in life, rocketry is about balance. OTRAG is more Kerbal-ish ;)

Re:Don't hold your breath

[Coren22]

Not always. That is only true for probes. On the ISS they use Thinkpads with standard CPUs.

Re: Don't hold your breath

[swb]

I think US car quality went into decline with emissions standards and ever-escalating UAW labor costs that forced them to cut engineering quality to maintain margins. There was also probably something of a monopoly mindset where foreign brands by and large were a lot less available and not desirable by American standards (small, slow, etc).

It's funny, but I've heard horror stories about Mercedes reliability and few positive things about Audi. BMW I hear mixed bag stories -- expensive to maintain, but not completely unreliable, either. My wife and I owned a VW Jetta 20 years ago that was junk.

We've had excellent luck with Honda, but my understanding is they've had their own problems -- "a quart of oil a month is normal" and Toyota has had its sludge problems.

Re: Don't hold your breath

[Grishnakh]

American cars are shit in comparison. That's not hyperbole, it's truth. Americans cannot make decent cars.

Bullshit. Teslas are nice cars.

And there's a bunch of BMW and Japanese manufacturer factories across America that produce very decent cars.

Re: Don't hold your breath

[Grishnakh]

There was also probably something of a monopoly mindset where foreign brands by and large were a lot less available and not desirable by American standards (small, slow, etc).

That was the case before 1975, sure. After that, the Japanese brands became the ones everyone wanted; they were faster, nicer, had better fuel economy, lasted far far far longer, kept their resale better, were better looking, etc. The American brands finally started catching up in the late 90s or so.

The American companies have had literally decades to get their act together.

It's funny, but I've heard horror stories about Mercedes reliability and few positive things about Audi. BMW I hear mixed bag stories -- expensive to maintain, but not completely unreliable, either. My wife and I owned a VW Jetta 20 years ago that was junk.

High-end German cars are indeed infamous for outrageous repair costs. They're really just status symbols. If you want serious reliability, you want a Japanese-made car. It's been this way for a long time. Even VWs are known to have problems, especially the Mexican-made ones.

We've had excellent luck with Honda, but my understanding is they've had their own problems -- "a quart of oil a month is normal"

How old? The Hondas of the 90s were some of the most bulletproof cars ever made. I think they've lost some of their luster since then, but that's probably more because other brands have caught up a lot. I had two 90s-era Hondas and those things never burned oil.

Re: Don't hold your breath

[swb]

I owned a '99 Accord V6 from 1999 to 2007 which was really bulletproof. I think EGR valve and the alternator went out, but both were replaced under some special extended warranty.

I expected the tranny to go out on that car, but I sold it to a guy who drove it for a year and then sold it to someone he knew who was still driving it as of a year or two ago, no tranny issues.

I also owned a 2003 CR-V for about two years -- no problems with that vehicle, but it got sold when we upgraded to a 2005 Pilot. The Pilot was equally reliable, but I think some part of the front end drive system got worked on -- it was my wife's car, so I don't remember the details. We sold it for decent money last summer when she bought an Acura MDX.

Honda actually settled a class action lawsuit regarding oil consumption -- http://www.autoblog.com/2013/1...

I know a guy who owned two VWs with quart-a-month oil consumption, told by the dealer that was normal. How that's normal for anything that's not two cycle I'll never know.

Re:Don't hold your breath

[khallow]

NASA has their own inflation rate used for budgeting long-term projects, and it trends much higher than the US national inflation rate. The reason is obvious when you think about it: back in the 1950s, many common commercial products were handmade, with domestic labour, but are now mass-produced with cheap overseas labor and advanced labor-saving technologies (depending on the type of product). But just like in the 1950s, NASA still builds things largely by hand, generally in small numbers, and with a highly skilled domestic workforce.

The reason is obvious: they used their inflation rate as a key part of computing the costing of the next iteration of contracts. This created a feedback which greatly increased the cost of contracts and the resulting computed inflation rate over time.

This has led to wildly overpriced contracts. For example, a NASA group computed (see discussion of the "appendix") the traditional costing for a hypothetical NASA contract which would have built the Falcon 9 (including development of the Falcon I and three rocket engine designs). They arrived at a figure of $4.0 billion (this is for the bid, we're not even to cost overruns that occur after a contract is awarded). The actual SpaceX development cost as vetted by a NASA audit? $390 million.

My take at this time is that NASA's inflation index (the New Start Inflation Index is unintentionally pure fiction as part of a feedback dynamic that has greatly increased the cost of NASA activities.

Re:Don't hold your breath

[KGIII]

Alright. I've gotta ask, at this point. What do you (or did you) do for work? So help me, you'd better not say that you're a whaler or something. You really seem to have an affinity for space. I've seen the mouth-breathers calling you a nutter even though I've never seen you actually advocate anything that seems to warrant that status.

It took me a minute to get the gist of your math and I had to look up ISP. ISP is Specific Impulse, yes? It makes sense if that is the Wiki page is correct. Also, I'm not a rocket surgeon but those seem like rather long burn times. I'd wonder if the materials are able to handle those extended durations. Let it be clear, I'm not a materials engineer either. I do, on the other hand, grasp mathematics.

Re: Don't hold your breath

[KGIII]

I've posted pics of parts of my collection here before. One of my favorites is a 1988 Honda Accord LX. I actually could not let myself sell that car and then, when I had some money, I *drove* it to California, had it shipped to Japan, and had it completely restored to factory tolerances.

Per your BMW question - they do require you to maintain them. As a percentage cost, it's on par with any other vehicle. People do have some mechanical issues, from time to time, and I suspect that's because they don't maintain them properly. They're excellent driving machines and brilliant tech and that requires that you maintain them.

Re: Don't hold your breath

[WindBourne]

But, Russia's budget buys more.

Re: Don't hold your breath

[KGIII]

I should also add that the car is not, to me, a status symbol or the likes. In fact, if you look at the 650s (coupe, I hate convertibles) you'd have no idea what it is and that's one of the reasons that I bought it. I am not always fond of attention. I have flashier cars, included a nice older Porsche, but I'd rather go through life without undue attention in the meat space. If it's cruising along or just sitting there then you'd have no idea that it has 450 ponies under the hood. Now, if I start it up it's a little rumble and the low growl (and it is as awesome as you might think to drive).

I'm a car aficionado, a collector of sorts, who would never drive or own a status symbol. Each and every one of my vehicles is owned for a specific purpose and they're not, mostly, collector cars. I pride myself on owning not one single "trailer queen." Every vehicle gets used and every vehicle gets pushed to its limits. I love the automobile. I love to drive.

I pay dearly to maintain my collection to the point where I have a mechanic that comes to *my* garage and uses mostly *my* tools to maintain *my* collection and they come in once a week even when I am not home. They work a full day, every single Saturday (with few exceptions) and I pay them $400 (well, I pay their boss) per day.

I add that last bit not as a braggart or the likes. No, I add that to explain that I am a true aficionado. I'm truly passionate about the automobile and about my collection (such as it is - it's not one you'd find all that exciting unless you knew what I did with them and why). I don't drive status symbols or vehicles that aren't exactly the best choice for me for the task at hand.

Re:Don't hold your breath

[Rei]

Burn times? I haven't discussed burn times. ISP is independent of burn times.

Yes, ISP is specific impulse. Okay, let's back up. The thing all rockets are trying to achieve is delta-V - change in velocity, generally in meters per second. Low-Earth orbit (really, the minimum anyone cares about, excepting the rather small sounding rocket market) requires 300-400km altitude and 7800 meters per second (the latter representing far more energy requirements). You also have two other main sources of losses: aerodynamic losses (only at the very start of the launch, but it's very significant during that timeperiod) and so-called "gravity losses", aka making up for what your rocket falls after it's launched and before it's reached orbital velocity. Depending on aero and gravity losses, a rocket will typically require more than 10k m/s delta-V total.

The more energetic your combustion process and the more efficient your engine, the faster the average velocity of your exhaust. The exhaust passes through the throat at mach 1 (it's not capable of moving faster than the local sonic velocity through the throat), then in the expansion region converts its thermal energy to kinetic energy, increasing its velocity to several thousand meters per second. But note that this is still far way less than the velocity that you have to have to achieve to reach orbit. Hence you're subject to the tyrrany of the Tsiolkovsky Rocket Equation, which mandates exponential growth in terms of the size of your rocket to achieve linear growth in delta-V. The exponent is dependent on that ISP, which is based on how fast your exhaust moving, which is in turn based on how energetic your propellant mix is and how efficient your engines are.

Note of course that ISP is far more critical for upper stages. Because each increase in mass of the topmost stage dramatically increases the mass of each stage under it, it's important to keem them light. For lower stages, by contrast, thrust is key. A rocket just leaving Earth is subject to full gravity losses. If it only has just enough thrust to just barely lift off, it'll be wasting most of its energy just making up for the distance that it falls. The biggest factor in determining thrust is the volumetric, not mass, density - meaning that their density is key (density also reduces your tankage mass by making your tanks smaller). So for example hydrogen-based propellant mixtures are often high ISP, but since liquid hydrogen has a density around that of thick foam insulation, it's hard to get significant thrust out of it, and thus it's not often used for lower stages. But it's very commonly used for upper stages, where gravity losses are low to nonexistent. That comes with the caveat that sometimes the need for the engine to be lightweight outweighs the need for high ISP, and so for such cases one may still choose low ISP thrusters. The classic example would be the MMU (Manned Maneuvering Unit, aka, "astronaut jetpack"); it uses cold gas nitrogen thrusters, which are literally just a pressurized nitrogen tank hooked up to a nozzle. (There also exists a variant that some satellites use, aka where power is abundant but mass isn't, called a resistojet - it's basically a cold gas thruster but has a resistive heating element on the line to the nozzle, to get rocketlike ISP with something not much heavier or more complex than a cold gas thruster)

So anyway, that's the basics. And as for metalized propellants, they're already used in solid rockets. It was a huge breakthrough for them, adding aluminum - it's basically what made solid ICBMs possible (the Soviets, coming to the realization of the benefits much later than the US, fell well behind and were stuck using liquid-fueled ICBMs much longer); it both increased density (aluminum is much more dense than most propellants) and ISP, by a significant margin. It even makes the burn better - faster, more even ignition, and the molten aluminum droplets damp resonant vibrations, leading to more steady combustion. While aluminum offers many bene

Re:Don't hold your breath

[KGIII]

I'm going to read your post a bit more thoroughly in a few minutes (I'm exhausted - mentally and physically) but I am missing something. With "544,0 sec," is that not seconds? Erf... I'm going to reread all of it. ;-) I was under the impression that it was seconds and thus burn time. :/ Thanks for being patient.

Re:Don't hold your breath

[Rei]

ISP is most commonly given in units of "seconds", although the way they're measured is a bit misleading as the values are divided by Earth's gravity. Also note that the SP should really be subscript (it's "Impulse (SPecific)"), but there's no way to write that on Slashdot. ISP has nothing to do with burn times. :)

Re:Don't hold your breath

[Crowd Computing]

I became an instant fan of the OTRAG when I first came upon it in some random space forum. I thought its failure was all because of an anti-German conspiracy by the Soviets and US. I now see your point about multiple points of failure being just that, multiple possibilities of failing, which isn't so bad if the units just fail silently instead of going kaboom.

So I guess it's the big dumb boosters of Space X and friends until we figure out how to get something truly scifi-ish like the Skylon off the ground.

Re:Don't hold your breath

[redlemming]

These are not the same carriers purchased twenty years ago - look at the available tech that they can now stuff into one.

20 years ago, I paid $3000 for a 133MHz computer, with 64MB of RAM. Today, I can buy a 3GHz computer, with 4GB of RAM, for $300.

There's a basic principle of economics that differs in the two cases. It's called economy of scale. Basically, if you can produce a lot of something, you can afford to charge less per item.

People (and businesses) have designed and produced millions upon millions of computers. It's not just laptops, netbooks, tablets, and desktop computers, either. In this day and age, almost every new car, cell phone, printer, microwave oven (and all manner of other appliances) has a computer of some sort embedded in it. There's a lot of overlap between these computer systems, which combines with the large numbers being produced to considerably reduce the costs.

There are some really high cost items involved in producing computers, but this isn't always obvious to the consumer, of course. A fab for producing chips typically costs at least a billion or so, and that doesn't count the ongoing costs to operate it. Even just a high quality oscilloscope or logic analyzer could be a substantial fraction of a million (if you want something reliable that can handle high frequencies). In the typical case, the high costs of the items (and people) needed to produce the computer are more than compensated for by the number of computers sold.

We can't afford to build millions of aircraft carriers. Even if we could, there wouldn't be any point in building them. What would we do with them? Put one in every back yard, in the kid's swimming pool?

Worse, these are staggeringly complex systems. Even a World War I warship is vastly more complex than most people can even begin to imagine (unless they've studied the design of those ships), but the modern stuff dwarfs the complexity of the older ships. In many ways, a warship is far more complex than a computer.

Worse, these ships need to be massively over-engineered, to handle the sea environment, to operate under all kinds of ridiculous conditions, to make the nuclear plants safe, to protect the crew from all the other dangerous stuff aboard, to handle battle damage, and so forth. The requirements on a ship that needs to be able to stay at sea for months at a time are very different from the requirements for a consumer computer. You're not just building a city at sea, but one where lots of complex specialized systems need to be able to interact with one another in situations and ways never dreamed of by engineers doing civilian design.

Secrecy can also add a lot to cost. Patents add to costs as well, and these are probably far more of a burden for the design of military systems than civilian, again because of the economy of scale issue (the patent owner has to collect as much as they can from a few customers, instead of a much smaller amount from many).

Also, you can't reduce many costs by using overseas resources: nobody wants their military dependent on services provided by some other country. The ability to do this in the civilian sector has a huge effect on reducing the price of items, such as computers: chips and other electronics are routinely designed in the USA, then manufactured and tested overseas.

The net effect is, to buy the ship, you have to pay enough to lots of different companies for lots of different components - very little of which can be used for anything else - to justify the complex engineering and manufacturing effort needed to build these things, plus all the overhead associated with any business (marketing, management, accounting, law, etc...). Even the overhead is probably far higher when building warships than it is for civilian products.

The demand for the engineering and manufacturing resources needed to do this doesn't necessarily scale with common measures of inflation, which are pretty nar

60 years later

[MightyYar]

Nothing wipes out humiliation of a country that no longer exists like going to the moon 60 years later with a rocket that - still on paper - is 1/6 as capable.

Re:60 years later

[ColdWetDog]

But Putin could ride it! Kennedy never did anything like that.

OTOH, if we do elect Donald Trump as president, it might be an excellent idea to emulate.

Re:60 years later

[TWX]

If it takes that long to do it, I think Putin will be riding it in the form of a powder packed into an especially lightweight urn...

Re:60 years later

[jandersen]

Nothing wipes out humiliation of a country that no longer exists like going to the moon 60 years later with a rocket that - still on paper - is 1/6 as capable.

Try to be fair - it is a good exercise, if nothing else. The US moon landing was not really much more than an expensive dick waving expedition with little or no plans for the future, as events have shown. Hopefully what the Russians and Chinese intend to do will be more planned and more constructive. I mean, it makes my shudder to think that anybody travelled up there in a tin can with a computer system about as powerful as a Furby. Brave - very brave; just not all that smart.

In my view, we should start sending up robotic equipment - autonomous or remote controlled - until we can build a substantial base in which people can live for longer periods of time. I wouldn't be surprised if the Chinese and Russians have something like that on their minds. Hopefully they will let us join them, and then we can work together to reach Mars.

Re:60 years later

[Mike Frett]

You're not going to any Planet if Trump gets elected. Those funds will be diverted to some unnecessary Middle East Military action.

Sputnik?

[Sir Holo]

FTSummary: Russia could move to wipe out the humiliation it suffered at the hands of NASA when it lost the 1960s race to the moon with the landing of Apollo 11 on July 20, 1969.

Uhm, "lost" the space race?

Sputnik? Remember?

Oh, and Russia also landed a craft on, and beamed back images from, the surface of Venus. They were first. In fact, and I expect to be corrected, I don't recall the US ever landing a probe on Venus that did anything other than send back a few blips of telemetry readings before dissolving in the Venusian atmosphere.

Re:Sputnik?

[Anonymous Coward]

"when it lost the 1960's race to the moon"

Reading comprehension isn't your strong suit, is it?

Re:Sputnik?

[TWX]

Sputnik was a lot more the glove slapped across the face than the pistol shot on the dueling grounds. After the United States' success with the Lunar Landing the Soviet/Russian and American programs headed into obviously different directions, but the development of the Shuttle and the Soviets' failure with their equivalent, and the Soviets/Russians success with inexpensive LEO and stations while the United States failed with Skylab and then had enough development problems that they relied on the Russians for the beginnings of the modern station.

That said, I welcome the Russians' designs on space because the competition will spur the American manned space program into more than trips to LEO again, which dwarf the military applications that the Russians would get from their programme.

Re:Sputnik?

[mattyj]

Sputnik wasn't the end of the space race, it was the beginning. And nobody cares about Venus.

Correlating the space race to an actual race, you might get to the halfway point first (Sputnik) but what matters is crossing the finish line first (Apollo 11.)

Re:Sputnik?

[pr0t0]

Agreed. I wasn't alive at the time, and I'm sure their was nationalistic pride that was lost to the Americans when we went to the moon; but the former Soviet Union had nothing to be ashamed about. Their aerospace chops were proven time and again. Sputnik, Gargarin, Tereshkova, Mir, Venera, etc., not to mention Sukhoi and Mig.

That was 45 years ago. Today, the U.S. has to beg for rides to the ISS. WE'RE the ones who should be humiliated.

Re:Sputnik?

[AHuxley]

re "Remember?"
Soviet space program Notable firsts
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... has the list of Venus related missions :)

Re:Sputnik?

[Dunbal]

Sputnik was never intended as a "slap in the face to anyone". Self centered people tend to think that others do things especially for their own benefit. Sputnik was a mere step forward in technology. It would have been difficult to create an orbital satellite that did NOT fly over the United States at some point or other. That America decided to take it as a personal insult from "those commie bastards" is another thing entirely.

Re:Sputnik?

[Dunbal]

I'm so often reminded of the "Tortoise and the Hare" tale when I think about the United States.

Re:Sputnik?

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't that part of the current problem?

Seeing the moon landing as crossing the finish line?

Re:Sputnik?

[jedidiah]

Sputnik in fact was an AFTERTHOUGHT.

The Russians had a single unified ICBM effort and they decided to just "put a cherry on top" as it were. American leadership was much less in a panic about it than the general public. Eisenhower also liked the idea of setting the precedent of allowing sat overflights as the US was priming to put up spy satellites.

Re:Sputnik?

[Waffle Iron]

but the development of the Shuttle and the Soviets' failure with their equivalent

Actually, the Soviets succeeded in realizing that an airplane-shaped payload strapped onto the side of a rocket makes no sense after only one flight. It took us over 100 flights before we realized the same thing. I think they won that round.

Re:Sputnik?

[Ogive17]

That seems like an unfair comparison without any explanation.

Re:Sputnik?

[KGIII]

Eisenhower also, likely, knew that we weren't as far behind as the populous believed. One could say what we weren't even really "behind" so much as we were concentrating on different aspects. Not long after Operation Paperclip, we were able to put stuff *in* space but we were concentrating more on things like navigation, processing, accuracy, and reliability.

Another interesting aside, and someone correct me if I'm wrong, Yuri didn't actually do much in the way of piloting his craft. It was controlled from the ground while we wanted things to be able to be controlled from the craft (making more accurate munitions - for example). A few documentaries (hard to get without a bit of bias) mention this as well as a big indicator being that the USSR did not announce things ahead of time because they weren't sure they'd work and we still don't know how many failures they did have (up to and including some group of Soviets who were lost in space maybe).

Some thought may be given to why it was a race at all, beyond the weapons aspect. A fearful group is easier to control and beer and circuses goes a long ways towards keeping people content. So much that changes seems to remain the same.

Re:Sputnik?

[naughtynaughty]

The US doesn't beg for rides, it pays for a ride. Just like I pay for an Uber ride instead of building my own car and using it. Makes sense for me, makes sense for NASA. Buying rides to the ISS allowed the US to stop financially supporting the space shuttle and divert that funding towards a next generation vehicle.

Re:Sputnik?

[just another AC]

no explanation because it seems obvious...

USA = hare
Rushed through to have some good early success (won race to moon).
Stagnated.

USSR/Russia
Some earlier small success (doesn't fit story)
Always perceived as being behind (due to loss of race to moon)
Now are the primary country for taking people into space = won the big picture race

Yes it is not exact, yes NASA has other successes, yes to a whole bunch of other holes in the argument, but the comparison doesn't need explanation.

Re: Sputnik?

[binarylarry]

Protip: Venus isn't on the Moon!

Re:Sputnik?

[TWX]

The shuttle's misuse as a payload delivery platform was not a technical failure of the vehicle. You are right, it was a terrible cargo vehicle, but would have been an excellent vehicle on which to operate longer-duration special missions that required the equipment to be launched and returned in one configuration.

It was our own damn political fault that we decided that the shuttle should contain the parts for a station, parts that individually had to be smaller than the shuttle's cargo bay. Had the entire payload of the launching rocket been station parts plus enough cowl to protect it for launch we could have sent up much bigger station parts, and if we used the shuttle for anything, could have housed the astronauts that were to complete assembly of the station in-orbit, or could have been configured not as a cargo vehicle but as a crew transport vehicle to the station carrying significantly more than the eight that it was equipped for.

Re:Sputnik?

[dbIII]

The need to get the thing into polar orbits of a certain height and the height envelope of what was possible to build and launch without building a new spaceport resulted in that bizzare compromise of the vehicle strapped onto the side of a rocket. It's a credit to NASA that they even managed to launch something shaped like that at all. If you don't see it as a big deal look up "bending moment" for a start, without even getting into centre of mass and aerodynamics.

Had the entire payload of the launching rocket been station parts plus enough cowl to protect it for launch we could have sent up much bigger station parts

The political restriction of one single vehicle to do everything prevented that. It's kind of what we are seeing now with a military jet that is supposed to do everything.
A lot of the more serious near future SF from the last few decades (and recent ISS modules in reality) has space stations built out of modules launched unmanned on dedicated rockets and the manned missions involve connecting them together. The Japanese near-future fiction "Space Brothers" has a moonbase built out of modules and assembled by remote controlled industrial robots before the first people are planned to turn up - even the wheeled vehicles are sent in to be at the landing site before the astronauts land. In that fiction they get around the lack of a Saturn V in the near future by sending the lander into Earth orbit unmanned and then docking something like a Soyuz to it on a manned flight to avoid having to lift all the stuff in one go.

Re:Sputnik?

[KGIII]

I figure it was more about control and, out of that, comes funding.

Re:Sputnik?

[KGIII]

Thanks.

Re:Sputnik?

[Anonymous Coward]

Technically, Germany was first to space, surpassing the Kármán line with the v2. But we won't talk about that. 175km in June 1944. Not orbit, but the first to space with a man made object.

Re:Sputnik?

[Anonymous Coward]

You are correct about control. But to be fair, there is not a lot of control to do. It's not about 'flying' like one would fly an X-wing in the movies, more of when to ignite the retrorockets while traveling at 8km/second; every 0.1 second too early or late and you increase your recovery area by a few km^2. The soviets did not have the electronic timers small enough to go in the vehicle.

Re:Sputnik?

[thinkwaitfast]

How many other countries have private companies that have put satellites into orbit?

Re:Sputnik?

[Anonymous Coward]

The parameters were RESET by the US government as they had lost all the important battles. By reframing the space race as the race to the moon they were able to at least claim a consolation prize yet sell it as the ultimate victory.

Re: Sputnik?

[BigZee]

Its all a matter of perspective. I suspect the Soviets did feel they had won with sputnik. I'm sure the Americans think the same with the Moon landings. However, travel into space is continuing to produce new results. The demand for more sophistication drives us forward. For example, when NASA created the Grand Tour, I expect it was technically impossible at the time to also travel to Pluto (either as part of the tour or as a seperate mission). That has now been achieved and would probably be more sophisicated if designed today. There is a good chance that in a hundred years people might well talk about the colonisation of Mars as the 'real' start of the space race or that the first ship to make it to Alpha Centari in a thousand years as the start.

For me, both Sputnik and the Moon landings are of equal importance. The Viking landings are also high on the list as are the amazing discoveries of ther above mentioned robot missions. The moone landings got a lot of publicity during the cold war and I think that has caused bias in many peoples impressions.

Re:Sputnik?

[Rei]

Half of Soviet missions to Venus failed anyway. They were just a lot more persistant about it ;) Really, the Soviet Union had a pretty terrible record for space exploration away from the confines of Earth - near universal disasters on their Mars program and not even an attempt to explore the outer solar system. But at least their persistence with Venus paid off - the US practically ignored our "evil twin". My favorite finding was the detection of iron during their descent through the clouds - they think it was volcanic ash, but even if it's just dust it's still neat to know that there's mineral condensation nuclei in the clouds.

Re:Sputnik?

[khallow]

The shuttle's misuse as a payload delivery platform was not a technical failure of the vehicle. You are right, it was a terrible cargo vehicle, but would have been an excellent vehicle on which to operate longer-duration special missions that required the equipment to be launched and returned in one configuration.

Utility > capability. Capability is just a technology demonstration in the absence of further usefulness.

Re:Sputnik?

[Ogive17]

You think NASA has stagnated? Who just returned close up pictures of Pluto? Who has an active rover still on Mars?

Sure, other agencies have had some great accomplishments.. there's no reason NASA has to have a monopoly on space exploration. Right now, there really is no point to extended manned space travel. As much as the Star Trek nerd in me wants to travel the stars, we are far away from that ability.

It's funny you think a Soyuz is winning the long term race. They take people to a floating platform. What innovation has Russia provided to space exploration in the past 40 years? They do one thing well, launch rockets to ISS. NASA, ESA, JAXA are all still far ahead.

Re:Sputnik?

[Sir Holo]

"when it lost the 1960's race to the moon"

Reading comprehension isn't your strong suit, is it?

I did read it, but it was between the lines...

The article's writer was cherry-picking from history for editorial slant.

Re:Sputnik?

[k6mfw]

We got civilian, and eventually commercial spaceflight primarily because we were spending a million tons of money getting ready to nuke our enemies

Dennis Wingo described in one of his articles at https://denniswingo.wordpress.... (I cannot find that specific one right now), it showed a chart of expenditures on rockets in late 50s/early 60s. The amounts were staggering, i.e. $40 billion on developing Atlas (and this was 1960 dollars!), $30B on Titan, etc. These are not actual quotes but were these magnitudes. Besides development and testing (lots of activities at facilities like in Huntsville, Edwards RPL, and Santa Susana), they were cranking out these ICBMs like sausages. Of course a few were used for launching men into orbit.

Re:Sputnik?

[erapert]

I did read it, but it was between the lines...

The article's writer was cherry-picking from history for editorial slant.

Oh the irony.

Humiliation?

[eumoria]

"Russia could move to wipe out the humiliation it suffered" First to put something in orbit, first man in space, they landed robotic rovers on the moon around the same time we were there. I'm not trying to dismiss the amazing Apollo program but this is very biased nonsense. As an American the Russians should be proud of their space program. No humiliation.

Re:Humiliation?

[the gnat]

The real humiliation wasn't the space race, it was losing their empire in 1989-1991. Most of the other European empires managed to get over the loss of their former colonies, but the Russians are still whining about it 25 years later, as if they had some sacred right to brutalize and exploit the Poles and Czechs (among many others). Ditto for China, which seems to be intent on claiming every territory that might have at one point been under Chinese rule as payback for its own supposed humiliation(s).

(To be fair, it's not like every superpower and ex-superpower in history hasn't had plenty of people who felt the same way, like the Americans who still think we could have won the war in Vietnam if only we'd been willing to take the gloves off, presumably by nuking Hanoi.)

Re:Humiliation?

[dunkelfalke]

I have no problem with socialism. Just with Poland's attitude.

6 launches isn't complex

[Robotbeat]

6 launches isn't complex. We do twice that many flights to ISS every year. In total, we've done over 160 flights to ISS, with Russia doing over half of those.

Anyway, I bet they can do it in 4 Angara launches. Russia is super experienced with in-space rendezvous, autonomous docking, and even more advanced things like propellant transfer (which they do regularly at ISS). 4 or even 6 launches would be no problem.

They'll save a ridiculous amount of money by not building a megarocket like we insist on.

But I agree with the skeptical posters here. Russia always talks about these sorts of things and never does them (not that we're much better). I think it's code-word for "if oil gets over $150/barrel and stays there, then we can do this."

Re:6 launches isn't complex

[Dunbal]

Hey don't knock $100+/bbl oil. It got a lot of countries a lot of alternative energy sources. Even now with cheaper oil, I don't see Germany shutting down its solar/wind projects. They will still be making electricity for a long time. The trick is convincing someone to make the initial investment.

Re:6 launches isn't complex

[JoeMerchant]

...

They'll save a ridiculous amount of money by not building a megarocket like we insist on.

...

Nothing says "big phallus" like a Saturn V.

Re:6 launches isn't complex

[JoeMerchant]

Hopefully with cheaper oil, Germany is scaling back its coal production. Fear of Fukushima has done more environmental damage with the resurgence of coal than all the nuclear power accidents put together.

Re:6 launches isn't complex

[dbIII]

Yes, last time it kicked off the shale oil/gas boom with some pretty stupid cowboy goldrush antics that are starting to have a bit of fallout now. Meanwhile solar/wind/etc are quietly progressing worldwide to compete with the much lower price.
Rusted on Republicans take note - the Chinese are making an absolute fortune selling those solar panels developed in the USA but forced offshore to keep some donors happy. America could be making a killing from that American technology if a few loud Texan oil executives had not put their interest ahead of the country. Those six million manufacturing jobs lost recently could be doing that and spinoffs instead of that many or more doing it in China.

Re:6 launches isn't complex

[dbIII]

Coal production is down.
You may a point about damage but at least attempt to tie your points to reality.

Re:6 launches isn't complex

[JoeMerchant]

Down, but certainly not out - and definitely not out as fast as it would have been with continued nuclear use and development.

https://carboncounter.wordpres...

http://www.greenbiz.com/articl...

http://www.gtai.de/GTAI/Naviga...

https://eu.boell.org/sites/def...

Re:6 launches isn't complex

[Robotbeat]

Russia uses hypergols for most of their upper stages, and a lander would likely use hypergols anyway (like the Apollo LM). You're describing a non-issue for the Russians.

Re:6 launches isn't complex

[werepants]

6 launches isn't complex.

For a single mission it certainly is. We did ONE big-ass launch for each Apollo mission. The problem with multiple launches is that your risk increases - each one carries with it some chance of failure, and if even one fails, the whole thing is scrapped. You've also got a ton of risky and complicated orbital rendezvous to pull off... Apollo only had to do it once for each mission.

Overall, this reeks of impracticality. This is something that COULD work, but I bet nobody's seriously planning on using this architecture.

Re:6 launches isn't complex

[dbIII]

Nuclear is not relevant in the west since nobody wants to put up the capital.
There's no point whining about it, just pay attention to the actual progress that is happening with nuclear in China, Russia and India, pay attention to fusion if you wish and hope for the future instead of putting up a suggestion that is not going to be taken seriously.

Re:6 launches isn't complex

[dbIII]

That came off badly the "Rusted on Republicans take note" is not an insult - it's a suggestion to tell people running your party to start working for America and not British Petroleum or the House of Saud. I'm not that fond of Democrats either so it was not a partisan comment.

Re: 6 launches isn't complex

[WindBourne]

Actually, other than America and UK, coal is growing in most places.

Re: 6 launches isn't complex

[WindBourne]

Actually, a number of things wrong there. First, lets say that you use a bigelow 330 unit to travel to the moon. It could be launched on an FH for 150 M. Then you have supplies for 6 ppl to last say 6-12 months. That would fit in a unit that could be attached to the ba's front. That is 1 FH launch. Now, add a tug with fuel which 1 FH can do. Finally, you send up a crew of 6 in an f9 and dragon. Now, you are ready to go to the moon with 4 cheap launches. And that is exactly how it will be done.

Re:6 launches isn't complex

[JoeMerchant]

When I graduated college, I was already hip to the fact that Nuclear was a non-starter from a political standpoint. I took a job interview with the NRC, mostly for the free plane trip to Atlanta, and they fed me a line about "modern designs" "ready to start building any day now," in 1990... yeah, and your current crop of plant inspectors are the kids that believed that crap back then.

So, politically, we're afraid of the mighty atom to the point that we accept chemical poisoning, strip mining, ash ponds overflowing into rivers, drowning polar bears, etc. instead. I did have some hope a few years ago when a group of "Greens for Nuclear Power" went public with some decent documentary film PR about how they used to support Greenpeace, but have since done the math and realize that Nuclear Power is the way out from the greenhouse problem... but they are still too few and too poorly funded to sway policy.

Re: 6 launches isn't complex

[dbIII]

Globally sales are down. A lot.

Re: 6 launches isn't complex

[WindBourne]

Bill,
No, the numbers have been climbing for the last couple of years. Even for the west, That is esp true of Europe, South Korea, and Japan Note that back in 2012, there were a total of 1200 new plants being considered, or built. Now it is up to 2100. That is not a slowing down. That is growth. Most of it is China, India, etc. Basically, Asia is on a massive sprey that will drive the CO2 way above the limits. Worse yet, once these new MONSTER plants are built, they have zero intentions of tearing them down. For example, China's claims on coal usage does not match the shear number of coal plants that they have, nor does it match up to the CO2 that they claim vs. what OCO2 is showing. There is a LOT MORE COAL coming from elsewhere, which is very likely from the tunnels that showed up after their massive earthquake.

All in all, nations are still on a tear. Only America, and UK have pretty much stopped.

Re: 6 launches isn't complex

[werepants]

First, lets say that you use a bigelow 330 unit to travel to the moon. It could be launched on an FH for 150 M. Then you have supplies for 6 ppl to last say 6-12 months. That would fit in a unit that could be attached to the ba's front. That is 1 FH launch. Now, add a tug with fuel which 1 FH can do. Finally, you send up a crew of 6 in an f9 and dragon.

Wait, what? Why would you send 6 people, and why would you send them for months? The Bigelow modules don't have nearly the radiation protection you would need... and are people going to be living in that on the moon's surface? That will require a substantial lander.

There's more to architecting a mission profile than just snapping together random components that fit within a mass budget.

Re: 6 launches isn't complex

[WindBourne]

First the BA330 holds 6 ppl fine. With a tug, it can take them to the lunar orbit in just 3-4 days.
Secondly, the walls will be lined with bags of water. Water is a GREAT shielding since it stops most radiation and does not create scatter like lead will.
Third, Bigelow intends to land other BA-330s on the moon and then cover them with dirt. In doing that, it is a perfect lunar base.
Fourth, have you seen the work that is going on with lunar, and earth landers? We now have multiple companies, with more to come, that are building VTOL space crafts. With a redesign, these companies will be able to build new crafts for doing lunar work. So will the ones that NASA is helping along.

There is little doubt that by 2025, America will be on the moon again, but with a base, and with other nations joining us via private space.

Re: 6 launches isn't complex

[werepants]

First the BA330 holds 6 ppl fine. With a tug, it can take them to the lunar orbit in just 3-4 days.

You are amazingly optimistic. First of all, water is indeed good shielding, but to survive something like a solar flare (the risk of which is quite large in a months-long mission) you would want to have something on the order of a meter or more thickness. That's not something the BA330 can support.

You're also talking about something fundamentally different from what the article is suggesting. Could four FH launches get people to a moon landing? Yes. Could four launches be sufficient for a 6-12 month stay on the moon? Not likely. And in either case, multi-launch mission profiles have lots of drawbacks, which was my original contention. If you're doing such a thing, at a minimum you need to have redundant launches prepped in case of a failure, otherwise your mission success probability takes a big hit.

Re: 6 launches isn't complex

[WindBourne]

You are correct about the solar flare. Of course, the idea is to use the BA-330 to send 6 (or more) ppl to the moon. From there, they go down to the base on the surface. From that point on, the BA-330/tug is simply used to move ppl between earth and the moon orbits. And it should be good for at least 10 trips and likely more.

Then all that is needed is fuel, supplies, and ppl.

you might think that I am being optimistic, but, this is what Bigelow is planning. Not me.

Re: 6 launches isn't complex

[werepants]

I guess I'm confused about your motivation in replying to my original post then... my whole contention is that 4 launches (much less 6) isn't remotely optimal for a boots-on-the-moon mission. Bigelow's plans for lots of launches for a moon base don't seem to be relevant because the trades, risks, and goals are totally different. Or, is Bigelow suggesting 4 launches for each group sent to the moon for a stay? That strikes me as a poorly thought out mission profile if so.

Re: 6 launches isn't complex

[WindBourne]

Bigelow will use less than 4 launches to send a group to the lunar surface where he will have a private base. Obviously, the base had to be set-up before hand, and the tug/ba330 up there as well. There will have to be a reusable lunar lander, likely methane at first. But note, that the lander is nothing hard. After all, we have BO that went up to 60 miles and back. Interestingly, the lunar orbit is 120 miles, but with 1/6 G, BO's new Shepard would do the trick.

Re: 6 launches isn't complex

[werepants]

4 launches still sounds amazingly inefficient to drop some people off - Apollo did it in one launch, for good reason. Anything more than two launches seems risky and poorly optimized. And no, landing on the moon isn't that challenging, but I'd be surprised if Bigelow has a base there by 2025. That sounds overly optimistic to me.

Re: Resume the lunar program

[Anonymous Coward]

That depends on which hopeless moron is elected to replace him. If it's Trump then I predict a change to a program to send people to Venus. It's a lot closer, is similarly sized to earth, and has a real atmosphere.

Docking is now less hard work

[AHuxley]

A more complex payload can now reach the moon without the many compromise of the past efforts as seen on television.
A later permanent lunar ability would then be less tricky allowing for the wonders of the ultimate high ground to be explored and science shared.
Russian has the very complex metallurgy, science, support, academics, computer applications to ensure all such projects will work.
Lets hope the needed projects get the full funding soon :)

Re:Docking is now less hard work

[JoeMerchant]

Russian has the very complex metallurgy, science, support, academics, computer applications to ensure all such projects will work.

But, I'm not very impressed with their ability to control pollution... and by extension: dust.

Re: Resume the lunar program

[Dunbal]

If it's Trump then I predict a change to a program to send people to Venus. It's a lot closer, is similarly sized to earth, and has a real atmosphere.

Please tell me you're joking, right? Sorry if I missed the sarcasm. I don't consider 500 degree sulfuric acid at 90 atmospheres to be much of an advantage. Anyway everyone knows Trump would be more interested in building a casino on the moon.

Patriotic assholes

[LostMyBeaver]

Patriotism is a disease that makes a moron believe (s)he's better than someone else because (s)he's better than someone else because they were squeezed from a vagina that either already was a citizen of a country or squeezed from it in said country.

Unless you're ass was the one planted in the pod which landed on the moon, you're the asshole who thinks Armstrong said "On small step for the United States". A man landed and walked on the moon and you make this about national boundaries? This is about what we can accomplish as human beings if we set our minds to it. Using something that barely counts as a computer and communications systems which worked nearly by accident, we sent humans riding on an enormous bomb into space and managed to actually slow them down enough to land on the surface of the moon.

This was a victory for all of the world... not just the U.S. and it sure as hell wasn't a loss for the Soviet Union. The were able to see that their fellow man stood on the surface of the moon and be proud of what we can all accomplish and to know that if we reach for the stars... one day we might just reach them.

Screw your pathetic patriotic nonsense... every day I come here and read Slashdot and see people from all over the world (including Russia and China) talk about popular science together as a common species. I visit sites where people from around the world work to further medicine and we don't consider patents or national boundaries, we consider illnesses. We work together to design new algorithms for pattern detection within ultrasound images to detect anomalies.

I visit other sites where we discuss the mysteries of the Universe and generally find that we like those mysteries. Sometimes we wonder would we like it so much if they weren't mysteries. We speak as humans with no regards for national boundaries and who was squeezed from a vagina in a given place.

Patriotism is for fools. Nationalism is for fools. There is only one reason for national boundaries and that's to have some order to managerial tasks like deciding who should pay for which roads to be built.

I was born an American... when I learned that patriotism is a hoax, I decided to be something far greater... a human instead. My life has been far more fulfilling since.

That said... as someone born in New York, I do take an irrational pride in New York pizza and bagels... it's not a competition, it's an observation... we do it better.

Re:Patriotic assholes

[jonnythan]

That's nice and all, but pride is a strong motivator and there's not much pride in being better than animals or plants. There's pride in being better than other people. That often comes in the form of your GROUP being better than another GROUP. Whether you're cheering for your football team or your country, pride at being a member of the best GROUP is a very strong motivator of both people and groups. We would not have gone to the moon in 1969 if it weren't a way to harness, leverage, and create national pride.

Re:Patriotic assholes

[just another AC]

We also wouldn't have had nearly as many wars.

A motivator motivates to do both good and bad. And pride has probably motivated more bad than good in the history of human kind.

Re:Patriotic assholes

[thinkwaitfast]

Most technology development is due to war.

Re:Patriotic assholes

[Lagmo]

A laudable and courageous post, soon to be modded -1 Socialist and consigned to oblivion.
TL;DR: Wish i had some mod points.

Re:Patriotic assholes

[dotancohen]

Patriotism is a disease that makes a moron believe (s)he's better than someone else because (s)he's better than someone else because they were squeezed from a vagina that either already was a citizen of a country or squeezed from it in said country. Unless you're ass was the one planted in the pod which landed on the moon, you're the asshole who thinks Armstrong said "On small step for the United States". A man landed and walked on the moon and you make this about national boundaries? This is about what we can accomplish as human beings if we set our minds to it. Using something that barely counts as a computer and communications systems which worked nearly by accident, we sent humans riding on an enormous bomb into space and managed to actually slow them down enough to land on the surface of the moon.

As much as I agree that the moon landings were something for the whole world to be proud of, _especially_ the Soviet Union which initiated the space race, I think that you underestimate the effort required to put two men on the lunar surface, EVA, and return them alive with lunar samples. It was _not_ something that the Ice Commander and Buzz did while the whole world watched. It was an _American_ effort, with almost half a million people working on the project directly. And those who were not working on the project were paying taxes to pay for it, reaching a peak of almost 1% of the nation's GDP.

Those Americans have a right to feel exclusively proud of the accomplishment in 1969 just as they have the exclusive responsibility for destroying personal privacy in ~2001. By national effort and directed on a national level, they developed new technologies, new materials, new manufacturing methods, new project management techniques, new communication protocols, tested, died, learned, and funded it all.

Re:Patriotic assholes

[jonnythan]

Human ego is a two-edged sword. It cuts both ways. Virtually all of our accomplishment as a species are due to pride, lust, envy, and the others. Virtually all the horrors we've created as a species are due to the same.

Russian Roulette

[PopeRatzo]

They have six rockets, but only one of them is loaded.

Re: Resume the lunar program

[BarbaraHudson]

50 kilometers above the surface the temperature and pressure are earth-normal. Huge dirigibles using oxygen and nitrogen would float in the denser co2 atmosphere.

Re:Resume the lunar program

[BarbaraHudson]

A moon base would be by far the biggest boondoggle in the history of this nation: Trillions of dollars sunk into a make-work social program for space nutters.

Come on, surely you can do better than that. The bank bailouts, the wars knowingly started on false premises, the wars started on "regime change" ...

Von Braun Screwed Up

[kenwd0elq]

In the 1960's, the USA was faced with a decision; go to the moon fast using a lunar-orbit rendezvous technique, or take our time and do it right, with an Earth-orbit rendezvous. The Earth-orbit rendezvous would have built a space station, assembled the actual Moon rocket in space, and returned to Earth orbit to actually land in a landing capsule.

Von Braun wanted to get there FAST, without bothering to assemble any space infrastructure along the way, and we won the "space race". But in doing it that way, we didn't learn anything about space construction, or build anything that would last, and we haven't been back to the moon in nearly 50 years. If the Russians are smart, they'll build their moon rocket in orbit near the ISS, and use that as a "construction shack" to building some actual orbital infrastructure. With that many launches, it almost sounds like they've chosen that path.

As a dedicated American patriot (and retired Navy officer), I can only say, "Godspeed, Russia! SOMEBODY has to build a lunar colony, and if it isn't going to be America, at least it'll be HUMANS back in space!"

Re:Von Braun Screwed Up

[tsotha]

Von Braun wanted to get there FAST, without bothering to assemble any space infrastructure along the way, and we won the "space race". But in doing it that way, we didn't learn anything about space construction, or build anything that would last, and we haven't been back to the moon in nearly 50 years.

If our on-again, off-again Mars quest is any indication, that's the only way to actually get there. One of the reason Bob Zubrin keeps pushing for a ten-year program is we can't seem to be able to hold the political consensus together long enough to do longer missions. I doubt we'll see any meaningful space infrastructure until someone figures out how to make money there.

Re:Von Braun Screwed Up

[AHuxley]

Yes it was bespoke, agricultural solution that worked just in time.
"How Nasa brought the monstrous F-1 'moon rocket' engine back to life" (16 APRIL 13 )
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/ar...
".. these were hand-made machines. They were sewn together with arc welders .. " The other political issue at the time was the attempts to block another Dora Trial https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... that could have finally exposed the number and crimes of the Operation Paperclip https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... German space experts and staff to a wider public.
The number of German staff given total freedom, their past crimes had to stay hidden for more years.

Re:Von Braun Screwed Up

[dbIII]

Yes but didn't JFK state an end date and Von Braun react to fit the timetable?
However it does make sense - Skylab should have been first and not last to be disgustingly abandoned to deorbit due to budget cuts.

Re:Von Braun Screwed Up

[AmiMoJo]

When JFK set his target to land on the moon he was probably thinking of cooperating with the USSR on the project. He had a good relationship with the Russian's top politicians which really helped during the missile crisis. If he had not been assassinated Apollo 11 could well have been a joint US/USSR mission, and cost a great deal less and had a longer lasting legacy.

Re:Von Braun Screwed Up

[thrich81]

Von Braun was a big proponent of Earth orbit rendezvous and had to be brought around to lunar orbit rendezvous, like almost all of the rest of NASA. But the engineering studies said that LOR was the only way to make it by the deadline which Kennedy had set. NASA was under orders from the politicians, the ones who were writing the checks. If Earth orbit rendezvous had been adopted and the possible lunar landing had slipped into the mid-late 70s, no one knows if the money for the lunar landing would have come along and the Apollo-Saturn hardware would have been abandoned in the 70's anyway. By 1969 interest among the politicians and citizens in spending the money it took to keep the Apollo-Saturn ecosystem going was already on the wane.

Re: Resume the lunar program

[fnj]

50 kilometers above the surface the temperature and pressure are earth-normal. Huge dirigibles using oxygen and nitrogen would float in the denser co2 atmosphere.

Tell me, what's the wind like 50 km above Venus? Because anything over 15 m/s or so is hell on airships on earth.

Re: Resume the lunar program

[kenwd0elq]

A casino on the Moon, retirement colonies on the Moon (low gravity will make it easier for geriatric billionaires to walk around), and hotels in space, and radio telescopes on the far side of the Moon? I like them all!

Humans WILL build colonies on the Moon. The primary language probably won't be English. I'd rather it be Russian than Chinese.

Re: RECORD MAKING !!

[kenwd0elq]

The Pilgrims who sailed on the Mayflower didn't expect to ever return to Europe. And half of them died in the first couple of years, in the horrible wilderness called "Massachusetts".

Everybody who goes to Mars will die. (Some quickly, some slowly, some from old age.... maybe even some who come back to Earth.) EVERYBODY dies. Many pioneers died along the Oregon Trail, or heading to California. Exploration isn't safe, but staying home in bed doesn't protect you from dying.

It's a classic case of...

[tkrotchko]

"As the United States, at least for the current administration, has decided to bypass the moon in favor of Mars"

It's a way of kicking the can so far down the road that you can't even find the can.

Re:It's a classic case of...

[wonkey_monkey]

Get your can to Mars.

Re: It's a classic case of...

[WindBourne]

Has nothing to do with it. O, bolden, and most of NASA have been focused on Mars, as well as helping private space get to LEO, as well as the moon. Just as COTS created a new launch company and elevated another, NASA continues work with helping companies make life support systems, others produce systems for space stations, along with transportation to the moon, and then systems for landing and launching from the moon. In order to put a base on the moon, as well as Mars, we need redundant low cost systems. NASA is making that happen today.

Could Elon Musk beat them?

[Ken_g6]

Now, I'm curious. Could a Falcon Heavy send a Dragon into a lunar flyby orbit?

Could a Falcon Heavy send a Dragon plus a service module, such that the Dragon could land and take off from the moon with its escape thrusters? What about the Space Launch System, if it ever gets built?

Re:Could Elon Musk beat them?

[dbIII]

Need a heavier heavy - maybe a later model designed for it could do it, but the heavy is a tool designed for a different job.

Re: Could Elon Musk beat them?

[WindBourne]

FH will be used to launch ba330s along with tug/fuel depot. And this should happen around 2020.

Moon Landing

[Spudboy2003]

People still believe the USA landed month Moon? That's sad.

Re:Moon Landing

[dotancohen]

People still believe the USA landed month Moon? That's sad.

The parabolas defined by the falling kicked-up dirt clearly betray the fact that the supposed "moon landings" were filmed in a sound stage on Mars.

Re:Moon Landing

[wonkey_monkey]

No, that's the desert scenes in Capricorn One you're thinking of.

Re:Patriotic Pizza

[ITRambo]

New York pizza tasted like Domino's pizza to me, edible but far from delicous other than NY's stone baked crust. Chicago pizza kicks New York pizza's ass.

Re: RECORD MAKING !!

[thinkwaitfast]

But they did not expect to live in their boat once they arrived, never venturing out. They'd have a normal life like the one they left behind. Chopping wood, growing their own crops, chasing butterflies, swimming in lakes, having lots of kids.

Anyone want to make a bet?

[kheldan]

I'm betting that if and when Russia does have boots on the ground on the Moon, Putin tries to claim some (or all) of the real estate there, international treaty or not. Same bet applies to China, assuming they ever made it there (less likely, though).

Yeah, that'll work

[wonkey_monkey]

Russia could move to wipe out the humiliation it suffered at the hands of NASA when it lost the 1960s race to the moon

Second comes right after first!

Not easier, more useful

[Errol backfiring]

The concorde was not built primarily for its speed (that was a nice extra), but for fuel economy. Single-stream jet engines are better in terms of fuel economy when they fly faster. The drag rise counters this, but for the concorde they had the drag rise restriced to an acceptable minimum.

The invention of the double-stream jet engines made that need for speed obsolete.

Yes, the concorde existed, but was soon outdated because of the use of newer, better jet engines.

Re:Not easier, more useful

[cellocgw]

Say what? There is and always has been a desire for speed. People have always paid a premium for faster transportation. There's no other commercial air-breather, ever, that could reach Concorde airspeeds.
Mechanical design of airframes, engines, engine intake structures, etc. gets incredible more complicated the moment you break Mach 1. Double- vs single- stream jet engines have nothing to do with the downfall of the Concorde.

Re:Not easier, more useful

[Errol backfiring]

True. The Boeing 747 is equipped with double-stream jet engines. You can tell by the huge fan on the front (the "cold" fan) and the real gas turbine sticking out the back.

The difference between a rocket and a missile

[Crowd Computing]

A missile explodes on impact, a rocket explodes in flight.

Re: RECORD MAKING !!

[InfiniteLoopCounter]

But they did not expect to live in their boat once they arrived, never venturing out. They'd have a normal life like the one they left behind. Chopping wood, growing their own crops, chasing butterflies, swimming in lakes, having lots of kids.

If you think about it that's not a good argument with respect to today's people (especially those on /.)... So they get to Mars, live a normal life sitting inside all day on a computer avoiding natural light like they would at home on Earth, shuffling from one internal room to another for work and rest, not having any kids, etc. There'd be a large Internet lag to Earth, but if you had enough people go they could set up an alternate Martian Internet, ala the early days of AOL and geocities (this would be the tough part to live with).

Re: RECORD MAKING !!

[painandgreed]

The Pilgrims who sailed on the Mayflower didn't expect to ever return to Europe. And half of them died in the first couple of years, in the horrible wilderness called "Massachusetts".

Everybody who goes to Mars will die. (Some quickly, some slowly, some from old age.... maybe even some who come back to Earth.) EVERYBODY dies. Many pioneers died along the Oregon Trail, or heading to California. Exploration isn't safe, but staying home in bed doesn't protect you from dying.

Ya, but Pilgrims and the sailors of earlier ventures were a cheap and expendable resource. The people we send to Mars will represent millions in training cost each and billions in lost research for any that die. They will all come back, baring accident, as we will be able to go to Mars and come back long before we will ever be able to build a sustainable outpost on Mars, let alone a colony. The first people to Mars will be the equivalent of Columbus or Lewis and Clark, not Oregon Trail settlers.

humiliation ..?

[micahraleigh]

The Soviet "failure" to land on the moon was really a success in economics.

Haven't we learned anything from Keynes that ditch-digging projects improves the overall economy?

That's the secret for how the Russians all became so rich.

Let's help Obama make us rich like the Russians. Or help Hillary bring "shared prosperity". Either way.

Re: Resume the lunar program

[blackanvil]

50 kilometers above the surface the temperature and pressure are earth-normal. Huge dirigibles using oxygen and nitrogen would float in the denser co2 atmosphere.

Sure, but what are you going to make your drigibles out of? There's only two sources of nonvolatile raw materials on Venus, and if it's not to be found in Venus's atmosphere, you're either going to have to import from Earth (or elsewhere in the System) or go down to the surface and mine it. The first is prohibitively expensive just in terms of energy costs, and the second is undoable using current technology. The idea of a colony is to be self-sufficient enough to be able to establish an settlement and expand according to your needs. We'll need some significant technological development before that's even possible on Venus, but Mars and/or the Moon seem doable with just extending current engineering capabilities.

You are kidding. Right?

[WindBourne]

Ussr launched it quickly when they found out that America was getting ready to put vangard into space. In fact, sputnik was put together in just several months and that is why it had nothing scientific except for a transmitter. In fact, that was much of how the Soviet space program was done . fast and sloppy. That is why when America announced our lunar program, it was already on its way.

Re: Resume the lunar program

[BarbaraHudson]

Not a problem if you're moving in the same direction and speed as the wind - and why would you want to do otherwise?

Re: Resume the lunar program

[BarbaraHudson]

It's a lot cheaper to ship from the moon than from earth's gravity well. An electric rail gun launcher should be able to do the job.

It isn't 2012

[dbIII]

It's not 2012 - the price is way down because consumption reduced since then. Figures more than a year or two old will include vast amounts of Chinese consumption that is currently not occurring.
Coal mines are laying off people, being shut down or not going ahead for a reason.

This link descibes it a bit

[dbIII]

It's not global data but there's a graph here showing the trend since international coal markets are linked fairly tightly:
http://www.mining.com/us-coal-...
Expect a bit more of a drop when the 2015 data is added, but 2013-4 tells the story alone.

Also Figure 1 on that link you gave shows the dropoff in terms of planning less that demands coal than in the previous year, even if it is greater than 2004. A graph of new wind capacity, solar and probably even nuclear with China's new reactors would probably have a similar shape - the big bulge was due to rapid expansion that was not limited to coal fired plants.
If demand for coal was increasing it is unlikely that the price would be falling as much as it is:
http://www.infomine.com/investment/metal-prices/coal/all/

Re:This link descibes it a bit

[WindBourne]

You keep looking at American data, not chinese or even global data. china imported coal from America because they need the boats to go back full. Now, that they have other sources to take back (garbage for recycling), they are bringing less coal. In addition, they have opened a large number of mines in China. and India. And Indonesia. And Europe. And ......

Only America and UK are the main ones cutting back on coal.

The global coal price is a good indicator

[dbIII]

Wth a quick search I couldn't find anything global (thanks to it being a popular company name) but due US coal being heavily exported the graph does tell the story.
As for US only, I'm In Australia. In the coal and oil exploration industry (I normally don't mention it because it makes nuke fanboys angry). We do work in Mongolia, Mozambique, Russia, Indonesia etc but there's a lot less going on now as seen by the global coal price dropping due to less demand (which differs from the oil situation where the price drop is from a deliberate glut from the Saudis etc to attempt to drive the shale oil producers in the US out of business).

Re: The global coal price is a good indicator

[WindBourne]

Hmm. Then u should know this better than me. But, my understanding is that china is opening new mines all the time. In addition, I know that oco2 shows that what china claims for coal burning is impossible. They are burning a great deal more fossil fuel, likely oil. We are talking 33-50% more. And the reason why I showed the original links is that it showed that new plant construction, permitting, announcements, etc. is up from 1200 in 2012 to over 2000 in 2015. That is huge.

Re: The global coal price is a good indicator

[dbIII]

Stuff is being built but imports to run them are down - here's a bit about expected excess capacity.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11...
It's worth noting that there is a wait of years just to get a turbine rotor so even with sensible planning stuff can come on line a few years after it's clear it's not needed. In this situation it doesn't look like sensible planning.