Reusable SpaceX Rocket Has Implications For a Return To the Moon (examiner.com)

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Reusable SpaceX Rocket Has Implications For a Return To the Moon (examiner.com)

Posted by samzenpus on Sunday January 17, 2016 @10:03PM from the going-back dept.

MarkWhittington writes: While it is unclear what, if any, implications the recent successful landing of the first stage of the Falcon 9 first stage means for the future of space travel, planetary scientist and space commentator Paul Spudis suggested that the feat and the similar one performed earlier by Blue Origin could have some benefit for a return to the moon. In the meantime, a test of the engines in the recovered first stage had mixed results. The engines fired alright, but SpaceX CEO Elon Musk reported, "thrust fluctuations" that might have been caused by "debris ingestion."

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Duh! by taiwanjohn · 2016-01-17 22:28 · Score: 3, Insightful

Would dropping the cost of getting payloads to orbit have implications for a return to the moon? Hmm.... let's see... I can't quite tell...

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1. Re:Duh! by ustolemyname · 2016-01-17 22:57 · Score: 2
  
  I originally had this knee jerk response as well, but after I RTFA (I know, bad form) I understand he's actually talking about how these technologies translate into vehicles that never operate in earth atmosphere. Specifically that all extraterrestrial rockets before now have been single use, and more advanced multi use rockets aid long term manned missions outside of earth orbit (If one can consider the moon such).
2. Re:Duh! by Anonymous Coward · 2016-01-17 23:01 · Score: 0
  
  Returnshuttles. Excellent. Refuel with whatever can be made to fuel (or use remaining).
3. Re:Duh! by Rei · 2016-01-18 00:00 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  Unfortunately, LOX/RP-1 like SpaceX uses now isn't a great fuel for lunar operations. For a small lunar craft, you want something that has very small, light and simple engines, like a monoprop or hypergolic biprop; if your landing craft is bigger, you want something very high ISP. In both cases it's about keeping your mass down because you're so far down the chain on the rocket equation that any small change in mass (esp on the return stage) has a huge impact on the launch mass. Things that LOX/RP-1 excels at, such as thrust, aren't very important in lunar operations. And it would be extremely hard to make RP-1 there because of the shortage of carbon (even hydrogen is unavailable in most locations, but there are some isolated places where it appears to be present in good quantities).
  In terms of lunar-manufactured propellants, obviously LOX/LH has gotten a lot of attention. But another interesting one is ALICE - aluminum-ice. Aluminum is an extremely energetic metal - we don't see this side of it often because its surface coating of aluminum oxide is so effective at shielding it. But aluminum can burn not only in oxygen but also carbon dioxide and water (which is why when you weld aluminum you can't use CO2 as a shielding gas). There's only a few other elements out there whose oxides aluminum won't gladly strip the oxygens from at high temperatures - which is why thermite works, and why it can explode fiercely in contact with water. Its affinity for oxygen is so much greater than water's that the two actually make a pretty strong propellant combination - the key is getting past that oxide layer (which has been achieved pretty well in lab scale propellant mixes). The main advantage of ALICE over LOX/LH in lunar operations is not having to deal with leaky, frigid, low density hydrogen.
  Unfortunately, while aluminum oxides are incredibly abundant on the moon, ALICE doesn't work where you don't have water ice. You can't just burn a stoichometric ratio of aluminum and oxygen because the hydrogen is actually very important - burned aluminum (aluminum oxide) condenses out at very high temperatures. No gas = no expansion = no thrust**. You need another gas - the lighter the better, and nothing beats hot hydrogen - to take the heat from the aluminum oxide (not just the heat of combustion, but also the heat of condensation). So this rules out most of the moon, only water-rich areas (albeit, those are the places you'd want to set up a colony). Elsewhere, you could use excess oxygen as your heat transfer gas, but at 16 AMU, it's no lightweight. Another possibility would be to outgas helium from regolith, but you'd have to go through a lot of regolith for that much helium.
  On Mars it's much easier, as both carbon and hydrogen are abundant. SpaceX rightfully realized that for Mars you either need a very high ISP or a local propellant supply in order to have reasonable launch masses, and have opted for the latter with the Raptor LOX/Methane engine that they're working on. But that's just one of numerous possibilities on the red planet. A more unusual possibility involves the use of the abundant soil perchlorates as an oxidizer with any number of potential fuel species - they're easier to store than LOX and lower energy to produce (albeit lower performance).
  ** Likewise, when aluminum is added to a hydrocarbon mixture, the optimum ratio of oxygen, hydrocarbon and aluminum is one where the carbon only burns to CO, not CO2 - you want your carbon exhausts in a gaseous form, but your main goal as far as energy release goes is to burn the aluminum; the extra energy you get from carrying additional oxygen to fully burn the carbon is more efficiently spent carrying more stoichiometric mix of aluminum and oxygen for them to burn together.
  
  --
  He's the sort of person who would sell the Red Cross to Dracula.
4. Re: Duh! by Anonymous Coward · 2016-01-18 00:17 · Score: 1
  
  That's the sexiest comment I've read today, thank you.
5. Re:Duh! by taiwanjohn · 2016-01-18 00:25 · Score: 2
  
  I also RTFA (admittedly, after I posted) but I still think it's pretty obvious to anyone who pays much attention to space development issues (like, you know, readers of Air & Space). For that matter, this isn't really that much of a step change in terms of lunar landers. The author talks about "Developing a reusable cryogenic space vehicle," but the F9 is only half cryogenic, it's kerosene fuel is chilled to very low temps, but it's not the same as LH2 or liquid methane.
  We could build a reusable lunar lander here on earth and put it on the moon pretty easily, but it's not much use if we don't also have some ISRU infrastructure to produce fuel up there too. That gets damn expensive at $60M~$200M per launch, but begins to look more feasible at $5M~$10M. That cost savings is the key enabling factor, not the novelty of design.
  The 'big deal' about SpaceX's feat is that they soft-landed a booster stage on earth, enabling reusability for the first time in history. We've been soft-landing stuff on the moon for decades.
  
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  XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve your problem, you're not using enough of it. --AC
6. Re:Duh! by tomxor · 2016-01-18 01:05 · Score: 1
  
  Unfortunately, LOX/RP-1 like SpaceX uses now isn't a great fuel for lunar operations. For a small lunar craft, you want something that has very small, light and simple engines...
  Am I missing something?
  I know nothing of rocket fuels compared to you... but the falcon 9 only delivers payloads into space, doesn't that make it perfectly suitable to delivering a lunar lander + some other rocket to get it to the moon? In which case do earth bound reusable rockets need to be directly concerned with lunar fuels?
  Unless the purpose of lunar operations is to get materials back to earth in which case I guess compatibility with lunar sourced fuels are more important, but a falcon 9 would probably be inappropriate for that task anyway.
7. Re:Duh! by Anonymous Coward · 2016-01-18 01:33 · Score: 0
  
  For Saturn V, the 1st stage comprised nearly 77% of its mass.
  With a reusable first stage, the rocket equation is about to change.
  In-orbit assembly is going to make sense for larger craft.
8. Re:Duh! by Rei · 2016-01-18 02:18 · Score: 1
  
  The parent wrote "returnshuttles", which I interpreted as meaning that they wanted to use Falcon-based hardware to return payload (humans, samples, whatever) from the moon.
  
  --
  He's the sort of person who would sell the Red Cross to Dracula.
9. Re: Duh! by Anonymous Coward · 2016-01-18 03:29 · Score: 1, Insightful
  
  And a reusable is only several reuses away from being a proven thing. Hint: getting back a chunk of metal that looks nice enough to display isn't proof of a reusable stage. Reuse something a few times before crowing.
10. Re: Duh! by Anonymous Coward · 2016-01-18 06:52 · Score: 0
  
  I believe they are staying away from solid fuels, such that you can't turn them off and on at will.
Why bother returning? by Anonymous Coward · 2016-01-17 23:03 · Score: -1

Let's see,
[1] No life means no fossil fuels to exploit.
[2] No life means no downtrodden people to exploit.
Nope.
1. Re:Why bother returning? by Rei · 2016-01-18 00:02 · Score: 1
  
  I have it on good word that there's whales there. Me and some of the boys from Nantucket are looking into what it'd cost to get up there.
  
  --
  He's the sort of person who would sell the Red Cross to Dracula.
2. Re:Why bother returning? by Anonymous Coward · 2016-01-18 00:09 · Score: 0
  
  You have heard that Titan has lakes of hydrocarbons (methane (natural gas), ethane, etc) right?
3. Re:Why bother returning? by Racemaniac · 2016-01-18 00:18 · Score: 1
  
  [2] No life means no downtrodden people to exploit.
  Doesn't that just mean we have to put those people there? which is a great reason for returning there :).
  Just put them there, they can't get back without your help, and they need you for lots of vital things to stay alive. It's perfect!
4. Re:Why bother returning? by Anonymous Coward · 2016-01-18 01:00 · Score: 0
  
  Hey, it's the first step to catch the radio signal from the Tiberians, then grab the Encyclopedia! ;)
5. Re:Why bother returning? by penix1 · 2016-01-18 02:11 · Score: 1
  
  Yes but "How to Serve Man" is still just a cookbook...
  
  --
  This is a sig. This is only a sig. Had this been an actual sig you would have been informed where to tune for more sigs.
No new ideas then? by Anonymous Coward · 2016-01-17 23:11 · Score: 0

Return to the moon?
So still no new ideas then NASA?
1. Re:No new ideas then? by GrumpySteen · 2016-01-18 00:19 · Score: 2
  
  The article was written by someone who has no connection to NASA and it does not say that NASA has made plans to return to the moon. Here's a list of NASA's future missions. "Moon" is not on the list.
  So still no chance of reading the article before opening your mouth then AC?
Forget the moon by Anonymous Coward · 2016-01-17 23:32 · Score: 0

Forget the moon, we should make a mission to go to the dyson sphere.
why land on legs? by 140Mandak262Jamuna · 2016-01-17 23:51 · Score: 2

The goal of landing the rocket on three legs seems to be a very great challenge. Especially on a floating platform that is bobbing in the sea. They are able to get the speed and targeting precise enough to pull it off once, and got very close three times now. May be they should be thinking of a recovery system that is less demanding than this.
These rockets are putting some 50000 lb in LEO. It hurts to add weight that reduces pay load. But SpaceX claims the first stage is worth 60 million dollars. May be if they would come up with some kind of system that would fire a cable with grappling hooks at the last moment to snag a cable hung between towers like a clothesline and end up hanging without hitting the ground. It could be heavier than three struts and take some away from payload capacity. By that might be less demanding than precisely landing on three legs, and save enough money make up for it in the next launch.
But anyway it is an amazing achievement. I really hated to see Wired mag calling it "botched" in its head line. May be it is not an inaccurate description, may be they were using standard headline language to find smaller words. But still, if most projects achieve this much in their botched operations ...

--
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1. Re:why land on legs? by Rei · 2016-01-18 00:10 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  The rocket launches upright. It's designed to bear loads vertically being imparted through its base. It's not designed to dangle from a cable from its nose. Plus, in terms of "things that can go wrong", grappling onto elevated cables sounds far worse than landing on legs.
  From the look of it, the real culprit this time was ice, from all of the fog. That's the leading theory as to why the leg didn't latch. Unfortunately, icing on aerial vehicles in general has killed an awful lot of them over the course of modern history.
  
  --
  He's the sort of person who would sell the Red Cross to Dracula.
2. Re:why land on legs? by Anonymous Coward · 2016-01-18 00:17 · Score: -1
  
  So we're totally going to colonize the universe, but look out for the ice fog!
  I suspect that since our computers got better, this means that everything gets better, maybe if they install a faster CPU or more RAM this will prevent icing?
  *This is how Space Nutters actually think, if they had the intellectual capacity and honesty to actually follow through their assumptions
3. Re:why land on legs? by waTeim · 2016-01-18 00:30 · Score: 2
  
  In this case it is now suggested that the cause was simply leg #3 -- there are 4 legs by the way -- failed to lock out due to the failure of a locking collet possibly because of ice buildup, but like you said still impressive. Using legs seem to be easier than arresting the fall with cables; the cables would weigh a lot as they would need to withstand decelerating 25 tons; they would have to uncoil explosively with an aiming system, a launcher and enough energy to throw out the cables; and even though this falcon 9 did come close to being exactly on target (1.4 meters) -- pretty good after being 100 km in space -- that's still off-center enough to cause problems with such a cable system. Finally, this was the last of the Falcon 9 v1.1, the next version, which already flew in December in fact, have improved landing gear.
4. Re:why land on legs? by Rei · 2016-01-18 00:37 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  So we're totally going to colonize the universe, but look out for the ice fog!
  You mean the stuff that regularly takes down airplanes, despite over a century of experience?
  
  --
  He's the sort of person who would sell the Red Cross to Dracula.
5. Re:why land on legs? by Applehu+Akbar · 2016-01-18 00:57 · Score: 0
  
  "Especially on a floating platform that is bobbing in the sea. "
  If barge landings are ever going to become routine, there needs to be a capture system. This would not only have turned several of those near-misses into good landings, but would save the weight of the landing legs.
6. Re:why land on legs? by michelcolman · 2016-01-18 03:17 · Score: 1
  
  If you install a faster CPU onto those legs so its heat melts the ice, that might actually work!
7. Re:why land on legs? by Anonymous Coward · 2016-01-18 10:05 · Score: 0
  
  Even landing a helicopter on a bobbing ship is a challenge. The strategy there is attach an anchor line, go to full power and wench it down. If you are 1cm above the deck and a swell comes along and basically instantaneously causes the deck to rise at 1m/s, unless you can simultaneously match that speed, it's going to hit you and keep going up through your landing strut.
Lessons from SpaceX landing by Anonymous Coward · 2016-01-18 00:23 · Score: -1

I've just watched the SpaceX rocket blow up after a heavy landing. For me, the lesson is, it is a decade away from being safe for human transport, especially on landing
1. Re:Lessons from SpaceX landing by Rei · 2016-01-18 00:48 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  Huh? Were you thinking of stowing away in the Falcon's first stage?
  There are no plans by SpaceX to ever have people land in that manner. Dragon (the part humans actually ride in) has both parachutes both retrorockets, only one of which needs to work, and a degree of "crumple zone" (shock-absorbing legs plus the heat shield and service hardware) in case of partial failures of either of the two.
  Perhaps you also missed the fifty or so times that the SpaceX newscasters added the word "experimental" before the word "landing". Would you prefer that like most companies they keep their development work in secret? Or should every company be like them, with, say, car manufacturers releasing footage every time, say, a new experimental safety-critical system ends up with a test car plowing into a fence?
  
  --
  He's the sort of person who would sell the Red Cross to Dracula.
2. Re:Lessons from SpaceX landing by Grench · 2016-01-18 02:41 · Score: 2
  
  The first stage isn't supposed to land with humans on board. It's just designed to land so that they don't have to build another one from scratch every time they launch a customers' payload into orbit.
  This will mean they don't have so much cost per launch, so they can either pass those savings on to their customer (customer wins), don't pass those savings on to their customer (SpaceX profits), or pass SOME savings on to the customer (so both parties benefit).
  
  --
  He's Jesus, for Christ's sake.
3. Re:Lessons from SpaceX landing by FUD+fighter · 2016-01-18 04:05 · Score: 1
  
  I was doing some napkin math/blueprints on putting humans on the first stage for tourism. People require too much stuff to make economic sense, especially when you factor in the 'i went boom my family sues you" part. Besides that you would have them laying down and they would not get to see much. Might as well send them though a centrifuge.
  
  --
  Knowing it all since the late 70's.
4. Re:Lessons from SpaceX landing by Eloking · 2016-01-18 05:32 · Score: 1
  
  Huh? Were you thinking of stowing away in the Falcon's first stage?
  Huh? Ohhhh!! So that's why I've been failing all my space tourism mission in Kerbal Space Program so far.
  
  --
  Elok
5. Re:Lessons from SpaceX landing by Kjella · 2016-01-18 06:31 · Score: 1
  
  This will mean they don't have so much cost per launch, so they can either pass those savings on to their customer (customer wins), don't pass those savings on to their customer (SpaceX profits), or pass SOME savings on to the customer (so both parties benefit).
  And possibly exploit a long tail of not-so-reliable re-re-re-furbished rockets for cheap non-essential payloads. Right now they're "too expensive to fail", but as long as they can offer at least 80% reliability to orbit for half the cost (30% second stage, 3% fuel, 17% refurb instead of 70% new) it'll still be cheaper in the long run. Unless you're doing something really exotic I can't imagine machining two satellites to the same specifications could be that much more expensive than one.
  
  --
  Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
6. Re:Lessons from SpaceX landing by budgenator · 2016-01-18 06:51 · Score: 1
  
  Somehow I just assume that non-virgin Falcon9 first-stage will never be man-rated. Sure it's a great Idea for lifting routine cargo, maybe even at some discount. I also suspect that special cargoes will be willing to pay a premium for a virgin first stage.
  
  --
  Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
7. Re:Lessons from SpaceX landing by Rei · 2016-01-18 07:28 · Score: 1
  
  Yup... there's no ladder on the first stage!
  
  --
  He's the sort of person who would sell the Red Cross to Dracula.
8. Re:Lessons from SpaceX landing by Gavagai80 · 2016-01-18 08:23 · Score: 1
  
  There's no reason why a proven rocket can't become more reliable than a new one, so that people would pay a premium to ride the reused one. It remains to be seen, of course.
  
  --
  This space intentionally left blank
Go back to the Moon why? by Anonymous Coward · 2016-01-18 01:18 · Score: -1

To me space will become nothing more then a expensive tourist trap. The one percent will have another reason to spend their money. I have yet to read a practical use for these private space ventures except for supplying the Space station which SpaceX has obtained that contract. Otherwise none of these space ventures seem important in space exploration. They are just rich guys with a fantasy for space. Giving wealthy people a thrill ride is not space exploration.
1. Re: Go back to the Moon why? by bill_mcgonigle · 2016-01-18 01:51 · Score: 1
  
  Learn.
  
  --
  My God, it's Full of Source!
  OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
2. Re:Go back to the Moon why? by Punko · 2016-01-18 02:00 · Score: 2
  
  I do not agree with your statement's overall claim.
  
  However, in order to make you feel better, you can think of these space ventures simply as income redistribution. The "rich guys with a fantasy for space" and "wealthy people" you refer too spend money doing this. Lots of money. This money goes to high-tech jobs that pay well, that in themselves allow money to be distributed. If more of the 1% spent their money this way, there would be even more money distributed around, driving the economy that you and I derive our incomes from.
  
  So rather than being negative on this, you should be banging the drum to make more and more of the 1% interested in this. Make those 1%ers prefer to spend their resources acquiring expensive services that feed the highest paying technical staff, We don't want those folks spending their money on things or on low-value services, we want them to spend them on services that can only be provided at great cost by technical people. Get those bank accounts spending money on high tech services provided by your neighbours !
  
  --
  If only we could fall into a woman's arms without falling into her hands
3. Re: Go back to the Moon why? by Anonymous Coward · 2016-01-18 02:09 · Score: 0
  
  So, how would you advance mankind? Keep using earth resources till they run out? Then teleport to the next place? Limit the amount of people on earth, dumb them down where the follow the next Donald to the next war and, etc, etc? Or open new fields of exploration? Maybe inhabit new arena, try to live peacefully among new vistas, develop new tastes, find new friends, where one asteroid does not send us back to cavemen.
4. Re:Go back to the Moon why? by Pseudonymous+Powers · 2016-01-18 02:59 · Score: 1
  
  To me, an everyday citizen of the Roman Empire, it seems that indoor plumbing will become nothing more then a expensive luxury product. The one percent will have another reason to spend their money. I have yet to read a practical use for these so called "pipes" except for supplying the estates of rich people, for which Plumbnus Tertullius has obtained that contract. Otherwise none of these pipes seem important in supplying water to Rome at large. They are just rich guys with a fantasy for not walking to the river every morning. Giving wealthy people an indoor bath is not a municipal water supply.
5. Re: Go back to the Moon why? by Anonymous Coward · 2016-01-18 03:37 · Score: 0
  
  Advance mankind? Kill all the politicians and lawyers, to start with.
6. Re:Go back to the Moon why? by Slim_Jack · 2016-01-18 03:51 · Score: 0
  
  Those pesky 1%ers
7. Re:Go back to the Moon why? by Rei · 2016-01-18 04:48 · Score: 1
  
  If - and I stress if - launch costs can be brought down to anywhere close to the propellant costs, space would be affordable to everyday people. If propellant was half of the total cost you might be looking at $10-50/kg. If a "passenger liner" version had about 50% of its mass comprised of passengers and the other 50% with structure and consumables, then you would be looking at ticket prices on the order of $1.5-7k.
  The problem is, while it's certainly possible, we're nowhere even close to that. Fuel today isn't half the cost of a launch, it's 0,01 to 0,1 percent of the cost. If SpaceX can cut the cost of their launches from $5k/kg to $2k/kg or even $1k, then that would be great. But it's still not nearly enough for "general public" access to space. General public access to space is doable - there's no physics standing in the way, or any other sort of practicable barriers - but it's going to take not simply reusables. It will need a long, slow process of optimizing every aspect of rocket launches. And it'll require a steady buildup of launch rates along the way to pay for it. One's going to need a spike in customers at $1k/kg to pay for the scaleup that can bring costs down to $500/kg, another spike at $500/kg to bring it down to $250/kg, another spike at $250 to bring it down to $125... etc.
  There's no fundamental reason why rockets can't be launched en masse, like aircraft; aircraft, too, were once toys for the rich and the military. But there's an awful lot of work to do before then, and a market to prove.
  
  --
  He's the sort of person who would sell the Red Cross to Dracula.
8. Re:Go back to the Moon why? by Eloking · 2016-01-18 05:49 · Score: 1
  
  So much fails in this one single post.
  
  To me space will become nothing more then a expensive tourist trap. The one percent will have another reason to spend their money.
  So you prefer that they kept their money in bank? I tough that one of the problem with 1%er is that they doesn't spend enough money.
  
  I have yet to read a practical use for these private space ventures except for supplying the Space station which SpaceX has obtained that contract.
  Here's one reason. But I could name you a dozen over the top of my head (Tourism, mining, electricity production, telecom, science etc.) that could become feasible if SpaceX achieve to offer commercial space flight for a fraction of the actual price.
  
  Otherwise none of these space ventures seem important in space exploration.
  Yeah, money is clearly not a factor for space exploration.
  
  They are just rich guys with a fantasy for space. Giving wealthy people a thrill ride is not space exploration.
  Really? Rich guy are the only one interested in SpaceX news because of space tourism?
  
  --
  Elok
9. Re: Go back to the Moon why? by Anonymous Coward · 2016-01-18 07:28 · Score: 0
  
  For some reason I can't load GP's comment.
  
  Limit the amount of people on earth, dumb them down where the follow the next Donald to the next war and, etc, etc?
  This seems to be the general strategy being employed. The ultra rich are already building luxury bunkers/Vaults. They know it's just a matter of time before they'll need to crawl into the vault to ride things out as all of us plebes kill each other.
  Hopefully when that happens, it won't be nuclear and we'll be smart enough to let them crawl into their vaults before we promptly seal them permanently with concrete. Then we can come up with a better system that would bring the rest of the world up to the West's standard of living, end poverty, and usher in a world-wide golden age.
  We have the resources and technology to do it, but the current system wants people like us doing meaningless make-work, warming a chair 8 hours per day, and wondering if we'll be able to pay next month's bills instead of building up Africa and Southeast Asia. I can assure you my job is truly meaningless. It adds nothing to the world. The rich get richer by stealing from us with shell games, leaving us to fight over the table scraps we've been allowed. I don't know what you do for a living, but if you're doing something meaningful you are probably contributing 10x your pay in wealth, but we simply live in a society where that means your job creates wealth for 9 meaningless jobs. (Jobs like mine that could be done in 4 hours one day out of the week if customers weren't so impatient and could wait a week for changes, other jobs for people whose sole job is to make sure welfare doesn't go to "those people," not to mention the jobs that only exist to make sure we're keeping a chair warm for enough hours per week/year.)
  I guess my point is, the people who truly run things have figured out that 90% of us don't need to be working for them to get their shinies and luxuries, and the only problem is a matter of culling the rest of us before we catch on and do something crazy like demand a basic minimum income and a worldwide infrastructure project. I haven't run any numbers so the actual %age might be lower or higher.
10. Re: Go back to the Moon why? by budgenator · 2016-01-18 07:28 · Score: 1
  
  If we/they actually did that (mine the asteroids ect.), then eventually we'd shift from a scarcity based economy to an abundance based economy (or at least shift much fast than we are presently). That would cause all kind of disruptive influences, and it's really hard to tell which would be beneficial and which would be detrimental. Just look at the present labor situation, the abundance of cheap foreign labor isn't helping those who are ill-suited to anything but manual labor among us.
  
  --
  Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
Name change needed by pesho · 2016-01-18 05:55 · Score: 1

They should rename one of the barges to "Death and gravity" (GSV culture ship).
1. Re:Name change needed by budgenator · 2016-01-18 08:46 · Score: 1
  
  Or get a license from Marvel and name it Thanos.
  
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  Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
The most difficult thing in the world by thinkwaitfast · 2016-01-18 10:17 · Score: 1

is to know how to do a thing and to watch someone else doing it wrong, without commenting. -- T.H. Whit