A more near-term possibility would be to use air-breathing stages or engines. A regular jet engine will only take you out of most of the atmosphere and impart minimal momentum, of course; to get that high delta-V orbital energy, a scramjet could get you 1/2 to 2/3 of the way.
I'm still not so keen on the scramjet engines. The engines themselves are fine, but the incredible stresses on the airframe are an engineer's nightmare. The airframe would have to be even more sturdy than the SR-71, which pulled some rather crazy tricks (such as leaking very expensive fuel to cool the skin) that just aren't feasible in a normal craft. If a scramjet was built like the SR-71, it would be too expensive to ever get off the ground!
If we could get a nuclear thermal engine demonstrated in-space for about a decade without any problems and without any fuel erosion, public resistance to surface launches will wane. I doubt that'll happen, though - current-gen nuclear power just isn't reliable enough.
I don't think that's as much of a problem as it seems. As I've stated before, Pratt & Whitney think they've got the problem licked. They're using Tungsten cladding instead of Graphite, which should actually provide better performance and less erosion. Get a few hundred hours on those engines (in space, of course) and we'll have a pretty good idea about whether atmosphere is feasible or not. It certainly can't be any worse than a plane that must withstand similar heat tolerances on the outside!;-)
MPDT propulsion off the planet would be possible if we had an uber-low mass power source... now that would be nifty and very sci-fi like (lifting off the surface with engines that have a blue glow, not flames and steam, coming out of them):)
Wouldn't that be great? I read a rather funny post the other day that went something like this:
"What we need to do is invent that glowey blue shit. Everytime you watch a space movie, there's a ship with glowey blue bits. On the Prometheus (Stargate) they get really bright when they start working. On the Enterprise they flash brightly just as the ship is about to go really fast. In all cases, they get around because of the glowey blue stuff. If we invented the glowey blue stuff, we'd already have been everywhere!"
Unfortunately, some of those "left-wing nut jobs" have quite valid points.
"The RTG will destroy the world." "We're all going to die!" "Even a tiny amount of that Plutonium could kill MILLIONS!" "Plutonium is the most toxic substance in existance!" (Hi Nader!)
These aren't valid points. These are raving lunatics who didn't take the time to understand what they're protesting. It's a bit like having PETA knocking on your door for selling hamburgers.
So while safely encased thermal nuclear batteries launched in vehicles which are safely directed over unpopulated areas are quite acceptable to me, any more powerful but also less controllable and subsequently far more dangerous ideas such as nuclear engines used for liftoff are basically out of the question until someone comes up with a way of guaranteeing their integrity in the critical period of their operation.
Just to be clear, I was referring to the LEO -> Mars or Luna -> Mars boost. i.e. CEV Mars Spiral. There are very few contamination issues in these boosts, as trajectories can be calculated to ensure that the exhaust never reaches Earth.:-)
We need to figure out how to get rid of the fallout though
Supposedly, they have. Pratt and Whitney only need a buyer before they start constructing the engines. The engine is a tri-mode jobbie that can do high Isp thrust in space, and low (for NTR) Isp afterburning for high thrust, atmospheric work. Once in space, the engine can idle to produce ship's power.
I think most of us got that it was a play on "Public Assets". (Or maybe I'm hearing the Battlestar Galactica remake in my head: "I got thrown in the brig for striking a superior asshole, sir.")
I wouldn't be too worried about it. The Chicago Red Eye just ran a story the other day called "The Bling Culture." They managed to dig up mid 20's people who were making $50,000/yr salaries, yet buying $2000 guici bags monthly and driving HumVees. Their point was that a LOT of people are currently living far outside their means. The problem is that they're young enough to not yet feel the effects of their spending. It's a rather hideous sitation, and it may result in disasterous economic consequences.
The Mars Direct plan calls for a maximum of 130 contiguous days in space (on the return trip) with three other people, using chemical rockets
Yes, I see:
Use of a nuclear thermal rocket (NTR) third stage on the Ares would increase trans-Mars payload by 50%. The NTR stage would have a specific impulse of 900 s, a power of 900 MWth, and a thrust of 45,000 lb. Use of a NIMF (Nuclear rocket using Indigenous Martian Fuel) stage on the lander would provide the Habitation Module with the capability of leaping from one location on the Martian surface to another, using compressed Martian carbon dioxide from the atmosphere as propellant. This would allow 18 sites on the surface to be visited within the 550 days of surface time, as opposed to just one for the baseline expedition.
The problem is risk. Just because you've screened the candidates to find people who are least likely to be bothered by the small spaces, doesn't mean that they won't crack. Placing a crew under those conditions for three years or so (especially when the crew will get some tastes of freedom on Mars) is one heck of a gamble to take.
Plus, it's not a very useful long term solution. If we're going to have regular missions to Mars, we can't reasonably make sure that every person to go can handle the stress.
There are also other issues that would require the larger engines. For example, a very long trip to Mars would exasperate the radiation damage done to the crew during the trip. Shortening that trip would help guarantee the health of the crew and the success of the mission.
Besides, I'm not just putting out wild ideas here. The words "Nuclear Thermal Rocket" have been bandied about quite a bit in relation to the Mars spiral of the CEV program. Even the Moon transport spiral is seriously considering the use of these engines. We have the technology, so why not use it?
Unfortunate for the left-wing nut jobs, they're just going to have to deal with it. Cassini flew, as will Prometheus. Not to mention the Viking, Pioneer, and Mars Explorer probes. (The Mars explorer bots had Radioisotope heaters on board.)
In space you live and die by the amount of power available to you. Solar does a reasonable job for very small craft all the way out to Jupiter. For larger craft or longer distances, you NEED to get power from somewhere. Nuclear fission can provide that power.
Methinks that "Space Depression" may have one or two things to do with the exceedingly cramped spaces. I mean, road trips are fun and all, but I'd go crazy too if I had to stay in the car for two years!
Any sort of mission to Mars would HAVE to be a bit more spacious than today's craft. Which means we need bigger boosters to get it there. Which then suggests the use of something nuclear such as NTR, Orion, or MPDT.
Hmm... I didn't realize that MAPI was not actually reversed by Ximian. Points off them for taking the easy way out.:-/
Question: Is Brutus a full MAPI implementation? OMESC claims it is, but I'm not certain if they're referring to the API or Protocol. (My feeling is that they mean the API.)
Yes, but that doesn't answer the question. How does Exchange better serve the needs of companies than competing products? Is the integrated calendar the only "killer feature", or is there far more functionality that users would miss if they converted?
Do any of these substitute email servers support MS's proprietary MAPI protocol as a fully-implemented workalike?
RTFA:
None of the products provides full Outlook-to-Exchange feature fidelity in Outlook, but they all hit the basics of group calendar and scheduling, shared folders, and e-mail. The feature that companies are likely to miss most when using the servers we tested with Outlook is forms.
Administrators also have the additional overhead of deploying a MAPI (Messaging API) connector to each client. With the exception of Bynari, all the vendors support remote packaged distribution of their connectors. With the Bynari offering, administrators will need to perform a few additional tasks to ensure that the connector installs with user- specific settings.
The problem with MAPI has been less an issue of reverse engineering a protocol, and more an issue of trying to replicate the DCOM interface. Microsoft piled on the technology stacks in making MAPI, thus confounding attempts to create a compatible connector. It was only a year or two ago that Ximian finally figured it out.
Actually, I would like to know what MS Exchange *does* besides integrate with a calendar across a domain. Besides the Calendar functionality, what do you find are important features of MS Exchange? How are these features not met by other options on the market?
As I have written repeatedly:The shuttle is too damn expensive.
And I have written repeatedly that the reason for that is the politics behind its design. I've said it before, and I'll say it again. There is no conspiracy, just politics mucking up NASA. That's why NASA can't get anything done on a decent cost basis.
You're a troll or not intellectually honest.
I am neither. The problem is that you're arguing something I never disagreed with. All I have disagreed with is the assertion that NASA is a monopoly that doesn't like competition. It's simply not true. NASA does not mind competition in the least. (Especially when that competition is mandated by a senator who has a Boeing or Lockheed factory in his district.) The "screwups" are nothing more than what happens when you allow politicans to run your space program instead of the people who actually know how it works.
Since the beginning of the 70s, NASA has fouled up the shuttle, NASP, X33, Venturestar and some launch projects I can't be bothered to remember.
You don't know what you're talking about. The Space Shuttle is an amazing (yes, truely AMAZING) piece of equipment with awe inspiring capabilities, thrust, and payload capacities.
1. Each SSME engine gobbles through an olympic swimming pool's worth of fuel EACH SECOND
2. The Shuttle can lift over 130 metric tonnes into LEO.
3. The Shuttle can lift a maximum of 28,800kg of cargo to LEO.
4. The Shuttle can perform a reentry into the atmosphere without *any* damage to its heat shielding system. (Tiles are only replaced if they become chipped or cracked. Still, it's a very expensive procedure to check every tile.)
5. The Shuttle can land almost entirely on automatic. (Only the period from when the landing gear is deployed is manual. This was an intentional safety feature.)
6. The Shuttle has the necessary cross range ability to launch and land in a single orbit. (This was intended for military purposes.)
7. The Cryogenic engines have more power than other launch engines in the history of space flight.
In other words, the engineers produced exactly what they were told, and did an astounding job of it. The problem is that they were told to build something that was the jack of all trades and the master of none. That's what happens when politicians determine how a spacecraft should be built.
As for the NASP (techically the X-30), that program is still running as the X-43. The X-30 attempted to skip several steps in development (specifically, the testing of the engines/airframe) prior to deployment, and ended up having to be scaled back. The only mismanagement was over-eager press reports.
The X-33 was never going to get anywhere. It was a nice idea, but it was a "super-tech" project. i.e. Every possible new and untested technology known to man was integrated into the system. If a single technology didn't work, then the entire craft couldn't fly. Guess what happened?
As for the Venture Star, it was to be the commercial variant of the X-33. Had the X-33 succeeded (which it might have, had more R&D been done prior to building an actual craft) Lockheed Martin would have offered the X-33 as a superfast transport system and Single Stage To Orbit system to anyone who could afford one. (Including NASA.) You may be under the impression that it was "almost there" from reading too much Dan Brown. Unfortunately, Mr. Brown doesn't do very much research before placing a new "fact" in his books.
I am sorry, but the excuses aren't believable.
The only one making excuses seems to be you. Things are the way they are. You can't change that through wishful thinking or a desire for some greater conspiracy.
I was thinking more in the eighties if they had closed down the shuttle and used two or three years of funding for that to finance a few good launch programs instead. As was the context I wrote it in.
That would have been useless. The US was already committed to the Space Shuttle program in the '80s, and was well prepared to use it as a courier to the future space station. (Believe it or not, the Space Shuttle could easily transport 60 or so people to the space station every flight. All it needs is the right module plugged into the cargo bay.) Tugs/Transports were planned to make runs between the Space Station and the Moon. On the moon there would be a permanent mining settlement, which would produce raw ore to be refined in orbit and used for construction.
The place where the plan fell flat was in the 90s. NASA was quite used to support from President Regean, and was in for a very rude awakening when the Clinton administration axed their long-term plans. The only option they were given was to accept an International Space Station that would be in a useless orbit. As a result, the station ended up making the shuttle only useful for more of what it already did: Going up and down.
All other projects that was totally fouled up by NASA like NASP (and even insisting on taking over DC-X and fucking that up, too) was pure incompetence?
While the DC-X may very well have been intentional incompetence (since they really wanted the X-33 to fly), it was still incompetence. Or more precisely, no one was allowed to do their jobs, so nothing got done in a useful way. After all, why was the President dictating how the next craft should be designed? Was he an engineer? A scientist? Someone who would have any *clue* about what such a design as the shuttle would mean?
If President Nixon had listened to his people about what the actual options were for space craft (as opposed to what he wanted them to be), we wouldn't be in this pickle.
(If you didn't give the job to Burt Rutan; then you'd probably also get a moon base for that kind of money.)
Rutan's a pretty smart guy, but please keep the fanboy stuff to a minimum. Things are more complicated than they may seem.
I just wonder what we could have had.
I can tell you exactly what would have happened.
1) Von Braun would have continued the Saturn V program.
2) He would have launched an Orion on the back of a Saturn.
NASA seems to have lobbied to stop other launch systems. To keep job security and their empire at maximum size.
Have you been reading Dan Brown again? There is no major conspiracy to keep independent launchers underfoot. Only a massive screw up perpetuated by bad politics.
The truth of what happened was that Nixon canned the Saturn V program because it was too expensive. He then told NASA to build a trophy vehicle that didn't cost as much and "maintained the US dominance in aerospace." The resulting design was the space shuttle. Sort of. Then the President demands that the Space Shuttle also meet the military needs as well as the civilian. So the military demands cross-range ability and greater payload. But then the costs of development mount so the government wants to stretch out the costs of building the shuttle. So the shuttle is reduced to a multi-piece/partially disposable vehicle. The comedy of errors caused by politics continues.
All during this time, NASA is planning to stop all existing commercial launches on vehicles other than the shuttle, as the shuttle is supposed to be much cheaper. So NASA stops ordering the Deltas and Atlases, thus making those rockets unavailable. The Shuttle is then introduced and turns out to cost way more than expected per flight. So NASA subsidizes each flight waiting for the costs to come down. After all, satellite makers would be pounding down their doors any minute now! (Cue animation of clock ticking.)
Then the Challenger goes up in fiery flames, and suddenly there's no space access at all. Satellite makers suddenly realize that they have no backup plans, and that all the old rockets are unavailable. Plans get underway to reintroduce the Deltas and Atlases as private ventures. Between manufacturing ramp up time and mountains of paperwork, it isn't until the 90's that this plan goes into action.
So the 90's come along and the shuttle is again flying. But something's not right. No one wants to fly on the shuttle anymore, as the old and cheaper rockets are available. Why buy unreliable and expensive shuttle space when you can just launch a Delta II?
NASA then focuses more on their space station (which was gutted by the Clinton administration) as a use for the Space Shuttle. Commercial launches continue to increase.
Today, we've got plenty of Atlases, Deltas, Protons, Long Marches, and perhaps even a Titan or two flying. All while the Space Shuttle is sitting in a hanger while politicians whine about the cost of sending someone up to the space station just to pull out a few pieces of insulation.
On the bright side, the CEV plan is finally the correct one. Stop with the super-tech, and just build from what we already have. While the CEV proposal has money earmarked for a new launch vehicle, there is nothing preventing a Delta IV or other existing booster from being that "new launch vehicle." The only requirement is that the CEV be lifted on a man-rated vehicle that has the necessary performance characteristics to lift a mated crew capsule. All future CARGO missions will be done with cargo boosters.:-)
id software could still make profits licensing the Quake III engine to game developers
They do. Still make a profit, that is. When they release an engine, they release it as GPL. Anyone can make a game out of it, but then they must release their game under the GPL. As a result, many companies will choose to purchase a commercial license instead of dealing with the issues imposed by the GPL.
The only real reason for the lead time on Open Sourcing their software is that ID doesn't want to help competitors by outright teaching them the technology they developed. Once the technology is old hat, then keeping the source closed becomes less important.
There's a movie service that has allowed you to download movies for quite awhile. The only downsides to MovieLink are that a) It requires IE/Windows and b) It's only rentals.
Still, I was able to watch Dr. Strangelove that way. Which is more than I can say for the blank stares at Blockbuster:
Me: "Do you have Dr. Strangelove?" Guy Rep: "Dr. Wha?" Me: "Dr. Strangelove, or How I learned to love the bomb." Guy Rep: "Say what?" Lady Rep: "It's an old movie." [checks computer] "Nope, sorry." (Blockbuster guy continues with confused look.)
Aluminum? How Space Age. Ultra-modern, Information Age technology demands the return of the Magnesium Alloy cases. And if you douse them in lighter fluid and place them on top of a natural gas burner, they burh quite nicely.;-)
Yes it did. When the hype was at it peak, it was actually preventing companies (such as the one I was working at during that time) from looking into Sun solutions, and HP made its infamous decision to ditch the Alpha line of processors in favor of the upcoming Intanic line.
At that time, Sun machines held a reasonable partiy with Intel's offerings, and Alpha NT desktops simply flew. Pentium III (Coppermine) was still in the development phase, and SGI was barely hanging on thanks to their N64 and NT Workstation deals.
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A more near-term possibility would be to use air-breathing stages or engines. A regular jet engine will only take you out of most of the atmosphere and impart minimal momentum, of course; to get that high delta-V orbital energy, a scramjet could get you 1/2 to 2/3 of the way.
;-)
:)
;-)
I'm still not so keen on the scramjet engines. The engines themselves are fine, but the incredible stresses on the airframe are an engineer's nightmare. The airframe would have to be even more sturdy than the SR-71, which pulled some rather crazy tricks (such as leaking very expensive fuel to cool the skin) that just aren't feasible in a normal craft. If a scramjet was built like the SR-71, it would be too expensive to ever get off the ground!
If we could get a nuclear thermal engine demonstrated in-space for about a decade without any problems and without any fuel erosion, public resistance to surface launches will wane. I doubt that'll happen, though - current-gen nuclear power just isn't reliable enough.
I don't think that's as much of a problem as it seems. As I've stated before, Pratt & Whitney think they've got the problem licked. They're using Tungsten cladding instead of Graphite, which should actually provide better performance and less erosion. Get a few hundred hours on those engines (in space, of course) and we'll have a pretty good idea about whether atmosphere is feasible or not. It certainly can't be any worse than a plane that must withstand similar heat tolerances on the outside!
MPDT propulsion off the planet would be possible if we had an uber-low mass power source... now that would be nifty and very sci-fi like (lifting off the surface with engines that have a blue glow, not flames and steam, coming out of them)
Wouldn't that be great? I read a rather funny post the other day that went something like this:
"What we need to do is invent that glowey blue shit. Everytime you watch a space movie, there's a ship with glowey blue bits. On the Prometheus (Stargate) they get really bright when they start working. On the Enterprise they flash brightly just as the ship is about to go really fast. In all cases, they get around because of the glowey blue stuff. If we invented the glowey blue stuff, we'd already have been everywhere!"
Gave me a good chuckle.
Unfortunately, some of those "left-wing nut jobs" have quite valid points.
:-)
"The RTG will destroy the world."
"We're all going to die!"
"Even a tiny amount of that Plutonium could kill MILLIONS!"
"Plutonium is the most toxic substance in existance!" (Hi Nader!)
These aren't valid points. These are raving lunatics who didn't take the time to understand what they're protesting. It's a bit like having PETA knocking on your door for selling hamburgers.
So while safely encased thermal nuclear batteries launched in vehicles which are safely directed over unpopulated areas are quite acceptable to me, any more powerful but also less controllable and subsequently far more dangerous ideas such as nuclear engines used for liftoff are basically out of the question until someone comes up with a way of guaranteeing their integrity in the critical period of their operation.
Just to be clear, I was referring to the LEO -> Mars or Luna -> Mars boost. i.e. CEV Mars Spiral. There are very few contamination issues in these boosts, as trajectories can be calculated to ensure that the exhaust never reaches Earth.
We need to figure out how to get rid of the fallout though
;-)
Supposedly, they have. Pratt and Whitney only need a buyer before they start constructing the engines. The engine is a tri-mode jobbie that can do high Isp thrust in space, and low (for NTR) Isp afterburning for high thrust, atmospheric work. Once in space, the engine can idle to produce ship's power.
Nice engine, eh? I want one.
I think most of us got that it was a play on "Public Assets". (Or maybe I'm hearing the Battlestar Galactica remake in my head: "I got thrown in the brig for striking a superior asshole, sir.")
I wouldn't be too worried about it. The Chicago Red Eye just ran a story the other day called "The Bling Culture." They managed to dig up mid 20's people who were making $50,000/yr salaries, yet buying $2000 guici bags monthly and driving HumVees. Their point was that a LOT of people are currently living far outside their means. The problem is that they're young enough to not yet feel the effects of their spending. It's a rather hideous sitation, and it may result in disasterous economic consequences.
Yes, I see:
The problem is risk. Just because you've screened the candidates to find people who are least likely to be bothered by the small spaces, doesn't mean that they won't crack. Placing a crew under those conditions for three years or so (especially when the crew will get some tastes of freedom on Mars) is one heck of a gamble to take.
Plus, it's not a very useful long term solution. If we're going to have regular missions to Mars, we can't reasonably make sure that every person to go can handle the stress.
There are also other issues that would require the larger engines. For example, a very long trip to Mars would exasperate the radiation damage done to the crew during the trip. Shortening that trip would help guarantee the health of the crew and the success of the mission.
Besides, I'm not just putting out wild ideas here. The words "Nuclear Thermal Rocket" have been bandied about quite a bit in relation to the Mars spiral of the CEV program. Even the Moon transport spiral is seriously considering the use of these engines. We have the technology, so why not use it?
Unfortunate for the left-wing nut jobs, they're just going to have to deal with it. Cassini flew, as will Prometheus. Not to mention the Viking, Pioneer, and Mars Explorer probes. (The Mars explorer bots had Radioisotope heaters on board.)
In space you live and die by the amount of power available to you. Solar does a reasonable job for very small craft all the way out to Jupiter. For larger craft or longer distances, you NEED to get power from somewhere. Nuclear fission can provide that power.
Methinks that "Space Depression" may have one or two things to do with the exceedingly cramped spaces. I mean, road trips are fun and all, but I'd go crazy too if I had to stay in the car for two years!
Any sort of mission to Mars would HAVE to be a bit more spacious than today's craft. Which means we need bigger boosters to get it there. Which then suggests the use of something nuclear such as NTR, Orion, or MPDT.
Gotcha. So the answer is, "[Companies] use it because it's Microsoft(TM)." :-)
Hmm... I didn't realize that MAPI was not actually reversed by Ximian. Points off them for taking the easy way out. :-/
Question: Is Brutus a full MAPI implementation? OMESC claims it is, but I'm not certain if they're referring to the API or Protocol. (My feeling is that they mean the API.)
Yes, but that doesn't answer the question. How does Exchange better serve the needs of companies than competing products? Is the integrated calendar the only "killer feature", or is there far more functionality that users would miss if they converted?
RTFA:
The problem with MAPI has been less an issue of reverse engineering a protocol, and more an issue of trying to replicate the DCOM interface. Microsoft piled on the technology stacks in making MAPI, thus confounding attempts to create a compatible connector. It was only a year or two ago that Ximian finally figured it out.
Actually, I would like to know what MS Exchange *does* besides integrate with a calendar across a domain. Besides the Calendar functionality, what do you find are important features of MS Exchange? How are these features not met by other options on the market?
As I have written repeatedly:The shuttle is too damn expensive.
And I have written repeatedly that the reason for that is the politics behind its design. I've said it before, and I'll say it again. There is no conspiracy, just politics mucking up NASA. That's why NASA can't get anything done on a decent cost basis.
You're a troll or not intellectually honest.
I am neither. The problem is that you're arguing something I never disagreed with. All I have disagreed with is the assertion that NASA is a monopoly that doesn't like competition. It's simply not true. NASA does not mind competition in the least. (Especially when that competition is mandated by a senator who has a Boeing or Lockheed factory in his district.) The "screwups" are nothing more than what happens when you allow politicans to run your space program instead of the people who actually know how it works.
Since the beginning of the 70s, NASA has fouled up the shuttle, NASP, X33, Venturestar and some launch projects I can't be bothered to remember.
You don't know what you're talking about. The Space Shuttle is an amazing (yes, truely AMAZING) piece of equipment with awe inspiring capabilities, thrust, and payload capacities.
1. Each SSME engine gobbles through an olympic swimming pool's worth of fuel EACH SECOND
2. The Shuttle can lift over 130 metric tonnes into LEO.
3. The Shuttle can lift a maximum of 28,800kg of cargo to LEO.
4. The Shuttle can perform a reentry into the atmosphere without *any* damage to its heat shielding system. (Tiles are only replaced if they become chipped or cracked. Still, it's a very expensive procedure to check every tile.)
5. The Shuttle can land almost entirely on automatic. (Only the period from when the landing gear is deployed is manual. This was an intentional safety feature.)
6. The Shuttle has the necessary cross range ability to launch and land in a single orbit. (This was intended for military purposes.)
7. The Cryogenic engines have more power than other launch engines in the history of space flight.
In other words, the engineers produced exactly what they were told, and did an astounding job of it. The problem is that they were told to build something that was the jack of all trades and the master of none. That's what happens when politicians determine how a spacecraft should be built.
As for the NASP (techically the X-30), that program is still running as the X-43. The X-30 attempted to skip several steps in development (specifically, the testing of the engines/airframe) prior to deployment, and ended up having to be scaled back. The only mismanagement was over-eager press reports.
The X-33 was never going to get anywhere. It was a nice idea, but it was a "super-tech" project. i.e. Every possible new and untested technology known to man was integrated into the system. If a single technology didn't work, then the entire craft couldn't fly. Guess what happened?
As for the Venture Star, it was to be the commercial variant of the X-33. Had the X-33 succeeded (which it might have, had more R&D been done prior to building an actual craft) Lockheed Martin would have offered the X-33 as a superfast transport system and Single Stage To Orbit system to anyone who could afford one. (Including NASA.) You may be under the impression that it was "almost there" from reading too much Dan Brown. Unfortunately, Mr. Brown doesn't do very much research before placing a new "fact" in his books.
I am sorry, but the excuses aren't believable.
The only one making excuses seems to be you. Things are the way they are. You can't change that through wishful thinking or a desire for some greater conspiracy.
I was thinking more in the eighties if they had closed down the shuttle and used two or three years of funding for that to finance a few good launch programs instead. As was the context I wrote it in.
That would have been useless. The US was already committed to the Space Shuttle program in the '80s, and was well prepared to use it as a courier to the future space station. (Believe it or not, the Space Shuttle could easily transport 60 or so people to the space station every flight. All it needs is the right module plugged into the cargo bay.) Tugs/Transports were planned to make runs between the Space Station and the Moon. On the moon there would be a permanent mining settlement, which would produce raw ore to be refined in orbit and used for construction.
The place where the plan fell flat was in the 90s. NASA was quite used to support from President Regean, and was in for a very rude awakening when the Clinton administration axed their long-term plans. The only option they were given was to accept an International Space Station that would be in a useless orbit. As a result, the station ended up making the shuttle only useful for more of what it already did: Going up and down.
All other projects that was totally fouled up by NASA like NASP (and even insisting on taking over DC-X and fucking that up, too) was pure incompetence?
While the DC-X may very well have been intentional incompetence (since they really wanted the X-33 to fly), it was still incompetence. Or more precisely, no one was allowed to do their jobs, so nothing got done in a useful way. After all, why was the President dictating how the next craft should be designed? Was he an engineer? A scientist? Someone who would have any *clue* about what such a design as the shuttle would mean?
If President Nixon had listened to his people about what the actual options were for space craft (as opposed to what he wanted them to be), we wouldn't be in this pickle.
(If you didn't give the job to Burt Rutan; then you'd probably also get a moon base for that kind of money.)
Rutan's a pretty smart guy, but please keep the fanboy stuff to a minimum. Things are more complicated than they may seem.
I just wonder what we could have had.
I can tell you exactly what would have happened.
1) Von Braun would have continued the Saturn V program.
2) He would have launched an Orion on the back of a Saturn.
3) We'd have been to Mars by the 1980's.
Does that answer your question?
NASA seems to have lobbied to stop other launch systems. To keep job security and their empire at maximum size.
:-)
Have you been reading Dan Brown again? There is no major conspiracy to keep independent launchers underfoot. Only a massive screw up perpetuated by bad politics.
The truth of what happened was that Nixon canned the Saturn V program because it was too expensive. He then told NASA to build a trophy vehicle that didn't cost as much and "maintained the US dominance in aerospace." The resulting design was the space shuttle. Sort of. Then the President demands that the Space Shuttle also meet the military needs as well as the civilian. So the military demands cross-range ability and greater payload. But then the costs of development mount so the government wants to stretch out the costs of building the shuttle. So the shuttle is reduced to a multi-piece/partially disposable vehicle. The comedy of errors caused by politics continues.
All during this time, NASA is planning to stop all existing commercial launches on vehicles other than the shuttle, as the shuttle is supposed to be much cheaper. So NASA stops ordering the Deltas and Atlases, thus making those rockets unavailable. The Shuttle is then introduced and turns out to cost way more than expected per flight. So NASA subsidizes each flight waiting for the costs to come down. After all, satellite makers would be pounding down their doors any minute now! (Cue animation of clock ticking.)
Then the Challenger goes up in fiery flames, and suddenly there's no space access at all. Satellite makers suddenly realize that they have no backup plans, and that all the old rockets are unavailable. Plans get underway to reintroduce the Deltas and Atlases as private ventures. Between manufacturing ramp up time and mountains of paperwork, it isn't until the 90's that this plan goes into action.
So the 90's come along and the shuttle is again flying. But something's not right. No one wants to fly on the shuttle anymore, as the old and cheaper rockets are available. Why buy unreliable and expensive shuttle space when you can just launch a Delta II?
NASA then focuses more on their space station (which was gutted by the Clinton administration) as a use for the Space Shuttle. Commercial launches continue to increase.
Today, we've got plenty of Atlases, Deltas, Protons, Long Marches, and perhaps even a Titan or two flying. All while the Space Shuttle is sitting in a hanger while politicians whine about the cost of sending someone up to the space station just to pull out a few pieces of insulation.
On the bright side, the CEV plan is finally the correct one. Stop with the super-tech, and just build from what we already have. While the CEV proposal has money earmarked for a new launch vehicle, there is nothing preventing a Delta IV or other existing booster from being that "new launch vehicle." The only requirement is that the CEV be lifted on a man-rated vehicle that has the necessary performance characteristics to lift a mated crew capsule. All future CARGO missions will be done with cargo boosters.
id software could still make profits licensing the Quake III engine to game developers
They do. Still make a profit, that is. When they release an engine, they release it as GPL. Anyone can make a game out of it, but then they must release their game under the GPL. As a result, many companies will choose to purchase a commercial license instead of dealing with the issues imposed by the GPL.
The only real reason for the lead time on Open Sourcing their software is that ID doesn't want to help competitors by outright teaching them the technology they developed. Once the technology is old hat, then keeping the source closed becomes less important.
An AC calling me a liar and linking to a blank page. Try for yourself. See for yourself how many local Blockbusters carry it in my area.
Blockbuster is (usually) not the place to go if you want to find movies for more than Blockheads. (i.e. Recent releases.)
There's a movie service that has allowed you to download movies for quite awhile. The only downsides to MovieLink are that a) It requires IE/Windows and b) It's only rentals.
Still, I was able to watch Dr. Strangelove that way. Which is more than I can say for the blank stares at Blockbuster:
Me: "Do you have Dr. Strangelove?"
Guy Rep: "Dr. Wha?"
Me: "Dr. Strangelove, or How I learned to love the bomb."
Guy Rep: "Say what?"
Lady Rep: "It's an old movie." [checks computer] "Nope, sorry."
(Blockbuster guy continues with confused look.)
P.S. The site seems to be completely dead. If you have problems, use this mirror courtesy of Coral Cache.
Aluminum? How Space Age. Ultra-modern, Information Age technology demands the return of the Magnesium Alloy cases. And if you douse them in lighter fluid and place them on top of a natural gas burner, they burh quite nicely. ;-)
Confusion with drunk driving. ;-)
Itanium didn't kill Alpha/MIPS/Sun.
Yes it did. When the hype was at it peak, it was actually preventing companies (such as the one I was working at during that time) from looking into Sun solutions, and HP made its infamous decision to ditch the Alpha line of processors in favor of the upcoming Intanic line.
At that time, Sun machines held a reasonable partiy with Intel's offerings, and Alpha NT desktops simply flew. Pentium III (Coppermine) was still in the development phase, and SGI was barely hanging on thanks to their N64 and NT Workstation deals.
Intel stole the EM64T technology?
I'm sorry? Who said anything about stealing? I explicity mentioned the cross-licensing agreements in my post! Am I missing something here?