Soyuz is one of the safest and most reliable space vehicles in existence,
ROTFLMAO. No matter what metric you choose - the differences in safety and reliability numbers generally favor the Shuttle. (Not by much mind,.1% here or.5% there.) For instance, the Soyuz has aborted 4 missions and landed without docking with the station thet were going to - with none of the missions reflown. OTOH, the Shuttle has aborted two missions, and both were eventually reflown.
Plus side, we are less likely to lose astronauts,
The Soyuz has killed two crews and had at least eight close calls (I.E missed killing a crew by sheer luck) in 93 flights. The Shuttle has killed two crews and had no close calls in 113 flights.
You do the math and figure which is less likely to kill a crew.
Well, you are right on those numbers, but when unmanned Soyuz missions are added up, the statistics reveal something very impressive for the Soyuz.
Yes, it reveals the vivid imagination of fanboys - because the total number of unmanned Soyuz flights is *zero*. The Progress spacecraft has flown unmanned - but Progress is not Soyuz. (And Progress does not re-enter, which historically is where the Soyuz has performed worst.)
The other difference is that as Americans, we celebrate every shuttle launch and landing with lots of fanfare, The Russians do nothing of the like; to me, this suggests that we are probably not sure the shuttles will perform, right?
It's a leftover from the not-too-distant days when a space mission (in Russia) wouldn't be announced until it was a sucess.
Tell the parent that these [Soyuz] vehicles have had a near perfect record during their operation - better than anything the US has ever developed.
Which Soyuz? Not the one flown in this reality.
In 93 flights, Soyuz has had two LOCV accidents, at least 8 LOM incidents, and more close calls and near accidents than one can shake a stick at.
When a Soyuz is launched, there is near 100% certainty that they will reach their intended destination and return without problems. Now, contrast that with the so called latest and most advanced US technology.
Yes, lets. How many Shuttles have failed on launch? (None.) How many Soyuz? (Two.) How many Shuttles have landed off course and threatened the lives of their crews? (None.) How many Soyuz? (Multiple - including one that landed in a lake and ended up under the ice, and another that landed on a ledge in the mountains and missed the edge by less than a foot.) How many Shuttles have had to abort their missions and land with their batteries dying? (None.) How many Soyuz? (At least 4.) etc... etc...
The simple fact of the matter is this; The Shuttle is about 98% reliable, and the Soyuz about 98.1%. The Soyuz is only that high because they've been lucky.
If you simply want to get cheap payload into orbit this decade using materials that are NOT theoretical, find a way to get funding to the blimp-to-orbit people at JP Aerospace.
That's only if you believe their (JP Aerospaces) snake oil. The problem is, when you look at the numbers, they simply don't add up - their claims are physically impossible. The only way their craft can meet their goals is if they have discovered some physical law previously unknown to science.
Why isn't this stuff being used as an emergency rescue material, to make ladders that can be telescoped up to the 30th floor of skyscrapers? Surely there could be less ambitious projects for this material before committing to something that has to deal with the extreme stresses and temperatures in space and the upper atmosphere?
Two reasons;
This stuff is a rope - pretty hard to make a ladder out of it that you can telescope up
This stuff is mostly theoretical handwaving - it doesn't exist in significant quantities. You migh be able to get a rope that can get you down from the second story, tops.
Ya know, we could build a structure to space with todays (hell, 20+ year old) technology if we wanted. The Launch Loop concept was published 20 years ago and is viable today.
Of course, a theoretical system that hasn't been modeled, tested, or developed is a viable system. If you actually read the site, you'll find even the author of the paper is doubtful.
The majority of studies that remain to be done to make the Launch Loop a reality are much the same as the many studies that still need to be done to make the space elevator a reality.
If "studies to make a one way system" == "studies to make a two way system", then it's pretty obvious which is the better place to spend your money.
But, I don't remember ever hearing that we actually have the technology to produce enough carbon nanotube material to actually build a prototype device of some sort let alone a cable spanning to LEO.
There's a deep dark secret space elevators fans (at least those in the know, a vast minority of the total) don't want you to know - the fibers aren't the issue, and haven't been for years. The real issue, the one that's had essentially zero work done on it, is the matrix to imbed the fibers *in*.
A single nanotube, even of infinite length, is useless. You need multiple strands, and a way to lock them together and to transfer stress between them - and not only do we not know how, we don't know where to begin looking.
While we might not reach Mars from there we never will have any chance if we just putz around in Earth orbit.
90% of the duration of a Mars mission will be in conditions that are almost exactly that of LEO. (The only significant difference is the radiation enviroment.) 'Putzing around' in LEO is supremely important to a sucessful Mars mission.
You, like every other fanboi confuse the appearance of Boldy Going with actually accomplishing anything.
For a start it looks as if unmanned missions could achieve the same at far less cost.
Not in this reality. (Consider that Spirit and Opportunity *together* have accomplished less in a year than a field geologist could have in a few days.)
Second, missions like this are really about the future good of all mankind, unless you're some crazed tycoon who wants to own space, the planets, etc.
Only in the minds of someone who confuses Star Trek with a documentary.
On the capsule (again), I'm surprised they didn't even consider the Big Gemini design.
That's because you don't understand the purpose of this plan - which is to provide bureaucratic and corporate welfare along with a healthy slab of pork. Space exploration is in a distant fifth place. (In fourth place is to 'create a public image of actually doing something'.)
It's sort of odd, that at first there was this urban myth saying you needed to worry, and then Snopes "debunked" it, and now we have good evidence from a person who actually took a card reader and checked some cards (as opposed to Snopes, who just called Doubletree, apparently), saying that the original hoax actually was on to something, after all.
No, we don't have good evidence - we have a posting on a blog.
None of this changes the Slashdot article at all, assuming that we trust the author to not be fabricating his results with the card reader completely (and I have no reason to believe that).
We have no reason to make an assumption either way - that this is a hoax, or that he is telling the truth.
Her main worry is that people are going to use this technology to bypass the book all together, and thereby possibly only getting a portion of the entirety of the book (seeing only one side of an argument, for example)
Indeed. There's a generation growing up that believes that textbytes snagged off the web represents the entirety of what's worth knowing - if it's not on Google it's meaningless. This frightens hell out of me - it's a large contributing to cause to America's decline in engineering and the sciences.
My second reaction is that he might have a point, and he's deserving of some sympathy. But then I realize that he's a university bookseller. The books people pay for college and university classes are overpriced as it is, ($80 for my USED calculus text, and that was ten years ago; I can only imagine how much it is now.)
He's not a university bookseller (bookstore), but a university *publisher*. He publishes all manner of books that major publishing houses won't touch because the market is limited. This is a very good thing.
The best thing about Wikipedia is the fact that people without advanced PhD degrees can make a contribution too.
The worst thing about Wikipedia is that anyone can contribute on any topic - and the opinion of a random web page as a reference counts more than the opinion of one who has studied the topic.
We don't need a box that does some fake magic hocus pocus, we need something like what Brazil is doing!
Yes! We need to deforest hundreds of thousands of acres annually and deplete the soil of hundreds of thousands more so we can reduce our dependence on Big Oil.
You obviously didn't read TFA. It uses energy (from the battery, I believe) to crack the water into its components, then feeds the hydrogen into the intake. This makes for a cleaner and more effiecient burn in the cylinder.
However, you then need to use some of the 'cleaner and more effiecient burn' to turn the alternator to re-charge the battery. TANSTAAFL.
The problem is not reconstructive technology. The problem is money-grubbing insurance agencies and the predominant wage-slave status of anyone making less than $100k/year.
No, the problem is the people who think they have a right to a perfect life - and that someone else should bear the costs.
That is far from true either. Composite materials (like made the name Scaled Composites) have advanced incredibly for a number of different areas, and in particular aviation.
So? The question at hand is 'what technologies are now available that make it so scandalous that we are taking 12 years instead on 9?'. The proper answer is none - the delay is not to develop technology, but because the albatross of Shuttle/ISS needs to come off of NASA's neck before significant funds can be spent on VSE. The whole idea is keep the whole manned spaceflight endeavor the same size - no significant budget changes in either direction.
And a large number of rocket propulsion systems have been tested by private researchers...particularly in regards on how to make propulsion cheaper per pound sent up.
So? There has been little noticeable sucess by those researchers. As I point out above the issue is budget, not technology. (I will however note in passing that the VSE scheme will fail in it's goal of providing low(er) cost acess.)
Space Medicine has also had huge leaps of knowledge since the 1960's. We know quite a bit now (thanks in part to the Russians, MIR, and a little bit from the ISS) about how the human body works in space, what dangers to look for, and what major concerns there are. Prior to the 1960's we didn't even know about the Van Allen radiation belts around the Earth.
Utterly meaningless in the context of the question of technology vs. speed.
Solar Weather observations are being done regularly now. This is something that was completely ignored by NASA, and only a bare coincidence that 1968-1973 (the time of the Apollo flights) occured during a solar sunspot minimum cycle.
Ignored by NASA? Hardly. Viewed as an acceptable risk by NASA? Yes. Relevant to the question at hand? No.
At the moment we can predict not only when the sun might erupt, but where the solar storms are going to be strongest at and what damage they can cause.
Only in science fiction novels.
As far as sustainable systems are concerned, quite a bit of research has already been done about that as well. NASA has run several "missions" where people have lived in sealed habitats (like Biosphere2, but without the P.R. hoopla). More can be learned from those experiences, but to suggest we know little more than 1970 about this stuff is ignoring a huge amount of research.
ROTFLMAO. In the context of VSE - 'sustainable' means low cost, low impact. Sealed habitats have no more to do with the issue than does A-Rods batting average.
Of course Derek, you just like to argue and suggest that all of us are just clueless as well.
I don't suggest that most of you are clueless - I state as incontrovertible fact, on par with with the fact that the sun will rise in the east on the morrow. Every paragraph of your response screams your lack of a clue.
[Imagine]Driving games where you could actually apply your real life driving reflexes.
Right. I drive with two feet, both hands and arms, and move my head. Compare this with a controller that 'drives' using a single hand.
Simple, Grab the controller so you grab it on the short ends. Turn like a wheel. Instead of using feet, tilt the controller forward to accelerate, pull the controller back to brake.
Note that your method is utterly unlike how a real car is driven.
The only reason we drive with a wheel and two feet is because of previous hardware limitations. This is why cars will have joysticks one day.
Utterly irrelevant - as current cars use hands and feet. Niether the current Revolution or your scheme in any way use existing reflexes used to drive cars of today. What cars in some misty future may have is meaningless.
Personally, I doubt cars of the future will have anything like joysticks or HOTAS, as they are much more demanding on the reflexes than the current setup.
And comparing the SSME to the J2 is a better fit than comparing the SSME to the F-1. Like the J-2, the SSME is engineered to work better at high altitudes than low.
I mean, way back in the 60s it only took 9 years, and look at how technology has advanced since then!
Actually, except for computers, the relevant technologies have advanced very damm little. Another issue is that this program, unlike Apollo, will have to live within a budget. Yet another issue is that this time around we are building a sustainable, operational system - not a stunt.
Geez! What's wrong with these NASA scientists these days?
Nothing is wrong with NASA scientists. Much is wrong with Slashdot posters who haven't a clue - but think they are insightful.
Slashdot Mirror
You do the math and figure which is less likely to kill a crew.
In 93 flights, Soyuz has had two LOCV accidents, at least 8 LOM incidents, and more close calls and near accidents than one can shake a stick at.
Yes, lets. How many Shuttles have failed on launch? (None.) How many Soyuz? (Two.) How many Shuttles have landed off course and threatened the lives of their crews? (None.) How many Soyuz? (Multiple - including one that landed in a lake and ended up under the ice, and another that landed on a ledge in the mountains and missed the edge by less than a foot.) How many Shuttles have had to abort their missions and land with their batteries dying? (None.) How many Soyuz? (At least 4.) etc... etc...The simple fact of the matter is this; The Shuttle is about 98% reliable, and the Soyuz about 98.1%. The Soyuz is only that high because they've been lucky.
A single nanotube, even of infinite length, is useless. You need multiple strands, and a way to lock them together and to transfer stress between them - and not only do we not know how, we don't know where to begin looking.
You, like every other fanboi confuse the appearance of Boldy Going with actually accomplishing anything.
[1] Or at least controlled contaminant - faucet water won't cut it.
Personally, I doubt cars of the future will have anything like joysticks or HOTAS, as they are much more demanding on the reflexes than the current setup.