We're talking about an early shutdown of the first stage, it could be that the subsequent stages were enough to loft the payload to a sufficiently stable orbit.
Possible, but extremely unlikely - as it appears 25% of the first stage performance was lost.
People on the ground thought they detected the orbit insertion burn... so it doesn't seam like the rocket just shutdown and fell back to earth right away.
Nobody is claiming that it fell back to earth - only that it's almost certainly in too low of an orbit to be useful.
does this story posted at 12:08 PM EST say that the controllers in California say "the craft appeared to be "alive" and sending signals to tracking stations."?
Because the Planetary Society are a bunch of confused amateurs with little experience in the task they are attempting. They are making press releases based on hope and speculation - not facts.
"We have no evidence that anything is wrong with the spacecraft at all," said Bruce Betts, the Planetary Society's director of projects, late on Tuesday.
Which isn't really a lie... But it diverts attention away from the fact that they have no evidence that anything is right either.
There is still plenty of reason for hope. All that happened was that the booster failed. We still don't know how the actually sail technology will perform, since the systems are unrelated.
If the booster failed to put it into a high enough or circular enough orbit, then atmospheric effects will be enough to mask the effects of the attempts to sail. The systems are indeed related.
The incredibly complex shuttle, in all fairness, was driven more by military/national security design constraints.
No, it wasn't. The Shuttle design was already converging on the 60k payload and had already settled on the TAS (Thrust Augmented Shuttle - I.E. SSME's and some form of first stage augmentation, which became the SRB's) by the time the military came along. The miltary requirements upped the size of the cargo bay amd increased the size of the wings - but the 'dense' orbiter requiring high performance TPS was already a design 'feature' by that time.
The belief that the Shuttle once actually was cheap and easy until the military came along is a false one.
Meanwhile the "faster, cheaper, leaner" approach of the last decade proved to be a bit too fast and loose.
No, it hasn't. FBC has just about the same loss/failure rate as the 'Battlestar' probes that proceeded them.
Then again I wonder if they ever really could get back to the Apollo days?
I hope to hell not. The Mercury-Apollo sequence was driven by the need to provide stunt after spectacular after 'first'. It's only by luck that we only had one fatal accident and two immediately life threatening ones. It's only become clear in recent years how many diving catches prevented other mission or life threatening problems - the only difference in the attitude towards safety between the NASA of the 60's and the NASA of the 21st century is the names on the memos.
Private enterprise *may* be our best hope in finding the proper spot on the cost/risk curve, but then where's the profit in much of the basic space science we'd all want to see done?
With private enterprise providing the vehicle and transport - the goverment can concentrate on science while the commercial entities still make money. (Exactly as is done in say - oceanographic research, or geology, or artic exploration, or dozens of other disciplines.)
The reason a company hits a wall is that it stops being innovative, and instead tries to keep milking past success (ahem, SCO, cough). I don't recall Yahoo! making anything innovative recently, but correct me if I'm wrong. Google, on the other hand, is creating useful services left and right.
That's because you seem to define 'innovative' as 'anything Google does'.
Maps? Done, and in some ways betters by at least three other providers. (What kind of 'innovator' forgets to add a freakin' scale?) Mail? Done, and in several important ways better, by multiple other providers. News? Social Networking? Ditto. Ditto.
Google is like the annoying smart kid that sits in the first row of class. Yahoo's in that class too, watching the smart kid get all the glory, and it can do nothing about it.
No, Google is more like the anoying popular guy in the first row. He wears pink to school one day, and all the sudden pink is cool.
In August of 1945, it's naive to suggest that the US was intent on saving lives.
It's not a suggestion or naivety, it's stone cold well documented historical fact.
The focus of the US government was to win the war.
Certainly. But being focused on winning a war doesn't mean one throws away lives heedlessly. Now, it's true that such decisions were not made on humanitarian grounds, but on mostly fiscal and logistical principles. A soldier on the ground represented many dollars of training and transport - and they were not an unlimited resource. In addition there was considerable political fallout from 'squandering the youth of America'.
Thus, the Armed Forces and the Goverment *were* concerned with 'saving lives', but the terms meant something slightly different in 1945 than they do here in 2005.
One big problem with his report is he didnt know that:
It wasnt a deliberate, precise and selective strike.
Nagasaki wasnt the primary intended target. The intended target was Kokura, but the spotter planes that went ahead found it to be completely socked in with clouds, so the bomb plane diverted to their secondary target, Nagasaki.
Nonsense. Secondary targets were selected with the same care as primary targets - Nagasaki wasn't put on the list or chosen from the list at random.
Nagasaki too was almost completely clouded over, but of course they were anxious to drop the bomb, so they aimed by using radar, which was very poor in those days, and they were WAY OFF, like miles from the intended aiming point. A lot of the blast was lost in the hills.
Not 'they' - 'he', the pilot of Bock's Car. He alone made the decsion to drop based on a single (albiet brief) optical sighting through a hole in the clouds followed up by radar tracking. (Rightly or wrongly, he was the mission commander - and had the authority to make that decision. He was also a man quite angry that he had been bumped from what turned out to be the first atomic mission.)
By the way, if we're going to discuss "intent to save lives", let's discuss the plan to nuke all the defenses on Kyushu before sending servicemen in to prevent another Normandy, shall we? At least 7 bombs would have been ready by 1 November.
No. After Fat Man was dropped on Nagasaki, weapons productions was about 1 every 2-3 weeks.
Furthermore, Kyushu wasn't defended by forts that could be bombed individually. It was defended by dozens of airfields and thousands of individuals strong points.
Furthermore, there was no co-ordinated planning between the 509th (or any other atomic command) and the other commanders in theatre.
Next time you state that the atomic bombs saved lives -- without any room for question or flexibility, I'll meet you at the Peace Park in Nagasaki. We'll walk across the street together to the Atomic Bomb Museum. You just hold your head high knowing the US made the right decision. Watch how the Japanese react to your confidence.
I will proudly do so - because I am swayed by history and facts, not by the reactions of a few.
Cast aside everything inside as propaganda, because that's what it'll take not to put your American / European education into perspective.
Everything inside can be pure fact - but that won't change the truth.
Re:Take THAT, space science nay-sayers!
on
Glass In Spaaaaace
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· Score: 1
Although this article is a couple of years old, the scientific community is not necessarily convinced of microgravity's promise.
Robert Park and the American Physical Society have long been foes of both the Shuttle and the ISS. Take his comments with a grain of salt.
For example, take section 2 of the linked article - which criticizes a research program for not producing 'unique results'. Anyone familiar with science knows that non-unique results are as important as unique results.
Whatever happened to launching from lighter-than-air platforms? With conventional rockets, so much weight goes into fuel to move the fuel you'll burn later to move the fuel that comes even later. Surely someone's doing something with a straightforward idea like this?
It's one of those ideas that seems straightforward... Until you do the actual math.
It turns out that it only takes about 5% of the fuel (or less) to get to the altitude that a typical airship flies - and that a reasonable size payload requires an airship twice the size of the Hindenburg to carry it. Given that a) fuel costs are down in the noise and b) the (extremely fragile) airship costs hundreds to thousands of times more than is saved in the costs of tankage - it suddenly seems like a much less nifty idea.
Anyhow, the main problem in getting to orbit isn't about altitude, it's about speed.
Aren't there creatures living at far greater pressures in deep sea environments? Wouldn't that be similar to having creatures living at high gravities (leaving out the other ways the planet clearly isn't very "earthlike" for the moment).
No. When you at equilibrium pressure, regardless of the pressure, you don't "feel" the pressure. (For instance, sitting in your chair there are several tons of air pushing on you - do *you* feel it?)
Even at a price of $10k, we don't expect to sell more than maybe 20-50 licenses.
And of course 'we' (the R&D group) have done a complete market survey, yes?
We are also sure that a price over $10k is ludicrous, let alone $500k.
Ah, no 'we' haven't done any marketing work - 'we' are just guessing and assuming 'we' know more than the folks who are paid to do such things.
On the other hand, it is software that will be vitally useful to those in the right markets.
Unlike your average Slashgeek, companies who are serious about making money don't quail at spending money to make more. That's why the company you are working for funds and R&D group in the first place!
Possibly, but the logistics situation on the Moon (which is a coupla days away from Earth) is, again, completely different to that on Mars (where you're six months away by conventional rocket, and you can only launch stuff at certain times).
Logistice engineering is more than just shipping times, it's also about equipment design and construction. It's about designing proper maintenace schedules. It's about proper levels of tools and spares and documentation.
And even though the Moon is only a couple of days off, logistics missions will be periodical, not on-demand.
In other words, cheap and easy is more important than complete and correct.
I would say that:
1. Even a proper literature survey has time limits. You know you're supposed to finish a PhD in a few years?
Yes, I do. And given that you have months and years, that makes defaulting to the 'instant, cheap, and easy' strategy even more reprehensible.
2. Cheap and easy doesn't need to be, and really shouldn't be, opposed to complete and correct.
When one states that ones research is based almost completely on what is instantly available rather than on the totality of what is available, then yes - they are completely opposed.
That papers available online gets more citations is only fair, given that the people who make their papers freely available help make life easier for all of us.
Utter bilge. Papers that are correct and/or important, and relevant should get the most citations. Citing only those available online is going the 'cheap and easy' route.
If you are interested in rigour, correctness, and completeness, then there is no possible defense for 'cheap and easy'. Your extended defense of it indicates clearly where you stand on these issues - and serves as a stark indictment of the educational system.
Uhm, no. Let's face it: there is too much research out there that _could_ be relevant. There isn't enough time to order all those articles from faraway libraries, or money to buy them online. To be able to do a proper literature survey you need to be able to get the paper instantly and read just as much as you need of it.
In your own words - Uhm, no. A proper literature survey means reading a broad spectrum of papers, not reading just what is quickly and easily available.
"Proper literature survey" != "grabbing what's handy"
Therefore, I rarely cite papers that are not available for free online.
In other words, cheap and easy is more important than complete and correct.
Re:Lower cost to orbit - whatever happened to cate
on
Back to Moon in 2015?
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· Score: 1
So, what ever happened to making a railgun, or more conventional catipult like system to fling stuff into space?? I know Arther C. Clark discussed it at some point and without rocket motors the G's needed to accelerate something from Earth's surface would SQUISH a human, but hell, it would work for supplies and raw materials. Cylinders of O2 can withstand 15 Gs. So why can't we fling some shipping containers full of sullpies up and meet them up there? I would love some answers??
Because the problem isn't G forces, the problem is atmospheric friction.
Secondly, Mars and the moon are going to be totally different kettles of fish to colonize. Mars has an atmosphere, thin as it is, roughly 24-hour days, and a bloody cold climate. The Moon has no atmosphere whatsoever, four-week days (making it near-impossible to grow anything there), and temperatures that go from bloody cold to bloody boiling. I'm not sure how much we're going to learn about living on Mars from the Moon.
One needs to get away from the idea that specific technologies (like greenhouses) are the one and only thing that's important. There's a broad body of techniques and experience that are important as well.
By going to Moon first, we develop and refine our boosters. We develop and refine LEO construction techniques. We develop and refine command and control procedures. We develop and refine logistics engineering. etc... etc.. All manner of decidely unsexy nitty gritty details and experience.
Not everything that's important is a box, button, or blinky light.
That business about "otherwise very intelligent people have succumbed to stupidity by using Google Scholar to the exclusion of the other, much better services" sounds like the author has a personal or financial stake in WoS or Scopus.
No, it sounds like somebody with some knowledge of the tech-savvy generation in the freshman-to-Masters range today - a generation that tends to leap on the latest e-trend, regardless of whether it makes sense or not. A generation that leaps on things that are free, whether or not they actually meet their needs.
And most importantly a generation that tends to leap on anything branded as Google-"_________" without an ounce of critical thought.
Or just a chip on his shoulder, axe to grind, whatever. Either way, the reviewer comes off sounding like an pompous asshole.
It's funny how often informed, competent reviews on/. are termed as coming from 'pompous assholes' when they don't agree with the Hivemind's pre-conceptions.
I've used Highwire, scholar and a couple of other (closed) systems to find relevant papers. The conclusion? I prefer google scholar.
The reason? Most of the stuff I find is easily accessible. It really annoys me when I (or my University) has no access to more then the abstracts journal X.
Second reason: google is fast and clean. You would not believe the horrible interfaces or some of the others. javascripts, java or even proprietary programs needed to access the databases.
A (very recent) PhD.
In simpler terms - you only care that it's easy to find and fast to use. More proof that the educational system is gone to hell when a PhD cares less about accuracy and content than flash and splash.
What? A company whose mission is to provide content and research services to academia gives a poor review to one of its up-and-coming competitors' offerings? Say it isn't so!
Not only gives a poor review, but backs it up with facts and figures. Not only does it give Google (competitor) a poor review - it gives Highwire Press (another competitor) a *positive* review. But the Google fanboy doesn't allow himself to be swayed by facts.
The original moon missions used the venerable Saturn V rocket. The Saturn V was a heavy lifter that is unrivaled even today. The problem is, we don't have any working Saturn V rockets anymore.
The answer is we don't need the Saturn V. The Saturn/Apollo infrastructure was the worst and most expensive option we could have chosen - but at the time the landing mode decision was made it was the one with the least risk that could be accomplished in the timeframe set by JFK.
Today we use somewhat smaller rockets, and build them in greater quantities - this reduces costs. We automate the hell out of their launch preparations - which reduces costs. etc... etc...
And I think they threw the plans [to the Saturn V] away during a bit of a spring cleaning.
Nope, the plans are all in the NASA or National archives on microfilm. What was thrown away was all the construction jigs - which are huge and massively expensive to maintain and store.
Not that it matters - We'd have to re-engineer all the processes, rebuild production lines for the parts, requalify the production processes, etc... etc... A massive and expensive prospect. (In real life, unlike Hollywood, posession of the plans to something is only a Really Good Start, not the end of the process.)
It's far cheaper and simpler to start from a blank sheet with what we know now, or seek to upgrade existing and well proven boosters (like the latest versions of the Atlas and Delta).
dropping the high-strung engines that need a total rebuild after every flight that costs more than new engines.
They stopped rebuilding the engines between every flight about 1990 or so, and stopped removing them between every flight (for inspection) about 1997 or so.
The space shuttle program was ruined in its early days by too many government/military/nasa requirements, in short they wanted it to be a "jack of all trades",
Ruined in it's early days? The Shuttle was concieved right from day one as a jack of all trades. It was never anything but.
but because most of the shuttles functionality and specifications are rarely used,
In fact, every one of the various functional specifications has been used. It's both launched and recovered heavy payloads, performed satellite repair, etc.. etc.. Even the much maligned high cross range requirement has turned out to be useful because it makes mission planning easier for aborts and recovery.
Shuttle is actually more than twice as dangerous than Soyuz (overall),
Shuttle - 2 complete LOCV failures in 113 flights. Soyuz - 2 complete LOCV failures in 87 flights, plus around 16-18 extremely close calls. Soyuz is hardly 'twice as safe'.
furthermore Soyuz hasn't had any deaths at all in about 30 years, and none with the current version that seats 3.
Let's look at just the last five missions of Soyuz (the last three years) shall we? We find one mission where the main flight control computer shut down entirely, we find another where a seperation pyro fired in the hangar prelaunch, we find another where the braking (landing) rockets failed to fire correctly...
For those playing along at home, that's three serious failures in the five most recent missions.
The reason Soyuz is safer is because they had all the really deadly problems early on when they only risked small crews, whereas the Shuttle is more brittle, and kills at random (hence more likely to kill a large crew).
The size of the crew is an emotional analysis, not an engineering one. Read here for an account of the Soyuz (and Soyuz derived spacecraft) failures thru 1997 - it's quite sobering. Even more sobering is when you consider the problems listed above - and the fact that the Soyuz (R-7) booster has had two unmanned LOV failures in the last six years.
Slashdot Mirror
The belief that the Shuttle once actually was cheap and easy until the military came along is a false one.
No, it hasn't. FBC has just about the same loss/failure rate as the 'Battlestar' probes that proceeded them.I hope to hell not. The Mercury-Apollo sequence was driven by the need to provide stunt after spectacular after 'first'. It's only by luck that we only had one fatal accident and two immediately life threatening ones. It's only become clear in recent years how many diving catches prevented other mission or life threatening problems - the only difference in the attitude towards safety between the NASA of the 60's and the NASA of the 21st century is the names on the memos.With private enterprise providing the vehicle and transport - the goverment can concentrate on science while the commercial entities still make money. (Exactly as is done in say - oceanographic research, or geology, or artic exploration, or dozens of other disciplines.)Maps? Done, and in some ways betters by at least three other providers. (What kind of 'innovator' forgets to add a freakin' scale?) Mail? Done, and in several important ways better, by multiple other providers. News? Social Networking? Ditto. Ditto.
No, Google is more like the anoying popular guy in the first row. He wears pink to school one day, and all the sudden pink is cool.Thus, the Armed Forces and the Goverment *were* concerned with 'saving lives', but the terms meant something slightly different in 1945 than they do here in 2005.
Furthermore, Kyushu wasn't defended by forts that could be bombed individually. It was defended by dozens of airfields and thousands of individuals strong points.
Furthermore, there was no co-ordinated planning between the 509th (or any other atomic command) and the other commanders in theatre.
I will proudly do so - because I am swayed by history and facts, not by the reactions of a few.Everything inside can be pure fact - but that won't change the truth.For example, take section 2 of the linked article - which criticizes a research program for not producing 'unique results'. Anyone familiar with science knows that non-unique results are as important as unique results.
It turns out that it only takes about 5% of the fuel (or less) to get to the altitude that a typical airship flies - and that a reasonable size payload requires an airship twice the size of the Hindenburg to carry it. Given that a) fuel costs are down in the noise and b) the (extremely fragile) airship costs hundreds to thousands of times more than is saved in the costs of tankage - it suddenly seems like a much less nifty idea.
Anyhow, the main problem in getting to orbit isn't about altitude, it's about speed.
And even though the Moon is only a couple of days off, logistics missions will be periodical, not on-demand.
If you are interested in rigour, correctness, and completeness, then there is no possible defense for 'cheap and easy'. Your extended defense of it indicates clearly where you stand on these issues - and serves as a stark indictment of the educational system.
"Proper literature survey" != "grabbing what's handy"
In other words, cheap and easy is more important than complete and correct.By going to Moon first, we develop and refine our boosters. We develop and refine LEO construction techniques. We develop and refine command and control procedures. We develop and refine logistics engineering. etc... etc.. All manner of decidely unsexy nitty gritty details and experience.
Not everything that's important is a box, button, or blinky light.
And most importantly a generation that tends to leap on anything branded as Google-"_________" without an ounce of critical thought.
It's funny how often informed, competent reviews onToday we use somewhat smaller rockets, and build them in greater quantities - this reduces costs. We automate the hell out of their launch preparations - which reduces costs. etc... etc...
Nope, the plans are all in the NASA or National archives on microfilm. What was thrown away was all the construction jigs - which are huge and massively expensive to maintain and store.Not that it matters - We'd have to re-engineer all the processes, rebuild production lines for the parts, requalify the production processes, etc... etc... A massive and expensive prospect. (In real life, unlike Hollywood, posession of the plans to something is only a Really Good Start, not the end of the process.)
It's far cheaper and simpler to start from a blank sheet with what we know now, or seek to upgrade existing and well proven boosters (like the latest versions of the Atlas and Delta).
For those playing along at home, that's three serious failures in the five most recent missions.
The size of the crew is an emotional analysis, not an engineering one. Read here for an account of the Soyuz (and Soyuz derived spacecraft) failures thru 1997 - it's quite sobering. Even more sobering is when you consider the problems listed above - and the fact that the Soyuz (R-7) booster has had two unmanned LOV failures in the last six years.