Captain Renault: I'm shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here! [a croupier hands Renault a pile of money] Croupier: Your winnings, sir. Captain Renault: [sotto voce] Oh, thank you very much.
Many feel that the Soviets in launching Sputnik 1 were making a veiled threat against the US as well as parading the technological achievement of launching an artificial satellite. The R-7 booster used was designed primarily as an ICBM, not a space launcher. That "beep-beep-beep" going overhead several times a day sent a message stronger than lofting a bomb down a test range.
The difference between the two is very small. You may get a large CEP if your math sucks or your booster isn't all that, but we're talking nukes here.
Not entirely true.
Soyuz 18-1 experienced a third-stage separation failure and a 20.6+g reentry on abort. One crewman suffered internal injuries.
Source:
http://www.astronautix.com/flights/soyuz181.htm
Here's something interesting about nuclear launch codes:
America's gaggle of "Minuteman" long-range nuclear missiles went on line for the first time during the Cuban missile crisis in 1960 1962. But the world was supposedly protected from mutual assured destruction by the "Permissive Action Links" (PALs) which required an 8-digit combination in order to launch. Robert McNamara, then the U.S. Secretary of Defense, personally oversaw the installation of these special locks to prevent any unauthorized nuclear missile launches. He considered the safeguards to be essential for strict central control and for preventing nuclear disaster.
But what Secretary McNamara didn't know is that from the very beginning, the Strategic Air Command (SAC) in Omaha had decided that these locks might interfere with any wartime launch orders; so in order to circumvent this safeguard, they pre-set the launch code on all Minuteman silos to the same eight digits: 00000000.
For seventeen years, during the height of the nuclear crises of the Cold War, the code remained all zeros, and was even printed in each silo's launch checklist for all to see. The codes remained this way up until 1977, when the service was pressed into activating the McNamara locks with real launch codes in place. Before that time, the the lack of safeguards would have made it relatively easy for a small group of rogue silo officers or visitors to implement an unauthorized nuclear missile launch.
NASA has held these "competitions" since the earliest days of the space program, always with the same hoopla. Then, after it's over, they say "Thank you, but we'll use our own in-house design". Look at the GE Apollo designs. The Soviets snatched up the idea and out came Soyuz. You really get the feeling that there is a "Not Invented Here" mentality at NASA.
Personally, I think that someone at NASA finally woke up. Using an SSME in an expendable sustaner configuration is like shooting a thoroughbred racehorce after one race. You might win the race, but you paid way too much for it.
People keep saying "well, we haven't made J-2's in 30 years". Well, nobody has made an airstart-capable SSME ever. Either way, changes will have to be made in production. Airstart isn't just a matter of throwing a switch and having the thing light up. Someone in a previous post mentioned the Atlas. One of the tenents of it's original design was a ground start for all engines, due to worries over staging failure. According to Encyclopedia Astronautica: "It was estimated by ATK Thiokol in 2005 that restarting the J-2S program, including engine fabrication, design and reliability verification, certification, and production, would require four years. Although no J-2S tooling was known to exist, modern soft tooling could be developed quickly and less expensively than the original hard tooling. There was an existing manufacturing and supplier network in place to support a J-2S restart." How long would it take to develop the airstart-capable SSME?
There was also some talk earlier about J-2 failures in Saturn V launches. When that did occur, the other engines were burned longer to "take up the slack" caused by the lost engine. What happens if the single modded-SSME fails in the sustainer stage? You start wondering where you'll land.
Then there's the KISS factor. Everyone has been talking about performance issues, but the J-2 wins by a landslide in KISS. The bonus is that given the advancements in technology since the original J-2 in 1960 should provide excellent advancement in performance over the original item. In fact, a modified J-2S was used as the basis for the X-33 linear aerospike engine. This is not some old POS that they're dusting off to keep someone happy. It was chosen because of the extensive design studies and testing done on this engine since it was first built.
The J-2 also adds to the nostalgia value and cool factor. It helped us to get to the moon before, it would be great if it helped us get back.
Thanks to Encyclopedia Astronautica and Mark Wade for references.
Sometimes wearing quality cycling gloves with gel inserts helps. Sometimes it's how your handlebars and brake levers are set. Once for me it was wearing a cheap pair of gloves too tight at the wrist. I like cycling too much to give it up because my fingers got numb.
CNET takes a year-old story about a bitter divorce and revenge, adds some buzzwords, information about very common, almost "old school", spamming and phishing techniques and we're all supposed to run around yelling "The sky is falling!!". Someone must be way behind on their copy output and have the FUD generators turned up to 11.
I'm sorry for those of you IT types who have managers or "super users" who learned everything they know about computers from reading PC Ragazine or CNET. I'm sure you'll be getting worried calls and emails today. Just what you need on a Monday.
Perhaps it's because they were mostly empty space. After the LM was pulled from the SLA and the Apollo spacecraft was a safe distance away, the S-IVB was slowed by 115 FPS by dumping propellants through the engine, then all the tanks are vented to safe the stage. When it impacted it was just a lot of aluminum sheeting.
The largest intact objects left on the moon after the landings were not the LRVs but the descent stages for the LMs, one from each of the six successful landings. These are about 4 meters across. Other unintact items from the landings were the ascent stages of the LMs which were intentionally crashed into the moon to provide seismic data.
There's a reason why neither the US or the USSR developed space-based nuclear weapons systems.
They're useless.
Let's take a nuclear-capable satellite. Unless you have unlimited fuel, your little "space battlestation" will be pretty much in a fixed orbit. In case of hostilites, any launch would be like telegraphing your punch. You only have certain points in your orbit where Sir Issac will let you launch and hit your targets. If you did make an orbit change, your adversaries would have your new launch points recomputed in about a minute.
A base on the moon is an even worse proposition. In addition to the restrictions placed on you by celestial mechanics, you have the fact that the moon is about 250,000 miles away. The math for this is over my head I admit. I would think that something along the lines of a Peacekeeper would still take the better part of a day to hit a target. Seems they would be a simple target for an intercept also, given the amount of time for acquisition and tracking.
Using an asteroid as a weapon seems utterly foolish with the current state of technology. A tiny mistake means that you could end up dropping that rock on your own head. You may even succeed, but before your rock hits, your adversary would probably unload on you with his nukes. You wouldn't even be around to see your "victory".
Ok. Count me stupid but I don't see the error. I deliberately converted everything to M and 1210/19 does indeed equal 63.86 and some change and not.00006368.
Given:
19MA generated(That's ninteteen megaamps as opposed to ma which is milliamps for those of you who avoided engineering).
1210MW (Again that's megawatts, or 1.12GW for you Back to the Future types)
Then using Ohm's Law (E=P/I)
They needed to work at 63.68MV (mega again).
I wonder how long it will take them to get all this equipment packed in a DeLorean.
You can even build your own server farm (apiary). Deal with viruses (foulbrood - yeah, I know it isn't a virus). Piracy (bears destroying your hives for the honey and brood).
There's even some invention involved. We used to have a solar-powered capping separator that we built out of a 30 gallon galvanized trash can. New of course.
I couldn't call it fun though. Unless you have masochistic tendancies.
She was outside her house being interviewed WITHOUT her tinfoil hat!!!!!
The really sad thing about this is the fact that in a couple of weeks the news people will be back again. They'll be doing a story about how the family went on a neighborhood killing rampage after being forced to remove their protective screens; the renewed radiation doses having driving them to become homicidal.
Slashdot Mirror
Captain Renault: I'm shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here!
[a croupier hands Renault a pile of money]
Croupier: Your winnings, sir.
Captain Renault: [sotto voce] Oh, thank you very much.
Another vote for "The Man From Earth". It's an incredible movie.
Many feel that the Soviets in launching Sputnik 1 were making a veiled threat against the US as well as parading the technological achievement of launching an artificial satellite. The R-7 booster used was designed primarily as an ICBM, not a space launcher. That "beep-beep-beep" going overhead several times a day sent a message stronger than lofting a bomb down a test range. The difference between the two is very small. You may get a large CEP if your math sucks or your booster isn't all that, but we're talking nukes here.
The pictures would show it stripped and up on blocks.
Where is Korben Dallas when you need him?
Not entirely true. Soyuz 18-1 experienced a third-stage separation failure and a 20.6+g reentry on abort. One crewman suffered internal injuries. Source: http://www.astronautix.com/flights/soyuz181.htm
Here's something interesting about nuclear launch codes:
America's gaggle of "Minuteman" long-range nuclear missiles went on line for the first time during the Cuban missile crisis in 1960 1962. But the world was supposedly protected from mutual assured destruction by the "Permissive Action Links" (PALs) which required an 8-digit combination in order to launch. Robert McNamara, then the U.S. Secretary of Defense, personally oversaw the installation of these special locks to prevent any unauthorized nuclear missile launches. He considered the safeguards to be essential for strict central control and for preventing nuclear disaster.
But what Secretary McNamara didn't know is that from the very beginning, the Strategic Air Command (SAC) in Omaha had decided that these locks might interfere with any wartime launch orders; so in order to circumvent this safeguard, they pre-set the launch code on all Minuteman silos to the same eight digits: 00000000.
For seventeen years, during the height of the nuclear crises of the Cold War, the code remained all zeros, and was even printed in each silo's launch checklist for all to see. The codes remained this way up until 1977, when the service was pressed into activating the McNamara locks with real launch codes in place. Before that time, the the lack of safeguards would have made it relatively easy for a small group of rogue silo officers or visitors to implement an unauthorized nuclear missile launch.
http://www.damninteresting.com/?p=167
NASA has held these "competitions" since the earliest days of the space program, always with the same hoopla. Then, after it's over, they say "Thank you, but we'll use our own in-house design". Look at the GE Apollo designs. The Soviets snatched up the idea and out came Soyuz. You really get the feeling that there is a "Not Invented Here" mentality at NASA.
"You bony jackass!"
Personally, I think that someone at NASA finally woke up. Using an SSME in an expendable sustaner configuration is like shooting a thoroughbred racehorce after one race. You might win the race, but you paid way too much for it.
People keep saying "well, we haven't made J-2's in 30 years". Well, nobody has made an airstart-capable SSME ever. Either way, changes will have to be made in production. Airstart isn't just a matter of throwing a switch and having the thing light up. Someone in a previous post mentioned the Atlas. One of the tenents of it's original design was a ground start for all engines, due to worries over staging failure. According to Encyclopedia Astronautica: "It was estimated by ATK Thiokol in 2005 that restarting the J-2S program, including engine fabrication, design and reliability verification, certification, and production, would require four years. Although no J-2S tooling was known to exist, modern soft tooling could be developed quickly and less expensively than the original hard tooling. There was an existing manufacturing and supplier network in place to support a J-2S restart." How long would it take to develop the airstart-capable SSME?
There was also some talk earlier about J-2 failures in Saturn V launches. When that did occur, the other engines were burned longer to "take up the slack" caused by the lost engine. What happens if the single modded-SSME fails in the sustainer stage? You start wondering where you'll land.
Then there's the KISS factor. Everyone has been talking about performance issues, but the J-2 wins by a landslide in KISS. The bonus is that given the advancements in technology since the original J-2 in 1960 should provide excellent advancement in performance over the original item. In fact, a modified J-2S was used as the basis for the X-33 linear aerospike engine. This is not some old POS that they're dusting off to keep someone happy. It was chosen because of the extensive design studies and testing done on this engine since it was first built.
The J-2 also adds to the nostalgia value and cool factor. It helped us to get to the moon before, it would be great if it helped us get back.
Thanks to Encyclopedia Astronautica and Mark Wade for references.
Sometimes wearing quality cycling gloves with gel inserts helps. Sometimes it's how your handlebars and brake levers are set. Once for me it was wearing a cheap pair of gloves too tight at the wrist. I like cycling too much to give it up because my fingers got numb.
CNET takes a year-old story about a bitter divorce and revenge, adds some buzzwords, information about very common, almost "old school", spamming and phishing techniques and we're all supposed to run around yelling "The sky is falling!!". Someone must be way behind on their copy output and have the FUD generators turned up to 11.
I'm sorry for those of you IT types who have managers or "super users" who learned everything they know about computers from reading PC Ragazine or CNET. I'm sure you'll be getting worried calls and emails today. Just what you need on a Monday.
You're confusing "Mary Poppins" with "Bedknobs and Broomsticks" methinks.
Perhaps it's because they were mostly empty space. After the LM was pulled from the SLA and the Apollo spacecraft was a safe distance away, the S-IVB was slowed by 115 FPS by dumping propellants through the engine, then all the tanks are vented to safe the stage. When it impacted it was just a lot of aluminum sheeting.
The largest intact objects left on the moon after the landings were not the LRVs but the descent stages for the LMs, one from each of the six successful landings. These are about 4 meters across. Other unintact items from the landings were the ascent stages of the LMs which were intentionally crashed into the moon to provide seismic data.
n dex/home1.html has impact point data for the ascent stages.
http://aesp.nasa.okstate.edu/fieldguide/pages/aai
There's a reason why neither the US or the USSR developed space-based nuclear weapons systems.
They're useless.
Let's take a nuclear-capable satellite. Unless you have unlimited fuel, your little "space battlestation" will be pretty much in a fixed orbit. In case of hostilites, any launch would be like telegraphing your punch. You only have certain points in your orbit where Sir Issac will let you launch and hit your targets. If you did make an orbit change, your adversaries would have your new launch points recomputed in about a minute.
A base on the moon is an even worse proposition. In addition to the restrictions placed on you by celestial mechanics, you have the fact that the moon is about 250,000 miles away. The math for this is over my head I admit. I would think that something along the lines of a Peacekeeper would still take the better part of a day to hit a target. Seems they would be a simple target for an intercept also, given the amount of time for acquisition and tracking.
Using an asteroid as a weapon seems utterly foolish with the current state of technology. A tiny mistake means that you could end up dropping that rock on your own head. You may even succeed, but before your rock hits, your adversary would probably unload on you with his nukes. You wouldn't even be around to see your "victory".
Shenandoah Macon It's been tried before people. These things do terrible in storms.
Thank you. Serves me right for doing math on a monday.
Ok. Count me stupid but I don't see the error. I deliberately converted everything to M and 1210/19 does indeed equal 63.86 and some change and not .00006368.
Given: 19MA generated(That's ninteteen megaamps as opposed to ma which is milliamps for those of you who avoided engineering). 1210MW (Again that's megawatts, or 1.12GW for you Back to the Future types) Then using Ohm's Law (E=P/I) They needed to work at 63.68MV (mega again). I wonder how long it will take them to get all this equipment packed in a DeLorean.
You can even build your own server farm (apiary). Deal with viruses (foulbrood - yeah, I know it isn't a virus). Piracy (bears destroying your hives for the honey and brood). There's even some invention involved. We used to have a solar-powered capping separator that we built out of a 30 gallon galvanized trash can. New of course. I couldn't call it fun though. Unless you have masochistic tendancies.
You forget about Stalin. Stalin makes Hitler look like a mamma's boy.
She was outside her house being interviewed WITHOUT her tinfoil hat!!!!!
The really sad thing about this is the fact that in a couple of weeks the news people will be back again. They'll be doing a story about how the family went on a neighborhood killing rampage after being forced to remove their protective screens; the renewed radiation doses having driving them to become homicidal.
What will the surviving neighbors say then?
I personally am stocking up on foil.
Mod parent up. I loved playing HHGTTG. Can't wait for the movie!
According to the Mansfield Memorial Museum website http://www.mansfieldtourism.com/CVB_Site/Pages/ele ctro.htm:
The exhibit will be on display at the Museum from September 7 through November 20, 2004.
The exhibit is over. You can go about your business. Move along.