Erm, the foam on the shuttle is to keep ice from forming on the ET. (if you watch many cryogenic rockets during liftoff, you can see large chunks of ice falling off the rocket, and those that aren't white (like Soyuz) have a visible layer of ice on them) It has nothing to do with the heat shield, aside from falling off and hitting it (ice would be more dangerous though, i'd imagine). Of course, the CEV will be sitting on top of the launcher, well out of the way of any falling ice or foam.
Parachutes were a nice touch to reduce final impact loads, but as long as astronauts were properly seated in thier accelleration couches, the impact without parachutes would be surviveable
A parachute failure in any of the manned capsules would have likely been fatal.
In all, four astronauts have died in capsules during or after rentry, but none because of the reentry itself. Komarov crashed without a parachute, the crew of Soyuz-11 died when a pressure release valve that was desinged to provide fresh air to the crew after reentry was accidently opened early. The crew suffocated.
The Progress/Mir accident was caused when Russia decided to save money by ditching the autopilot and having a human remotely dock Progress from Mir via a joystick remote control and looking out the window at it. He lost it against earth and it crashed into Mir. Their autodocking system had nothing to do with it.
It did have a problem on Soyuz TMA-5, though. The astronauts had to take manual control. A thruster was not preforming at full power and the software overcompensated with the other thusters, approaching the ISS too fast.
How else would an astronaut release a satillite? A rubber band slingshot?
For the size and purpose of this satillite, i'd imagine it was much, much cheaper to load it on Progress with the other supplies and have them deploy it rather than waste a full LV on it.
Now you know how we felt when they flimed Hard Rain...
"Huntin' Burg" my ass. We are close to the south, but not that close. (Mix of northern and southern accents, but I have never, ever, heard anyone say "Huntin' Berg")
A local tv station got a huge boost in its ratings with something like that recently. First time ive seen a news report about how well a news report did.:P
A reporter was investigating some scum company, and when he was leaving someone punched him in the face. I didn't see it, but apparently it made the cable news networks as well.
Every touch tone phone ive owned has been able to call without power, aside from wireless handsets. The phone I have now is wireless, but it also has a corded phone on the base, which works fine when the power is out.
Nah, its still the Discovery Channel of the tech world.
Have you SEEN Discovery lately? All their decent shows have moved onto their other channels and now it might as we be called the decorating and motocycle building channel.
At least the Science channel is still somewhat interesting, and Wings (Or the Military Channel, as I think its called now) isn't that bad.
I was talking about orbit, and a few million years of lunar pertubations notwithstanding, it wouldn't leave orbit (I'm talking about throwing it here, not using a cannon, though ~7km/s to ~10-11km/s is a bit much for it too).
Ive heard people say things like "Why don't they just take it out of the airlock and shove it toward earth..." about the ISS junk pile problem, for example. Thats the kind of thing I was trying to explain.
I was attempting not to be confusing, but I'm never very good at that.
What I ment was gravity does not just stop having an effect. Many people think that if you took a baseball in the shuttle, and shoved it away from earth, it would keep drifting away from earth. (Imparting enough dV to send the baseball to escape velocity doesn't count, but that would be one hell of an arm.)
In this case, rather than a baseball, its a probe. The rules still apply.
Ascent isn't what they were worried about. When in space, gravity accelerates things very quickly, and there is no such thing as terminal velocity (well, until you get near light speed, then relativity does Wierd Shit(TM)). They came down faster than they went up.
Ascent has problems of its own, but heat is never really a problem, they tend to worry about the pressure exerted by the air as they pass Mach 1. This is almost always (Possibly just always, but I don't know the specifics for every rocket in existance, so i'm not sure) the most stressful portion of the launch, termed 'MaxQ' (You'll hear it called out if you ever listen in on flight controllers during a launch, NASA TV (DirectTV and Dish Network both have it, as well as streaming from nasa.gov) is a good place to watch one, if you can find one, I'd almost garuntee Deep Impact will be shown.)
Slowing down too fast in reentry has its own nasty problems. When you slow down, gravity pulls you deeper into the atmosphere, and the heating gets worse. Reentry vehicles are designed to fly a certain profile through the atmosphere, deviations can be deadly. Too steep is certainly bad, as is too shallow. You won't skip out into space, you'll go up and come back down, except this time you'll be much steeper, which, as I said before, is bad for your health.
I'm sure Rutan will come up with something, but I wouldn't be all that surpised to see the feathering taken out, and lots of shielding put in. The composite materials may pose a problem even then, though. The heat shielding takes the brunt of the heat, but all of it gets quite hot, possibly more than they can take.
And there is no need to explain orbital mechanics to me, see my.sig:P
(And i'll shamelessly plug Orbiter for other space geeks, its a great sim, and free)
I never said we should ignore them, the efforts to get rid of them were the point of most of my post.
Hydrazine rockets are pretty nasty things as well.
On a larger scale, however, they are just a drop in the bucket, and we shouldn't just stop using them before we have good alternatives.
Energia was capable of lifting 150000kg (Buran + 30000kg payload) to orbit, and made use of all chemical boosters. It can be done, it just needs to be improved. Russia has never liked solid rockets, so they have some of the best technology in this area.
I think the main hurtle to overcome is that SRBs are cheap. Designers see little reason to design complex systems of chemical rockets when they can use one engine and strap 9 SRBs to the side that produce more thrust and don't cost as much.
They had to delay the launch to wait for needed parts. I havn't heard anything about them since, but I doubt they would drop out without saying anything.
Of course, there is always the chance that I missed it.
The development of all chemical rockets (like the Delta IV Heavy) will help. Hyroden and Oxygen only produce one byproduct...water. Its about as clean as it gets.
The Space Shuttle's engines are quite clean, its those SRBs (Solid Rocket Boosters) that are dirty.
If the use of SRBs on rockets starts to decline, pollution from them won't be as much as a problem. (For LH2/LOX rockets, at least)
I doubt their effect is much worse than millions of cars anyway.
They were worried about passing the heat tolerances of the SS1 materials at Mach 4. At near mach 25 it wouldn't stand a chance.
I'd like to see Rutan go orbital, but anyone who thinks it will be the small, light, inexpensive (for a space ship) craft it is today is fooling themselves.
Closer to 3%, at least for the SatV and recent Delta IV Heavy.
A SatV weighs 3,038,500 kg, and can launch 118,000 kg to orbit. Lunar weight/payload ratios are even worse, at 47,000 kg to the moon, its about 1.5%.
I thought some of that might be for outdated technology (and some of it is, i'm sure, we could save structural weight now, not sure how much fuel requirements could change though) so I compared it against the Delta IV Heavy:
733,400 kg launcher. 25,800 kg payload to LEO. 3.5%
Don't whine about units, 'rocket science' generally uses metric, so thats what I found units in. I'm too lazy to convert them, use google calc and do it yourself.:)
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A story a few months ago stated that the gamecube was barely selling at all in europe. Many stores didn't even bother carrying it anymore.
They would climb in the Soyuz lifeboat that they came up on, close the hatches, and come home. No reality TV shows to be had there.
Erm, the foam on the shuttle is to keep ice from forming on the ET. (if you watch many cryogenic rockets during liftoff, you can see large chunks of ice falling off the rocket, and those that aren't white (like Soyuz) have a visible layer of ice on them) It has nothing to do with the heat shield, aside from falling off and hitting it (ice would be more dangerous though, i'd imagine). Of course, the CEV will be sitting on top of the launcher, well out of the way of any falling ice or foam.
Well, the russians are working on a lifting body-style capsule as well, called 'klipper'. It looks even less like a shuttle than this though.
What LM's concept does remind me of is the Hermes design.
Givin that this is LM's design, probobly the Atlas V.
The current theory, supported by the orbit it was launched into, is that its the 5th in a fleet of radar imaging satillites, known as "LACROSSE".
Parachutes were a nice touch to reduce final impact loads, but as long as astronauts were properly seated in thier accelleration couches, the impact without parachutes would be surviveable
g
Someone forgot to tell Komarov.
http://www.astronautix.com/graphics/q/qsoy1crs.jp
A parachute failure in any of the manned capsules would have likely been fatal.
In all, four astronauts have died in capsules during or after rentry, but none because of the reentry itself. Komarov crashed without a parachute, the crew of Soyuz-11 died when a pressure release valve that was desinged to provide fresh air to the crew after reentry was accidently opened early. The crew suffocated.
The Progress/Mir accident was caused when Russia decided to save money by ditching the autopilot and having a human remotely dock Progress from Mir via a joystick remote control and looking out the window at it. He lost it against earth and it crashed into Mir. Their autodocking system had nothing to do with it.
It did have a problem on Soyuz TMA-5, though. The astronauts had to take manual control. A thruster was not preforming at full power and the software overcompensated with the other thusters, approaching the ISS too fast.
How else would an astronaut release a satillite? A rubber band slingshot?
For the size and purpose of this satillite, i'd imagine it was much, much cheaper to load it on Progress with the other supplies and have them deploy it rather than waste a full LV on it.
The Sidewinder Precision Pro joystick I have has similar signatures on the inside.
Israel launches to the west so as to not piss its neighbors off by dropping spent stages on them.
Now you know how we felt when they flimed Hard Rain...
"Huntin' Burg" my ass. We are close to the south, but not that close. (Mix of northern and southern accents, but I have never, ever, heard anyone say "Huntin' Berg")
A local tv station got a huge boost in its ratings with something like that recently. First time ive seen a news report about how well a news report did. :P
A reporter was investigating some scum company, and when he was leaving someone punched him in the face. I didn't see it, but apparently it made the cable news networks as well.
Every touch tone phone ive owned has been able to call without power, aside from wireless handsets. The phone I have now is wireless, but it also has a corded phone on the base, which works fine when the power is out.
Nah, its still the Discovery Channel of the tech world. Have you SEEN Discovery lately? All their decent shows have moved onto their other channels and now it might as we be called the decorating and motocycle building channel. At least the Science channel is still somewhat interesting, and Wings (Or the Military Channel, as I think its called now) isn't that bad.
I was talking about orbit, and a few million years of lunar pertubations notwithstanding, it wouldn't leave orbit (I'm talking about throwing it here, not using a cannon, though ~7km/s to ~10-11km/s is a bit much for it too).
Ive heard people say things like "Why don't they just take it out of the airlock and shove it toward earth..." about the ISS junk pile problem, for example. Thats the kind of thing I was trying to explain.
I was attempting not to be confusing, but I'm never very good at that.
What I ment was gravity does not just stop having an effect. Many people think that if you took a baseball in the shuttle, and shoved it away from earth, it would keep drifting away from earth. (Imparting enough dV to send the baseball to escape velocity doesn't count, but that would be one hell of an arm.)
In this case, rather than a baseball, its a probe. The rules still apply.
Of course, you know that, but many don't.
Ascent isn't what they were worried about. When in space, gravity accelerates things very quickly, and there is no such thing as terminal velocity (well, until you get near light speed, then relativity does Wierd Shit(TM)). They came down faster than they went up.
.sig :P
Ascent has problems of its own, but heat is never really a problem, they tend to worry about the pressure exerted by the air as they pass Mach 1. This is almost always (Possibly just always, but I don't know the specifics for every rocket in existance, so i'm not sure) the most stressful portion of the launch, termed 'MaxQ' (You'll hear it called out if you ever listen in on flight controllers during a launch, NASA TV (DirectTV and Dish Network both have it, as well as streaming from nasa.gov) is a good place to watch one, if you can find one, I'd almost garuntee Deep Impact will be shown.)
Slowing down too fast in reentry has its own nasty problems. When you slow down, gravity pulls you deeper into the atmosphere, and the heating gets worse. Reentry vehicles are designed to fly a certain profile through the atmosphere, deviations can be deadly. Too steep is certainly bad, as is too shallow. You won't skip out into space, you'll go up and come back down, except this time you'll be much steeper, which, as I said before, is bad for your health.
I'm sure Rutan will come up with something, but I wouldn't be all that surpised to see the feathering taken out, and lots of shielding put in. The composite materials may pose a problem even then, though. The heat shielding takes the brunt of the heat, but all of it gets quite hot, possibly more than they can take.
And there is no need to explain orbital mechanics to me, see my
(And i'll shamelessly plug Orbiter for other space geeks, its a great sim, and free)
I never said we should ignore them, the efforts to get rid of them were the point of most of my post.
Hydrazine rockets are pretty nasty things as well.
On a larger scale, however, they are just a drop in the bucket, and we shouldn't just stop using them before we have good alternatives.
Energia was capable of lifting 150000kg (Buran + 30000kg payload) to orbit, and made use of all chemical boosters. It can be done, it just needs to be improved. Russia has never liked solid rockets, so they have some of the best technology in this area.
I think the main hurtle to overcome is that SRBs are cheap. Designers see little reason to design complex systems of chemical rockets when they can use one engine and strap 9 SRBs to the side that produce more thrust and don't cost as much.
You'd best hurry. Motion sickness is a very common effect of weightlessness. It takes some astronauts days to get used to it. :)
They had to delay the launch to wait for needed parts. I havn't heard anything about them since, but I doubt they would drop out without saying anything.
Of course, there is always the chance that I missed it.
The development of all chemical rockets (like the Delta IV Heavy) will help. Hyroden and Oxygen only produce one byproduct...water. Its about as clean as it gets.
The Space Shuttle's engines are quite clean, its those SRBs (Solid Rocket Boosters) that are dirty.
If the use of SRBs on rockets starts to decline, pollution from them won't be as much as a problem. (For LH2/LOX rockets, at least)
I doubt their effect is much worse than millions of cars anyway.
They were worried about passing the heat tolerances of the SS1 materials at Mach 4. At near mach 25 it wouldn't stand a chance.
I'd like to see Rutan go orbital, but anyone who thinks it will be the small, light, inexpensive (for a space ship) craft it is today is fooling themselves.
Closer to 3%, at least for the SatV and recent Delta IV Heavy.
:)
A SatV weighs 3,038,500 kg, and can launch 118,000 kg to orbit. Lunar weight/payload ratios are even worse, at 47,000 kg to the moon, its about 1.5%.
I thought some of that might be for outdated technology (and some of it is, i'm sure, we could save structural weight now, not sure how much fuel requirements could change though) so I compared it against the Delta IV Heavy:
733,400 kg launcher.
25,800 kg payload to LEO.
3.5%
Don't whine about units, 'rocket science' generally uses metric, so thats what I found units in. I'm too lazy to convert them, use google calc and do it yourself.
Gah, left html formatting on.
Its not THAT bad, parse it anyway. C'mon, you can do it!