The ability to pollute the whole ecosystem, nuke what's left dozens of times and finally breed and go the way every overpopulated species goes is our responsibility? Right
None of the X-Prize concepts are anything but rehashing 40 year old technology. Next big technological break-thru might be a working scramjet, but succeeding in that is not for the hobbyists.
If you are serioisly looking for better price/performance with existing tech check out these guys. Ablatively cooled rocket engine, that's a real innovation!
They are using a innovative final recovery system -- the ship lands nose first on a long aluminum cone that crushes to absorb energy. Unique, cheap, and innovative -- if funny-looking.
"Thank you for flying with Armadillo Aerospace. Please pick up your eyeballs from the floor...err.. ceiling before leaving the vehicle."
a mathematical wizard, but monomaniacal focus leaves no room for compassion for others.
Main Entry: nerd
Pronunciation: 'n&rd
Function: noun
Etymology: perhaps from nerd, a creature in the children's book If I Ran the Zoo (1950) by Dr. Seuss (Theodor Geisel)
Date: 1951
: an unstylish, unattractive, or socially inept person; especially : one slavishly devoted to intellectual or academic pursuits
Actually, the Shuttle main orbiter engines are waaaaaay more advanced than the Saturn V (kerosene, for Pete's sake!) engines ever were, and have proven to be reliable as well. The Saturn V tech isn't unavailable - it's obsolete.
Actually, only the first stage used kerosene, the rest were LH2/LOX like shuttle SSMEs. And there's a reason for this, really. Engines buring kerosene aren't very efficient Isp wise but in producing thrust they beat LH2 engines pants down. And thrust is what you need most during the lift-off. If SRBs were to be replaced the most probable candidate would be kerosene/RP-1 burning engine.
Indeed, conventional rocket design is pretty brute-force.
Like someone already pointed out, getting to space requires brute force. It seems that some people think who ever wins the X-Prize contest can practically begin sending people to LEO. Think again. Do some basic calculus (the potential energy needed to get something 100km up versus kinetic energy needed to put something into same altitude LEO) and realize that there's a HUGE difference. With a bit sophisticated garage technology and 137 s Isp you can jump at 100km but will not get anything orbiting Earth.
Big engine, hunking mechanical control systems with minimal intelligence.
In the 60s Saturn V had five F-1 engines pumping 1500000 pounds of thurst, each. Four of them were gimbaled, do you seriously think they were mechanically connected to some joystick in the command module?
Rocket science has not changed significantly since 1950, and needs a rethink. I believe this project is a solid approach that has good chances of succeeding, and if so, will redefine the way we conceive of this kind of engineering project in the future.
No amount of hype, CPU power or fancy 3D algorithms are going to overcome rocket equation. 'Real' space rockets sending something to orbit are going to stay as huge canisters of fuel with brute-force engines.
I do agree that space industry needs innovative thinking from people like J. Carmack but doubt that X-Prize contest itself will serve much of that, at least anything useful beyond creating these tourist 'trampolines' just to jump up there for a sec. A quick review of the teams puts them in three categories: vaporware (nice renderings though) for burning gullible vc (the most), crack pot science with desing (fins and more fins, big fins) straight from 50s SF strips, and a few with some real designs and even working hardware. Carmacks methodological approach ranks him to the last and best category but the ship design leans more to the 50s. Crushable nose cone?! Not very innovative, every new car has one but for the case of emergency!
One important property of ceramics / ablative heat shield is that they are very good heat insulators. The hull of 100% superduper Tungsten shuttle might survive the re-entry but everything inside would melt.
The point was that Brazil is not in for ICBM race. China could deter directly US (haven't they had ICBM capability since 70's, like India) or say we nuke Tokyo instead. China is pretty much as close to India as Pakistan. And yes, Israel has enemies near and far, which is why they'd run out of bombs already in medium range if they'd really use them. Because then they'd have to nuke each and every muslim state there is and then some.
But that game is stupid. Cannot win. Let's play tic tac toe.
Pointless spreading to new places has been the very nature of humans since the beginning. It is also the nature of virus. (Can't help it but Matrix hit it right on the nail)
Recently (for a few thousands years) main impetus for these voyages has been greed. Finding new resources, people to tax and enslave. Sorry but that liberation-oldworld-newworld talk is just hippie-crap. Well, not totally, New World explorers/liberators/whatever did liberate the natives from everything all right.
But that is past. It is time for our new voyages to be different than those. Luckily, they are forced to be. There are no fruitfull new continents just a sailtrip away. There are extremely harsch locations behind difficult journeys. Even the local natives and buffalo herds are missing. Sport-killing and slavery opportunities look slim.
You cannot land on the moon, chop some forest down, build a log cottage and start plowing the prairie. About the only thing you have plenty is energy, just unfold your solarpanels and there you have it. No clowdy days. Do science and mine stuff. Yes, mining rare and even not so rare metals etc will some day become feasible because it's much much easier to send something from moon the earth than vice versa. You don't even need a rocket, a magnetic accelerator few miles long is enough.
Living on moon will not be so nice, 'day' is two weeks long and mostly you have to stay underground because of danger from radiation and meteorites. No thin glass domes on the surface like one would expect. You are forced to take absolute care of your vital resources for living, recycle them etc. These are the conditions on the moon, not laid by evil oldworld monarch to be toppled but laws of physics. And even the most arrogant voyager must bend under those. Which makes the universe a wonderful thing, almost as if these kind of evolutionary steps have been handcrafted for us. Perhaps mankind will turn into something good and doesn't destroy it's only good habitat if everyone learns to appreciate the resources and conditions on Earth after spending a few months on the moon/mars/not-earth discoving how even the H2O in your morning pee can be worth it's weight in platinum. OK, I'll stop now, begins to sound like hippie-crap.
Launching humans to space has been, is, and will be nothing but national egoboost. Apart from that the *naut with his/hers oxygen, food, water, urine and feces is just dead weight. There is no real immediate need to colonize space, such as overpopulation, that problem has to be solved otherwise (teach 'em 3rd world citizens to use lubbers!). Only ultrarich paying tourists seem to be viable reason to haul anybody up there.
Often heard excuse of sending human up space is that they would be able to make decisions in unexpected situations. It was good that Neil was up there to steer Eagle away from those unexpected lunar boulders. Technology has evolved a lot from those times and it should be no problem for an autonomous lander to make similar decisions. And usually there isn't much that *naut could do, except push buttons which could be controlled from Earth or by onboard computer. There is no garage around to go for repairs. An example (communication via tachyons)
Mars I: "Houston this is Mars I, our ascent vehicle's engine exploded."
Houston: "Shit..."
PS Not that I would be against human space exploration, would love to watch manned mars-flight happening within a decade or so. TV-rights and all the related subfranchising could generate a nice revenue.
The propability of tight, unified United States of Europe gets smaller and smaller when more and more ex-soviet states keep flocking into EU. Member countries will form sub-EUs (west, south, middle, nordic, baltic), budget-negotiations become a real mess because of dozen new 'Irelands' demanding big subsidizes with nil member fees. And the real party pooper will be Turkey. A teeny weeny fraction of Istanbul doesn't make the country 'european'.
IMHO EU should show some more spine on defining what is european and what not instead of letting everybody willing joining in. Eurovision Song Contest would be a good place to start, since when has Israel been part of Europe?
The groundbreaking stuff was done almost six decades ago and mostly by Germans. V-2 had all the necessary technology (cryogenics, turbopumps etc). Von Braun had already plans for orbital vehicles during WW2, naturally kept out of sight from the employers of that time.
First true big name after the Germans seems to be Sergei Korolev. The Russians had to make much more indigenous groundbraking stuff than USA since they got to import less know-how from Germany. With inferior materials they managed and still manage to get to orbit (first). Look who's servicing the ISS now
After all the disintegrated shuttles during the last decade it seems that besides copying there is room for further improvements. So let's be nice and let others try too, eh?
I'm not some keyboard jockey in Ohio who thinks he knows the ins-and-outs of the world because he reads the BBC online.
Indeed.
I still don't see why'd you differ at all from your colleague in Ohio since you live almost as far from Alcantara (1000+ miles anyway).
Presumably mere shagging with local natives doesn't make you a rocket scientist capable of giving authoritative analysis of brazillian space program.
For the crowd making witty comments how "it didn't event get off the launch pad", go and rent The Right Stuff. It gives nice humour ladden but accurate picture of USA's original struggle to get anything off the pad (original footage included). After a while they decided to inform the press only after the launch attempts, less eyes and cameras witnessing the explosions was less embarrassing.
And no it didn't blow up due to cellular while filling up. Given the data acquired by short keyboard jockeying the brazillian rocket is all solid rocket fuel based. A lesson to be learned for the brazillian space agency. SRBs are filthy (exhaustgases are toxic) and unpredictable (once lit cannot be shutdown until all fuel is burned). Of course cryogenic liquid rockets explode as well, especially when being developed by a new player, but at least the vehicle can be totally empty of fuel while manual labour is around.
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The ability to pollute the whole ecosystem, nuke what's left dozens of times and finally breed and go the way every overpopulated species goes is our responsibility? Right
None of the X-Prize concepts are anything but rehashing 40 year old technology. Next big technological break-thru might be a working scramjet, but succeeding in that is not for the hobbyists. If you are serioisly looking for better price/performance with existing tech check out these guys. Ablatively cooled rocket engine, that's a real innovation!
"Thank you for flying with Armadillo Aerospace. Please pick up your eyeballs from the floor ...err.. ceiling before leaving the vehicle."
Main Entry: nerd
Pronunciation: 'n&rd
Function: noun
Etymology: perhaps from nerd, a creature in the children's book If I Ran the Zoo (1950) by Dr. Seuss (Theodor Geisel)
Date: 1951
: an unstylish, unattractive, or socially inept person; especially : one slavishly devoted to intellectual or academic pursuits
Actually, only the first stage used kerosene, the rest were LH2/LOX like shuttle SSMEs. And there's a reason for this, really. Engines buring kerosene aren't very efficient Isp wise but in producing thrust they beat LH2 engines pants down. And thrust is what you need most during the lift-off. If SRBs were to be replaced the most probable candidate would be kerosene/RP-1 burning engine.
Nope. Skylab was a modified upper stage of Saturn V launched in one shot. There were post-deployment repairs though.
Like someone already pointed out, getting to space requires brute force. It seems that some people think who ever wins the X-Prize contest can practically begin sending people to LEO. Think again. Do some basic calculus (the potential energy needed to get something 100km up versus kinetic energy needed to put something into same altitude LEO) and realize that there's a HUGE difference. With a bit sophisticated garage technology and 137 s Isp you can jump at 100km but will not get anything orbiting Earth.
Big engine, hunking mechanical control systems with minimal intelligence.
In the 60s Saturn V had five F-1 engines pumping 1500000 pounds of thurst, each. Four of them were gimbaled, do you seriously think they were mechanically connected to some joystick in the command module?
Rocket science has not changed significantly since 1950, and needs a rethink. I believe this project is a solid approach that has good chances of succeeding, and if so, will redefine the way we conceive of this kind of engineering project in the future.
No amount of hype, CPU power or fancy 3D algorithms are going to overcome rocket equation. 'Real' space rockets sending something to orbit are going to stay as huge canisters of fuel with brute-force engines.
I do agree that space industry needs innovative thinking from people like J. Carmack but doubt that X-Prize contest itself will serve much of that, at least anything useful beyond creating these tourist 'trampolines' just to jump up there for a sec. A quick review of the teams puts them in three categories: vaporware (nice renderings though) for burning gullible vc (the most), crack pot science with desing (fins and more fins, big fins) straight from 50s SF strips, and a few with some real designs and even working hardware. Carmacks methodological approach ranks him to the last and best category but the ship design leans more to the 50s. Crushable nose cone?! Not very innovative, every new car has one but for the case of emergency!
Self changing rocket?
One important property of ceramics / ablative heat shield is that they are very good heat insulators. The hull of 100% superduper Tungsten shuttle might survive the re-entry but everything inside would melt.
1. Make a bold state you can crack a voting system.
2. ???
3. profit!
Of course not but it would be bad for public relations to cause annihilation of so called ally due to clumsy foreign policy.
Better check a map.
Oh no, only half of the chinese are in immediate range. Still don't need ICBM to reach every corner of China.
Which is why nuclear weapons are so useful. You don't need all that many to discourage your enemies.
Couldn't agree more. Every nation should have at least a few.
Tell this to the mankind. So far it has shown interest in the latter part only.
But that game is stupid. Cannot win. Let's play tic tac toe.
Recently (for a few thousands years) main impetus for these voyages has been greed. Finding new resources, people to tax and enslave. Sorry but that liberation-oldworld-newworld talk is just hippie-crap. Well, not totally, New World explorers/liberators/whatever did liberate the natives from everything all right.
But that is past. It is time for our new voyages to be different than those. Luckily, they are forced to be. There are no fruitfull new continents just a sailtrip away. There are extremely harsch locations behind difficult journeys. Even the local natives and buffalo herds are missing. Sport-killing and slavery opportunities look slim.
You cannot land on the moon, chop some forest down, build a log cottage and start plowing the prairie. About the only thing you have plenty is energy, just unfold your solarpanels and there you have it. No clowdy days. Do science and mine stuff. Yes, mining rare and even not so rare metals etc will some day become feasible because it's much much easier to send something from moon the earth than vice versa. You don't even need a rocket, a magnetic accelerator few miles long is enough.
Living on moon will not be so nice, 'day' is two weeks long and mostly you have to stay underground because of danger from radiation and meteorites. No thin glass domes on the surface like one would expect. You are forced to take absolute care of your vital resources for living, recycle them etc. These are the conditions on the moon, not laid by evil oldworld monarch to be toppled but laws of physics. And even the most arrogant voyager must bend under those. Which makes the universe a wonderful thing, almost as if these kind of evolutionary steps have been handcrafted for us. Perhaps mankind will turn into something good and doesn't destroy it's only good habitat if everyone learns to appreciate the resources and conditions on Earth after spending a few months on the moon/mars/not-earth discoving how even the H2O in your morning pee can be worth it's weight in platinum. OK, I'll stop now, begins to sound like hippie-crap.
Often heard excuse of sending human up space is that they would be able to make decisions in unexpected situations. It was good that Neil was up there to steer Eagle away from those unexpected lunar boulders. Technology has evolved a lot from those times and it should be no problem for an autonomous lander to make similar decisions. And usually there isn't much that *naut could do, except push buttons which could be controlled from Earth or by onboard computer. There is no garage around to go for repairs. An example (communication via tachyons)
Mars I: "Houston this is Mars I, our ascent vehicle's engine exploded."
Houston: "Shit..."
PS Not that I would be against human space exploration, would love to watch manned mars-flight happening within a decade or so. TV-rights and all the related subfranchising could generate a nice revenue.
IMHO EU should show some more spine on defining what is european and what not instead of letting everybody willing joining in. Eurovision Song Contest would be a good place to start, since when has Israel been part of Europe?
India wants only to reach Pakistan. No race there either.
Israel has so much foes just around the corner that trebuchet will suffice.
Brazil? What would they hurl in the ICBM nose cone at ... Albania? A letter containing portuguese harsch words?
Your list missed the most obvious ICBM race.
*unplugs the neck-cable feeding naive-signal into your cerebrum*
Welcome to the real world, tietokone-olmi.
We don't know who scorched the sky but it was definetly them who invented the double standards.
First true big name after the Germans seems to be Sergei Korolev. The Russians had to make much more indigenous groundbraking stuff than USA since they got to import less know-how from Germany. With inferior materials they managed and still manage to get to orbit (first). Look who's servicing the ISS now
After all the disintegrated shuttles during the last decade it seems that besides copying there is room for further improvements. So let's be nice and let others try too, eh?
Indeed.
I still don't see why'd you differ at all from your colleague in Ohio since you live almost as far from Alcantara (1000+ miles anyway). Presumably mere shagging with local natives doesn't make you a rocket scientist capable of giving authoritative analysis of brazillian space program.
For the crowd making witty comments how "it didn't event get off the launch pad", go and rent The Right Stuff. It gives nice humour ladden but accurate picture of USA's original struggle to get anything off the pad (original footage included). After a while they decided to inform the press only after the launch attempts, less eyes and cameras witnessing the explosions was less embarrassing.
And no it didn't blow up due to cellular while filling up. Given the data acquired by short keyboard jockeying the brazillian rocket is all solid rocket fuel based. A lesson to be learned for the brazillian space agency. SRBs are filthy (exhaustgases are toxic) and unpredictable (once lit cannot be shutdown until all fuel is burned). Of course cryogenic liquid rockets explode as well, especially when being developed by a new player, but at least the vehicle can be totally empty of fuel while manual labour is around.
Condolences to the families of lost one.