They've threatened this before... And Russia, Japan and the ESA have all said they will oppose any attempt to shut it down in 2016. If you want to throw away (i.e. kill) the international partnership we've created, shutting down the ISS in 2016 would be a good way to do it.
they were all cancelled. Until the Columbia accident, Congress didn't seem too interested in funding a program to replace the shuttles. Right now, it's still not clear, with the funding for the Constellation program being in question.
There is a catch, though: The more we swear, the less emotionally potent the words become, Stephens cautions. And without emotion, all that is left of a swearword is the word itself, unlikely to soothe anyone's pain.
There were 7 strikes that hit the water tower, launch tower and protective catenary wires. At least 2 of them exceeded safety limits; inducing unacceptable voltage spikes in electrical systems.
While it has been pointed out that none of the strikes hit the shuttle itself... 7 of them hit the catenary wires or tower at the launch site and 2 of those were large enough to exceed the safety limit, inducing a 110V surge in the shuttle power system. While there's no damage indicated yet, this 24 hour stand down is to give the engineers and technicians time to check over the shuttle and all of the launch hardware.
FreeDOS has been discussed here before, at length. It should work on your machine well enough to get you started. There are a lot of resources available related the FreeDOS efforts; so, you may be able to find a lot of what you are looking for.
The USB drives likely won't work with this old machine -- but you now that are I'm assuming you're talking about creating the floppies. I haven't seen a 5 1/4" external for some time... You may need to put a 3 1/2" disk into the old machine initially.
OK, so if you assume it takes 10 or more to effectively destoy a major city*, then that's 70 cities saved.
* Using my home, a major east coast port, as an example, knowing that it would be a primary target for any military attack, and designing an (insane) all-out attack to completely destroy any capability there: There at least 6 military targets. One of those could easily justify 2 or 3 nuclear weapons, just to be sure it's completely destroyed. There are 2 rail heads, both with major port facilities. A third port facility. 2 civilian airports that could readily be converted for military use. A pair of nuclear reactors in a power plant that supplies the baseload power for the region. So, there's a bit of overlap; but, that's at least 14 weapons. Of course, just one would be enough to perhaps kill a 100k people or so and totally screw up the area for a few years.
700 each. If you can't see that 1400 fewer 100kT+ nuclear weapons is a significant reduction, then you're being blinded by something and need to think about it a bit more. You'd be naive to think that the number will ever go to 0. It's not going to happen. You're also not going to get a single massive reduction to a small (100's) number. It's going to happen in steps, like this.
We've dropped from a peak of > 21,000 nuclear weapons, nearly evenly distributed between the U.S. and the old U.S.S.R. Keep that in mind.
the earlier NASA studies did exactly that. I admit I had to go looking for it; but, I knew I'd seen it before... I found the 3rd version of the Mars Reference Mission, done in 1997. It specified use of NERVA derivative engines, or other similar "propulsive capability improvements". The profiles chosen were long duration (400-600 days on Mars) with ~230 day flight time as "typical" or ~150 day outbound and ~110 day return for "fast-transit". The "short-stay" mission profile was 7.5 month outbound and 9.5 month return with only 30 days on the surface. While there are a number of details not worked out in this study, it, like the 5th version you reference, are all in the "guessing stage" until the detailed mission requirements are decided and the engineers start designing and building the hardware. For what it's worth, when the 3rd version was drafted in 1997, they thought it was possible to achieve a launch date as early as 2009.
This was a full power test of the superconducting magnet and first stage only. The first stage is a 30kW ionization stage. The 170kW RF second stage has not yet been tested. Testing of the combined first and second stage will commence July 14th. From the manufacturer's site: http://www.adastrarocket.com/Release%20020709.pdf
Yes, life support is an issue, but we now have almost 40 years of experience in operating space platforms and I reckon the state of the art has advanced enough to consider a very long mission.
Yeah, but, it still requires support from the ground. We have only just put a water recycling system on board, to make it semi-independant of the need for water to be shipped up. It still requires regular shipments of oxygen and food.
The old design, even if we could build it, does not meet current safety standards. I've heard it said that, if they knew just how narrow the flight window was for Saturn V, they would not have flown it. I don't believe that's true; but, the mere fact that someone did make that statement, is indicative of how things have changed.
And that's what I get for posting on/. without having coffee first. You are absolutely correct. The fastest trajectory, with VASIMR and a nuclear power plant was projected to be in the 3-5 weeks time frame by Ad Astra and Dr. Chang-Diaz. 9 months (round figure) assumes a straight forward chemical rocket. Anything in between usually is one of the various ion/VASIMR drive scenarios. 18 months was one of the early round trip scenarios. Sorry about that. I'll stop posting until I get to the correct blood-caffiene level.
It'll take 5.5 years to man-rate a Delta IV, and you'll have to pay for the privilege and gift the ULA new launch facilities (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i2m-UoOM7eg).
5.5 years and paying for the priveledge... Apply that to SpaceX please and tell me how that affects your suggestion. You pay for the priveledge anyway. NASA does not build it's own launch vehicles. Even the shuttle, which is a NASA design, was built and is maintained by an army of contractors. Engines are supplied by Pratt-Whitney Rocketdyne. Boosters by ATK. Tanks by Lockheed-Martin. and so on. For what it's worth, it probably won't take 5.5 years to man-rate a Delta IV. That, in their own words, is a conservative estimate. It could certainly happen faster. It, honestly, could take longer. Yes, ULA launch facilities are inadequate for manned vehicle launch. Existing shuttle facilities won't work for Ares I or Ares V either. Either way, you have to upgrade the facilities you have.
Alternately, you could fund COTS-D and have a manned vehicle from SpaceX in 2.5 years (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O81Zq02eStg). If you gifted SpaceX the launch escape system you can have a manned vehicle next year (I totally just made that up, but it makes sense to me).
SpaceX is clearly well on there way. They have, however, set extremely optimistic schedules and have not done significant work to man-rate the platform or the Dragon module. I fully expect them to be performing their COTS ISS supply mission in the next year or two but I don't put as much faith into their ability to scale up to putting people into LEO as quickly as they say they can. That issue was brought up during the Augustine Commission hearing. Gifting the launch escape system to SpaceX won't work -- it's designed for Orion, not Dragon. It would need to be redesigned for use there. Oh, btw, don't take me to task and then use "just made that up" in your reply
That said, if you cut Ares I now you're cutting Ares V. Ares I is "behind schedule" because they're working on the 5-segment solid stack. Without that the Ares V won't fly either.. so, sooner or later they have to do this work
Ares 1 isn't behind because of the 5-segment stack. It's been ground tested. It works. It's behind because there are vibration issues requiring redesign of the 5-segment stack and interstage. These vibration issues are present in the 4-segment stack as well but are damped by the mass of the shuttle system. These changes are specifically required for the Ares I use and would not affect Ares 5, which I'll get back to... There are also limitations on mass, which have required additional engineering on the Orion and a cut in the number of people carried to LEO. A single booster, while it generates a lot of thrust, has insufficient capability to carry a heavy manned vehicle to LEO. I'm aware that the current Ares V design requires the booster; and, that cutting Ares 1 development moves some of the booster development cost to Ares V. For what it's worth, this applies to your previous suggestion to use SpaceX COTS capability as well. I'm suggesting that using the booster in the Ares I configuration to launch people to LEO is a poor plan. The only big issue here is, what happens if the manufacture of the SSRB's is shut down for a while.
I only wish I was armchair quarterbacking... Never mind.
I'm sorry, you're being naive. Why do you think the probes are looking for water? The probe doesn't need water... life does. so, the probes are 1.) looking for evidence of microbial life and 2.) looking for what we need when we send people there. It's as much about the future manned missions as it is about, what you are calling, "actual research." At some point you are going to reach the limits of what can be done with a robotic probe and be forced to send a person there in order to continue the research.
I understood this -- I guess I was just oversimplifying. I wouldn't want anyone to think you could simply compress the Martian atmosphere to breathable pressures and go -- that would, in fact, be toxic. I got the pressure wrong, by the way. It's ~0.01atm = ~1% Earth sea-level pressure = ~600 Pa = ~0.13 psia at Mars mean ground elevation. (Haven't had my coffee yet) Given that the absolute pressure on Mars is so low, you have a lot more to worry about than the CO2, if you know what I mean.
It's not a fuel constraint. This "new" Shuttle Derived Heavly Lift Vehicle plan is essentially the Shuttle C cargo-only design that they looked at a few decades back. They've stuck the manned Orion capsule and support module in the cargo container... It simply does not have the lift capacity to put something big enough into trans-lunar orbit. If they cut the crew back to two, and cut all the associated equipment requirements, it barely gets you there. Shuttle hardware was designed to be single stage to orbit. It was never intended to send men to the Moon.
It's so damn simple they can't see the forest for the trees. Ares 1 needs to be cut. It doesn't have the capacity. This was aparent some time ago and they should have looked for alternatives when they saw that. They need to replace it with an existing heavy lift vehicle and expend the effort to man-rate that vehicle. There are plenty of options, the best of which is probably Delta IV Heavy. If we use a common adapter, then the ESA Ariane and Japanese H2 become options with a little further development. In addition, Ares V development needs to continue so we have the cargo lift capacity to get the big stuff to orbit. Of course, this is just my opinion.
Why people... Let's see. The ultimate goal of the program, as stated by Pres. Bush, is to put a man on Mars.
Using the most energetic path we have available, Mars is over 3 months away. Assuming the nuclear power plant is out, then the time to Mars is closer to 9 months with an ion/vasimr engine; or, 18 months coasting.
IF you're going to send people to Mars, it seems like a good idea to test your equipment and get some practical experience living in a little (Mars) or no (Moon) atmosphere, low gravity, high incident solar radiation environment with dust that can best be described using the word "evil". If you can help it, you want to do this as close to help as possible in case something goes wrong. The Moon is 3 days from Earth.
Now someone is about to post the comment whose premise is "The Moon is NOT Mars!" I'm aware of that. So is NASA. Mars has a toxic atmosphere (0.01% Earth pressure, primarily CO2). Mars has water vapor, condensation, and ice, all of which affect equipment and all of which the Moon lacks. Martian dust is not Lunar dust (you could argue Lunar dust is more evil). Martian gravity (1/3G) is higher than Lunar gravity (1/6G). There's still a lot of commonality, enough to gain valuable experience testing equipment and methodologies. It would not be much help to our astronauts if we send them to Mars with equipment that fails within hours, or send them with a survival plan that's unworkable. Especially if those problems could have been found with a little testing.
For what it's worth, I think we will get to Mars; but, it's going to be 30 to 50 years, not the 20-25 former Pres. Bush was arguing for.
Slashdot Mirror
if it doesn't burn like a magnesium flare and leave nothing behind but ash, then I'm not happy : )
They've threatened this before... And Russia, Japan and the ESA have all said they will oppose any attempt to shut it down in 2016. If you want to throw away (i.e. kill) the international partnership we've created, shutting down the ISS in 2016 would be a good way to do it.
that and the shitload of pyrotechnic bolts holding the thing together. It might be bad... if a number of those bolts "fired" early during the ascent.
they were all cancelled. Until the Columbia accident, Congress didn't seem too interested in funding a program to replace the shuttles. Right now, it's still not clear, with the funding for the Constellation program being in question.
sure, if you want to risk trashing a $1.7B piece of equipment.
There is a catch, though: The more we swear, the less emotionally potent the words become, Stephens cautions. And without emotion, all that is left of a swearword is the word itself, unlikely to soothe anyone's pain.
There were 7 strikes that hit the water tower, launch tower and protective catenary wires. At least 2 of them exceeded safety limits; inducing unacceptable voltage spikes in electrical systems.
While it has been pointed out that none of the strikes hit the shuttle itself... 7 of them hit the catenary wires or tower at the launch site and 2 of those were large enough to exceed the safety limit, inducing a 110V surge in the shuttle power system. While there's no damage indicated yet, this 24 hour stand down is to give the engineers and technicians time to check over the shuttle and all of the launch hardware.
FreeDOS has been discussed here before, at length. It should work on your machine well enough to get you started. There are a lot of resources available related the FreeDOS efforts; so, you may be able to find a lot of what you are looking for.
The USB drives likely won't work with this old machine -- but you now that are I'm assuming you're talking about creating the floppies. I haven't seen a 5 1/4" external for some time... You may need to put a 3 1/2" disk into the old machine initially.
OK, so if you assume it takes 10 or more to effectively destoy a major city*, then that's 70 cities saved.
* Using my home, a major east coast port, as an example, knowing that it would be a primary target for any military attack, and designing an (insane) all-out attack to completely destroy any capability there: There at least 6 military targets. One of those could easily justify 2 or 3 nuclear weapons, just to be sure it's completely destroyed. There are 2 rail heads, both with major port facilities. A third port facility. 2 civilian airports that could readily be converted for military use. A pair of nuclear reactors in a power plant that supplies the baseload power for the region. So, there's a bit of overlap; but, that's at least 14 weapons. Of course, just one would be enough to perhaps kill a 100k people or so and totally screw up the area for a few years.
We still have the big stick. it just doesn't glow in the dark quite as brightly...
700 each. If you can't see that 1400 fewer 100kT+ nuclear weapons is a significant reduction, then you're being blinded by something and need to think about it a bit more. You'd be naive to think that the number will ever go to 0. It's not going to happen. You're also not going to get a single massive reduction to a small (100's) number. It's going to happen in steps, like this.
We've dropped from a peak of > 21,000 nuclear weapons, nearly evenly distributed between the U.S. and the old U.S.S.R. Keep that in mind.
ftp://nssdcftp.gsfc.nasa.gov/miscellaneous/planetary/mars_future/mars_ref_mission_sp6107.pdf
the earlier NASA studies did exactly that. I admit I had to go looking for it; but, I knew I'd seen it before... I found the 3rd version of the Mars Reference Mission, done in 1997. It specified use of NERVA derivative engines, or other similar "propulsive capability improvements". The profiles chosen were long duration (400-600 days on Mars) with ~230 day flight time as "typical" or ~150 day outbound and ~110 day return for "fast-transit". The "short-stay" mission profile was 7.5 month outbound and 9.5 month return with only 30 days on the surface. While there are a number of details not worked out in this study, it, like the 5th version you reference, are all in the "guessing stage" until the detailed mission requirements are decided and the engineers start designing and building the hardware. For what it's worth, when the 3rd version was drafted in 1997, they thought it was possible to achieve a launch date as early as 2009.
The engine control computer can run linux -- four out of four.
This was a full power test of the superconducting magnet and first stage only. The first stage is a 30kW ionization stage. The 170kW RF second stage has not yet been tested. Testing of the combined first and second stage will commence July 14th. From the manufacturer's site: http://www.adastrarocket.com/Release%20020709.pdf
Yes, but it should scale nicely to 100's of MW.
Yes, life support is an issue, but we now have almost 40 years of experience in operating space platforms and I reckon the state of the art has advanced enough to consider a very long mission.
Yeah, but, it still requires support from the ground. We have only just put a water recycling system on board, to make it semi-independant of the need for water to be shipped up. It still requires regular shipments of oxygen and food.
The old design, even if we could build it, does not meet current safety standards. I've heard it said that, if they knew just how narrow the flight window was for Saturn V, they would not have flown it. I don't believe that's true; but, the mere fact that someone did make that statement, is indicative of how things have changed.
And that's what I get for posting on /. without having coffee first. You are absolutely correct. The fastest trajectory, with VASIMR and a nuclear power plant was projected to be in the 3-5 weeks time frame by Ad Astra and Dr. Chang-Diaz. 9 months (round figure) assumes a straight forward chemical rocket. Anything in between usually is one of the various ion/VASIMR drive scenarios. 18 months was one of the early round trip scenarios. Sorry about that. I'll stop posting until I get to the correct blood-caffiene level.
It'll take 5.5 years to man-rate a Delta IV, and you'll have to pay for the privilege and gift the ULA new launch facilities (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i2m-UoOM7eg).
5.5 years and paying for the priveledge... Apply that to SpaceX please and tell me how that affects your suggestion. You pay for the priveledge anyway. NASA does not build it's own launch vehicles. Even the shuttle, which is a NASA design, was built and is maintained by an army of contractors. Engines are supplied by Pratt-Whitney Rocketdyne. Boosters by ATK. Tanks by Lockheed-Martin. and so on. For what it's worth, it probably won't take 5.5 years to man-rate a Delta IV. That, in their own words, is a conservative estimate. It could certainly happen faster. It, honestly, could take longer. Yes, ULA launch facilities are inadequate for manned vehicle launch. Existing shuttle facilities won't work for Ares I or Ares V either. Either way, you have to upgrade the facilities you have.
Alternately, you could fund COTS-D and have a manned vehicle from SpaceX in 2.5 years (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O81Zq02eStg). If you gifted SpaceX the launch escape system you can have a manned vehicle next year (I totally just made that up, but it makes sense to me).
SpaceX is clearly well on there way. They have, however, set extremely optimistic schedules and have not done significant work to man-rate the platform or the Dragon module. I fully expect them to be performing their COTS ISS supply mission in the next year or two but I don't put as much faith into their ability to scale up to putting people into LEO as quickly as they say they can. That issue was brought up during the Augustine Commission hearing. Gifting the launch escape system to SpaceX won't work -- it's designed for Orion, not Dragon. It would need to be redesigned for use there. Oh, btw, don't take me to task and then use "just made that up" in your reply
That said, if you cut Ares I now you're cutting Ares V. Ares I is "behind schedule" because they're working on the 5-segment solid stack. Without that the Ares V won't fly either.. so, sooner or later they have to do this work
Ares 1 isn't behind because of the 5-segment stack. It's been ground tested. It works. It's behind because there are vibration issues requiring redesign of the 5-segment stack and interstage. These vibration issues are present in the 4-segment stack as well but are damped by the mass of the shuttle system. These changes are specifically required for the Ares I use and would not affect Ares 5, which I'll get back to... There are also limitations on mass, which have required additional engineering on the Orion and a cut in the number of people carried to LEO. A single booster, while it generates a lot of thrust, has insufficient capability to carry a heavy manned vehicle to LEO. I'm aware that the current Ares V design requires the booster; and, that cutting Ares 1 development moves some of the booster development cost to Ares V. For what it's worth, this applies to your previous suggestion to use SpaceX COTS capability as well. I'm suggesting that using the booster in the Ares I configuration to launch people to LEO is a poor plan. The only big issue here is, what happens if the manufacture of the SSRB's is shut down for a while.
I only wish I was armchair quarterbacking... Never mind.
I'm sorry, you're being naive. Why do you think the probes are looking for water? The probe doesn't need water... life does. so, the probes are 1.) looking for evidence of microbial life and 2.) looking for what we need when we send people there. It's as much about the future manned missions as it is about, what you are calling, "actual research." At some point you are going to reach the limits of what can be done with a robotic probe and be forced to send a person there in order to continue the research.
I understood this -- I guess I was just oversimplifying. I wouldn't want anyone to think you could simply compress the Martian atmosphere to breathable pressures and go -- that would, in fact, be toxic. I got the pressure wrong, by the way. It's ~0.01atm = ~1% Earth sea-level pressure = ~600 Pa = ~0.13 psia at Mars mean ground elevation. (Haven't had my coffee yet) Given that the absolute pressure on Mars is so low, you have a lot more to worry about than the CO2, if you know what I mean.
It's not a fuel constraint. This "new" Shuttle Derived Heavly Lift Vehicle plan is essentially the Shuttle C cargo-only design that they looked at a few decades back. They've stuck the manned Orion capsule and support module in the cargo container... It simply does not have the lift capacity to put something big enough into trans-lunar orbit. If they cut the crew back to two, and cut all the associated equipment requirements, it barely gets you there. Shuttle hardware was designed to be single stage to orbit. It was never intended to send men to the Moon.
It's so damn simple they can't see the forest for the trees. Ares 1 needs to be cut. It doesn't have the capacity. This was aparent some time ago and they should have looked for alternatives when they saw that. They need to replace it with an existing heavy lift vehicle and expend the effort to man-rate that vehicle. There are plenty of options, the best of which is probably Delta IV Heavy. If we use a common adapter, then the ESA Ariane and Japanese H2 become options with a little further development. In addition, Ares V development needs to continue so we have the cargo lift capacity to get the big stuff to orbit. Of course, this is just my opinion.
Why people... Let's see. The ultimate goal of the program, as stated by Pres. Bush, is to put a man on Mars.
Using the most energetic path we have available, Mars is over 3 months away. Assuming the nuclear power plant is out, then the time to Mars is closer to 9 months with an ion/vasimr engine; or, 18 months coasting.
IF you're going to send people to Mars, it seems like a good idea to test your equipment and get some practical experience living in a little (Mars) or no (Moon) atmosphere, low gravity, high incident solar radiation environment with dust that can best be described using the word "evil". If you can help it, you want to do this as close to help as possible in case something goes wrong. The Moon is 3 days from Earth.
Now someone is about to post the comment whose premise is "The Moon is NOT Mars!" I'm aware of that. So is NASA. Mars has a toxic atmosphere (0.01% Earth pressure, primarily CO2). Mars has water vapor, condensation, and ice, all of which affect equipment and all of which the Moon lacks. Martian dust is not Lunar dust (you could argue Lunar dust is more evil). Martian gravity (1/3G) is higher than Lunar gravity (1/6G). There's still a lot of commonality, enough to gain valuable experience testing equipment and methodologies. It would not be much help to our astronauts if we send them to Mars with equipment that fails within hours, or send them with a survival plan that's unworkable. Especially if those problems could have been found with a little testing.
For what it's worth, I think we will get to Mars; but, it's going to be 30 to 50 years, not the 20-25 former Pres. Bush was arguing for.