Did you miss how this story is about non-ablative ("non-burning") heatshield? Also, while capsules might have some not too big size limit (we're probably nowhere near yet), there's also another approach without wings - lifting bodies; which aren't that dissimilar to a capsule flying lifting reentry, just a bit more optimised one... But no wings.
Now, consider what happens to a spaceplane in such scenarios - a need to ditch (this was considered a loss of crew for the Shuttle); "landing" in wilderness; or relying on succesfull automatic recovery in the case of launcher failure during ascent (hm, where did I hear about such scenario in a spaceplane...) & with recovery systems working perfectly, despite discrepancy between assumed and encountered acceleration on the order which torns apart winged vehicles. Also, take note of how good winged vehicles are at landing on mountain slopes/etc. - they do have to perform such "landings" sometimes.
Soyuz 23 is indeed a good example, but you completelly glance over the background - not uncontrolled, "mistargeted" = a failure of control system / mistake in engine thrust, error of mission control in targetting the landing area, very harsh weather and extremelly strong winds. All those things being outside the scope of the design of reentry vehicle. They just sometimes happen. And for a spaceplane would mean not even really attempting anything which can be called "landing"; the end result would be probably much more catastrophic.
Really, what you are doing is just providing examples of robustness in KISS approaches. Being able to control where you land is a very good thing indeed, one which Soyuz does quite well. As a bonus, if something goes really wrong, there's a high chance of survival.
Well, with "spaceplane" your're adding the amount of things to go wrong.
For example, asphyxiation that you mention is surely a hazard with all approaches (well, not really anymore, when everybody uses pressure suits). But failure of systems actively controlling descent (which does happen on Soyuz from time to time) - and the results are quite dramatically different.
In addition to what the other poster said - if only because gametes don't show any similarities with viruses or their modus operandi, way of "reproduction." The latter means there's even no direct way for them to pass such traits to the host.
Don't you mean "Dirty, dirty, dirty commies and socialist plans for space!"?
PS. But seriously, they still have quite a bit of control - aren't rockets a munitions, etc., with restrictions on cooperation with overseas companies? That's where large part of launch contracts, to sustain an inexpensive launcher, would come from. Or they might just go with Soyuz rocket or Zenit, in the same price league already.
What are you babbling about? 1. gives quite nice determination of geographic area (it's good enough for Soyuz capsules to be often recorded on video while descending on parachutes by retrieval crews, so quite exact) 2. Have you read even a snipped of those links? Those were tests of a recovery system for a manned spacecraft.
Considering orbits of GLONASS satellites (and probably many spy ones), simple orbital mechanics make performing such mission in a covert manner an impossibility; nvm the inability of the design to break LEO.
Plus so simple and effective countermeasures, from so cheap and numerous (comparatively) "targets" - maybe millitary intelligence works after all, sometimes;) (not quickly enough to not give us Shuttle though)
Falcon is being built with man-rating in mind since the beginning. And without relaxing what "human rated" means, like NASA had to do with Ares so as to allow it to fly (and the way Shuttle was developed, it was also not to present man-rating standards)
I think you were carried away by works of fiction...because you omit completelly why all those useful things would be done on asteroids instead of simply...on Earth. Where, given the same (obviously) level of technology, they will be much easier, much cheaper, much more efficient. That was the point above. "Free" energy from solar or nuclear won't mean much, BTW, if it has to be used mostly to sustain activities there; plus it's mostly about energy density. And how is this robot revolution in everyday life, envisioned half a century ago, going?
Now, we have sources of energy / energy densities people from XIX century haven't even dreamed of - but we don't exactly do with them all those "glorious" things they envisioned. Hell, we mostly still get our energy from burning plants and animals, simply because that's cheaper.
Look in what disgrace the Shuttle has ended - a spacecraft probably very much influenced by depictions of spaceplanes in the science fiction of '30s, '40s or '50s (that's when Shuttle designers were kids) - which were in turn no doubt fueled by tremendous progress in aircraft back then...but turned out to have not much in common with space. We also don't live in Jetson-like housing with chimneys and submarine-like aircraft (even though we can build them). And my computer isn't very chatty.
Now, sure, times when we will become, in notable part, space-faring will come; but I would be surprised if it will have much to do per se with asteroid mining.
Yeah, in that mission - loss of one more engine (which nearly happened) = likely loss of the crew. In sensibly constructed launch vehicle - the whole rocket blows up = crew proceeds to land pretty much normally after few seconds of a bit rough acceleration.
I don't know how you can plan ahead for something like that.
"We are starting the competition to come up with a new symbol; initiate your process to make accomodations for it, we will provide the ready glyph in 2 years."
The Space Shuttle is a monumentally horrible servicer - it wastes around 80 tonnes of the mass it gets to LEO on its airframe. You can get a rocket with the payload capacity of the Shuttle in a much more cost efficient way - Ariane 5, Atlas V, Delta IV, Proton, take your pick (yes, some of those have somewhat lower payload to LEO, but some have higher; with new options already coming, some of them with ~2 times higher payload to LEO than Shuttle; though if you want to build a station in the most cost efficient way, you should probably go with Zenit for now - but this one can launch "only" 15 tonnes)
"Mir 2" part of the ISS was assembled using Proton & automatic rendezvous. The modules launched by Shuttle can be launched exclusivelly by the Shuttle, sure...but only because they were built like that, to make to vehicle appear useful.
The idiot just looked up the number of launches of "Soyuz" (without any scary additions to the name like "-U" or "-FG" for example) rocket, the first variant which was named like that (after the vehicle it started carrying back then) - really, all just R7 variants (though for the longest time also direct derivatives of the first Soyuz one)
What he did is especially ironic considering that the rocket flew over 1700 times, and according to ESA (for whom it is a very succesfull competition) is "the most reliable means of space travel" and "the most frequently used launch vehicle in the world."
Slashdot Mirror
Due to rising sea levels companies expect farmers to increasingly have to deal with salt water on their fields.
TFA surely seems to be a more sensible response than going overboard with desalination efforts...
Did you miss how this story is about non-ablative ("non-burning") heatshield? Also, while capsules might have some not too big size limit (we're probably nowhere near yet), there's also another approach without wings - lifting bodies; which aren't that dissimilar to a capsule flying lifting reentry, just a bit more optimised one... But no wings.
Now, consider what happens to a spaceplane in such scenarios - a need to ditch (this was considered a loss of crew for the Shuttle); "landing" in wilderness; or relying on succesfull automatic recovery in the case of launcher failure during ascent (hm, where did I hear about such scenario in a spaceplane...) & with recovery systems working perfectly, despite discrepancy between assumed and encountered acceleration on the order which torns apart winged vehicles. Also, take note of how good winged vehicles are at landing on mountain slopes/etc. - they do have to perform such "landings" sometimes.
Soyuz 23 is indeed a good example, but you completelly glance over the background - not uncontrolled, "mistargeted" = a failure of control system / mistake in engine thrust, error of mission control in targetting the landing area, very harsh weather and extremelly strong winds. All those things being outside the scope of the design of reentry vehicle. They just sometimes happen. And for a spaceplane would mean not even really attempting anything which can be called "landing"; the end result would be probably much more catastrophic.
Really, what you are doing is just providing examples of robustness in KISS approaches. Being able to control where you land is a very good thing indeed, one which Soyuz does quite well. As a bonus, if something goes really wrong, there's a high chance of survival.
Well, with "spaceplane" your're adding the amount of things to go wrong.
For example, asphyxiation that you mention is surely a hazard with all approaches (well, not really anymore, when everybody uses pressure suits). But failure of systems actively controlling descent (which does happen on Soyuz from time to time) - and the results are quite dramatically different.
Quite unlikely.
In addition to what the other poster said - if only because gametes don't show any similarities with viruses or their modus operandi, way of "reproduction." The latter means there's even no direct way for them to pass such traits to the host.
Don't you mean "Dirty, dirty, dirty commies and socialist plans for space!"?
PS. But seriously, they still have quite a bit of control - aren't rockets a munitions, etc., with restrictions on cooperation with overseas companies? That's where large part of launch contracts, to sustain an inexpensive launcher, would come from. Or they might just go with Soyuz rocket or Zenit, in the same price league already.
Next launch after this one was apparently outright rescheduled to 2011; first one had its share of delays, we'll see how the 2nd goes.
That said, I wouldn't be really surprised if they manage their first cargo sortie to ISS in 2011.
If only it just meant refilling the tanks; I worry more about limiting the time of storage in orbit.
What are you babbling about? 1. gives quite nice determination of geographic area (it's good enough for Soyuz capsules to be often recorded on video while descending on parachutes by retrieval crews, so quite exact) 2. Have you read even a snipped of those links? Those were tests of a recovery system for a manned spacecraft.
How much for a pony waiting for you at the orbital station?
Considering orbits of GLONASS satellites (and probably many spy ones), simple orbital mechanics make performing such mission in a covert manner an impossibility; nvm the inability of the design to break LEO.
Plus so simple and effective countermeasures, from so cheap and numerous (comparatively) "targets" - maybe millitary intelligence works after all, sometimes ;) (not quickly enough to not give us Shuttle though)
"Needs doing"? If there's one thing at which Shuttle was great, it was demonstrating how its defining capabilities are mostly useless.
Apart from "broken or obsolete" don't forget "space weathered."
That's mostly a false dichotomy
1. Lifting reentry of a capsule flying at a high angle of attack.
2. In the terminal stage, use parafoil like those tests (did you know that NASA was instrumental in popularising the concept of hang glider, etc.?)
...for this LHC to achieve such respectable levels of efficiency.
Falcon is being built with man-rating in mind since the beginning. And without relaxing what "human rated" means, like NASA had to do with Ares so as to allow it to fly (and the way Shuttle was developed, it was also not to present man-rating standards)
I think you were carried away by works of fiction...because you omit completelly why all those useful things would be done on asteroids instead of simply...on Earth. Where, given the same (obviously) level of technology, they will be much easier, much cheaper, much more efficient.
That was the point above. "Free" energy from solar or nuclear won't mean much, BTW, if it has to be used mostly to sustain activities there; plus it's mostly about energy density. And how is this robot revolution in everyday life, envisioned half a century ago, going?
Look at this XX centuryf house envisioned 130 years ago. Or fish-like aircraft "leaving the opera in the year 2000"
Now, we have sources of energy / energy densities people from XIX century haven't even dreamed of - but we don't exactly do with them all those "glorious" things they envisioned. Hell, we mostly still get our energy from burning plants and animals, simply because that's cheaper.
Look in what disgrace the Shuttle has ended - a spacecraft probably very much influenced by depictions of spaceplanes in the science fiction of '30s, '40s or '50s (that's when Shuttle designers were kids) - which were in turn no doubt fueled by tremendous progress in aircraft back then...but turned out to have not much in common with space. We also don't live in Jetson-like housing with chimneys and submarine-like aircraft (even though we can build them). And my computer isn't very chatty.
Now, sure, times when we will become, in notable part, space-faring will come; but I would be surprised if it will have much to do per se with asteroid mining.
I'd like to file a formal protest - this was supposed to be 1024x768.
Yeah, in that mission - loss of one more engine (which nearly happened) = likely loss of the crew. In sensibly constructed launch vehicle - the whole rocket blows up = crew proceeds to land pretty much normally after few seconds of a bit rough acceleration.
And being a symbol, it's almost impossible to look up
Oh? Just copy & paste to Google search.
If you want to see confusing - guess the currency / country which I'm using here: $.
How the hell did you make that symbol work on Slashdot?
I don't know how you can plan ahead for something like that.
"We are starting the competition to come up with a new symbol; initiate your process to make accomodations for it, we will provide the ready glyph in 2 years."
The Space Shuttle is a monumentally horrible servicer - it wastes around 80 tonnes of the mass it gets to LEO on its airframe. You can get a rocket with the payload capacity of the Shuttle in a much more cost efficient way - Ariane 5, Atlas V, Delta IV, Proton, take your pick (yes, some of those have somewhat lower payload to LEO, but some have higher; with new options already coming, some of them with ~2 times higher payload to LEO than Shuttle; though if you want to build a station in the most cost efficient way, you should probably go with Zenit for now - but this one can launch "only" 15 tonnes)
"Mir 2" part of the ISS was assembled using Proton & automatic rendezvous. The modules launched by Shuttle can be launched exclusivelly by the Shuttle, sure...but only because they were built like that, to make to vehicle appear useful.
The idiot just looked up the number of launches of "Soyuz" (without any scary additions to the name like "-U" or "-FG" for example) rocket, the first variant which was named like that (after the vehicle it started carrying back then) - really, all just R7 variants (though for the longest time also direct derivatives of the first Soyuz one)
What he did is especially ironic considering that the rocket flew over 1700 times, and according to ESA (for whom it is a very succesfull competition) is "the most reliable means of space travel" and "the most frequently used launch vehicle in the world."
Regarding engines - there are ways to go which are only slightly worse in raw performance numbers than SSME, but much more cost effective.
And first commerciall resupply sorties to ISS should happen in the next year.
Still living in the '90s, eh?