OK, that makes a lot more sense. I hadn't heard about the scramjet on the X-15, so I looked it up. Turns out that they flew a dummy on some X-15's, but an operational scramjet never flew on the X-15.
http://www.dfrc.nasa.gov/gallery/photo/X-15/HTML /E C88-0180-2.html is where I found the info.
That must have been one smelly rocket if it burned rubber as fuel. Interesting trick with the thrusters though, seems like it might be a lot simpler than an engine gimbal.
When Skylab was launched, a solar panel deployed early, inside the atmosphere. The entire panel was ripped off by the slipstream, but Skylab made it into orbit.
The sunshade for the laboratory went with it, which is why photos of Skylab have the rigged shade sail over it.
Re:Have you ever build model rocket sailplanes?
on
Columbia Coverage
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· Score: 2, Interesting
You're not going to skip off into space reentering from low earth orbit because you enter at suborbital speeds.
That was a possibility for the Apollo missions, because they were reentering a few thousand miles faster than orbital speed. If they skipped, they would be in a big looping orbit that would take them nearly out to the moon again. There would have been no opportunity to try again.
I was just going to let this comment stand all by itself, but the sheer ignorance on this thread compels me to point out that YOUR comment stands apart from the others. It's intelligent and shows an in-depth understanding of how the space shuttle works. I've been pointing out silly ideas, and it's only fair that I point out that your idea has some good thought behind it.
This sort of defaitism is certainly not what is needed to keep us going for the stars. Why do you feel the need to shoot holes in rescue theories?
Defiatism? It's called opposing complete stupidity born of ignorance. Opposing stupidity will get us to the stars.
I'm not shooting holes in rescue theories, I'm demolishing speculation that is based on people's ignorance of how the space shuttle works. In a technical forum, I think it's a bad sign that in this entire thread, there's only one person who came up with a good argument, which obviously is the result of his understanding how space vehicles work. That was the person who suggested that the shuttle could fly in a way that could favor the left wing, at the expense of the right wing. It might be possible, and I think it was an intelligent suggestion.
Here's what's wrong with your ideas:
NASA would have had a long time (two weeks + how long spare oxygen/supplies would have lasted) to get a shuttle up to rendezvous with Colombia
This flabbergasts me completely. The next shuttle couldn't have been launched less than a week later, no matter how many people you put on it.
evacuate the crew by making an opening (yes, cutting up the hull to get the astronauts up is a viable option
This shows ignorance of the spacecraft. Get a photo of the shuttle that shows the door under the cabin. It has a big sign on it that says "rescue". You wouldn't have suggested cutting a hole in the hull if you knew that the rescue hatch has an explosive to blow it off the shuttle. No need to cut anything. And you also didn't seem to know that the hatch can just be opened up the old fashioned way.
follow-the-book attitude
Whatever. I'm following reality. Some things are possible, and some things are not.
vacuum proof tunnel would surely have been able to be constructed in a few weeks
Where would the tunnel mount to? And the shuttle didn't have a few weeks of supplies either.
two weeks to lower speed and drop altitude
This shows ignorance of orbital mechanics. Lower orbits are higher speed.
People like you make me depressed, you troll through positive ideas that might, if implemented, save lives in the future. Instead you shoot them down with your theories that are even more far-fetched than many of the ideas suggested. I am sorry, the book can not be followed in all situations.
And people who are ignorant of how our most important space vehicles work depress me. You call me a troll, then you say that I have far-fetched theories. Well, what theories have I put forward? None. I'm just pointing out that a lot of people here are flashing their ignorance all over the place every time they open their mouths.
Except for that one person that I mentioned above.
The other person who responded to this came up with some good arguments, so I left his intelligent comments stand at that.
Now, let's get to yours:
Given two weeks of braking at a lower angle, turning the shuttle around to fire main engines in the reverse direction etc, do you not believe the speed would have been reduced?
A 60 second burn of the OMS reduces the shuttle speed by 50 miles an hour. The idea that the shuttle can fire the main engines in orbit is absurd, because there's no fuel for them. Furthermore, the more you slow down, the *greater* the angle into the atmosphere will be. That would cause the energy of orbit to be dissipated in a shorter amount of time, causing heat loads to be even greater. If you slow down too much even a perfect orbiter will burn up.
Also, two weeks of braking wouldn't do anything. Do you know orbital mechanics? Things in a lower orbit require a higher speed, not a lower one. Either you're going to lower your orbit, or you're going to re-enter. You are implying that the shuttle will go into a lower orbit over two weeks time to reduce energy, but that would have the opposite effect.
They would design the shape of the engine. They are good for optimization problems. They are famous for being used for elevator control program design, turbine blade design, and other things like that.
There's zillions of good links, Google is your friend.
The reason that I asked about the accuracy of the simulations is that a genetic algorithm needs a selection mechanism. You have to be able to model the airflow and combustion accurately to discriminate finely between competing models in a population.
It could be useful to you. Maybe not though. I even more definitely don't know what I'm talking about.
The robot would be able to connect to the Internet, contact you by e-mail or a mobile phone and, say, send you a message if it 'hears' a strange noise inside your home. It can also remember the side effects of medication.
(imagine a message on my answering machine)
DUDE! I'm smoking a doob and checking the porn sites over here. Come on over and... what the fuck is that noise? Ah fuck. This pot is making my mouth dry so pick up some Dew on the way over. LAter dude.
That should be "It took man 100,000 years to get to Kitty Hawk, and 100,066 years to get to the moon. Flying is hard, getting to the moon is easy."
The space shuttle was a bigger achievement than going to the moon, even with all its shortcomings. The next big achievement in space will be to abandon the shuttle, and take up the next big challenge. And I don't see a silly space station anywhere in the picture.
Don't worry, there will come a day when instead of base-jumping people will be space-diving. It'll be the sport of choice for the Darwin challenged. But, like parachutes, the space-diving equipment will eventually be perfected so that it's reasonably safe.
Out of curiosity, do you know of anyone using genetic algorithms to develop scramjets? Has that approach worked or been a dead end?
And how accurate are the computer simulations for testing? I can imagine that having a beowulf the size of the Titanic would be a great help, but that won't help much if the simulation isn't accurate.
You seem to know what you're talking about, so that's why I ask you.
I had an argument with someone a couple years ago about what vehicle I'd rather ride to space and why. I said Soyuz because they are safer. He thought I was nuts. Shuttle missions have always scared the hell out of me. But when I hear some people are going up in a Soyuz I think "have a nice trip, ought to be fun."
I repeat: the things in orbit that needed the supplies weren't people. The things in orbit that need supplies are spacecraft. Oxygen candles won't keep your fuel cells fed, and the thrusters don't even use oxygen.
The reentry path is already optimized to minimize heat loads on the vehicle. It cannot be optimized more to lessen the heat, so that option is right out.
The temperature in the wheel well did go up about 60 degrees in the last 5 minutes, but nobody believes that caused the disaster. The 60 degree rise in the wheel well was just a symptom of a far greater rise of hundreds or thousands of degrees somewhere else, close by. That's what caused the structural damage.
This whole thread is all about people saying "NASA could do this or that and pull off a miracle". Very sadly, there were no more rabbits left in the hat. I am a little dismayed that people don't seem to know as much as they should about how our spacecraft work. I'm by no means an expert, but shooting holes in these crazy rescue theories is easy work. Too easy - it shows that people just don't take enough of an interest in one of the most important things we do to learn about the technology. At least nobody in this thread has suggested that instead of landing on Earth where there's an atmosphere, they should have landed on the moon instead, where Buzz and Neil could have picked them up...
Supplies carried inside won't help the shuttle at all. The reaction control thrusters couldn't be refuled from inside. The hydrazine for the APU's can't be refueled. The hydrogen and oxygen that power the fuel cells can't be replaced except on the ground. The progress can't carry those types of consumables on board.
So, with lives depending on it, they wouldn't have been able to figure out anything at all. The supplies that they needed to live weren't coffee and boxes of twinkies.
Jeez man, this isn't Star Trek. How would progress have made it back to Earth? It doesn't have a heat shield. How would progress have docked with the shuttle? No docking ring. How would the astronauts have changed the docking ring? No tools or training. It takes a whole crew of people a long time on the ground to do it.
And even if all that stuff had been made available, how would you have fit the progress into the shuttle? Solar panels can't fit, plus you had a cargo bay full of experiments that can't be released from the shuttle.
Even the most spectacular rescue in space - Apollo 13 - had the benefit of some planning before the launch of the mission. The use of the LEM as a contingency lifeboat had been considered before. With Columbia, there's nothing at all that could be done.
BTW, if you had put a big barge of superglue and tinfoil out in the middle of the Atlantic waiting for the Titanic to hit the iceberg, it still would have gone down. Just being sarchastic there.
Of course they have silly. They've also got the hard diskus throw, which is part of track and field. The biathlon is sponsored by AMD. The triathlon was just a gimmick to sell 50% more chips, but it flopped. Synchronized swimming is going to be joined by asynchronized swimming soon - promises to be a much faster competition. Boxing will be replaced by boxen because of complaints it was too violent. Of course, there are many computer geeks that play handball, especially when viewing porn. Though not strictly computers, may programmers will appreciate the Bob Dobbs Sled event.
As an eyewitness, I saw the shuttle break up. I didn't see people falling out of it, screaming all the way down.
I pay attention to the space program because of the science and the hardware. I don't really care that someone is going to get a PhD publishing some results somewhere, and I don't follow astronauts careers closely.
When I saw the thing this morning, the star of the show was Columbia. I saw her launch in 1981 on TV, and I saw her die with my own eyes. I didn't know anything about the astronauts until much later today.
So you think I'm insensitive? Did I miss the point? I don't know why the fuck I need to justify anything to anybody about exactly what I felt or did when the shuttle was destroyed in space above my house. Everyone is going to react differently, and only assholes will go around with a clipboard making two lists labelled "people reacted like I think they should have" and "people didn't react as I think they should have".
Slashdot Mirror
OK, that makes a lot more sense. I hadn't heard about the scramjet on the X-15, so I looked it up. Turns out that they flew a dummy on some X-15's, but an operational scramjet never flew on the X-15.
L /E C88-0180-2.html is where I found the info.
http://www.dfrc.nasa.gov/gallery/photo/X-15/HTM
That must have been one smelly rocket if it burned rubber as fuel. Interesting trick with the thrusters though, seems like it might be a lot simpler than an engine gimbal.
The best stuff they make is their "Technical Grade" which is only 50%. Not good enough.
Yes, except at 95-100% concentration. The stuff that cleans your wounds is 3%.
When Skylab was launched, a solar panel deployed early, inside the atmosphere. The entire panel was ripped off by the slipstream, but Skylab made it into orbit.
The sunshade for the laboratory went with it, which is why photos of Skylab have the rigged shade sail over it.
You're not going to skip off into space reentering from low earth orbit because you enter at suborbital speeds.
That was a possibility for the Apollo missions, because they were reentering a few thousand miles faster than orbital speed. If they skipped, they would be in a big looping orbit that would take them nearly out to the moon again. There would have been no opportunity to try again.
I was just going to let this comment stand all by itself, but the sheer ignorance on this thread compels me to point out that YOUR comment stands apart from the others. It's intelligent and shows an in-depth understanding of how the space shuttle works. I've been pointing out silly ideas, and it's only fair that I point out that your idea has some good thought behind it.
This sort of defaitism is certainly not what is needed to keep us going for the stars. Why do you feel the need to shoot holes in rescue theories?
Defiatism? It's called opposing complete stupidity born of ignorance. Opposing stupidity will get us to the stars.
I'm not shooting holes in rescue theories, I'm demolishing speculation that is based on people's ignorance of how the space shuttle works. In a technical forum, I think it's a bad sign that in this entire thread, there's only one person who came up with a good argument, which obviously is the result of his understanding how space vehicles work. That was the person who suggested that the shuttle could fly in a way that could favor the left wing, at the expense of the right wing. It might be possible, and I think it was an intelligent suggestion.
Here's what's wrong with your ideas:
NASA would have had a long time (two weeks + how long spare oxygen/supplies would have lasted) to get a shuttle up to rendezvous with Colombia
This flabbergasts me completely. The next shuttle couldn't have been launched less than a week later, no matter how many people you put on it.
evacuate the crew by making an opening (yes, cutting up the hull to get the astronauts up is a viable option
This shows ignorance of the spacecraft. Get a photo of the shuttle that shows the door under the cabin. It has a big sign on it that says "rescue". You wouldn't have suggested cutting a hole in the hull if you knew that the rescue hatch has an explosive to blow it off the shuttle. No need to cut anything. And you also didn't seem to know that the hatch can just be opened up the old fashioned way.
follow-the-book attitude
Whatever. I'm following reality. Some things are possible, and some things are not.
vacuum proof tunnel would surely have been able to be constructed in a few weeks
Where would the tunnel mount to? And the shuttle didn't have a few weeks of supplies either.
two weeks to lower speed and drop altitude
This shows ignorance of orbital mechanics. Lower orbits are higher speed.
People like you make me depressed, you troll through positive ideas that might, if implemented, save lives in the future. Instead you shoot them down with your theories that are even more far-fetched than many of the ideas suggested. I am sorry, the book can not be followed in all situations.
And people who are ignorant of how our most important space vehicles work depress me. You call me a troll, then you say that I have far-fetched theories. Well, what theories have I put forward? None. I'm just pointing out that a lot of people here are flashing their ignorance all over the place every time they open their mouths.
Except for that one person that I mentioned above.
The other person who responded to this came up with some good arguments, so I left his intelligent comments stand at that.
Now, let's get to yours:
Given two weeks of braking at a lower angle, turning the shuttle around to fire main engines in the reverse direction etc, do you not believe the speed would have been reduced?
A 60 second burn of the OMS reduces the shuttle speed by 50 miles an hour. The idea that the shuttle can fire the main engines in orbit is absurd, because there's no fuel for them. Furthermore, the more you slow down, the *greater* the angle into the atmosphere will be. That would cause the energy of orbit to be dissipated in a shorter amount of time, causing heat loads to be even greater. If you slow down too much even a perfect orbiter will burn up.
Also, two weeks of braking wouldn't do anything. Do you know orbital mechanics? Things in a lower orbit require a higher speed, not a lower one. Either you're going to lower your orbit, or you're going to re-enter. You are implying that the shuttle will go into a lower orbit over two weeks time to reduce energy, but that would have the opposite effect.
They would design the shape of the engine. They are good for optimization problems. They are famous for being used for elevator control program design, turbine blade design, and other things like that.
There's zillions of good links, Google is your friend.
The reason that I asked about the accuracy of the simulations is that a genetic algorithm needs a selection mechanism. You have to be able to model the airflow and combustion accurately to discriminate finely between competing models in a population.
It could be useful to you. Maybe not though. I even more definitely don't know what I'm talking about.
The robot would be able to connect to the Internet, contact you by e-mail or a mobile phone and, say, send you a message if it 'hears' a strange noise inside your home. It can also remember the side effects of medication.
(imagine a message on my answering machine)
DUDE! I'm smoking a doob and checking the porn sites over here. Come on over and... what the fuck is that noise? Ah fuck. This pot is making my mouth dry so pick up some Dew on the way over. LAter dude.
That should be "It took man 100,000 years to get to Kitty Hawk, and 100,066 years to get to the moon. Flying is hard, getting to the moon is easy."
The space shuttle was a bigger achievement than going to the moon, even with all its shortcomings. The next big achievement in space will be to abandon the shuttle, and take up the next big challenge. And I don't see a silly space station anywhere in the picture.
Don't worry, there will come a day when instead of base-jumping people will be space-diving. It'll be the sport of choice for the Darwin challenged. But, like parachutes, the space-diving equipment will eventually be perfected so that it's reasonably safe.
Check out the x-13 project.
The Harrier does vertical takeoff much better. What's the big deal?
Out of curiosity, do you know of anyone using genetic algorithms to develop scramjets? Has that approach worked or been a dead end?
And how accurate are the computer simulations for testing? I can imagine that having a beowulf the size of the Titanic would be a great help, but that won't help much if the simulation isn't accurate.
You seem to know what you're talking about, so that's why I ask you.
I had an argument with someone a couple years ago about what vehicle I'd rather ride to space and why. I said Soyuz because they are safer. He thought I was nuts. Shuttle missions have always scared the hell out of me. But when I hear some people are going up in a Soyuz I think "have a nice trip, ought to be fun."
I repeat: the things in orbit that needed the supplies weren't people. The things in orbit that need supplies are spacecraft. Oxygen candles won't keep your fuel cells fed, and the thrusters don't even use oxygen.
The reentry path is already optimized to minimize heat loads on the vehicle. It cannot be optimized more to lessen the heat, so that option is right out.
The temperature in the wheel well did go up about 60 degrees in the last 5 minutes, but nobody believes that caused the disaster. The 60 degree rise in the wheel well was just a symptom of a far greater rise of hundreds or thousands of degrees somewhere else, close by. That's what caused the structural damage.
This whole thread is all about people saying "NASA could do this or that and pull off a miracle". Very sadly, there were no more rabbits left in the hat. I am a little dismayed that people don't seem to know as much as they should about how our spacecraft work. I'm by no means an expert, but shooting holes in these crazy rescue theories is easy work. Too easy - it shows that people just don't take enough of an interest in one of the most important things we do to learn about the technology. At least nobody in this thread has suggested that instead of landing on Earth where there's an atmosphere, they should have landed on the moon instead, where Buzz and Neil could have picked them up...
Supplies carried inside won't help the shuttle at all. The reaction control thrusters couldn't be refuled from inside. The hydrazine for the APU's can't be refueled. The hydrogen and oxygen that power the fuel cells can't be replaced except on the ground. The progress can't carry those types of consumables on board.
So, with lives depending on it, they wouldn't have been able to figure out anything at all. The supplies that they needed to live weren't coffee and boxes of twinkies.
I ditched CDE a long time ago. Even twm was better. Using Gnome is a smart move on Sun's part.
Jeez man, this isn't Star Trek. How would progress have made it back to Earth? It doesn't have a heat shield. How would progress have docked with the shuttle? No docking ring. How would the astronauts have changed the docking ring? No tools or training. It takes a whole crew of people a long time on the ground to do it.
And even if all that stuff had been made available, how would you have fit the progress into the shuttle? Solar panels can't fit, plus you had a cargo bay full of experiments that can't be released from the shuttle.
Even the most spectacular rescue in space - Apollo 13 - had the benefit of some planning before the launch of the mission. The use of the LEM as a contingency lifeboat had been considered before. With Columbia, there's nothing at all that could be done.
BTW, if you had put a big barge of superglue and tinfoil out in the middle of the Atlantic waiting for the Titanic to hit the iceberg, it still would have gone down. Just being sarchastic there.
Of course they have silly. They've also got the hard diskus throw, which is part of track and field. The biathlon is sponsored by AMD. The triathlon was just a gimmick to sell 50% more chips, but it flopped. Synchronized swimming is going to be joined by asynchronized swimming soon - promises to be a much faster competition. Boxing will be replaced by boxen because of complaints it was too violent. Of course, there are many computer geeks that play handball, especially when viewing porn. Though not strictly computers, may programmers will appreciate the Bob Dobbs Sled event.
I'm still trying to figure out 1 dimensional go.
As an eyewitness, I saw the shuttle break up. I didn't see people falling out of it, screaming all the way down.
I pay attention to the space program because of the science and the hardware. I don't really care that someone is going to get a PhD publishing some results somewhere, and I don't follow astronauts careers closely.
When I saw the thing this morning, the star of the show was Columbia. I saw her launch in 1981 on TV, and I saw her die with my own eyes. I didn't know anything about the astronauts until much later today.
So you think I'm insensitive? Did I miss the point? I don't know why the fuck I need to justify anything to anybody about exactly what I felt or did when the shuttle was destroyed in space above my house. Everyone is going to react differently, and only assholes will go around with a clipboard making two lists labelled "people reacted like I think they should have" and "people didn't react as I think they should have".
So go fuck yourself.
Thanks for mirroring. I just sent out tarballs of my photos to everyone who wanted to mirror.