GoodBye Posted July 5, 2006 Posted July 5, 2006 Was his name Obi-Wan? 718871[/snapback] No, Han Solo.
TheMadCap Posted July 5, 2006 Posted July 5, 2006 Yes, that's what it looked like. Someone told me that it was a space station. 718870[/snapback] What major city in OR do you live closest to? I can tell you when you have the best chance to view the station and perhaps Discovery...
GoodBye Posted July 5, 2006 Posted July 5, 2006 What major city in OR do you live closest to? I can tell you when you have the best chance to view the station and perhaps Discovery... 718873[/snapback] Portland. Cool! That would be neat!
TheMadCap Posted July 5, 2006 Posted July 5, 2006 Portland. Cool! That would be neat! 718876[/snapback] Hmmm...well that is pretty interesting, cause my information tells me the ISS passed over your area at about 9:41 pm last night, a little less than halfway up in the sky. Unless you have an excellent view of the horizon, you might not get to see ISS until after the 15th. It is supposed to be visible for you about 15 degrees high, about 10:07 tonight... http://spaceflight1.nasa.gov/realdata/sigh...n&city=Portland
Crap Throwing Monkey Posted July 5, 2006 Posted July 5, 2006 How the hell do you know all this stuff about the space program, anyway?? 718862[/snapback] Read a lot. Had a deep enough interest in the space program as a teen that I actually pursued a degree in astronomy in college. Mostly, though...I read a lot. And remember a lot. And can deduce other stuff (i.e. make educated guesses) a lot from what I read and remember.
TheMadCap Posted July 5, 2006 Posted July 5, 2006 Read a lot. Had a deep enough interest in the space program as a teen that I actually pursued a degree in astronomy in college. Mostly, though...I read a lot. And remember a lot. And can deduce other stuff (i.e. make educated guesses) a lot from what I read and remember. 718885[/snapback] You strike me as a good trivial pursuit player I tend to remember tons of useless factoids that serve no other purpose than to make me appear even geekier than I already am...
ajzepp Posted July 5, 2006 Posted July 5, 2006 lol, yeah I think I'll pass playing against Tom in trivial pursuit, too
GoodBye Posted July 6, 2006 Posted July 6, 2006 Hmmm...well that is pretty interesting, cause my information tells me the ISS passed over your area at about 9:41 pm last night, a little less than halfway up in the sky. Unless you have an excellent view of the horizon, you might not get to see ISS until after the 15th. It is supposed to be visible for you about 15 degrees high, about 10:07 tonight... http://spaceflight1.nasa.gov/realdata/sigh...n&city=Portland 718884[/snapback] It was about that time cause the fireworks started about 10PM and we were sitting out there a good while before they started. I'll try to look for it again tonight. Thanks for the info!
Crap Throwing Monkey Posted July 6, 2006 Posted July 6, 2006 You strike me as a good trivial pursuit player I tend to remember tons of useless factoids that serve no other purpose than to make me appear even geekier than I already am... 718888[/snapback] The last time I played Trivial Pursuit was years ago, when, after I beat everyone handily, someone leaned over the table and asked me point-blank "Do you have a life?" I knew two women in college, though, that were so good at Trivial Pursuit that they had their own rule that they had to act out the question in charades, just to make it challenging. That was pretty !@#$ing scary. One of them actually taught herself Gaelic, just for kicks. In retrospect, it's no surprise that she had a psychotic episode mid-junior year and left school...
SDS Posted July 6, 2006 Posted July 6, 2006 Mostly, though...I read a lot. And remember a lot. And can deduce other stuff (i.e. make educated guesses) a lot from what I read and remember. 718885[/snapback] I'm pretty much the same way... well, except for the reading and remembering stuff. I also do more wild guessing than deducing, but otherwise, that describes me as well.
JÂy RÛßeÒ Posted July 6, 2006 Posted July 6, 2006 The last time I played Trivial Pursuit was years ago, when, after I beat everyone handily, someone leaned over the table and asked me point-blank "Do you have a life?" I knew two women in college, though, that were so good at Trivial Pursuit that they had their own rule that they had to act out the question in charades, just to make it challenging. That was pretty !@#$ing scary. One of them actually taught herself Gaelic, just for kicks. In retrospect, it's no surprise that she had a psychotic episode mid-junior year and left school... 718954[/snapback] We used to make my Dad answer the entire card to get the piece. He was a pretty smart fella
AJ1 Posted July 6, 2006 Posted July 6, 2006 Oh, okay... Split the shuttle mission into two different missions: putting people in orbit, and putting cargo in orbit. For the first, design an "Apollo capsule with wings" (what the shuttle was supposed to be to begin with), that'll carry 4-8 people to the ISS with a 3-day endurance on its own. Small, simple, easy to maintain (relative terms, obviously ). The hell with launching reusable cargo capacity - the expense of bringing back empty space is not worth the effort. Bring back the truly complex and expensive stuff - the life support - and reuse it, toss the rest. For cargo...use existing shuttle technology to build a heavy-lift LEO disposable rocket. Right now, the shuttle system launches about 120 tons into low earth orbit including the weight of the orbiter. Most of the weight of the orbiter is dedicated to maintaining it in orbit and bringing it back to earth...make a disposable launcher out of the launch components, and you might get as much as 70 tons into LEO at a shot, which is stupid heavy in space flight terms. That's maybe $200M a launch (a rough guess - last I checked, a shuttle flight was about $1.2B, a billion of which went into readying the orbiter for flight) for 140k lbs of payload - about $1300/lb, which is cheap as launches go. Then...design and build a reusable trans-stage to get satellites from LEO to GEO (roughly half the payload of a satellite launch now is the disposable trans-stage to shift a satellite to its proper orbit). Refuel it from the space station. Launch fuel on the heavy lift booster. Launch satellites in bulk on your heavy lift booster (along with the fuel - you've got 70 tons of payload to play with). Launch astronauts on your space taxi. Astronauts stay at the ISS. Satellites and fuel go to the ISS. Astronauts refuel trans-stage, mate it to a satellite, ship satellite to its proper orbit, recover trans-stage...and repeat until you're out of satellites. NOW you've reduced your cost to geosynchronous orbit drastically, in addition to giving the ISS the purpose it sorely, desperately lacks. Hell, do that and you might even make space economical. 718819[/snapback] Ares-1, essentially a stretched SRM and a J-2 upper stage will dump 55,000 lbs in LEO. Ares-5, a modern remake of the Saturn-5, is supposed to be capable of moving 286,000 lbs of payload to LEO. Hello, Mars!
ajzepp Posted July 6, 2006 Posted July 6, 2006 We used to make my Dad answer the entire card to get the piece. He was a pretty smart fella 718959[/snapback] wow, that's amazing....gathering an idea of his premise from some of what the reviewers said, that sounds like a book I'd love to read....even if I need a dictionary and half a dozen science texts beside me while doing so, lol.
TheMadCap Posted July 6, 2006 Posted July 6, 2006 Ares-1, essentially a stretched SRM and a J-2 upper stage will dump 55,000 lbs in LEO. Ares-5, a modern remake of the Saturn-5, is supposed to be capable of moving 286,000 lbs of payload to LEO. Hello, Mars! 718960[/snapback] I am not sure why with the existing technology, it is estimated to cost three times what the initial development/conversion cost was determined to be. Three billion seems a bit much for developing a system for essentially strapping an Apollo-type capsule on a SRB. Of course, I am generalizing, but it really shouldn't be that hard, or cost that much...
TheMadCap Posted July 6, 2006 Posted July 6, 2006 Ares-1, essentially a stretched SRM and a J-2 upper stage will dump 55,000 lbs in LEO. Ares-5, a modern remake of the Saturn-5, is supposed to be capable of moving 286,000 lbs of payload to LEO. Hello, Mars! 718960[/snapback] Remember, we HAVE to go to the moon first to learn how to make a Mars mission possible. We can't very well spend 50 billion for a manned mission, when we can do it for 500 million over a few more decades...
TheMadCap Posted July 6, 2006 Posted July 6, 2006 Well, time to put this thread back on-topic: It appears that Discovery lost some chunks of foam, but none seem to have seriously implacted the heat shielding (TPS). Some alleged scratches on the wing RCC panels have been identified as bird crap. However, it was announced last night that there is a protruding gap filler under Discovery's right wing, similar to what happened on STS-114. Stay tuned for further details...
Crap Throwing Monkey Posted July 6, 2006 Posted July 6, 2006 I am not sure why with the existing technology, it is estimated to cost three times what the initial development/conversion cost was determined to be. Three billion seems a bit much for developing a system for essentially strapping an Apollo-type capsule on a SRB. Of course, I am generalizing, but it really shouldn't be that hard, or cost that much... 719040[/snapback] Man-rating it is the expensive part. Unmanned rockets, they can live with 90% reliability. Manned have to be around 99% or more. That extra 9%, as a general rule of thumb, is really expensive. The shuttle's reliability, BTW, runs about a calculated 96% at best, last I figured.
TheMadCap Posted July 6, 2006 Posted July 6, 2006 Man-rating it is the expensive part. Unmanned rockets, they can live with 90% reliability. Manned have to be around 99% or more. That extra 9%, as a general rule of thumb, is really expensive. The shuttle's reliability, BTW, runs about a calculated 96% at best, last I figured. 719066[/snapback] Interesting point. When the shuttle was proposed in the late 60's/early 70's, it's failure rate was estimated to be between 1 in 100 and 1 in 100,000 flights. A bit generous, don't you think? Can you guess which figure was proposed by the engineers and which was championed by NASA management? After Challenger, Feynmen pointed out that the logic used to justify this figure was flawed. He emphesized the fact that management used decreasing strictness of criteria with respect to launches, a symptom that has not gone away even now. Your reliability factor is fairly accurate. I say fairly only because it does not take into account management's alarming tendancy to rewrite launch protocols...
TheMadCap Posted July 6, 2006 Posted July 6, 2006 SHUTTLE UPDATE: Shuttle Discovery has caught up to the International Space Station (ISS), and docked with the outpost at 3:54pm UK time on Flight Day 3 of STS-121...
ajzepp Posted July 6, 2006 Posted July 6, 2006 SHUTTLE UPDATE: Shuttle Discovery has caught up to the International Space Station (ISS), and docked with the outpost at 3:54pm UK time on Flight Day 3 of STS-121... 719148[/snapback] Do you have any idea what the conditions are on the ISS? Do they require tanked oxygen and other supplies to be brought there, or are there areas where it is self-sustaining? Any advanced technologies that would be interesting to tell us about?
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