Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: WMCoolmon on July 04, 2006, 01:23:39 pm
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Official Page (http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/shuttle/main/index.html)
Yahoo News (http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060704/sc_nm/space_shuttle_dc_38;_ylt=Aqb8rve3bqmHPmQOwsFVUdUYAjMB;_ylu=X3oDMTBiMW04NW9mBHNlYwMlJVRPUCUl)
Streaming video (http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/index.html)
(http://www.hexellent.com/files/11/shuttlelaunch.gif) (http://warpstorm.com/community/index.php?action=chat)
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Fingers crossed everything goes well.
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We have liftoff!
Half-way to orbit already.
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Yes, NASA's back in business! :)
Oh how I'd love to go to space. If only I had 20 million dollars... then I'd pay the Russians to take me up. :D
Edited for power of ten typo.
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errr
i think its more like 20mil :P
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Good, very good news :yes:
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Good day, and a good launch.
If this doesn't at least boost national pride a little bit, then I don't know what will. :p
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what! no kaboomb. there was supposed to be an earth-shattering kaboomb.
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I'm looking forward to a new 'space race' with China. All they have to do is go to the moon, and then it becomes a CTF game. "Red team has our flag" :lol:
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"Lost the lead!"
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one thing i kinda noticed is the total overreaction regarding the foam. foam has been breaking off and hitting stuff for as long as theyve been launching shuttles. as soon as they have one accident, it becomes the only major problem that we hear about ever. i would suggest taking repair materials out there so they can repair the problems before they head back. it makes me think that maybe theyre forgetting about other problems, and working on this one thing a whole bunch.
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Well, it's good they got up OK...I'm just worried now about getting down. That's the hard part...
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I'm just worried now about getting down.
Actually, that part they'll have pretty definitely. :nod:
What worries me is what shape they are in after getting down from the orbit...
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I'm surprised they didn't go Boom after liftoff. There were pieces of that foam coming off all around that damn thing and NASA still decided to risk the astronauts lives. Imagine what the bastards would say: "Oh ****! Another design flaw that we overlooked! STOP EVERYTHING FOR TEN YEARS SO WE CAN FIND OUT WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED!"
but yeah. i'm surprised and grateful that the astronauts got through 50% of their voyage safely.
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What a way to celebrate the 4th, too. :)
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I'm surprised they didn't go Boom after liftoff. There were pieces of that foam coming off all around that damn thing and NASA still decided to risk the astronauts lives.
What turambar said, the foam has been falling off the fuel tank since the first launch. You can't actually stop it from doing that, just make the risk more marginal than it is already. And remember, going to space on top of a huge rocket that basicly gets you up there by a controlled explosion is always insanely dangerous.
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Well, it's nice that they got the thing working again, but it seems to me, an uninformed observer, that the Space Shuttle is having way too many problems and is too high-maintenance to be worth the hassle. What happened to the Space Shuttle replacement vehicle? Is the Russian Space Agency can put together a decent shuttle with whatever money they find under Putin's couch, why can't NASA do it with billions on dollars a year?
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Russians don't have a decent shuttle. They have very decent Soyuz space capsules, however. They were designed in sixties. And they have been updated and upgraded until these days.
The Russians did try to have a shuttle, but that was in the days of SSSR (or CCCP, as it's written in cyrillic letters) - but it actualyl cost quite a bit of money. It was called "Buran" and it's budget was HUGE - actually, it is somewhere referred to as one of the main reasons for Soviet Union's collapse.
That shuttle looked pretty much similar to NASA shuttle, but the differences were actually many. To begin with, the Buran had no primary engines in itself like the Orbiter has. Instead it actually used huge external main rocket engines - Energia it was called - and up to four solid-fuel booster rockets, if my memory serves me right.
EDIT: It didn't - the booster rockets actually used liquid fuel. ::)
The ship that was meant to replace the Shuttle was the Locheed X-33, which was supposed to become the first re-usable single-stage-to-orbit vessel, but the project was killed due to technical problems at the time...
Construction of the prototype was some 85% complete when the program was cancelled by NASA in 2001, after a long series of technical difficulties including flight instability and excess weight. In particular, the composite liquid hydrogen fuel tank failed during testing in November 1999. The tank was constructed of honeycomb composite walls and internal structures to be light enough in order for the craft to demonstrate necessary technologies for single-stage-to-orbit operations. A SSTO craft must reach what is called a "mass fraction" where the vehicle weight unfueled is 10% of the weight of the craft when fully fueled. This would allow for a vehicle to fly to low earth orbit without the need for external boosters and fuel tanks, as currently used with the Space Shuttle. But, after the composite tank's failure on the test stand during fueling and pressure tests, NASA came to the conclusion that the technology of the time was simply not advanced enough for such a design.
NASA had invested $912m in the project before cancellation and Lockheed Martin a further $357m. Due to changes in the space launch business -- including the challenges faced by companies such as Globalstar, Teledesic and Iridium and the resulting drop in the number of anticipated commercial satellite launches per year -- Lockheed Martin deemed that the business case to continue development privately without government support was unviable.
After the cancellation, engineers were able to make a working Oxygen tank out of Carbon Fiber Composite.
It sucks. I so would have wanted to see the X-33 in action, it's a cool ship. Ever thought where the EA Kestrel stems its design from?
And now, guess what is the proposed "new" solution to replace the GoodOl' Space Shuttle?
An Upscaled Apollo capsule that is called a "crew exploration vehicle" (CEV). So, the space technology is actually reverting back to space capsules, as re-usable craft seem to be more unreliable than originally estimated - whereas the booster engine technology has become quite reliable. Ironically, it also seems that the "new" target for NASA is also exactly the same as it was in the sixties - which was, and is "to get to the Moon, set up an installation there and use that as a harbour for future Mars missions".
They'll probably get into Moon all right, they just get the Apollo-Saturn plans and scale them up to match the current technology (as is already done with the CEV), then tehy'll commit some missions. Then the political atmosphere changes and manned spaceflight is no more as cool a thing to do as now.
Personally, I'd put more money on constructing the space elevator than getting onto Moon. We've been there already.
Oh and Locheed also had plans for an upscaled version of X-33, called the VentureStar, but that project was buried along with the X-33. :(
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There may have simply been or be more interest in Russia, in the space program, as well. Japan/China have a lot of good things going for them in the area of mass production & technology manufacture, India is the goto guy for tech support and general outsourcing, Mexico's taken drugs, America buys all the **** and rounds out the high-tech market, etc etc. But, nobody's really been into the space program since the cold war.
Considering that Russia was second/first by a long shot when the space race was going on, it's not a bad place to start trying to build up a strong economy. And if they wait much longer, everyone who worked on the original programs will probably be dead.
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I'm just worried now about getting down.
Actually, that part they'll have pretty definitely. :nod:
What worries me is what shape they are in after getting down from the orbit...
Crispy fried?
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There are a lot of ways to get back dead...Russia lost some people once when a valve blew and vented their atmosphere just prior to reentry. That's how we know your body isn't going to turn inside out or some other silly sci-fi thing when you're in a vacuum.
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The Russians did try to have a shuttle, but that was in the days of SSSR (or CCCP, as it's written in cyrillic letters) - but it actualyl cost quite a bit of money. It was called "Buran" and it's budget was HUGE - actually, it is somewhere referred to as one of the main reasons for Soviet Union's collapse.
The big military bugdet had an impact on the eventual collapse. But the trend of over spending had been going on for years (as it was and still in in the US). And to say that the CCCP collapsed because of the Buran Program would be quite of an exageration...
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There are a lot of ways to get back dead...Russia lost some people once when a valve blew and vented their atmosphere just prior to reentry. That's how we know your body isn't going to turn inside out or some other silly sci-fi thing when you're in a vacuum.
They had pictures/video of it?
EDIT:
1971 June 30: crew exposed to vacuum of space : The crew of Soyuz 11, Georgi Dobrovolski, Viktor Patsayev and Vladislav Volkov, were killed after undocking from space station Salyut 1 after a three-week stay. A valve on their spacecraft had accidentally opened when the service module separated, letting their air leak out into space. The capsule reentered and landed normally, and their deaths were only discovered when it was opened by the recovery team.
Ahh...
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I'm surprised they didn't go Boom after liftoff. There were pieces of that foam coming off all around that damn thing and NASA still decided to risk the astronauts lives.
Its just the way Command is.............:D
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The Russians did try to have a shuttle, but that was in the days of SSSR (or CCCP, as it's written in cyrillic letters) - but it actualyl cost quite a bit of money. It was called "Buran" and it's budget was HUGE - actually, it is somewhere referred to as one of the main reasons for Soviet Union's collapse.
While Buran is collecting dust, the Russians developed a new shuttle, the Kliper http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kliper (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kliper)
If they ever get enough money to put it in space is another question.
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I gotta say my ussian is poor at best, but this looks bloody cool...
http://www.buran.ru/htm/spiral.htm
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The entire Buran.ru site is available in english too.
http://www.buran.ru/htm/molniya.htm (http://www.buran.ru/htm/molniya.htm)
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That spiral project looks a bit Captain scarlet-Angel interceptor'ish but i reckon thats the way it should be done. If only i had about 400 billion to research the thing and build a squadron....... :rolleyes:
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There were pieces of that foam coming off all around that damn thing and NASA still decided to risk the astronauts lives.
Its just the way Command is.............:D
Best statement in the whole thread. Also: LOLOL!
True, true, all so true.