OT?: Goodbye to an era

Shuttle was intended to be one of the components of the notorious "space war" program. It was thought that many launches and landings would be required to keep the orbital group operable, and the numbers would outweigh the costs. For the variety of reasons, that didn't happen. They tried to find some other use for technology developed, however it turned out to be even more expensive.

Green migets in the flying sausers, too.

Yes. People need a purpose to strive for.

VLV

You sure got that right. Belt and suspenders is key.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

Bwahahahahaha! ...Jim Thompson

-- | James E.Thompson, CTO | mens | | Analog Innovations, Inc. | et | | Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems | manus | | Phoenix, Arizona 85048 Skype: Contacts Only | | | Voice:(480)460-2350 Fax: Available upon request | Brass Rat | | E-mail Icon at

nts and

it

Seen from far away, US space program looks like being lost or without a target. One step right, one step left, one step forward and one step backwards, and where do you end up.

Are costs wasted if they are mostly salaries. Your government supporting industry with tax money. Did it create any permanent jobs outside Nasa, that is important.

Besides, whatever replaces the shuttle will be dangerous as soon as using it will become routine, just like with shuttles. At least you know now some things which can go wrong with shuttle. Nasa learned that with the hard way. But will something replace shuttles. All US space program can do now is cancel things.

Apart from the 7.9 km/s orbital velocity, what other advantage would storing comet/asteroid missiles in LEO have ? It takes a few minutes to accelerated from zero to 7.9 km/s.

Ignoring any Hollywood films, any realistic comet/asteroid defense system would require years or at least months of advanced warning.

If the threat is detected one hour before impact, the decision making process would take longer, so there is no point in optimising out a few minutes.

Maintaining a missile on the ground is much easier on the ground than on the space station.

During the Cold War, I very much doubt that neither side could have the technical ability to launch any significant part of their arsenal with only one hour of advance warning. On both sides, the number of missiles was much greater than usable targets, which was officially justified by the survivability of first strike risk, IMHO the real reason was the unreliability of missiles sitting in silos for decades.

Did your pants fall down?

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

The last crew would take a significant risk installing those explosives.

Such systems would really have to operate while in orbit, since the ionisation trail would inhibit any communication during re-entry.

To blow out anything below 40 km, when the communication works again, would require quite a few planes with suitable transmitters.

Fortunately, I live far north of the area that ISS is capable of dropping parts :-)

In the current East Asia outsourcing situation, it might even make sense to hire at least two companies to do the job and select the best result.

Redundant control systems are usually used in order to avoid single point hardware failures.

Using the software from two or more independent sources and selecting the best at run time will eliminate some problems in redundant systems.

Unfortunately it does not eliminate the errors in specifications.

More of AlwaysWrong's scat fetish... Yawn.

Well, you are an asshole, like DimBulb. Ok, I'll chase...

You're clueless. I note that you haven't come up with a list of Shuttle or ISS can't-do-without discoveries.

If you were using something that had NASA developed technology incorporated into it, you wouldn't know. Why? Because you are a complete and utter retard.

I see you can't name one thing, either, AlwaysWrong. ...because you're

To give the ISS a purpose, at long last. It might also make sense if the gadgets needed a lot of mass.

Most comet and asteroid tracks are known months or years in advance. With more telescopes, not even very big ones, we could spot pretty much every one that has an earth-intersecting orbit. A small nudge would be all it needs if it's done early enough. Hours out, it's hopeless.

Probably so. If the asteroid-buster were a nuke, it wouldn't need a lot of mass.

John

No, seriously, if you multiply the annual probability of an asteroid hit by the number of people likely to be killed (in some cases, all of us) the death rate is serious. It's worth insuring the survival of mankind, especially when the alternative is to watch spiders weaving webs in microgravity.

John

There are specialized things, idiot. Like special coatings for metals, and special thermal media for conduction cooling technologies. Special manufacturing processes that can be done here with certain machinery. Not as good as space born manufacturing, but that will come eventually.

Wrong. ...still can't name one, AlwaysWrong.

They put a camera inside Sloman's head?

List? He can't come up with one.

John