OT: Random question for the physics guys

As long as we're replacing heat shields, what's the big deal with parachutes and stuff?

The ground rules were that all of the hardware was to be reusable. That led to really incredible compromises. Of course, politics contributed to things like the segmented SRB.

It's gotta land, too. Cross-range capability is pretty important for anything more useful than ISS (usefulness = 0). Of course, killing the Centaur limited its mission significantly, too. In all, the whole thing was an expensive failure.

They really underestimated the turn-around time on a man-rated "reusable" vehicle. Nobody wants to be the guy who ends up saying "Oh yea, don't worry about that tiny chip on the windshield, it's designed to be reusable so let's save a few bucks" and then have something go wrong. Hey, it's only money.

The original idea was to launch ~50 flights a year. I think the closest they ever got was 9 in like 1985.

If you don't need one-orbit land capability, you can relax the crossrange requirements a bit, since you have plenty of time to set things up above the atmosphere with your maneuvering thrusters. If you have relaxed crossrange requirements, you don't need big delta wings...you can make a shuttle with similar payload capability that looks more like the long thing with stubby wings in this early design diagram:

And then your aerodynamics are better and the thing isn't ass-heavy, so you can put it up at the top of the vehicle, where it's a lot safer from falling debris.

One could certainly argue that it's a failure, in the sense that all manned space missions are failures...there's really not a whole lot of point to it using currently available technology, and I think much of the money invested in it would be better spent on researching plasma/nuclear/fusion rocket technology that could actually get you somewhere interesting in something resembling a reasonable amount of time.

20% of the cost of a manned mission to Mars using currently available tech would pay for an invasion fleet of robotic probes that could probably discern 99% of everything any scientist would ever want to know.

But it's a bit of Monday morning quarterbacking...they were trying to build a "space truck" that could undercut unmanned satellite launches using 1970s tech and it just wasn't there...it still isn't...but they didn't seem to realize it until they had their product and noticed that it wasn't really capable of what they wanted. From a fiscal point of view, it likely would've made sense to shut the project down circa 1985, or the Challenger disaster at least. But there was also Cold War politics to consider. The DOD could've likely had the project axed in a day if they unequivocally pulled their support and stated that was what they really wanted. But nobody chose to do that.

Yep. The terminal velocity of a body that size and mass falling vertically like a flat plate (assuming it was made of the magic material that could withstand the aerodynamic forces) works out to be nearly Mach

1. What was the temperature of the SR-71 leading edges?

If you assume the 300,000 square meters or so of underside had a hydrocarbon-based paint job at one point, it's definitely crispy after that trick. AFAIK in that fictional universe motherships of that size were never intended to enter the atmosphere, so there wouldn't be any ablative surfaces to speak of.

I dunno. They're only falling at about 1000 mph, and they claim to have launched the fighters at 99 thousand feet...assuming the planet is Earthlike the atmospheric density is only 1% of sea level up there...basically space.

I think they'd be alright.

Only if they shoot backwards. If forward, the 1000 mph slipstream would be hitting them in the face in that tunnel.

Joe Gwinn

Firefly was fun. (for 1 year.) More like the wild west in space.

George H.

The unfortunate part about TV "nowadays" is that there are so many new programs, that even ones which have real potential but are a bit shaky or can't immediately find a demographic often get the axe before they're given a fair shake. It's not like back in the mid 80s when Star Trek TNG's first two seasons weren't particularly great, but they got three seasons to hit their stride (which they finally did.)

Same with music - record labels don't give upcoming new artists three or four albums to pay dividends; hit platinum out the door or you're done.

Firefly deserved another couple of seasons, at least. Star Trek: Voyager definitely didn't deserve 7.

I don't watch much TV these days. (Friends turned me onto Firefly after the fact.) Sports and nature/science shows is about all.

George H.

Much of the good stuff is online Netflix/Amazon original series. There are a bunch of well-produced shows that wouldn't make it on regular TV because they don't appeal to the lowest common denominator, but with lower production costs they can still turn a profit going after the "long tail" of the distribution.

if there is not much to choose from people will learn to live with whatever there is

The only people that need record labels is record labels, you don't need a million dollar studio to make a record and you don't need someone to print and distribute boxes of CDs/LPs

little more than a computer and you have a studio, distribution is handled on the internet

-Lasse

Start Trek was cancelled after the second season because of bad ratings. By then there was a small, but eventually vocal, demographic (mostly college kids) glued to it at the time. They got it extended for the third year but couldn't save it after that. It didn't have the viewership to justify the expense (IIRC, it was the most expensive show on TV to produce, at the time).

Makes sense. There are a thousand more artists where they came from.

Evidently it did.

Sorry for the confusion, I didn't mean "TOS" that ran 1967-1969 IIRC. It was a bit before my time, though I saw it in syndicated reruns. I meant The Next Generation which ran 1987-1994. Most of the episodes of the first season were real stinkers. The second season was slightly better.

Season 3 was where it really seemed to find its footing.

Probably just because at the time there was less competition. It would never have lasted that long had it been released today; it originally ran 1995 to 2001 and by about the 1999 season it was clear they were out of good ideas.

Deep Space Nine was a "spinoff" that ran from 1993-1999 and was IMO the best of that era of Trek. It was the more "gritty realism" of all of them, and was one of the first shows that started doing multiple-episode "story arcs" to primetime syndication, that we take for granted today.

It showed there was a lot of dirty work going on behind the scenes to make the Federation the superficial utopia that we thought it was. Gene had a fair amount of communist leanings, and likely wouldn't have approved of the direction they took that spinoff in, but he was out of the picture by that point.