Remember The Apollo Program

Oxygen was also very hostile (it *oxidises* things), until organisms developed that could cope with the amount of it that was being released into the atmosphere by the stromatolites.

I seriously doubt that any organism will evolve to thrive on the moon however. Mars can't hold much atmosphere any more. Some of the further moons look feasible, but interstellar targets are just too far with any available energy source.

In any case, having proved that we can't seem to maintain Earth in a habitable state, do we even deserve the chance to f*ck up other planets?

Clifford Heath

He basically lives off Federal subsidies and naiive investors. And he's not a sensible Capitalist. And he hasn't put a man in space yet.

On Sunday, December 8, 2019 at 7:01:49 AM UTC-5, snipped-for-privacy@downunder.com wro te:

For insight into the Apollo Guidance Computer (AGC) I think this is one of the better reads:

If you want to understand how the Saturn booster works:

If you want to program and run a simulator:

With an unmanned program, the public would have been unwilling to pay such a high price and so most of the work wouldn't have got done.

The global communications network was a worthwhile thing. A lot was learned about telecommunications, too.

I gave a talk last month on the Apollo Unified S-Band communications system, which was very well-received. I expect that some here will find it entertaining:

Clifford Heath.

bitrex wrote in news:6faHF.22190$ snipped-for-privacy@fx18.iad:

An orbiting platform would also include laser and railgun based projectile deterrent systems, and the base that fired it would become an easy target maybe even destroyed before its missile gets to space.

It got agreed upon, because we decided that the space realm is just like airspace. No sovreign invasion thereof.

I would almost bet that we have stuff up there only we know about.

A railgun has 100% momentum kickback. Not something you want on a spacecraft.

They need enormous stored electrical energy too. Rockets work better.

I don't think that any railguns have been deployed. They're not very practical.

snipped-for-privacy@notreal.com wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

snip

"The end of the 360 era" places you at being there sometime after

This was WAY before that.

Fairchild's chip was first used in the Apollo Guidance Computer.

Clifford Heath wrote in news:%bjHF.212492$ snipped-for-privacy@fx44.iad:

Good point.

Plastic man is a great dude!

Afroz Shah

snipped-for-privacy@gmail.com wrote in news:01355a2f-b0a7-4382-87ef-866247ba66d8 @googlegroups.com:

NASA chose the Fairchild chip. It became the first mass produced IC chip.

Clifford Heath wrote in news:4ZjHF.267952$ snipped-for-privacy@fx48.iad:

A quick look at the minuteman guidance system would show just how complex inertial referenced guidance is.

The AIRS system in the MX missiles... so hard to manufacture, and so expensive. Only 50 were built and integrated in. Only the warhead(s) itself was a more expensive component.

snipped-for-privacy@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

Absolutely a known effect and easily stabalized against. Nice try though, punk.

You think filling a cap bank in space is difficult?

Again, you are an idiot.

Any? There are deployments on Naval ships. In fact, it is a DoN project.

You seem to not keep up on a lot of things.

And as far as a satellite or missile killing unit goes, it would be notably smaller than the ship bound devices we are building for Earth based use.

Nice try, though.

Do you always lead into your opponents trump suit?

Look up Newton's Third Law. I know people who design and deploy satellites, and even tiny forces are a serious stability problem.

The energy required to launch a weapons-grade ballistic projectile is huge. Big rail guns use compulsators, not capacitors, for energy storage, but either is huge and heavy and slow to charge. A solar panel might take months to recharge for a second shot.

Rockets store their own fuel and their own reaction mass, in a tiny package.

Cite? Rail guns so far have been experiment. EMALS is not as good as a steam launcher so far. DT said that, and he is right.

The other problem with rail guns is that the projectiles are fire-and-forget, dumb bullets, and will usually miss a target. A rocket can have guidance and steering.

Rockets are science. Rail guns are sci-fi.

snipped-for-privacy@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

Not if designed and implemented against. You are a serious idiot.

On Earth, "weapons grade" means a mass big enough to do serious damage without explosive warheads.

In space, against a missile or satellite asset, the actual projectile would be one tenth or less of that we use here on Earth.

Nice try though, dipass.

Nobody said a goddamned thing about a "big rail gun", you pathetic, cringing milksop.

Smaller units DO use capacitors.

You ain't real bright, boy. This is not those. Real simple, simpleton.

You are an idiot. A HUGE Maxwell cap does not take that long to charge. A huge bank of them would not either.

Yeah... sure... the bird could have some missiles and even a mini- gun on it along with the rail gun.

Good job of grasping at straws though.

The Northrop Tigershark was "an experiment", but some were still deployed, idiot.

The US Navy has rail guns installed on a couple of land based sites and a couple on ships.

Nice try, punk.

You are an idiot. The first steam cat was not that great at all. This is great and will become more advanced in the subsequent iterations. You are a true idiot and so is the TrumpTard. Oh, and DT gets his news from others, so it is not something the stupid bastard knows anything about himself. He spells joule completely differnetly, you vacuous dopey dumbfuck.

Not at 50k fps, you stupid twit. They ONLY fire direct hits and they do so at targets up to 100km away. Nice try though. Maybe you'll be less clueless in your next life, if you can rise above that of a dirt dwelling slug level you currently reside at.

No s*it, Sluglock.

Roackets are current though old locomotion technology for weighty warhead delivery.

Railguns are current, next generation locomotion technology for high velocity plasma mass delivery. Far cheaper per shot and for more destructive per buck. Lasers too.

Nice try though, bucko. Come back when you grow up.

Right, that's why NASA isn't funded enough.

But what was the function?

"Tom Del Rosso" wrote in news:qsmg7f$ebm$ snipped-for-privacy@dont-email.me:

As a discrete logic element building block in the guidance computer.

Anything a handful of transistors can do?

Fast and lose with the facts about rail gun on Navy ships. There are curre ntly no commissioned Navy vessels with rail guns. The guns are on various test stations. In naval exercises in the spring of 2019 The Navy fired abo ut two dozen hypervelocity projectiles (HVPs) ? special rounds init ially designed for electromagnetic railguns ? from the Mk 45 5-inch deck gun aboard the Arleigh Burke-class destroyer. The Mk 45 is standard o n the Arleigh Burke class vessels.

The Zumwalt class (DDG 100x) destroyers were originally suppose to have the Advanced Gun System (AGS), a naval artillery system developed and produced by BAE Systems Armaments Systems for the Zumwalt-class destroyer, designat ed the 155 mm/62 (6.1") Mark 51 Advanced Gun System (AGS). However, cost of a round exceeded $1M so deployment of the AGS was canned. The ship was designed and built to accommodate the AGS which was to be outf itted in San Diego after is left BIW in Maine (where it was built) for sea trials.

The current thinking (which surfaced around 2016) is to place rail guns on the DDG1000 as an experiment however a fair amount of engineering modificat ions to the ships power system is required. Since the ship is an 'all elect ric' vessel, the mods are not very straight forward. Having spent some tim e on the ship prior to release for sea trials, I can attest that the power gen/conversion/distribution is a very interesting design - unlike any vesse l before it.