Successful splashdown! Everything appears to have gone as expected.
Orion Flight Test Live Launch
61–70 of 96 posts
Re: Orion Flight Test Live Launch
#62Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sure, and 2 years after Apollo 4 we landed on the moon. We did a few missions and haven't been back to the moon in 40 years. A Mars mission is 20 years out. You'll be an "old man" by then. It'll take another decade or two to build a permanent Mars base. What we really need is a lot less enthusiasm and a better plan.
A better plan needs more money. To secure the money the US has to be filled with enthusiasm.
Not thinking outside the box. Thankfully Elon is. Hopefully, a few other engineers/businessmen will.
NASA has a $20 billion budget. WhatsApp cost almost NASA's budget. Uber is already valued at $41 billion. Apple earned $181 billion in fiscal 2014. Perhaps a half dozen companies will create a business around space and we'll have a trillion dollar space industry to augment NASA's puny budget.
Re: Orion Flight Test Live Launch
#63Re: Orion Flight Test Live Launch
#64They just stated that the force experienced by crew on reentry would be 8g, while the force on a Soyuz capsule is just 4g. 8g is more than enough for a person to black out, this seems like a major disadvantage.
Luckily we have better computers than in the Apollo era. The capsule can pretty much fly itself.
Re: Orion Flight Test Live Launch
#65Earlier quoted context omitted.
A better plan needs more money. To secure the money the US has to be filled with enthusiasm.
Not thinking outside the box. Thankfully Elon is. Hopefully, a few other engineers/businessmen will. NASA has a $20 billion budget. WhatsApp cost almost NASA's budget. Uber is already valued at $41 billion. Apple earned $181 billion in fiscal 2014. Perhaps a half dozen companies will create a business around space and we'll have a trillion dollar space industry to augment NASA's puny budget.
My hopes are aligned with this.
I suspect that some of those companies will be run by people who got enthused by what NASA is doing now.
Re: Orion Flight Test Live Launch
#66This is awesome . Two thoughts spring to mind: 1. This is the equivalent of the Apollo 4 mission in that it also flew without a crew, and was used to prove, validate and verify that Saturn V and associated systems were fully mission-capable. 2. Events like this represent our future. Events like this are the catalysts for our future generation. The children around the world (perhaps one or more of your own) that are v…
Sure, and 2 years after Apollo 4 we landed on the moon. We did a few missions and haven't been back to the moon in 40 years. A Mars mission is 20 years out. You'll be an "old man" by then. It'll take another decade or two to build a permanent Mars base. What we really need is a lot less enthusiasm and a better plan.
A Manned Mars Mission has been 20 years out for 40 years, just like fusion power.
Re: Orion Flight Test Live Launch
#67Earlier quoted context omitted.
Makes it easier for every country in the entire world, barring the US. Liberia and Myanmar switched over.
Everybody pretends to have switched. But even Canadians translate back to Fahrenheit in their heads (ask one).
I wouldn't say so for celsius but I do find myself changing between feet / meters for certain things, like my height.
Re: Orion Flight Test Live Launch
#68This is awesome . Two thoughts spring to mind: 1. This is the equivalent of the Apollo 4 mission in that it also flew without a crew, and was used to prove, validate and verify that Saturn V and associated systems were fully mission-capable. 2. Events like this represent our future. Events like this are the catalysts for our future generation. The children around the world (perhaps one or more of your own) that are v…
>This is the equivalent of the Apollo 4 mission I'm not sure if that's the best comparision. I'm something of a cheerleader for the SLS program, but this is just a dumb capsule test. This isn't the rocket we're going to be using. That rocket isn't even built yet. Historically, rockets are hard and capsules are easy. Assuming that it stays on schedule, which is a big assumption, we won't have a test flight for the SLS…
I wouldn't discount the capsule. From the sound of it, the plan is for this to be a fairly universal capsule for years to come. If it has the longevity of Soyuz, we might be flying Orions (with design upgrades) for 40 years. That's not a bad thing.
It seems to me that NASA is backing away from building one giant integrated system. They're working on building a collection of systems that can be composed into different missions. There will be rockets, and service modules, and future space craft.
This is probably a better strategy given the political reality that you only have continuity for 4-8 years at best. No matter what the next president & congress plan, we will have a capsule that is useful. It is bought and paid for.
Also, the capsule might not be as futuristic looking as a space plan, but it is a workhorse. That's all it needs to be. The fact that you can launch it with basically any rocket that is powerful enough is a feature not a bug. I'd love to see Orions on top of SLS, future SpaceX rockets, etc. If it was something super specific it might not be able to fly on other rockets.
Re: Orion Flight Test Live Launch
#69Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sure, and 2 years after Apollo 4 we landed on the moon. We did a few missions and haven't been back to the moon in 40 years. A Mars mission is 20 years out. You'll be an "old man" by then. It'll take another decade or two to build a permanent Mars base. What we really need is a lot less enthusiasm and a better plan.
A better plan needs more money. To secure the money the US has to be filled with enthusiasm.
We've got plenty of plans -- let's pick one already!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_manned_Mars_mission_pla...
Re: Orion Flight Test Live Launch
#70Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sure, and 2 years after Apollo 4 we landed on the moon. We did a few missions and haven't been back to the moon in 40 years. A Mars mission is 20 years out. You'll be an "old man" by then. It'll take another decade or two to build a permanent Mars base. What we really need is a lot less enthusiasm and a better plan.
Speak for yourself. This is exciting. We have a plan. What we need is enthusiasm and funding.
I'm the guy who cut pictures of the Viking missions out of the paper when he was 10. I've seen lots of enthusiasm. The Shuttle, Skylab, Hubble, the Space Station, the Rovers on Mars, etc.
You are in an echo chamber of enthusiasm on HN. It doesn't translate to the rest of the America. We aren't going to magically triple NASA's budget because of enthusiasm. We canceled a larger supercollider more than CERN 20 years ago because it was a few billion over budget. We said Hubble or SSC, not both. It certainly would have been nice to learn 20 years ago what we are learning today.