31–40 of 124 posts
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> But we were not _really_ behind. We should keep telling ourselves that. It may also help us convince ourselves that our arsehole is indeed the best place for our head to be.
Also, Explorer 1 had scientific payload (which discovered the Van-Allen belts), unlike Sputnik
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What kind of manned missions do you have in mind?
That's the point: we may not know until we have days or hours remaining to achieve them.
Whatever doomsday scenario you are concerned about, it's not a realistic goal.
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We can launch things to space, yes. But we don't have any vehicles that have life support, abort, or re-entry capabilities. It would be a short, one-way trip. So no, we really can't send anyone to space right now. And the Soyuz is actually pretty safe, relatively speaking. Aside from two notable failures early on, Soyuz hasn't had a fatality in 27 years.
We launched an Orion into orbit on top of a Delta IV, no? We could do that again and put people in if we were willing to accept the risk.
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> What happens if US and Russian relations break down? Isn't it literally the case that if the US wanted to send people into space on their own hardware they could do it with months of lead time with the Falcon 9, Delta IV etc.? Those rockets aren't "human rated", but are they (particularly the Delta IV) any less safe then the Soyuz or Chinese rockets? I.e. this seems more of a "we have some rockets, but it's cheaper…
We can launch things to space, yes. But we don't have any vehicles that have life support, abort, or re-entry capabilities. It would be a short, one-way trip. So no, we really can't send anyone to space right now. And the Soyuz is actually pretty safe, relatively speaking. Aside from two notable failures early on, Soyuz hasn't had a fatality in 27 years.
The decision to go for a lander with wings and wheels looked so progressive then, and looks so misguided from today's point of view. NASA could build upon decades of expertise with Apollo-like spacecrafts today in order to build their Orion. Having switched to a shuttle, now they have to begin from scratch.
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Not really, there are commercial agreements in place between both SpaceX and Boeing, and Nasa, as part of its Commercial Crew Programme. The current estimates are that they will not launch until 2018, three years behind the original schedule: http://www.parabolicarc.com/2016/09/01/nasa-oig-report-delay... I also have customers who have been sold slots for their satellites on Falcon Heavy which is now 4 years behind s…
Countering "there's no economic reason to put humans into orbit" with "but look at these commercial programs 100% paid by the government" isn't really a rebuke, you're just making the OPs point for them. It's only commercial in the sense that say there's say commercial manufacturing of ballistic missile submarines. It's just an implementation detail of how the US (v.s. say China) does manufacturing for purely state-s…
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Valid confusion. Correct headline would be "Taikonauts enter China's space station" Cosmonauts = Russian Taikonauts = Chinese Astronauts = Western
Can we stop this? It's the modern-day version of the victorian collective noun parlour game, and just as stupid.
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Countering "there's no economic reason to put humans into orbit" with "but look at these commercial programs 100% paid by the government" isn't really a rebuke, you're just making the OPs point for them. It's only commercial in the sense that say there's say commercial manufacturing of ballistic missile submarines. It's just an implementation detail of how the US (v.s. say China) does manufacturing for purely state-s…
They (SpaceX at least) are not 100% funded by the government.
So how is any of this a counterargument to stickfigure's "manned orbit is motivated by prestige, not rational economic behavior"?
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We can launch things to space, yes. But we don't have any vehicles that have life support, abort, or re-entry capabilities. It would be a short, one-way trip. So no, we really can't send anyone to space right now. And the Soyuz is actually pretty safe, relatively speaking. Aside from two notable failures early on, Soyuz hasn't had a fatality in 27 years.
> We can launch things to space, yes. But we don't have any vehicles that have life support, abort, or re-entry capabilities. Dragon has all three. The reason there are not people it right now is just that there is not enough experience with it to rule it safe. If the risk was ruled worth it, the very next CRS mission could take people up to the ISS.
dragon V2, scheduled to do its maiden flight sometime in 2017 will have.