The "Real Aerospace" Thread

[Grayhome]

was bound to happen

now it just a matter of what do we do

I vote we fund Nasa to produce rocket engines! More jobs for the United States!

[GeoModder]

was bound to happen

now it just a matter of what do we do

I vote we fund Nasa to produce rocket engines! More jobs for the United States!

Vote for the private industry to produce said rockets! Double the jobs during competition&bidding time!

[Arioch]

Oh noes!

http://www.theguardian.com/science/2014 ... -sanctions

This was part of the same action as the refusal to extend the ISS operating date past 2020, and it's just as meaningless. It just means more work for American aerospace companies (and, in the short term, perhaps a few French ones).

It doesn't bother or surprise me that Russia is trying to be a bully, it's just amazing how bad they are at it.

[Nemo]

Symbolic and useless, much like the Wests response to the Ukraine affair over all. Aside from that, a great deal of their movement isn't meant for Western audiences but domestic ones. And Moscow sees its former satellites as domestic ones.

[Arioch]

Symbolic and useless, much like the Wests response to the Ukraine affair over all.

Well... when your power base consists of corrupt plutocrats, this may be a case in which economics sanctions against them can have more than a symbolic effect. I agree that it won't change things on the ground in Ukraine in the short term, but in the long term it may be a different story.

[Nemo]

Have to disagree if only because of the economic and social benefits to the corrupt plutocrats that securing Gazproms continued hegemony over Eastern Europe guarantees. Ukraine and Georgia both involved themselves in attempts to route in oil and gas from outside Russia, both get the hammer as they distance themselves from Moscow. Neither case gets any meaningful response. Compared to what Moscow stands to gain from taking these actions the sanctions, so far at least, are incomparable.

Really the weakness of sanctions is itself a hold over of the Cold War, there is no strong trade base. The economy of Russia can run without much interdependence on the US Germany UK etc. so those in power don't have much exposed that can be threatened. Most of their international trade is with those dependent on Russia's gas supply and allies (or, maybe frenemies?) like China.


Heh actually just checked OEC, was surprised to see Netherlands at their top export position with 9%. China and Germany took 2nd and 3rd. Fully 2/3rds of their export is oil/gas supply to the former Eastern Block though.

[Zakharra]

Have to disagree if only because of the economic and social benefits to the corrupt plutocrats that securing Gazproms continued hegemony over Eastern Europe guarantees. Ukraine and Georgia both involved themselves in attempts to route in oil and gas from outside Russia, both get the hammer as they distance themselves from Moscow. Neither case gets any meaningful response. Compared to what Moscow stands to gain from taking these actions the sanctions, so far at least, are incomparable.

Really the weakness of sanctions is itself a hold over of the Cold War, there is no strong trade base. The economy of Russia can run without much interdependence on the US Germany UK etc. so those in power don't have much exposed that can be threatened. Most of their international trade is with those dependent on Russia's gas supply and allies (or, maybe frenemies?) like China.


Heh actually just checked OEC, was surprised to see Netherlands at their top export position with 9%. China and Germany took 2nd and 3rd. Fully 2/3rds of their export is oil/gas supply to the former Eastern Block though.

It's highly likely those nations will be actively distancing themselves from Russia. As much as Russia wants its Empire back, it's not going to happen unless active force is used. The Eastern European nations do NOT like Russia and its heavy handed antics. The more it tries to use it's gas and oil reserves (which are finite..) to pull those nations into its grasp, the more it is pushing those nations to find ways to get out from under Russia's shadow. Russia promising/implying it's going to cut off flights to the ISS is going to push the EU and USA to pour money into their own programs. In a few years they won't need Russia and will have little incentive to work with it.

The Russian economy is vulnerable in many ways, mainly, if Europe finds alternative sources of gas and oil, there goes a huge chunk of Russia's exports. Much of Russia's money is made from the sale of gas and oil, if the market dries up somewhat, they will take a hit economically. Sanctions will hurt.

Either way the end result of what Russia is doing is going to alienate it's neighbors, most whom do not have any good reason to trust Russia in the first place.

It'll be nice to see what the space race turns into now.

[Nemo]

It's highly likely those nations will be actively distancing themselves from Russia.

We say the same things are going to happen but you think they wont use force where I say they will continue to use force. Call me a pessimist, I'd like to be wrong. But given Moscow's belligerence over the last 15 years I have a hard time believing they will turn over a new leaf without... a significant prod.

[icekatze]

hi hi

Russia and the USA are like two peas in a pod, both good at finding pretexts to meddle, invade, or install puppet leaders, both reasonably isolated from foreign pressure. Like with Cuba, when the situation was reversed, I suspect that the only people who will be losing over Ukraine are the people of the Ukraine. (Unless a major conflict actually does break out, god forbid.)

[Mjolnir]

If for some reason this standoff is still going on 6 years from now, all Russia will be doing with a boycott is taking money out of Russian contractors' pockets and redirecting it to American contractors. They're doing us a favor by lighting a fire under the people responsible for funding the American manned program.

"We’re now looking at launching from U.S. soil in 2017," NASA spokesperson Allard Beutel told Mashable in April. "The choice here is between fully funding the plan to bring space launches back to America or continuing to send millions of dollars to the Russians. It’s that simple."

SpaceX says they're actually on track for starting manned launches in 2016. That's not too unrealistic, given that they're doing pad and in-flight abort tests sometime this year or next. Basically, another two years and half a billion dollars of combined SpaceX and CCDev funding, for about a billion dollars total.

Boeing's CST-100 has been aimed at 2017, but may be delayed by needing to be moved to the Delta IV or Falcon 9, and isn't really economical on the Delta IV.

Dream Chaser is overweight for the Falcon 9, isn't even going to do an orbital test flight until 2016 (scheduled for an Atlas V that may not be obtainable), is more complex to begin with, and SNC has less experience than Boeing and SpaceX. I'm not really hopeful.

Unfortunately, while Congress bumped up the Commercial Crew funding a bit this time around, they still under-funded it, and are again pressuring NASA to downselect to a single choice. That means no backup if one has delays in development or is grounded due to problems found later on. And of course, the Orion alone gets a bigger budget than the entire Commercial Crew program...$1.14 billion for this year alone.

http://www.parabolicarc.com/2014/05/01/52272/

[Mjolnir]

Unfortunately, while Congress bumped up the Commercial Crew funding a bit this time around, they still under-funded it, and are again pressuring NASA to downselect to a single choice.

And now Senator Shelby's making another attempt to kill it off.

These commercial programs are operated under fixed price contracts. A company agrees to do something for a given amount of money, they do it and get the agreed amount of money. These contracts are politically unpopular, as opportunities for pork are much more sharply limited than under cost-plus contracts. Shelby is trying to force the companies operating under commercial fixed-price contracts to comply with all the accounting controls and such imposed on cost-plus contracts, adding mountains of overhead and red tape, exposing details of internal operations to competitors, etc.

http://www.parabolicarc.com/2014/06/04/ ... cial-crew/

[Arioch]

The colonization of space can now begin in earnest. Italy's Lavazza company has developed ISSpresso, an espresso machine that can operate in microgravity.

[Hālian]

Oooh. Here we go!

[GeoModder]

Let's all Espress our gratitude!

[pinheadh78]

Harrier pilots are awesome.

Puts the jet on the deck without the nose gear using a landing gear maintenance repair stool to hold up the front.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=p ... 9tvdjDAr1U

[Senanthes]

Coffee in space and Harrier: Legendary Mode... Which is more epic is up for debate.

[NuclearIceCream]

The AV-8B thing was cool and all, but c'mon guys. Coffee in space. What can compete?

[Mr.Tucker]

Now here's something I find really interesting (and scary; Star Trek got a lot of things right):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9M8yht_ofHc

[icekatze]

hi hi

In its very early stages, Star Trek made an honest attempt at using real science. Originally, phasers were supposed to be lasers, but they were told to change it to make it sound more futuristic. And in the 60s, people thought that when you annihilated antimatter, most of the resulting energy would be in the form of photons, hence the name of the torpedos. (Of course now, they've got a whole branch of pseudo-science 'photonic particles,' to do magic stuff. Also, originally they wanted to use shuttle craft to get around, but didn't have the budget, so transporters were invented as a cost saving plot device.

I don't think anyone is going to break the speed of light, and I don't think scarce taxpayer money should be spent on something that is very likely a sham. If they do invent a warp drive that lets them go faster than light, I hope people are ready to come up with some rules to govern time travel.

[discord]

harrier is a awesome plane too.
but on his comment 'there is no way to train for a landing like this' i disagree, he previously stated that they pride themselves on being able to land in the exact same spot every time, sounds like training for that exact situation in me ears.

ice: Alcubierre drive points to it being theoretically possible to move between two points in space faster than light does, without actually doing so...

my personal theory on the subject involves a likeness with the speed of sound, there are surprising amounts of similarities actually.
basically there is some kind of drag or something, that makes it very difficult to go faster, overcoming that and you go faster, pretty straight forward, how is another matter entirely though, because classic reaction engine just will not get the job done, something else is needed, just like proper wing and body shape was needed for supersonic flight, not just more power.

WHAT exactly that something else is however, that i do not know.