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Tevery Best posted:If anything, this makes the situation worse. If you know that your discovery will be used by a totalitarian regime as a weapon against civilians, and you still not only agree to make it, but actively lobby for it to be made, you are a culprit. It doesn't matter whether or not you ultimately just want to go to space, or that there's no other way. You can live without making rockets, it's not like you can't just stop researching that poo poo nobody besides you cares about. We're discussing the HISTORY of rockets. This is history, arguing against it is not going to change it. If it upsets you, go to D&D and talk about it. Nobody is saying it was a good thing, hell, nobody is trying to JUSTIFY the V-2 here. But it is still an essential and key component to rocket development and the space race. Tevery Best posted:You can live without making rockets, it's not like you can't just stop researching that poo poo nobody besides you cares about. Actually, not likely. The Nazis became distinctly aware that they chased off a lot of their brightest minds around the middle of the war, and were desperate. Von Braun's work was known well before the Nazis arrived, and he would have likely been either arrested and thrown into a concentration camp himself or killed. Slight Off Topic: How do you justify the Manhattan project? Or the Allied Bombing Campaign? CommieGIR fucked around with this message at 16:07 on Oct 31, 2014 |
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Oct 31, 2014 15:55
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It's not like the Nazis were going to use those resources and slave laborers for something that WASN'T a weapon. If it wasn't Von Braun it might have been the America Bomber or something.
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Oct 31, 2014 16:17
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CommieGIR posted:The Nazis became distinctly aware that they chased off a lot of their brightest minds around the middle of the war, and were desperate. Von Braun's work was known well before the Nazis arrived, and he would have likely been either arrested and thrown into a concentration camp himself or killed. The Nazi nuclear program didn’t accomplish much and no one seemed to care. We know now that that was a much harder problem than unguided rockets, but I don’t think it’s out of the question that Von Braun could have stalled and gotten away with it. There’s also an argument to be made that the rocketry program had a terrible cost/benefit ratio and helped the Allies by siphoning German resources from conventional armaments. That wasn’t Von Braun’s motive, of course, but in hindsight perhaps it was for the best that he continued his work.
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Oct 31, 2014 16:18
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Platystemon posted:The Nazi nuclear program didn’t accomplish much and no one seemed to care. We know now that that was a much harder problem than unguided rockets, but I don’t think it’s out of the question that Von Braun could have stalled and gotten away with it. Pretty much, and for the most part the Nuclear Program stalled right after the discovery of Fission, partially because Hitler didn't spare the resources, partially because he thought it was going nowhere (ironically, he was right). For the most part, MOST of what the Germans did militarily was a huge waste of expensive and rare resources they didn't have to spare, and the V-2 sucked those down like candy, and Hitler was still willing to throw more into it, despite that the V-2 didn't really have any discernible effect upon the war effort. Hell, their tank program sucked so much resources into advanced but broken machines. CommieGIR fucked around with this message at 16:25 on Oct 31, 2014 |
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Oct 31, 2014 16:22
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CommieGIR posted:Pretty much, and for the most part the Nuclear Program stalled right after the discovery of Fission, partially because Hitler didn't spare the resources, partially because he thought it was going nowhere. Well the V-2 didn't use avgas so that alone makes it more practical than most of hitler's crazy projects.
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Oct 31, 2014 16:28
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CommieGIR posted:We're discussing the HISTORY of rockets. This is history, arguing against it is not going to change it. If it upsets you, go to D&D and talk about it. True, and I'm not trying to say that rockets as an idea are bad and that going to space is bad. I'm just disagreeing with your evaluation of von Braun as a person. I simply don't think his choices were justifiable and consider him to be a bad person. Post more rockets, please.
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Oct 31, 2014 16:31
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CommieGIR posted:For the most part, MOST of what the Germans did militarily was a huge waste of expensive and rare resources they didn't have to spare, and the V-2 sucked those down like candy, and Hitler was still willing to throw more into it, despite that the V-2 didn't really have any discernible effect upon the war effort. True; the V-2 program cost more than the Manhattan project, and each V-2 required some 40 tons of potatoes for its alcohol propellant. Another good aeronautical example is the He 177: over a thousand were made, but only half that number were ever used operationally. When it comes to tanks, though, it is a lot more complicated.
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Oct 31, 2014 16:40
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Tevery Best posted:True, and I'm not trying to say that rockets as an idea are bad and that going to space is bad. I'm just disagreeing with your evaluation of von Braun as a person. I simply don't think his choices were justifiable and consider him to be a bad person. Just to be clear: Von Braun's work is all I care about, as a person, he is too muddled between his shady past with the Nazis and his work with the US Army and NASA. But, yes, more rockets. I skipped this one due to it being an abject failure, but its failure was key to Von Braun being allowed to continue his work on space destined rocketry: While the Von Braun was pushing for the Jupiter-C as a satellite lifter, the US Navy was given the first go to try to match the Soviets Sputnik, the Navy answered with Vanguard:  Vanguard was rushed up to try to take some initiative back from the Soviets Sputnik, however the first launch (and the televised one at that) lost its main engines four feet off the pad, giving Von Braun the argument he needed to launch his Jupiter-C. Explorer 1 was launched shortly after, the first US satellite. However, the Navy revamped Vanguard and managed to put a satellite into orbit, our first solar powered satellite, Vanguard 1. Its the oldest orbiting man made satellite still, as Sputnik re-entered the atmosphere in 1958. NASA took over control of development of Vangaurd after its establishment, but as Vanguard was just another V-2 knock off, it was past is prime. Now, on the the start of the 1950s: Those tractor bound Eastern farmers did WHAT?! The first wake up call for the US Rocket program came in the form of quiet beeps in the sky, launched by what would continue to be the centerpiece of the Russian space program to this day: The R-7  The R-7, or the 'semyorka' (Group of 7 in Russian), was ahead of its time, and fairly advanced by even US standards. While the R-7 was the worlds first true ICBM with a range of 5,500 miles, it was also almost purely a Russian design, getting away from the R-1 and R-5 which were V-2 based. It used different control setups as well, using its rocket motors as controls instead of vanes like the V-2/R-5.  The R-7 continues to serve in one form or another as the main lifting body of the Russian Space Program. The unique rocket pattern observed during seperation of the 4 booster tanks has come to be known as the Korolev's cross, after Sergey Korolev, the father of the R-7. The drawbacks of the R-7 as an ICBM were immense however: They could not be staged in a silo, and they took 20 hours to fully fuel so a first strike would be out of the question as they would be seen fueling up via the U-2 nearly half a day before launch. Sputnik was both a wake up call and an early warning: It let the Americans know that the Russians could strike at range, but ironically, the Americans could now observe every ICBM they owned with relative impunity. As an ICBM, only 10 were active at any given time. The RD-107 was the mainstay powerplant of the R-7, and still is to this day  Each set of four produced 180,000 lbs of thrust at sea level, and 220,000 lbs in vacuum, an incredible amount for its day. To be fair, this post does NOT do the R-7 justice, and its effect upon the Space Race and the Cold War was so immense, it remains one of my favorites to this day. Next, The American Catch up Game, or: "Which One of You Bitches wants to Dance?" CommieGIR fucked around with this message at 17:20 on Oct 31, 2014 |
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Oct 31, 2014 16:52
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Platystemon posted:There’s also an argument to be made that the rocketry program had a terrible cost/benefit ratio and helped the Allies by siphoning German resources from conventional armaments. That wasn’t Von Braun’s motive, of course, but in hindsight perhaps it was for the best that he continued his work. "… those of us who were seriously engaged in the war were very grateful to Wernher von Braun. We knew that each V-2 cost as much to produce as a high-performance fighter airplane. We knew that German forces on the fighting fronts were in desperate need of airplanes, and that the V-2 rockets were doing us no military damage. From our point of view, the V-2 program was almost as good as if Hitler had adopted a policy of unilateral disarmament." (Freeman Dyson)[45]
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Oct 31, 2014 16:53
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I'm sorry but this revisionist nonsense about Von Braun really needs to be put in check. Go read up on Mittelwerk, the slave labor camp that he used to build his rockets, and then come back and try and claim with a straight face that he had nothing to do with war crimes. If people are interested in the Soviet rocketry program, you can download all four parts of Boris Chertok's memoirs, Rockets and People, for free from NASA: http://www.nasa.gov/connect/ebooks/rockets_people_vol1_detail.html#.VFO3cPTF94M It's very long, but very very interesting. drgitlin fucked around with this message at 17:23 on Oct 31, 2014 |
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Oct 31, 2014 17:21
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drgitlin posted:I'm sorry but this revisionist nonsense about Von Braun really needs to be put in check. Go read up on Mittelwerk, the slave labor camp that he used to build his rockets, and then come back and try and claim with a straight face that he had nothing to do with war crimes. I don't recall anyone saying he didn't have anything to do with it. Buuuuuttttt... wdarkk posted:It's not like the Nazis were going to use those resources and slave laborers for something that WASN'T a weapon. If it wasn't Von Braun it might have been the America Bomber or something. Slave labor was going to be used, regardless if it was the V-2 or some other weapons project. Von Braun not being an active rocketeer during the war would not have changed the actions of the SS towards the Soviet and Ukrainian prisoners that worked in the factories. If anything, they would've just killed them quicker. The SS were keen to take over the V-2 project anyways, and tried to use Von Braun's laments about the project as grounds to arrest him for Communist sympathies and defeatism and remove the project from the Wehrmacht control. CommieGIR fucked around with this message at 17:27 on Oct 31, 2014 |
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Oct 31, 2014 17:25
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Yeah, I'm not sure "hey these slaves were just hanging around so we may as well have used them" is any better an excuse than "I was just following orders;" and the latter was good enough to get you a rope necktie at Nuremburg.
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Oct 31, 2014 17:29
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drgitlin posted:Yeah, I'm not sure "hey these slaves were just hanging around so we may as well have used them" is any better an excuse than "I was just following orders;" and the latter was good enough to get you a rope necktie at Nuremburg. And yet without the V-2 the Holocaust would still have happened. Are you done arguing about the unchangeable semantics of World War 2 and the disgusting atrocities of the Nazis? We're trying to talk rockets here. I've already pointed out: The ONLY reason Von Braun is being discussed here is because of his work with rockets. That's it. I'm well aware of what happened in the factories, but despite the inhumane and disgusting evil of the SS and what Von Braun might have done, Von Brauns work is still key to the history of rocketry, so lay off. CommieGIR fucked around with this message at 17:38 on Oct 31, 2014 |
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Oct 31, 2014 17:33
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Tevery Best posted:You can live without making rockets, it's not like you can't just stop researching that poo poo nobody besides you cares about.
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Oct 31, 2014 17:36
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drgitlin posted:I'm sorry but this revisionist nonsense about Von Braun really needs to be put in check. Go read up on Mittelwerk, the slave labor camp that he used to build his rockets, and then come back and try and claim with a straight face that he had nothing to do with war crimes. Dude we just like rockets and airplanes. Take this poo poo somewhere else.
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Oct 31, 2014 17:38
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Bob A Feet posted:Dude we just like rockets and airplanes. Take this poo poo somewhere else. I'm pretty sure contributing the links to Rockets and People counts as liking planes and rockets. Don't worry, I won't derail this any more pointing out the moral bankrupcy at the heart of the Apollo program again. But go read Rockets and People, seriously, if you're a space nerd it's the motherlode.
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Oct 31, 2014 17:43
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drgitlin posted:Yeah, I'm not sure "hey these slaves were just hanging around so we may as well have used them" is any better an excuse than "I was just following orders;" and the latter was good enough to get you a rope necktie at Nuremburg. "Following orders" was a perfectly acceptable defense if you were not a general officer, top civilian official and were not in the SS.
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Oct 31, 2014 18:09
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Well poo poo, SpaceShipTwo suffered an "anomaly", one pilot is being reported dead.  http://www.thedailybeast.com/cheats/2014/10/31/richard-branson-s-spacecraft-crashes.html
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Oct 31, 2014 19:40
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drat...
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Oct 31, 2014 19:42
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There's a couple photos on Twitter...doesn't look all that hot.
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Oct 31, 2014 19:51
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 oof. To bad for all involved but at risk of sounding like an unfeeling jerk, this cannot bode well for the future of VG can it?
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Oct 31, 2014 19:59
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Not good. One fatality and one got out via parachute but has major injuries, apparently.
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Oct 31, 2014 20:24
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slidebite posted:
It really doesn't. At the risk of being more of an unfeeling jerk, while the news have been breaking, more people have died on the roads. And they were probably less conscious of the risk. But there is something about exploding rare flying things that tends to deflate the rare flying things business. That said, it was a new motor. I wonder if it went through the same testing regime as the rubber/oxygen rocket of SpaceShipOne - which also killed people, but on the ground. Apparently the Virgin Galactic did chance the corporate culture quite a bit and (this is utter, total speculation on my part) one might wonder if the ghosts of bean counting and go-fever might lurk behind this aerospace disaster like so many others. New engine info and ominous tweet.
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Oct 31, 2014 20:33
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Ola posted:It really doesn't. At the risk of being more of an unfeeling jerk, while the news have been breaking, more people have died on the roads. And they were probably less conscious of the risk. When people freak out over the rare airliner going down, it's not rational. But spaceship two killed a person in its third powered flight. I'll take a car over those odds.
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Oct 31, 2014 20:49
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mlmp08 posted:When people freak out over the rare airliner going down, it's not rational. But spaceship two killed a person in its third powered flight. I'll take a car over those odds. 3rd powered flight with that engine. They'd been using an underpowered rubber/nitrous engine for 40 or something low rate powered test flights for the last couple years.
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Oct 31, 2014 20:52
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 drat it Virgin...
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Oct 31, 2014 20:54
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Can't remember if it was said in this thread or the Spaceflight thread, but I agree with the sentiment that the days of hybrid rockets are probably about over. The whole rationale 10-15 years ago was that developing a traditional liquid-fueled engine would be too complex/expensive/beyond the scope of a private company, and that hybrids would be a more reliable route to success. Now it's 2014 and SpaceX is launching a few missions every month with in-house liquids (which are the best ever built by some metrics); meanwhile, even before today's accident, Virgin hasn't even gotten SS2 into a suborbital flight, whereas their original plans had them finishing development on the full-orbital SpaceShip3 by now.
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Oct 31, 2014 21:01
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Fucknag posted:Can't remember if it was said in this thread or the Spaceflight thread, but I agree with the sentiment that the days of hybrid rockets are probably about over. The whole rationale 10-15 years ago was that developing a traditional liquid-fueled engine would be too complex/expensive/beyond the scope of a private company, and that hybrids would be a more reliable route to success. Yeah, not to rain on current events, but I always suspected Virgin Galactic was never going to be a real competitor to SpaceX and others, unfortunately. Still, a tragic event.
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Oct 31, 2014 21:04
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Slo-Tek posted:3rd powered flight with that engine. They'd been using an underpowered rubber/nitrous engine for 40 or something low rate powered test flights for the last couple years. Ah, of course. Still pretty rough odds, but such is being a test pilot on cutting edge programs.
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Oct 31, 2014 21:05
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Slo-Tek posted:3rd powered flight with that engine. They'd been using an underpowered rubber/nitrous engine for 40 or something low rate powered test flights for the last couple years. I thought this was to be the first powered flight of their new engine (well, new solid composition)?
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Oct 31, 2014 21:09
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Okan170 posted:I thought this was to be the first powered flight of their new engine (well, new solid composition)? I could be wrong. I thought they flew it a lot more than that.
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Oct 31, 2014 21:10
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That's not good for your brand image when you're trying to do something new. I wonder if VG will continue. (Probably, cos Branson be crazy)
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Oct 31, 2014 21:22
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the good thing about billionaires is they aren't really subject to the whims of the taxpayers, and going off of Branson's past history I wouldn't be surprised if this made him double down on the whole thing
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Oct 31, 2014 21:26
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Rest in Peace SS2 and Pilot https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zxsJeND_D-k
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Oct 31, 2014 21:43
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Slo-Tek posted:I could be wrong. I thought they flew it a lot more than that. They've flown the rubber motor, but according to their press conference this was the first flight of this newer formulation and they had expected no anomalies after their ground tests.
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Oct 31, 2014 22:25
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Antares kaboom w/ bonus shockwave + screaming children: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XVraKciwzwQ
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Nov 1, 2014 00:12
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Not gonna lie, I made a oof sound when the shockwave hit.
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Nov 1, 2014 02:00
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There's a fascinating piece over at War is Boring about the X-20 DynaSoar program: https://medium.com/war-is-boring/wondering-what-the-u-s-air-forces-secretive-spaceplane-can-do-history-offers-clues-9b5a30ea7084
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Nov 1, 2014 02:44
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Hardcore History is mentioned a lot on the forums. The Logical Insanity episode talks about issues around using the atomic weapons to end WWII. Mostly, it has a lot of talk about the adaptation of air power into war tactics through the turn of the century into WWII. Thought it fitting for the past few pages discussion. http://www.dancarlin.com/product/hardcore-history-42-blitz-logical-insanity/
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Nov 1, 2014 07:38
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CommieGIR posted:Rest in Peace SS2 and Pilot That was beautiful.
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Nov 1, 2014 07:59
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