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I thought I knew about all the big things that happened during the cold war and after. I never knew the truth about the Kursk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i7_LTi9l2Ss
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Feb 26, 2015 03:58
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Throatwarbler posted:So private citizen Paul Allen is building a huge plane that carries ICBMs on its belly. The first live fire of that thing is going to be a real rear end clenching experience for everyone on board I feel.
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Feb 26, 2015 06:07
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Throatwarbler posted:So private citizen Paul Allen is building a huge plane that carries ICBMs on its belly. The same payload as a regular Antares, but with a bunch more points of failure!
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Feb 26, 2015 06:23
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Yes, it's like a lava lamp.
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Somebody fucked around with this message at 21:09 on Feb 26, 2015 |
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Feb 26, 2015 06:40
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and his hair was perfect...
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Feb 26, 2015 06:48
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PittTheElder posted:The same payload as a regular Antares, but with a bunch more points of failure! How can it be cheaper than shooting a regular rocket?
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Feb 26, 2015 10:37
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It's not disposable
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Feb 26, 2015 12:39
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Can people who understand these things explain how that is better than just launching a rocket off of a pad?
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Feb 26, 2015 15:30
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evil_bunnY posted:It's not disposable But it launches a disposable three-stage rocket.
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Feb 26, 2015 15:37
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bewbies posted:Can people who understand these things explain how that is better than just launching a rocket off of a pad? The rocket has far less distance to travel vertically with its fuel, leaving more room for maneuvers, errors etc.
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Feb 26, 2015 16:19
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bewbies posted:Can people who understand these things explain how that is better than just launching a rocket off of a pad? It isn't really any better. People usually talk about how launching a rocket from a plane would save fuel by reducing the amount of vertical distance or atmosphere the rocket has to fly through to get to space. Most of the energy a rocket spends in flight is to increase its horizontal velocity to put it into orbit, and relatively little is spent getting the rocket away from the ground. Also, drag losses aren't really that big of a deal and usually only amount to a few m/s over the course of the flight. Launching from altitude would be very slightly more efficient, but the maintenance of the carrier plane would counter any savings. One advantage would be that you can fly the carrier plane to the equator for launch. This would make it slightly easier for the rocket to get into orbit because the earth is moving faster at the equator. There are already a few regular launch sites near the equator in French Guyana, so it really isn't necessary to build a special plane to do that for you. Basically it's a kind of dumb idea and I'm not sure why they're actually going through with building the thing.
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Feb 26, 2015 16:35
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Glorgnole posted:Basically it's a kind of dumb idea and I'm not sure why they're actually going through with building the thing. Because Paul Allen is an enormous airplane nerd? (Which is a perfectly good reason, if you ask me.)
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Feb 26, 2015 16:42
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bewbies posted:Can people who understand these things explain how that is better than just launching a rocket off of a pad? A large percentage of the cost of a rocket is tied up in the first stage. If you can make an air-breathing, reusable first stage, then you can make the rest of the expensive disposable parts of your rocket smaller and cheaper. And an air breathing first stage may be in a position to avoid scrubs due to weather. Problem is, an airplane isn't a very _good_ first stage. It is better than nothing (at least, theoretically could be....not demonstrated to be yet, Orbitals L-1011 launcher was about the most expensive way to launch a too-small satellite there was). Other problem is that it isn't very scalable. Having to build the largest airplane in the world to launch a middle-small sized rocket doesn't leave you an easy way to scale up. This was a much more compelling idea before SpaceX started coming really really close to getting a more conventional actually good rocket stage back. If SX nails down 1st stage reusability, and can turn engines around a reasonable number of times for a reasonable refurb cost, then there isn't a whole lot of reason to launch too-small rockets from too-big airplanes. But this project was started well before anybody was close to demonstrating flyback stages that worked. Flyback stages for reusability has been an idea since the very beginning, there were awesome plans for a piloted winged flyback first stage for the evolved Saturn V. The problem of how not to throw away your 100% of the cost of your launch vehicle every time has been on peoples minds for a good long while. Getting the first stage back and reusable is about 80% of the cost. Single Stage to Orbit/reusable is the sci-fi dream, but getting the biggest part back would still be a huge improvement. Slo-Tek fucked around with this message at 17:13 on Feb 26, 2015 |
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Feb 26, 2015 16:57
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Glorgnole posted:Basically it's a kind of dumb idea and I'm not sure why they're actually going through with building the thing. gently caress yeah, thats why.
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Feb 26, 2015 16:59
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Slo-Tek posted:A large percentage of the cost of a rocket is tied up in the first stage. If you can make an air-breathing, reusable first stage, then you can make the rest of the expensive disposable parts of your rocket smaller and cheaper. I get this makes sense but my god that plane has to be so expensive. How many disposable rockets could have been made/launched for the cost of that thing?
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Feb 26, 2015 17:13
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bewbies posted:I get this makes sense but my god that plane has to be so expensive. How many disposable rockets could have been made/launched for the cost of that thing? Well, NASA is paying 3.5 billion for 20 ISS resupply missions. (this involves developing the capsules as well as the rockets). So, if you figure the Roc will cost 3x what a 747 does (wild rear end guess, and seems high, but lets say a billion dollars), then....about 6? I don't have any idea what the rocket-part of the stratolaunch system is going to cost. Twice what a Pegasus cost is only 20 million a throw. (all of my numbers are complete bullshit out of google, and I am bad at math) And it is also possible that they'll be able to use the mothership as a heavy lifter for other work as well. Sling a cargo-pod on it and grab up some of the money Volga-Dnieper makes moving power plant and oil rig parts around when there aren't rockets to launch. I don't expect it to work out now, but looking at the market 10 years ago when this got started, it was ambitious, rather than haha stupid. Slo-Tek fucked around with this message at 17:46 on Feb 26, 2015 |
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Feb 26, 2015 17:42
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They found one of the missing nukes in Georgia  I'm really surprised this didn't get more press. This is the only place I can find that picked it up.
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Feb 26, 2015 18:10
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Red Crown posted:They found one of the missing nukes in Georgia Because it is a retarded hoax, right next to the articles about how Paul McCartney was replaced by a clone in 1966?
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Feb 26, 2015 18:16
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Red Crown posted:They found one of the missing nukes in Georgia WNDR is one of those lovely "satire" sites. It would have gotten more press if it had actually happened. E: Is E:FB'ing a guy some kind of mod secret ability? ought ten fucked around with this message at 18:26 on Feb 26, 2015 |
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Feb 26, 2015 18:16
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Red Crown posted:They found one of the missing nukes in Georgia drat, that was one of the big ones from the pre-accuracy days too. If this was a Mod 2 at 3.8MT, the explosion looks like it would do some serious damage to Savannah's suburbs at least. http://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/?&kt=3800&lat=31.9349912&lng=-80.9467636&airburst=0&hob_ft=0&zm=11 The explosion probably wouldn't be as big as that map shows because the bomb is going off underwater and there's effectively a hill between the explosion and Savannah, but I wonder how much radioactive water a 3.8MT explosion would toss into Savannah, probably a lot. Fake Edit: Or a radioactive water tsunami, that could be fun. Real Edit: Goddammit. ^^
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Feb 26, 2015 18:18
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Red Crown posted:They found one of the missing nukes in Georgia That sounded really interesting, so I googled a bit and it's a hoax. Best thing: the author is a porn star. http://lewis.armscontrolwonk.com/archive/7560/pornstars-reporting-as-fake-as-her-orgasms Though the fact there are lost nuclear weapons out there is still pretty interesting in itself. E: gently caress beaten
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Feb 26, 2015 18:21
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Slo-Tek posted:Because it is a retarded hoax, right next to the articles about how Paul McCartney was replaced by a clone in 1966? Paul is dead, so I don't see what your point is. ... 
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Feb 26, 2015 18:29
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AlexanderCA posted:That sounded really interesting, so I googled a bit and it's a hoax. Best thing: the author is a porn star. Hahaha does that Arms Control guy think the bio is real? Cascading bad satire schadenfreude is the best schadenfreude.
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Feb 26, 2015 18:30
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Now I feel dumb  Have a pic of the last hoax I fell for for a few minutes. 
AlexanderCA fucked around with this message at 20:08 on Feb 26, 2015 |
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Feb 26, 2015 20:02
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I'll never get tired of hearing about people doing this:Some Reddit user posted:During my deployment in 2010 we had a bird land in Kandahar for a downing gripe. While it was there VMFA-232 took the liberty of painting the tail hook pink. Our CO was flying the jet at the time, and got a kick out of the whole thing. He even wrote up a the discrepancy when he got back and the whole squadron had a laugh over it. I made sure to get a photo of it before it was fixed. 
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Feb 26, 2015 20:05
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MrYenko posted:Because Paul Allen is an enormous airplane nerd?
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Feb 26, 2015 20:08
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DrAlexanderTobacco posted:The rocket has far less distance to travel vertically with its fuel, leaving more room for maneuvers, errors etc. Not nearly enough to matter though. The going upwards part of reaching orbit is easy, it's the going sideways bit that's expensive. bewbies posted:I get this makes sense but my god that plane has to be so expensive. How many disposable rockets could have been made/launched for the cost of that thing? It makes sense conceptually, but Glorgnole hit the nail on the head in pointing out that the actual savings are so minuscule that it will never pay for the giant aircraft. The concept of Air Launch (and the even stupider Balloon Launch) comes up periodically in the Spaceflight Megathread; the end of the second OP post gives a more in-depth explanation of why launching at altitude doesn't save you anything. The one thing Air Launch does get you is mobility. For most launches this doesn't matter, because you could just launch from French Guiana if you really wanted to, and launching from the ground comes with all sorts of advantages with regards to pad checkout, pre-launch monitoring, and guidance. The Air Force did actually demonstrate the feasibility of air launching ICBMs in 1974 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=96A0wb1Ov9k) - the idea presumably being to have a more survivable launch base, similar to submarines - but they discarded the idea due to engineering and security challenges.
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Feb 26, 2015 23:42
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I'm bummed I missed F-35 name chat, so all I'm gonna say is When you're out of F-35's, you're out of money
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Feb 27, 2015 00:44
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AlexanderCA posted:Now I feel dumb While that picture is a photoshop, using V-22s as tankers (including for F-35s) is an actual thing the Marines are doing. The F-35 can fly normally while doing it though. 
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Feb 27, 2015 00:56
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PittTheElder posted:Not nearly enough to matter though. The going upwards part of reaching orbit is easy, it's the going sideways bit that's expensive. It's still done for weird cases like missile defense tests where you need a missile to come from a certain direction without having land to fire from in that direction but that's obviously a case of range space as opposed to saving money.
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Feb 27, 2015 01:17
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Mortabis posted:While that picture is a photoshop, using V-22s as tankers (including for F-35s) is an actual thing the Marines are doing. The F-35 can fly normally while doing it though. Can or must? I want to see them link up at speed then slow in tandemto a hover Now THERE'S your future of aerobatic display teams
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Feb 27, 2015 01:33
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simplefish posted:Can or must? I want to see them link up at speed then slow in tandemto a hover Wanna see a lift fan slurp up a drogue hose like spaghetti.
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Feb 27, 2015 01:46
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simplefish posted:Can or must? I want to see them link up at speed then slow in tandemto a hover Get eight in the air and do an Ospreybouros.
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Feb 27, 2015 02:26
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Throatwarbler posted:So private citizen Paul Allen is building a huge plane that carries ICBMs on its belly. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=96A0wb1Ov9k
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Feb 27, 2015 02:48
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Probably one of the odder aspects of the Cold War: Kim Jong-il stealing South Korean movie makers.
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Feb 27, 2015 03:26
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I'm about to have an amazing afternoon
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Feb 28, 2015 00:15
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Are you allowed to take pictures? Also, a opposition leader in Russia was just shot dead: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-31669061
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Feb 28, 2015 00:33
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resurgent Russia was funny for a hot minute but Putin is getting pretty crazy
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Feb 28, 2015 01:18
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Nebakenezzer posted:Are you allowed to take pictures? He should be able to. We certainly did when I went out there.
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Feb 28, 2015 01:30
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TTF was amazing. Greatest playground I've ever visited. Then we saw an F-35 and I recounted the joke someone made on here about "how it even looks like it's held together with duct tape," within earshot of a testing engineer headed to his car, who then proceeded to lecture me about how effective it is. Best. Day. Ever.
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Feb 28, 2015 02:21
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