SunlitZelkova

I say both, with the constraint being economics. For example, some B2 Super Battle Droids had rocket launcher arms instead of the standard dual hand/blaster, of course at the cost of an arm. So you build a few droids with that arm like the CIS did, and then larger numbers of “handed” droids that are multipurpose, allowing the streamlining of production. More designs and more parts cost more $$$, so it would be better to have one droid for piloting capital ships, standard infantry, tanks (AATs), security, low level commanders, and so on. They even had a firefighting role onboard the Malevolence. Sounds economic and useful to me, and in Legends/EU apparently Sidious actually had to hold back battle droid production because the CIS could have won if they hadn’t been handicapped by him. As for what would be best for a big mech? A big mech would operate like a tank instead of infantry, so it would probably be better to have a weapon arm.

When I visited the Tsuchiura tank museum (located on a JGSDF base) we had to fax the application… in 2019.

There is a hut in Buryatia, wherein lives a psychic. The entire mass of digital technologies and historical developments since 1845 are an illusion. We have been hypnotized. The Empire never ended.

I did a little research about this, and I’m skeptical like @DDE. It does appear IQ scores may be on the decline in the US. But low IQ scores don’t necessarily make one “dumb,” just as having a high IQ score doesn’t make you smart. So there isn’t really good data to support that claim, leaving us with anecdotes. There’s also a question of what constitutes making one “dumb.” I think someone with good morals and helps out at the community center, but who can’t do long division and needs help remembering to shower is “smarter” than a cyber criminal who has a high IQ and is a master at programming, but extorts people and ruins their lives. On the other hand, a single thread from r/Teachers says teachers from kindergarten to high school are having harder times teaching their kids and helping them succeed. But again, that’s anecdotal (and anonymous). Lastly, another opinion of mine is that we are too biased to give an appropriate assessment of ourselves right now. People thought they were brilliant making their decisions in the post-World War I world, and 30 years later those very decisions showed, with hindsight, to have resulted in yet another disastrous war. Only time will tell if individual leaders of today and the society (also made up of individuals, young and old) of today supposed to hold them accountable were “smart” or “dumb.” And one more thing. I can’t help but let my small amount of studies in anthropology influence me and call out these very biased assumptions of what is dumb and what is smart. If you plopped some of these kids who are supposedly dumb into an African tribal environment (equipped with knowledge of the language and required customs for survival) I'm sure they’d be as “smart” as any other tribesperson. Being smart comes in all shapes and sizes, not just the developed world’s mass produced made-for-consumers stereotype of what is smart. It’s not their fault for being born into a society that has clearly failed them. In fact if kids today are dumb, that means their parents and other leaders responsible for educating and raising them and even dumber. It’s not the kids’ fault. Unless we are proposing some physical factor in their supposed dumbness instead of things like education and other elements society, which I would be even more skeptical of.

It was in the movie trailers thread. I’m super hyped!

https://www.koin.com/news/portland/report-bolts-for-door-plug-on-alaska-airlines-flight-1282-were-missing-during-takeoff/ The door plug bolts weren’t even installed when it took off. Boeing accepts responsibility and vows to do better. By the way, the full 19 page NTSB report is present in this article at the bottom. EDIT- For clarification, it is a preliminary report.

Just an aesthetic suggestion. Stars are present on the flags of the big two space powers- China and the US. So the base could represent being from either. The five points of the star would basically just be the biggest modules of the base. Smaller ones could be scattered about. I was thinking a similar design for the core module. Not too big, mostly utilities and stuff.

Carve the face of Konstantin Tsiolkovsky into the side of a nearby mountain, Mount Rushmore style. I suggest taking design cues from the constructivist movement. Melnikov House, ideal for laboratory modules. Hotel Iset, perhaps a model of a mass colonist housing. Modules would ideally be arranged in a five pointed star configuration with the power module in the middle, supplied by a light nuclear reactor. Instead of having normal hallways, transport between modules would be done by horizontal conveyor belt/escalator, like those ones at the airport people use to move faster while walking. An aerospacedrome for landers would need to be located at least a couple kilometers away and perhaps have paved surfaces.

Today I learned this term, and I don't really understand why it is this way (I understand what it refers to, but not why "fertilizer." Is fertilizer dumb or something?).

I prefer the theory Star Wars is just a long dream of Indiana Jones during his nap with Marion by his side on that steamer they took that later got intercepted by the U-Boat.

They can. It was a top secret Imperial project in the later years prior to the Battle of Yavin. RE: Vader finding Leia, my guess is that because the Tantive IV is shown to have launched from that Rebel capital ship, a droid to two plugged into the flight computers and figured out where the ship was due to travel. Just a random guess, because during the Imperial era, only one ship was ever capable of hyper space tracking and it was destroyed circa 2 BBY.

I bought a model train set recently. I'm still working on some stuff to display around it (also in N Scale) but I'll have to post pictures here if my cat attacks it.

Culture can change though. China had abysmal engineering and manufacturing practices as late as the 1980s. By the 1990s it was booming, and of course it became the second largest economy in the world in 2010. I don't know whether that can work with individual companies though. China had the advantage of being guided by the state to a great extent.

Were commercial launches with Delta and Atlas back in the 1990s and 2000s ever shown on TV? I either did not exist or was very little back then so I wouldn't know. I'm not sure if this is a good example. By comparison, I don't recall Delta IV Heavy streams being heavily watched. They certainly get as much traffic on this forum as any F9 launch (not a lot). Both DIVH and F9 pale in comparison to how the thread becomes "Hot!!!" when Starship launches. Unless you are talking about the landings, in which case, yeah, it is impressive how it has become normal. I wonder if there is historical precedent. Did people still fawn over airplanes 9 years after the first flight at Kitty Hawk? It would depend on the country, of course.

It better, even without stopping in LLO, because for my world where the Constellation program succeeds and Musk dies in a car crash in 2012 or so, I was planning to have Red Dragon derived craft be the primary lunar base resupply vehicle (the LSAM with a cargo module would not be able to fly often enough) in the late 2020s.

But you only know if a rocket is not going to explode if it goes through testing. Your proposed vehicle is nowhere near close to testing. Starship and HLS are, and thus will "not explode" much faster than your proposed lander. The creation of any vehicle is a "from the ground up" process. Things change during the detailed design process as issues that weren't realized during the concept phase become known. Variants of your proposed spacecraft might exist, but the actual spacecraft do not. What you are saying is like saying that SLS was "already here" in 2015 because all it is is RS-25s from the Shuttle, a redesigned external tank, SRBs with an extra segment, and a Centaur upper stage. History has clearly shown that utilizing existing components to create a new rocket "fast" is not fast.

"There is beauty in simplicity."- Anonymous

When I read this it just made me think of an aerial version of the Pr. 2 class guard ship lol.

Starship HLS already has a prototype flying in the form of the current ships, and has already appeared in metal in the form of mockups. Even the tanker variants have been manufactured in some form, IIRC. How is this new lander going to get ahead of something that already exists? If we look at a very casual, off the top of my head list of what a rocket needs to do before flying- Become a concept (be birthed as an idea) Undergo preliminary design Build prototype Undergo testing Get certified Fly Starship is currently at Stage 4, HLS is inbetween 3 and 4. Yours is currently at 1. Especially if this lander is going to be contracted out to someone like Boeing or Northrop Grumman, how do you expect these companies with their oldspace way of doing things to overtake Starship development? If you had made this proposal in 2019 I think it would make sense. But there is just no reason to do this now, at this point in time. We have a historical precedent in these types of discussions. During the Apollo era, many argued for utilizing the already available Gemini technology to produce an alternative lunar lander to Apollo just in case the CSM and LM weren't ready in time to meet Kennedy's goal. The legendary James Webb correctly saw this as simply siphoning off already limited resources, that would extend the date of a lunar landing and not quicken it. On the other side of the globe, the Vladimir Chelomei proposed his UR-700 as an alternative to the N1. This siphoned off resources that could have been put into N1 development, and was one of numerous reasons why the Soviets never landed on the Moon with crew. Your proposal to start building a new lunar lander now is also reminiscent of how it took the Soviets until 1964 to start serious work on a crewed lunar landing. There is just no way an expendable lander starting development in 2024 is going to beat Starship HLS to flight, considering HLS began development in what, 2020 or 2021? Also, this approach is not sustainable because the lander can't be reused. It would have to be thrown away every single time. Reusability is what makes a presence sustainable, not whether it uses SLS or not. It isn't like LEO where you can get away with launching a hundred Soyuzes while your economy is trash. Launching stuff to the Moon is expensive. Reusability of at least the lander must be involved or you will only end up with a flag and footsteps program. Ideally we would do away with Orion and have Starship HLS be the ferry to and fro LEO, and it would dock at the ISS/Axiom Station and then crew would descend in a Crew Dragon. I also feel like reentry at lunar speeds is way more dangerous and risky than adding another "propulsively break here" phase to the mission.

David S.F. Portee, a space historian who runs the No Shortage of Dreams blog, says "Reagan wasn't interested at all until after he saw a few Shuttle landings." It should be noted that even if he continued funding of the Shuttle, it was both his administration and Congress that were responsible for dragging their feet so long Space Station Freedom had to become the ISS. I think that portion of the story is tentative though. I have no idea how the direction of spaceflight and government interest would go once we actually land humans on Mars (whether that be in the 80s or in the 2030s). I haven't thought much about it, I'm mainly focused on the general political history (which isn't that much affected by spaceflight) right now. Now that I think about it though, in the aftermath of a program with only a single Mars landing and no hardware left, I could see the successor program becoming something like SLS... designed to keep America looking sort of good in space competition with the USSR, but also mainly to put money into Congressional districts. The ending of my Mars program isn't too unlike that of the Space Shuttle. And a return to the Moon might make sense from the POV of both a NASA administrator helpful to still do something big post-Mars, but not quite as expensive as expendable repetitive Mars missions. On the other hand, given the technology they would be building off of would be Saturn series tech and not Space Shuttle, maybe it would be more capable than SLS. Another factor is what the Soviets are doing. I haven't decided if I want them to build a Moon base or take the same space station route as NASA. But unlike Skylab, any Soviet station would be permanent and easily accessible by Soyuz. So it might be hard to end piloted spaceflight while the Soviets are still doing it.

I wonder if Russian cosmism ever caught on with post-1991 philosophers.

Yes.

Basically the same dynamic with how Skylab B (already existed and would be cheap to launch) got cancelled but we ended up spending tons on the Space Shuttle (didn't exist and cost tons to develop). Same dynamic, different programs. Also, because my Mars program relies on so much legacy tech instead of new stuff, it wouldn't cost as much as the Boeing 1969 proposal or Von Braun's Mars mission proposal. As far as things with Congress goes- It isn't a "for sure" point of divergence in the same way you can say "if the Soviet submarine fired a nuclear torpedo accidentally during the Cuban Missile Crisis" there would be World War III for sure. It requires people not being robots and instead coming up with different ideas, and making different decisions. The manner by which the Soviets land on the Moon first also requires this. If you believe in the inevitability of history (a sort of dialectical materialism) you won't find the story compelling at all, but if you believe in the power of free will and choice, it becomes a bit more plausible.

For All Mankind is an entertaining TV show but is garbage as far as properly depicting how space programs and societal development works. I’ve decided to do my own version, to a certain extent. Agreed. What I’m thinking of right now is that there actually is… taking into account this is the 1970s with stagflation… no restart of Saturn V production. Instead Apollos 15, 19, 20, and even 17 and 18 are canceled to create a pool of Saturn Vs for a Mars mission and space station. Apollo 13 still has its problem, but this time Nixon gets his way and cancels all further Apollo missions afterwards. This leaves 7 Saturn Vs available for a Mars mission. I’m thinking the development campaign goes like this- Stage 1: Skylab A launches into LEO. Four missions are flown to it. We learn how to do space station ops. This stage ends in 1974 (Skylab still has delays and doesn’t launch till 73). Missions are progressively longer here, starting at 20 days and escalating to 90 days in space. Stage 2A: Skylab B, heavily modified to serve as a prototype MTV hab module, is launched in 1975. 3 missions are flown simulating a complete Mars mission. Stage 2B: A prototype NERVA module is launched, and does a complete mission to Mars orbit to verify engines can function that long. Maybe it carries Viking 1 and 2 simultaneously there. Stage 3: The Mars mission. Based on the proposed Mars mission that was going to come at the end of the original STS program, I’m assuming it’s going to take a single, reduced size “Skylab C” (with only three crew) and three S-IVB sized NERVA stages to propel this thing to Mars. That uses up the last of the Saturn Vs. This would take place in 1979 or the early 80s. Unfortunately mass limitations mean the time on the surface is only 15 days. After that, all hardware would be used up. The US would emerge having possibly discovered life on another planet and landed the first man and woman on Mars. In this environment I have no idea what proposals for successor programs would look like. But that’s a question for the future. TL/DR: The space station option seems the most fiscally and politically viable to me. Well, you’re right about colonization. In an expedition scenario it might not be necessary though. They would just be doing science, with little mining involved. IIRC the most recent proposed NASA mission architecture doesn’t even use ISRU (not DRM 5.0, I’m talking about the Deep Space Transport or whatever it’s called). Well the premise is sending people to Mars. The question wouldn’t really matter if we primarily used robots.

I think a test habitat in Earth’s vicinity is necessary, but I’m skeptical of how the Moon could be useful in testing it. We more or less have had something akin to a Mars Transfer Vehicle running continuously in orbit for decades- the ISS. Why do we need to do it on the Moon too? Things that need to be tested under a little gravity, like landers and surface habs, could be done on Earth, which is closer to Mars than Moon because it had atmosphere. On the other hand, it should be noted that IRL in the 70s and in my world, there is a significant Moon lobby. The 60s saw the creation of a decent sized lunar science community and they would have a big voice in deciding a post-Apollo goal. A space station would help with studying how a Mars Transfer Vehicle will behave over long periods of time. But I’m skeptical of why things that need to be tested under gravity, like landers and surface habs, can’t be done on Earth. What is the advantage of leaving from the Moon if you have to launch everything from Earth in the first place? Would 10 small launches from Earth to Moon to build a Mars vehicle on the Moon cost less than 3 big launches from Earth to build the same thing in LEO? I should have added more context. It’s 1969 but the downsizing of NASA was well underway by the time the Soviets surprised everyone by landing first. So it’s going to take a lot of money to restart Saturn V production. On the other hand, the Vietnam War ended earlier due to stronger political pressure over general science and technology vs. war. So the course of the funding is going to look more like how the Soviets cancelled N1 but then went all in on Mir + Buran, instead of cancelling Apollo and underfunding the lone Space Shuttle. Except in this case it will be *option/Moon base or space station* + Mars landing. So Apollo isn’t exactly an “active” Moon program. It’s very much in position for cancellation, only the Saturn V is really guaranteed to survive to the 1980s. There are no serious Moon base studies going on, and Apollo is still on track to end with 20. I personally favor the space station option because it is applicable to a Mars Transfer Vehicle. I feel like the transit through interplanetary space is the most dangerous and unknown aspect of a Mars mission (in 1969). In contrast, stuff that needs to be done under gravity could be done on Earth. Not to say it is best done on Earth, but if you are trying to limit things for budget reasons (think like you’re the White House Office of Budget and Management rather than NASA Administrator), Moon base feels easy to eliminate while space station can actually do things you can’t on Earth. ——————————— It sounds like I have already decided to go with a space station, and to be honest I am leaning toward it, but I still want to hear opinions. I like this discussion we have going.