AN-225 destroyed?!

[Gargamel]

46 minutes ago, Nuke said:

hope the loss of this plane doesn't impact the fusion timeline much. 

I don’t think that’s what’s holding it up.   

[Nuke]

13 minutes ago, Gargamel said:

I don’t think that’s what’s holding it up.   

incremental steps. '20 years away' comes from the scientifically illiterate among the common media outlet. scientist says the experiment will take 20 years, the media interprets that as "fusion in 20 years". a lot of the reason that the expirement takes so long is that funding and building a tokamak takes forever, and you need several. it doesnt help if those steps take longer for want of a heavy lift aircraft. iter is gargantuan, i hate to think of how big the coils on demo will be. 

even when we have energy positive fusion power plants, it will probibly take another 50 years to get the thing down to something you can mass produce not to mention to develop aneutronic reactors. dont hold your breath.

Edited March 7, 2022 by Nuke

[monophonic]

On 3/5/2022 at 10:46 PM, Lisias said:

So we have DreamLifter and AN-124 to do the job. But none of them can carry a 190 ton cargo, so anyone in need to transport such an huge cargo will need to do it by ship - what can be a problem if the destination is way inland. Anyone on need to ship "door to door" this kind of cargo is screwed, there's nothing today that can do such a job. This poor stand-up guy will hire a ship, will deal with port loading/unloading, the huge time needed to travel from port to port - and still will need to find a way to transport that huge cargo from manufacture to port, and from port to destination. The costs piles up, I don't know even were to start to calculate them…  

Keep in mind few of those cargos were destined to an airport either - i.e. not a good idea to build a huge wind turbine right next to one. Some land transport costs would have been included anyway. Manufacturers are easier to relocate close to key shipping exchanges - that does not mean easy though. Other manufacturer closer to a seaport might pick up the contract that the one near the airport had previously. So the cost hikes are moderated by there being other suppliers and project locations whose costs did not depend on the availability of Mriya. Timeline impacts might be more significant - sea transport is cheap but slow.

[Lisias]

3 hours ago, mikegarrison said:

The Boeing Dreamlifter has a restricted certification that only allows it to be used for the purpose of Boeing Company manufacturing. It says that right on the FAA TCDS.

Planes can be re-certified, and even restrictions can be (temporarily or not) lifted. The DreamLifter was used to transport medical supplies during the pandemonium pandemics...

If the need arises, someone will do something about.

 

20 minutes ago, monophonic said:

Keep in mind few of those cargos were destined to an airport either - i.e. not a good idea to build a huge wind turbine right next to one. 

But yet, there're some airports that could be used for the task. It was what was being doing with Mryia.

It's weird, but airports can be more versatile than some ship ports - large volume specialised ship ports are optimised to Containers. All the loading/unloading equipment are specialised to be used on Containers. Most cargo ships are specialised to be used with Containers.

So, the availability (and the pricing) for non-containerized cargo are not the same for the containerized ones.

See https://www.morethanshipping.com/what-are-the-shipping-methods-without-containers/ for more information.

 

[MKI]

8 hours ago, Lisias said:

large volume specialised ship ports are optimised to Containers

As I've mentioned in the past, I live in Southern California near semi-near Vandenburg Space Force Base. 

I'm actually closer to the ports, where 20% of all cargo enters the US. This was the location of one of those "bottlenecks" in the logistics supply chain. A few months ago there was over 100 cargo ships off the coast (!!!) 

I do believe using cargo planes can help dodge some of these supply chains. I don't know much about shipping, but I'm also sure this will const significantly more than cargo transportation, which is pretty affordable relative to flying a plane around. 

I don't know about other places in the world, but from where I can see, ports are still a huge bottleneck.

[Lisias]

43 minutes ago, MKI said:

I do believe using cargo planes can help dodge some of these supply chains. I don't know much about shipping, but I'm also sure this will const significantly more than cargo transportation, which is pretty affordable relative to flying a plane around. 

Yes, it's more expensive. But… The total cost of the endeavour can be way more expensive than the shipping costs.

There was at least one Chinese eCommerce shop shipping goods at no-cost to Brazil by airplane during the pandemics - before it, that goods would be shipped by sea, taking about 2 to 3 months. On the pandemics, these goods was reaching me in 2 weeks! (2 or 3 days traveling, almost 10 days being handled by Customs - yeah, we are that bad on Customs).

So, let's imagine there's a cargo that could be transported by Mryia in 1 week (total travelling time - manufacturer to airport, flying legs for refuelling, destination airport to final destination) , and now it needs 3 months to be shipped by sea. Let's suppose this cargo had cost 1M USD, and it will help to generate 10K USD/day 24/7 in (gross) revenue once in production. The payment is made upfront, i.e., when the cargo leave the factory. The time the thing will take to be installed is not relevant, because this time is a constant, no matter the cargo had take 1 or 11 weeks to arrive.

Now… There's a thing on economics called opportunity cost. It's how much a choice I made will cost me when compared to another one.

The opportunity cost of shipping the thing by seas will be 10K * 11 weeks == 10K & 77 days == 770K USD due delayed revenues. But, additionally, I could had used that money to make some investment for these 77 days, so this is also included on the opportunity cost.

So it's 770K USD plus 1M USD * dayly interest * 77.

I google for "daily interest investment" and took the first percentage it shows (I don't have the slightest idea if this interest if plausible of just marketing bait), and it says 2.5%. I found this excessive  so I'm unilaterally and arbitrarily defining the daily interest rate to be 0.5% (what also sounds excessive, but whatever, I'm just trying to prove a point).

So…  1M USD * 0.5% by 77 days gives me: ~1.45M USD — the earnings are cumulative, because the interest of today is applied to the sum I had yesterday more the interest I earnt yesterday.

So, if I had choose to just take the money and speculate, I would had earn 450K USD on these 77 days.

So the total opportunity cost for me by shipping the thing by seas is 770K USD + 450K USD = 1,220M USD (this value is not exactly right, I'm simplifying things to the point of being obtuse…).

It would be 220M USD cheaper to pay 1M USD to Mriya and get the thing delivered by plane.

[MKI]

1 hour ago, Lisias said:

It would be 220M USD cheaper to pay 1M USD to Mriya and get the thing delivered by plane.

This assumes the Mriya was directly available immediately right? I assume shipping container ships are mostly interchangeable or at least part of larger fleets. 

I assume its easier and less risky to take into account all the possible delays in shipping through these bottlenecks, than it is to bet on a single vehicle to get your job done. I'm sure there are scenarios were this risk is worth it, as mentioned before if you need your shipment deeply inland, you can easily bypass large portions of other types of risk (like rail transportation). 

There is of course the risk that we ignited this whole thing, if something happens to the Mriya your now in the back of the "shipping logistic line" that you could of probably been mostly the way through. 

Finally this assumes what your shipping is near the Mriya in the first place. Most of the freight coming through the ports of LA are from Asia, where-as the Mriya would be most beneficial in and around Europe itself, as that is where its based AFAIK. There the logistics might be different due to the increased coastlines and totally different shipping routes.

(I'm also not even sure if the Mriya could fly the Pacific even with refueling?)

Edited March 7, 2022 by MKI

[DDE]

1 hour ago, Lisias said:

I google for "daily interest investment" and took the first percentage it shows (I don't have the slightest idea if this interest if plausible of just marketing bait), and it says 2.5%. I found this excessive  so I'm unilaterally and arbitrarily defining the daily interest rate to be 0.5% (what also sounds excessive, but whatever, I'm just trying to prove a point).

2.5% per day is 900% per annum, without compound interest. We're in overdraft / payday lender territory!

[Akagi]

It's so sad...

"come in all deployed SE forces, we have lost the chonker"

-my sister, upon me telling her this

[Gargamel]

Great little clip here as a tribute to this craft:

 

[Second Hand Rocket Science]

On 2/28/2022 at 2:57 PM, mikegarrison said:

There only was one. Now there isn't?

Anyway, that is (was?) a very old airplane, which used outdated technology. If someone were to build a replacement, it would make more sense to start over from scratch (or at least mostly from scratch). But there is no mass market for such a plane, so you are basically talking about spending billions of dollars on one or maybe two planes. It's unlikely that would happen barring something like the original reason the plane was built -- a government needed it for a high-value purpose and had no other choice.

Transporting rocket parts. What other planes are massive enough to take first and second stages in their cargo bay and fly them to the launchpad? Answer: there is none. The AN-225 was the go-to aircraft for transporting massive items across the seas, until... uh, crap got real big time.

[magnemoe]

1 hour ago, Second Hand Rocket Science said:

Transporting rocket parts. What other planes are massive enough to take first and second stages in their cargo bay and fly them to the launchpad? Answer: there is none. The AN-225 was the go-to aircraft for transporting massive items across the seas, until... uh, crap got real big time.

Rockets are huge but pretty low mass, something like the aircraft part cargo planes could do that. The AN-225 could move very heavy stuff like drill rigs and locomotives. 
 

[Kerbart]

On 3/7/2022 at 3:09 AM, monophonic said:

Keep in mind few of those cargos were destined to an airport either - i.e. not a good idea to build a huge wind turbine right next to one. Some land transport costs would have been included anyway. (...)

There's a difference between "some land transport costs" and transporting 1000+ miles over the road. Especially with oversized/overweight cargo where you have limited options to go through tunnels, over bridges, under viaducts and dealing with sharp corners on mountain passes.

On 3/7/2022 at 3:36 AM, Lisias said:

It's weird, but airports can be more versatile than some ship ports - large volume specialised ship ports are optimised to Containers. All the loading/unloading equipment are specialised to be used on Containers. Most cargo ships are specialised to be used with Containers.

So, the availability (and the pricing) for non-containerized cargo are not the same for the containerized ones.

It's not as dramatic as you'd think though. (Large) container ships are among the largest moving objects on the planet and what is a gigantic load for a plane (200 tons) is "just Tuesday" for a ship.  Years ago a friend of mine sent me an infomercial about the Airbus A380, and my response was "that's cute, maximum take off weight is almost as much of that of a propeller axle." Physically large objects like wind turbine wings, or heavy objects like industrial boilers or transformers are routinely shipped on board of container ships, either on top of containers, directly loaded onto the hatches or even inside the holding bay (provided it fits in the 40' length).

Cost might be a different factor though. Cost is usually calculated by the number of containers the cargo replaces and while rates have been at a record low for the past decade and a half they are very expensive right now, and loading/unloading the cargo is also not easy, and the operator of the ship will want to see a reimbursement for that too. Combined with the inland transport cost that will make these kind of transports by air relatively competitive and an attractive alternative. I agree that the logistics around using a plane are probably simpler but not that much simpler, and probably more expensive but not that much more expensive, making it an attractive option in the end.

[StrandedonEarth]

At south of 150tons, Mriya could have hauled a fuelled SRB segment and then some! Whereas the ginormous Super Guppy could only carry ~24t

[Vanamonde]

Another reminder to please keep politics out of the discussion. It happened. Please don't try to guess why or who is to blame. 

Some comments removed. 

[monophonic]

On 3/13/2022 at 1:24 AM, Kerbart said:

There's a difference between "some land transport costs" and transporting 1000+ miles over the road. Especially with oversized/overweight cargo where you have limited options to go through tunnels, over bridges, under viaducts and dealing with sharp corners on mountain passes.

Indeed - that's why I indicated that project locations might (must) change. Of course loss of the air option means trouble for any projects that got started with the assumption that the plane is available. Their trouble on the other hand means other projects closer to a seaport just got that much more competitive. No factory will not built because the Mriya got burned - just where it will be built may change. As for already existing factories that have relied on An-225 for their maintenance/modernization needs... too bad. Sometimes risks do realize and make investments go bust.

[RCgothic]

There are now updated images:

 

 

[Gargamel]

One of those posts I hate "liking"

[DDE]

1 hour ago, Gargamel said:

One of those posts I hate "liking"

One of those posts that makes me miss Reddit's more appropriate definition of "upvote" and "downvote".

Even though nobody there ever cares...

[StrandedonEarth]

5 hours ago, Gargamel said:

One of those posts I hate "liking"

I know the powers that be don't want more options on the like button because it can get negative, but maybe a "sad like" button is appropriate for these situations, because I feel the same way. I don't like "liking" things in the "negative stuff" thread, since it feels like laughing at others' misfortune....

[Elthy]

https://www.spiegel.de/ausland/ukraine-krieg-antonow-an-225-groesstes-frachtflugzeug-der-welt-in-truemmern-a-20e79138-d06a-4566-ae40-a5c6a19f3fdc

A german new website has an interview with one of the polits, including up close fotage of the wreckage. The pilot says that there is no hope in restoring it, only few parts cound be reused. He is very sad and flew it just two month ago, at that time this seemed unthinkable.

[DDE]

2 hours ago, Elthy said:

just two month ago, at that time this seemed unthinkable

There had been an earlier war scare last autumn. 

Also, the same guy said NATO's logistics command suggested moving the plane to Leipzig in late January: https://t.me/stranaua/31766

[RCgothic]

It's especially sad because it *could* have been moved, (on 5 engines if necessary with an engine out for maintenance) but even an immediate "GO" decision probably wouldn't have been soon enough given Hostomel airport's location and the timings involved.

[DDE]

Looks like at least parts of the plane are being unceremoniously hauled off for scrap.

https://t.me/rezident_ua/12490

[DDE]

Last known image of an intact Mriya so far, I believe. Reportedly dated February 27.

https://t.me/milinfolive/84257