tater

I'm not aiming them at ships. You attack me, and I aim them at worlds. Any SF universe where some guy in a cheap, "tramp" ship can burn his blowtorch drive forever just made every cheap ship a planet-killer.

What about all the celebrities that would have been the most recognized people on earth in all history---except that they died as infants or children, before they could actually become famous?

Any SF universe where ships have loads of dv invariably results in a threat of very powerful KE weapons dominating strategic thought. That doesn't mean that "conventional" conflict is impossible, but it all happens under the umbrella of a MAD type system.

SSTU is incredibly useful, it's not just copies of real spacecraft, most all parts have variants built in (change the shape of the nosecones, engine mounts, etc, etc, etc.

So it's not just me. Yeah, sounds garbled and awful.

Yeah, I've asked for this as well. For orbital craft, they could float around on tethers. Have it part of the contextual menu for the craft. Just add a button for auto EVA (on/off). It would add some life to bases, and stations to see guys out and about.

Yes and no. Certainly modern Soyuz is very safe, for example, they have not had a manned failure in a very long time (1971) (looks like 117 good flights in a row). It's still going to be considerably more dangerous that air travel, however. That's why when I talk about possible space tourists, I was using Mt. Everest as an example. Climbing Everest, even being led up by Sherpas, carries a high risk (~10% death rate), but hundreds a year do it. Space tourism would be much less dangerous than that, but far more dangerous than most holidays. That's a partial reason why the cost needs to come down for many people to do it. Blowing millions on a chance of death is a harder sell than blowing thousands---actually, the sell is not different, but the pool of people you are selling to is larger, so you'll find more willing to accept that risk.

^^^ Here's what I said, above. I was assuming a ridiculously low launch cost (10M) for the sake of argument, and it's STILL too expensive. Tourism would indeed be the sort of bottomless market that could use all the rockets you could make/launch (which is required for prices to drop), but the cost for that would have to be vastly lower. Orders of magnitude lower. For some reason I am being completely misunderstood here. Tourism works to drive rocket launches, but if and only if the prices become so low that it can lure a substantial number of customers. It's kind of circular, you need lower costs to attract the many hundreds (thousands?) of people per year you need to justify the number of launches it would take to drop costs.

Like most contracts it's terrible, It's easier than making a decent career system, I guess.

You posted that NASA released these images, and you gave a reason for them doing so, to counter conspiracy loons. The site in question is a cool site, but not NASA, and it has nothing to do with countering conspiracy loons at all. A link to a cool site with tons of Apollo photos would have been well received without the editorializing.

I said for a reasonable market, and by that I mean a decently large number of tourists. 2 million is cheap compared to the price now (20-40 million), but it is still a vast amount to spend for 6 days. A few people doing this will not support the launch rates required for prices to drop in the dramatic way required for it to become less expensive. This is basically what I am saying. That they can drop the price from 20 M$ to 2M$, but that's not enough to create a bottomless market. Like I said, that's possible, but the cost needs to approach Mt. Everest rates (50k I think is the current cost for that).

If you read what I said, the price needs to be right for it to be a reasonable market, and I enumerated why the price is likely too high for that to be the case (a couple million $). That said, if the price was lower, it would be more of a thing. Why do people climb Everest? That's vastly more uncomfortable. The idea that it would not be the "real" space station is not an issue, people went to ISS because that was the only possible destination, not because they cared in the least about being on "real" ISS. It was about being in space, not about being on ISS. A hotel would be as comfortable as possible, and the water issue would not be a problem since they'd be resupplying every X days when they deliver new customers. If I were to spend a few hundred grand or more to go up there... I'd expect that my in-room time would be occupied exactly as it would be in any other hotel room we book, and we'd test out Newton's laws... for science! Only about 50% puke (according to the astronauts I've talked to), but my wife would certainly be one of that 50%, so she'd be a hard sell.

In space over penetration is not really an issue. Have the warhead detonate at some distance and it ceases to be a long-rod penetrator, and becomes a cloud of smaller particles with the same KE.

Because the US was in a PR battle with the Soviet Union. It's not more complicated than that.

Yeah, that works, too.

I'd prefer to see a budget of Funds, AND science points. Add in a tech tree like ETT, then you have 2 budgets, money, and research. The tree would also require Funds. Then you unlock what you think you need for what you want to do---you develop tech to achieve a goal, instead of the opposite.

They'll start working on these right after Mars One has it's millionth colonist land to shear valuable wool off their primary economic driver, Marsicorns.

It's $24, right? Wait, the issue is the new laptop. Never mind.

Even Skylon plans require current F9 sorts of prices, right? There is not a huge need for an order of magnitude more satellites, so it seems like the only possible growth market would be people (tourism), but I think that that needs to be in the hundreds of thousands range at most to be much of a market. Given the risk vs the incredibly safe act of flying on aircraft, it's likely to attract the kinds of people that spend large sums getting short-roped up Everest, and even then, that's merely 10s of thousands of dollars. For millions, it's not a business model that will work. For hundreds of thousands... maybe (first class RT airfare for long haul is 10s of thousands already). It's like SLS... a solution in search of a problem.

There were 88 in 2014, 78 in 2013... I don't see the number as vastly changing. Note again that national launches (national security payloads, among others) are off the table for SpaceX (except US payloads).

I think tourism would actually be a new demand stream that is sort of bottomless... if the price is right. A BA-330 has a nominal crew of 6. So less than a full D2, and at least 1 would have to be staff. Their lease rate is 25M$ for 60 days, so if we assume a star of 6 days, that's $500,000 a person in hotel costs, and then something like 1.5 million in transportation costs. 2 M$ is a lot cheaper than the 20-40 M$ people have paid the Russians, but it's not a huge market.

Why run the launcher? Just run the app and see what happens (I've never even tried the launcher since 0.2something).

Yeah, tourism would certainly be a game-changer, but the costs would have to be vastly cheaper. At 10M a launch, that's 1.43 M$ a seat on D2. I have no idea where the market becomes meaningful... they talk about a few hundred grand in propellant costs, plus you need to amortize the LV. How much would people pay to go to a Bigelow Hotel, including transportation? A couple hundred grand? More?

Leveraged telepresence is fine, but I really think it has a ticking clock associated with it. Driverless car work is improving the ability to drive anywhere with a robot at Moore's Law speed. Even with an optimistic launch date for any sort of manned Mars mission, robots will already make the point moot, IMO.

Not to mention if you read the "About the Project Apollo Archive and Gallery..." post on the front page, the guy that made the page explicitly says that HE'S NOT NASA. So NASA has done exactly nothing. Also, he states the archive was started by him in 1999.