Bill Phil

However, DIVH could be used in an EOR scenario, if they go that route. F9 costs around $60 million, and plus you don't have to transport the 'nauts to Russia, so if you put an Orion on an F9, without a service module, you could get a better price. Although, a CST-100 or Dragon would be better.

Soyuz is expensive as well. It costs a large amount of money per seat. And the Russians will pull out of the ISS program in 2020.

Dragon won't fly crew to the ISS for a while. I was saying to orbit a full Orion. An F9 could be used for just the capsule.

I like Star Trek, but the Enterprise is not practical AT ALL. Why not an international Nautilus-X? It took almost 15 years to build the ISS. And it's just a space station and has only enough Dv to maintain its orbit and maneuver the station.

It seems like the Delta IV Heavy could orbit the full Orion. Why can't we orbit it with a crew if all checks are good? Then we could have Dragon for supplies, and Orion for crew, to the ISS of course. Because as far as I know, the first crewed Orion is EM-2's vehicle.

Huh. Well, that's a shame. The concept is interesting, it's simpler than cross-feed, and it means you can use the same core module for the boosters. Although Angara has more flexibility, from 3.8 tons to 24.5 tons. If they use Angara A3, they could have a launch vehicle comparable to a Delta IV. IMO they should definitely develop the A3. All-in-all, it's a good direction for the RSA to take.

Obviously. However, it is possible, and how much payload could it deliver? Any estimates on that?

I never said to use Angara, I was saying that it's more efficient to use a modular rocket system similar to Angara, rather than a super-heavy launch vehicle like SLS. Angara was an example. Hmm, what if we strapped a bunch more CBCs than the typical two around a Delta IV? Could we get more payload at all?

And Trantor was just for Administration. A whole planet, just for administration. Really strange.

It would load a small amount if consumables into an already in orbit vehicle. Which means we'll need to get a lot of them. Of course we could just use Antares. That'd be preferable.

Is it? Depends on the mission. If you use a small (say, Angara A1) to launch the consumables, and then you use one 10 ton dry-mass as a target, it's a lot less "risky". If one, ONE, SLS fails, with a crew especially, the whole program, everything, will be delayed for a few years, if not outright canceled. But if ONE unmanned( the heavy versions will always be unmanned) launch fails, the whole program isn't necessarily screwed, especially if the rockets ( and thus the components for the LEO spacecraft) are much easier to replace. It's very difficult to mass produce HUGE rockets such as SLS. Besides, who builds something in LEO and doesn't expect a launch failure? They would put thrusters on it to maintain orbit, it shouldn't be that expensive in terms of money or Delta-v to put small vernier thrusters on it to maintain orbit, considering the Dv to deorbit is very small. And thus logic dictates that maintains orbit should be easier than deorbiting.

Roobie- GP2, purple and red clouds, Saturn analog, 4000 km radius, 3 major moons, 1 Dres-esque moon(size and gravity) and a gilly-esque moon, asteroids spawn occasionally Dimund- GP3, light orange and hints of yellow, 1400 km radius, Neptune/Uranus analog, 1 major moon, 1 Minmus-esque moon, 2 gilly-esque moons, and an asteroid spawner Chraon- ice dwarf, brown-ish with dark blue, Dres-sized, Pluto analog, 1 moon of mass similar to Minmus, Kyper Belt- asteroid belt beyond Chraon with a more ice-like texture, larger 'roids are less common, more asteroids total than in NKOs, basically like the Kuiper Belt Well that's my two cents...

Besides, we're getting off topic.. On topic: Congrats Angara team! Someone's making Progress in space! ( get it, Progress, ah. Ever mind)

Well, problem is that you'll be making a bigger second stage if you're using powered landings.

1. Not Orion in this scenario 2. It's more risky to launch all eggs in one basket ( one thing fails, you lose the whole rocket, but if it's a bunch of rockets, one can fail, and the whole mission isn't screwed) 3. Have you seen Congress lately? They'll cancel it just because a democrat started it. 4. SLS isn't needed for sending crew. EOR is going to be done anyways from what I hear.

Oh yes. However, most of those 70 tons is a stage in and of itself, so you could divide it into two stages ( more efficient, too) and dock them, then depart from Earth. Now for the boil off problem... SLS is most likely going to be cancelled. Although super-heavy launchers are useful, they aren't needed for Mars. In fact, once we build a good infrastructure in space based on in-space resources, the only launches will be crew and payload that only Earth can build.

The concept of Angara is really interesting. It's similar to EELVs, but the single core version (Angara 1) has only a few tons worth of payload ( ~ 3.8 metric tons) rather than almost 10 tons for Delta IV. NASA should have gone this route rather than SLS. SLS can deliver 70 tons to LEO for Block 1, when three Angara A5s can deliver a total of 72. If they were mass produced, you could get a much cheaper alternative. But NASA doesn't choose what to fund, and Congress just loves those super-heavy launchers... which we don't need.

Is this supposed to be Rosetta?

The real possibility of a habitable land planet( less water than earth on surface) does exist. It actually has larger habitable zones because they can have high albedo's.

I wouldn't call the ship "small". It's around a diameter that's about the height of the Space Shuttle, not just the Orbiter, but the whole thing.

Methane, is that a good solvent? I wouldn't know, but I doubt it is. A life form that massive? Not very easy, and must be very energy intensive. I doubt that the synthesized nutrients in the atmosphere would be enough, unless it's hibernating...

Gus Grissom. Died in Apollo 1 fire. He helped with the design of the Gemini spacecraft a ton. Flew on the second manned Mercury mission. He's pretty cool.

It's acting like a multi staged vehicle, which means the energy from the Ranger and the Lander where given to the Endurance as a boost, which is why we call boosters "boosters". That's exactly what they do. And then the Oberth effect takes hold near the black hole, and so the Endurance is capable of reaching Edmunds. Plus, scientific data from Gargantua was gained. Honestly though, the biggest problem is that the whole mission was pointless, because the mission only existed to get Cooper and TARS to the black hole. Btw, TARS said it, not Cooper. Plus, what's usually left behind is propellant, but on multi staged vehicles the stages are left behind, too. It's more efficient than single stages for things like getting into orbit.

That's more like Siri AI, though. It's just a name in this case. You need input dependent programming, sure. And probably some kind of lunar GPS, if that's possible at all. We can build robots that LEARN how navigate a maze, and if you added a new sensor for detecting minerals, it could learn where it is, and subsequent robots can mine it.

But why change humans? It would take just as much resources, but more time than others. Plus, you'd have to do it to an embryo, before it has grown. At that stage any tiny change could kill it easily. Then you need to get funding from your government or sponsor to do it again. Good luck with that. I'm not fearful of me not knowing, I know I don't understand it, and few people do. And why are you so inhumane? All people have a right to life. Additive manufacturing was pioneered in the 1980s, but it still needed a lot of technological development. I don't know what you're even talking about. It's not easy of course, but nothing in space is, so why not go further? The cells in the human body can replicate and accomplish tasks that are simple. You do the same thing with robots. Specialized variants that are built on a common chassis. That way a factory could build surveyor bots, mining bots, transport bots, etc. It's still difficult, but this is for HUGE lunar bases, not small 6-man ones. But for thousands if not tens of thousands. So it's worth it. This is still in the future though, and I admit I'm optimistic when it comes to using Von Neumann machines, but no one can tell the future can they?