kerbiloid

Usually empty cans are to be dropped in space rather than kept inside the capsule, increasing the pressurized and heat-protected volume. Saving, say, 100 kg of a tank, they add, say, 200 kg of the ship hull. I hoped that I was wrong and they just drop the tanks with... trunk. This looks like buy a diesel truck instead of a light pickup to return empty plastic bottles. Just put a new parachute. It's exactly not more expensive than a single use trunk and second stage. 5x5 km for nowadays parachute landing from orbit. In any case they use toxic hyperholic fuel and probably need to wait for the rescue team. The less acceleration - the more fuel to be spent (and launched). Two seconds of discomfort vs several tonnes of payload. Btw, 1500 of toxic and flammable hyperholic propellant just near the cabin look not like an additional comfort factor. If CST-100 counted with cargo and service module (i.e. launch mass), why Dragon is empty and without trunk? Chutes weight 100-200 kg (as you can read above), and yet nobody have told they cost too much that 8 engines will be cheaper.

Even if drop a hot kettle?

Who on Earth needs to reuse piece of nylon?.. What is called "service module" in English wiki, but would cause a terms confusion here (as question is: can an unpressurized structure with tanks, batteries and solar panels be called "service module").

Certainly. Why to invent physical laws when you already have a Matrix program.

Water. It killed millions of times more people than hydrazine.

PAO of Soyuz is the same, just with engine. Then they are (should be) carrying up and down barrels inside the capsule, inside its heat protected hull, increasing its inner volume and the hull mass - rather than just jettison empty cans as they do with more capacious tanks of the 2nd stage, Then how will it land without parachute after abortion? If it anyway carries parachute (not too heavy thing - just ~0.2-0.3 t) and is not destroyed using it, why carry 6 engines more and a cystern of fuel inside the capsule? ~1-2 tonnes less would be lifted if use chute (or 1-2 additional tonnes of cargo) - and see above about hull mass due to increased volume. If count this increased hull mass, even worse: 3-4 tonnes of the rocket payload are just spent. Miracles happen. One 6-crew spaceship with 1.7 t of fuel and 8 engines weights less than another one- without them. Sure, parachutes of CST-100 are made of iron and weight 5 tonnes; CST-100 is counted in total (with service module and LES), while Dragon - empty hull? Dragon parameters should be... er... adjusted, as they are still not published.

Why in launch abort test they start with this trunk? It is below the ship, it is dropped after engines stop. Why to lose T/W pulling up the useless weight? Doesn't it also contain fuel required for orbital operations? Unlikely Dragon should land with just remains of inner fuel. Where are solar panels if not on the "trunk"? So, looks like it's a usual service module, just without engine. Yes. I.e. only two of them indeed match their purpose (see above about abortion T/W and parachute mass). Abort requires ~300 m/s, landing ~200 m/s. "Reserve" is enough good name for several tonnes which are lifted to orbit and back instead of several more tonnes of cargo. It weights 1.5-2 times more than really should without engine and immortal tanks, So it requires 1.5-2 times more Falcon launches, spends Falcon lifespan 1.5-2 times faster than could. Falcon already loses 20% of its cost per launch (due to single-use second stage) and 10-20% of cost more due to its own return and landing. Add refurbishing procedures cost, damaged equipment replacement - and you get that reusable Falcon shall lose 100% of cost in ~3 flights. As Dragon's dead weight - tanks and engines - drops this value 1.5-2 times more, this means that Falcon will hardly save more than one launch cost per its lifespan. (Just btw: Space Shuttle Engines were reused ~8 times in average, 19 times max)

Dragon V2 weights, say, 12 t (without service module, quietly named "trunk" though it looks like a full-weight "service module" of Orion and CST-100). For orbital operation it needs T/W ~ 0.5, i.e. 60 kN. It carries 8x80 kN engines. Slightly overpowered,,, Unlikely it can fly more than 10 times. So, either 8 engines per 10 flights, or 1 single-use engine in a service module per every flight - no difference. In any case, its engines are 10 times overpowered to be used on orbit. Apollo CM mass = 5 t, its chutes (see link above) ~0.1 t. So, Dragon chute weights ~ 0.25 t and looks absolutely good in that video. And in any case will be used (because of NASA). LES mode. Max T/W of Dragon's engines is ~6, while all other known LESes give T/W 12-20. Slightly underpowered to be called LES (especially when the LV uses KeroLOX with wide range of explosive gas-air concentrations). Also if Dragon has no chute, how will it land when its fuel is over running from the bursting rocket? As we can see, on chute. I.e. it needs chutes in any case, but additionally carries up to orbit and then down to ground additional several tonnes of fuel/engines/legs. If, say, all this stuff weights ~ 3-4 t, this means that every 1 of 3..4 Falcon launches will be lost to launch and return this useless things. As Falcon probably can't be reused more than ~10 times too, this means that Dragon is a Falcon-killer.

Orion, CST-100 afaik are reusable. VA TKS exactly reusable (up to 10 times, IRL the same capsule was used 2 or 3 times. Edit: launched 3 times, but 1 of them - landed after launch abort). Also one Gemini capsule was launched twice and successfully survived (yes, it lands on water).

23 t capsule under chutes. http://www.space.com/21155-orion-parachute-test.html Apollo (5 t capsule) chutes: Weight = 135 lb. http://www.spaceaholic.com/index.php/Detail/Object/Show/object_id/26 http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/20130011328.pdf SpaceX Pad Abort Test: Dragon with chutes. And with engines+fuel+legs, Btw... Didn't think about that before. If it starts from the launchpad with its engines instead of LES, how would it land then without chutes?

Heavier than 1.5-2 t of MMH/NTO, 8 engines and 4 landing legs? And btw: and still an additional chute - as requires NASA. Orion, CST-100, Soyuz, VA TKS are not hesitated with sand. 5 x 5 km accuracy (i.e. within KSC territory) is achievable with nowadays technics, so landing onto a bus stop is unlikely required.

If this were the aim. Afaik, the aim was: reusable rocket, reusable pin-point landing ship (hard to say, why it needs that pin-point rather than a chute and a piece of desert). For example: Gemini was tested with a delta-wing, but never used it. So, an interesting ability, but not a reusable Gemini as was planned.

https://www.google.ru/search?q=naphtha+isomerization&newwindow=1&biw=1920&bih=957&tbm=isch&source=lnms&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiM37vU7ZPNAhWB8ywKHYxvDBMQ_AUIBigB

- Where have you heard this, Neo? - In school. - And where is school? - In Matrix... - There is no physics, Neo. Only Matrix.

Unplanned Rapid Events. Currently they have a 12-t single use launch vehicle and a cargo capsule. The same was in 1960s.

Excellent! CPU sends commands to the devices, but only commands from a program, not its own, not commands it would prefer.

Especially if they live 1000 years (far future then) and can hardly distinguish their great-great-great-great-grandchildren from their great-great-great-great-great-great-grandchildren, and every, say, fourth street bypasser is their kinsman.

Elite for ZX Spectrum contains 8+1 procedural galaxies in 42 kbytes. And myriads of ships. Elite Frontier also contains procedural space centers and other surface facilities. In several MBytes. In any case you need to be calculated only what you are looking at. Delayed calculations, run on demand. (Also this would explain the role of "observer".)

As if somebody has a choice. By will or not, Mother Nature is delicate like a rusty guillotine. "Wait"? The biggest rivers are already 90% dismantled for irrigation.

Toy railroads are made for fathers, not for kids....

Not "us", "one" is enough. How do you know that all other people are not a simulation?

Not oposed! In addition! If they build enough huge floatng cities with roofs made of foil, then Venusian albedo increases, atmosphere cools, gases condensate, cities are floating lower and lower and at last - bingo! - former floating cities stay on ground, temperature is low (just 50 C or so in a shade) and they have large amounts of sulfur to grab it in a heap and build a huge sulfuric mountain - Mons Sulfuris.

A day later this amount of water respawns agian and again. Just to be filtered. Infinite "continuous growth" makes no sense. Colonize new planets to get more resources to colonize more planets? Once you reach an Earth capacity (several billions) you anyway stop. Only millenia later you can colonize other planets - but those people shall not, as a constant population will be already usual for them for many generations. The resources recycling eliminates the rest of sense of infinite extraterrestrial expansion. When you recycle 99% of you resources, you can drop your mining indusrty down to 1% of its original values.

Mother Nature will take care about that. The very first terrestrial life being spread in the Universe will be lifeforms from a fastfood closest to the launchpad - where space center workers had their lunch before putting a fairing onto a martian rocket.

On launchpad the rocket has 8 radial boosters. During the ascent, rear view shows only 4 radial boosters and decouplers for them. Why is he sqeezing the joystick before launch? Nerves? Fear? Or he had played KSP too much and tries to pilot the rocket manually? His habitat is probably Harmony-sized, so ~15 t. Counterweight is 2.5 times closer to the rotation axis, so ~40 t. Either they launched a 40 t piece of lead, or this is mega-RTG. As it doesn't shine red, probably lead. The spacesuit looks so manly, with gardbraces. Gardbrace is an essential thing at starship, of course, but better would have wide pelves with a layer of lead.