SunlitZelkova

I should have been more clear. I meant tactical aircraft. Indeed, the fate of bomber development was decided even before Gary Powers got shot down- arguably from the moment the first intelligence document containing a briefing on the S-25 and S-75 showed up on a variety of desks in various Air Force facilities across the country.

This is fake. https://smhoaxslayer.com/is-the-viral-astronaut-selfie-from-space-original-no-its-an-edited-one/

Makes me wonder whether the Soviets themselves felt the arguments in defense of their tanks were valid, because while the main battle tanks didn't change, the design of the BMP-2 was influenced by the performance of the BMP-1 during those conflicts, and went on to become a much better performing IFV (relative to the BMP-1, that is. In contrast to how the T-72 still retains weaknesses of the T-62).

Some questions- 1. How would military aircraft design look if the Vietnam War didn’t occur? It’s said that the Teen Series were greatly influenced by its events, but at the same time, while the Su-27 and MiG-29 came about in response to the Teen Series, the Soviets did not copy anything from the Americans and came up with their designs pretty hassle free, which suggests lots of what went into 4th gen fighters came from aerodynamic studies that had nothing to do with Vietnam. 2. Do all spacecraft need to do a “barbecue roll” in deep space? Animations often depict them as static in flight. I suppose those with proper thermal control wouldn’t need to but what about Starship and Orion? 3. Would it be possible to modify the ISS into an MTV? It would require extensive modification and be dangerous but the basis for a Mars spacecraft is basically there. In regards to No. 3, a lot of 60s and 70s Mars spacecraft designs were either closely related to space stations or literally just modified space station modules.

This is not how “all-up” missions work. They just take all of the fuel they need. It depends on the mission type. For scientific expeditions, I don’t think you really need depots. Early Mars mission proposals had all-up missions, the idea of sending ISRU equipment or fuel itself ahead only got developed because it was thought to be cheaper, not any particular mission requirement. For sustained transport though, whether that be a base or some sort of early colony, refueling at a depot or using ISRU makes more sense. ISRU would never be done without a good sense of what is going to happen on the ground. Basically every single real life spaceflight concept does not work in such a manner anyways. It’s not like ships where you can veer off course, find an island, and then go about doing whatever you need there- you go to one place period. Everything is planned for that place so there is no particular major danger. With soft sci-fi engines, it can really just be adjusted as needed for the plot. I may be wrong but I don’t think any of these “acts like a car trying to get from Portland to Chicago” type engines exist in real life, even as far future concepts. They either can’t get there at all, are just right to get where they need to go with residuals for an emergency, or don’t get there at all. I.e., every single engine is constrained by orbital mechanics to a certain extent so it just goes where it was intended to or doesn’t at all (fails), while the only “point and click go there” type concept- the Alcubierre drive- is so powerful it would likely never run into such a situation. No “my (sea) ship got blown off course and now I’m faced with this dangerous unknown environment” type things. With 99% of real life concepts, you would require so much energy to end up in such a situation that you would have to be trying to veer off course for it to occur. Star Trek/Star Wars/soft sci-fi in general type engines that do have such adventures can really just be adjusted for the plot as needed, without real life rhyme or reason, because they aren’t realistic in the first place.

Launch is in 11-12~ hours. CGTN started a stream 17 hours ago for some reason lol, but then ended it 8 ago. It was just a shot of the VAB/ready building basically.

This “contribution to the world/humanity” thing in the English speaking world is a mere optional rating of what countries contribute to the global community, not a debt or demand. Example- Switzerland “contributes to the world” by hosting the LHC, but that’s just a compliment, not a debt Switzerland owes. The Ars commenter added sarcasm to… do what he did.

Yes. It can go back to the station and dock for repairs though.

Unfortunately, from what I can gather very few in Japan seem to be able to grasp the fact that it was a poor design issue, not an inherent problem with nuclear power itself, that caused the 2011 disaster. Even plans to activate nuclear power plants again in response to the current state of the energy economy are extremely controversial, although they may have their own fair share of technical issues too. How did the USSR/Russia overcome PR issues after Chernobyl? Or did it just not? The US hasn’t done anything and many seem to have forgotten about Three Mile Island, although at the same time, very few new reactors have been built.

Using the dark side of the force relying on innate behaviors of Homo sapiens to pit them against each other, impeding upon their development and damaging their ability to solve problems. They continue to pump CO2 into the atmosphere (the geoengineering part) and based on pure profit related reasons destroy farmland and dry up aquifers. Several decades later, a massive famine occurs as a result of climate change, poor agricultural practices, and ocean acidification. Alongside this will be general ecological collapse on certain fronts. It won’t be enough to send Homo sapiens to extinction, but this will kick off a cascading series of problems that should doom them within 10,000 years to go extinct as a result of an inbreeding depression. The inevitable conflict and slaughter that follows the famine will only ensure this. The climate will continue to grow hotter as trapped methane is released. The survivors fill the tens of thousands of now emptied ecological niches. The objective of all of this? The return of megafauna. Crows will evolve into new terror birds and rodents will become the size of cows. We will see both herbivorous, carnivorous, and omnivorous variations. The Revenge of the Pleistocene Megafauna shall be complete, and the new post-Holocene fauna will rule the Earth for 10 million years. With the intelligence of rats and crows eventually evolving to work together and master technology, the First Terran Empire will expand into the cosmos, mercilessly annihilating any other life forms and transforming other worlds into Earth copies. The Empire will expand to the edges of the universe, develop interuniversal travel, and then proceed to conquer all of existence. With unlimited worlds to inhabit, the First Terran Empire will exist infinitely. You didn’t say what goal the geoengineering had to have, after all

Nice. It’s pretty cool how they are directly challenging SpaceX in more areas. They are basically low key claiming Terran R will get a commercial payload to Mars prior to Starship.

One is for the Moon and one is for Mars, each respectively named Luna Glass and Mars Glass. They want to land “something” related to the project on the Moon by 2050, perhaps a subscale demonstrator? It has a height of 400 meters and a diameter of 100 meters. Lunar Beagle is the name of the monorail that runs around it (although Gizmodo claims it is called the Hexatrack), while the hexagonal Earth-Moon transport is called the Space Express. They want to avoid using nuclear power for it. In the past, a Japanese construction company proposed building a space elevator by 2050, and many apparently got hyped until they realized it was just a concept for promotional purposes. It is different this time, they actually intend to do this although in kerbiloid’s video one of the guys states they recognize there are many problems to be solved. They think putting the idea out there is an important thing.

I think all LM-3 and LM-4 launches now use the parafoil recovery system, which significantly reduces the area in which the boosters fall. Unlike, say, the early 2000s, it is also possible CNSA is now putting beacons on their boosters, so they can be found and secured faster. LM-2 for Shenzhou doesn’t use the parafoil recovery system but it’s boosters may drop in a different area, out of view of most civilians.

@Spacescifi I recommend following @sevenperforce’s advice regarding design. If your story is not intended for public consumption, I suppose it wouldn’t matter, but in general it is better to say “I just want it this way for the story” or “I just want it this way because it looks cool” than coming up with some sort of detailed engineering reason. I haven’t looked into the details, but from what I can tell Christopher Nolan claimed that Interstellar was going to be a hyper realistic movie. Despite being a great work of art in its own right, IIRC it is/was the bane of this forum because of that claim. The same thing happens with me with alternate histories. There are people out there who write great alt-hist stories but then they claim it is “historically accurate [as to what would have happened]” and they destroy themselves and their work because there is always a hole that someone will find, and the work will be thrown into jeopardy by it.

Usually Lagrange points have a name identifier before the number. Example: Earth-Sun L2 and Earth-Moon L2. I have only seen that drop when it is obvious, like an Artemis focused presentation or something.

In April 1978, a Tu-95KM of the 1226th Heavy Bomber Aviation Regiment was tasked with reconning the weather along a route the entire regiment would fly later during an exercise. It proved worse than expected, so the aerial refueling tanker the Tu-95 needed to meet was unable to take off. Airfields along the route were shut down for the same reason. The aircraft would not be able to make it to its destination. Even that air base was covered in a bad thunderstorm. So the crew lowered their Kh-20 cruise missile into the firing position, and started up the engine without releasing it. Miraculously, it worked, and the thunderstorm dissipated just as the aircraft arrived. The aircraft landed with just 2% fuel remaining. The recoil was presumably Kerbal too. It entered mass production just three months from when the order calling for the design was given, making it purportedly one of the fastest designed vehicles ever, although it is more of a modification than a proper new vehicle.

The Chinese Academy of Sciences will be selecting new missions soon as part of the Strategic Priority Program III (SPP III)- https://spacenews.com/venus-orbiter-lunar-constellation-and-exoplanets-telescopes-among-candidates-as-china-selects-new-space-science-missions/ The proposals (with a comment after where it isn't so obvious what it is)- Enhanced X-ray Timing and Polarimetry (eXTP) Dark Matter Particle Explorer-2 (DAMPE-2) Discovering the Sky at the Longest Wavelength (DSL), is a constellation of 10 small satellites in lunar orbit "using the moon as a shield from Earth interference to study faint signals from the early universe" Closeby Habitable Exoplanet Survey Earth 2.0 (ET), is a mission to find Earth-like exoplanets with similar orbits around Sun-like stars. I'll also note that both the name and acronym feel meme-able Solar Ring (SOR), three spacecraft at 1 AU studying the Sun and inner heliosphere Solar Polar-orbit Observatory (SPO) Earth-occulted Solar Eclipse Observatory (ESEO) Chinese Heliospheric Interstellar Medium Explorer (CHIME) (Unnamed?) "E-type Asteroid Sample Return"(?), would bring back samples from 1989 ML Venus Volcano Imaging and Climate Explorer (VOICE), a Venus orbiter low-Earth orbit Climate and Atmospheric Components Exploring Satellites (CACES) Ocean Surface Current multiscale Observation Mission (OSCOM) Of these, only 5-7 will be picked. SPP I and SPP II yielded mostly Earth orbiting missions, with one of them, the Solar wind Magnetosphere Ionosphere Link Explorer (SMILE), featuring collaboration with ESA. SPP III also awards funding for studies of future missions. Interestingly, one of the proposals is a Ceres exploration program. ------ Planetary Society thread and article on China's Neptune orbiter project- ------ Some news on China's crewed lunar program- To be clear, the booster under the parafoil and the rocket stage on the tether in the two separate images are unrelated. A 2030 crewed lunar landing would challenging but not impossible. Currently the LM-5DY is set to have its first launch in 2026. In contrast, SLS will have its first launch in 2022 and is expected to send astronauts to the surface of the Moon in 2025. Another way of looking at it is that the US selected its mission mode for Apollo in 1962 and landed on the Moon in 1969. China is known for doing development slowly and at its own pace, but that could change. China has already decided to do a Mars sample return mission ahead of NASA, perhaps Chinese space goals may become more aware of the international spaceflight situation instead of being based around China's internal conditions. The engine for the third stage of the LM-5DY has entered testing! ------ Also from the above presentation about the lunar program, more info on China's future reusable launch vehicles- Image comes from this tweet- https://twitter.com/CNSpaceflight/status/1546671716415418370 but I am just going to write the info here because the format in the tweet is a little crude. The first one is likely a cargo variant of the LEO version of the LM-5DY, basically a single core variant of the triple core rocket for lunar missions. Diameter is 5 meters. It looks like it has a payload to LEO of 5 tons, 4 tons to SS, 7 tons to GTO, but I can't say for sure, that looks a little odd. Regardless of the numbers, considering the single core version is intended to also launch the Next-Generation Crewed Spacecraft for space station missions, it looks like it will provide China with the capabilities of the Falcon 9. The second and third are the Long March 9 (!), which has changed remarkably since its first inception as a conventional, non-reusable rocket with strap on boosters. Diameter of the LM-9 is 10.6 meters, height is 110 meters. Mass is 4122 tons. First stage has 26x 200 ton thrust methalox engines, second stage has 4x 120 ton thrust LOX/LH2 engines, third stage has 1x of the same 120 ton thrust engine. Payload to LEO is 150 tons and payload to LTO is 50 tons. All three of these are intended to be flying by 2035. The bottom line says something to the effect of "these rockets will close the gap with SLS and Starship", or "there is no gap [in the performance of the Long March 9] when compared with SLS and Starship". [-snip-] ------ And finally, launch of Wentian has been tentatively set for July 24th, with the core stage re-entering uncontrolled shortly after I will be making a specific thread for the core stage's re-entry, to avoid cluttering this one. The core stage attracted a lot of discussion last time, but compared to before when Tianhe was "one and done", we will be following Wentian's approach, docking, and then fixture into it's final position this time around.

Not to turn this into a KSP2 thread, but I could see them being simple science returns occurring at very high altitude from the Sun/Kerbol. Which requires specific instruments to detect, of course.

There are certainly risks with 33 engines but I don’t think this is a good example of them. Isn’t he referencing an issue with Raptor itself, not the number?

I am not familiar enough with Chinese poetry/literature?/whatever goes into naming to know. Do most such names/terms/phrases have only two characters (in poetry or whatever it is derived from)? The names used for most Japanese ships (space and sea) often end up having only two Kanji, not because of a stylistic choice but that’s how most of the words simply are. Nowadays it doesn’t matter too much per se because the names are written in Hiragana anyways, though. So it may not have much to do with naming choices as much as it is the nature of the “source material” itself.

Compound eyes are like what flies and other organisms have, not too odd considering it will be made up of multiple radars to generate one return/picture.

I don’t think this will really be the case. R-7/Soyuz also probably has a low number of accidents compared to successful flights but we still don’t consider it to have airliner reliability. But just having regular missions with an SHLV in the form of Starship, instead of treating each launch like an experiment (Saturn V/Energia) will be impressive in its own right, regardless of reliability.

I have seen the V-131-R prototype at the nearby Evergreen Air & Space Museum (Spruce Goose). The one in this picture is V-132. At one time you could get quite up close and personal with V-131-R, as there were no ropes or barriers around it. Even today a lot of their stuff is rather… unguarded. This project is especially sad because the orbital prototype was 90% complete when it got canceled. On another note related to canceled projects, the Evergreen Space Museum was built in the late 2000s, but the founder died shortly afterward and unfortunately, the museum got taken over by something of a con man. So to this day, there is a huge panel describing the Constellation Program as “America’s return to the Moon”, as the museum has not had the money to change it. It’s still a really cool museum though. As far as canceled projects go, they also have a M-1 engine injector intended for the Nova rocket. EDIT- The museum has since been transferred to proper ownership. I want to make that clear

During WWII the Japanese built the A6M2-N and N1K1 floatplane fighters, both of which had great performance. Even the F1M observation floatplane was used to great effect as a fighter and bomber. These had no issues operating from atolls and small sounds in the Southeast Pacific. Unlike the dinky OS2U, it’s Japanese counterpart, the E13A, flew quite a few combat missions or missions extremely close to combat, including flying at low altitude over the US fleet during an engagement at Guadalcanal to drop flares over them. Like the above mentioned PBY, the H6K4 and H8K2 had stellar performance as patrol aircraft during the war. They also had no issues operating from their water bases. I mention floatplanes as there is likely a misperception about their performance too.

The stars aligned in a tragic manner in the summer of 1961, during a rehearsal of the Soviet Air Force aerobatic team for the Tushino air parade. A four-ship formation of MiG-19s had flown past the airfield when one of the aircraft suddenly went into a spin. The aircraft crashed, killing Yuri Fitin, the pilot. Upon the landing of the remaining aircraft, Artem Mikoyan himself arrived on the scene, and his team discovered the problem (a flaw in the aileron trim tabs) and had it fixed in time for the aircraft to participate in the event. But the aircraft had not just crashed anywhere- out of all of the places to have such an event, it occurred on the grounds of the I.V. Kurchatov Nuclear Energy Institute, which contained multiple research reactors. No major damage is described as having occurred however, while the aircraft did not catch fire after impacting.