Kryten

In that case you could just use a normal plane. It's a solution looking for a problem.

Mostly because SR-71 never directly overflew the USSR or PRC, and thus never faced relatively modern missiles. That was the whole point of the D-21/M-21 program, allowing direct overflight without risking them.

2010. Note to self; do not attempt to do basic maths after three hours of sleep.

Solar power won't work near the ice deposits, given they're permanently shaded, and geothermal would be very hard to get working given mercury appears to be geologically dead.

I think we do conclusively know that Vladimir Ilyushin can't have been killed in a spaceflight in 1961; because he lived for another 69 years after that.

Again, Gagarin's flight was announced before he landed. Had somebody had a fatal incident a few days earlier, it wouldn't even have taken place.

The soviets never had a NASA equivalent, I don't see how the US would definitely need one. It would make larger multi-contractor projects like Saurn-V more difficult.

Coverae has started, I think? At least I can hear them say I-R-N-S-S and P-S-L-V among the hindi. EDIT: there's a direct ISRO webcast here but you have to be using IE to see it.

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/48786-Star-Citizen-holy-%2A%2A%2A%2A%2A%2A-batman%21 http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/48075-Star-Citizen http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/52194-Star-citizen-pledgeaggedon-is-today

It'd have to be a very small satellite with a precisely known weight distribution, and the act would definitely be illegal. Not terribly likely.

There are paths than don't cross the singularity within rotating (Kerr) black holes, but you're not likely to end up on one by chance. And thus ends my useful contribution to the thread, given I don't understand the Kerr metric at all.

The event horizon won't be an abrupt change; you'll go from having almost no paths that don't cross the centre to none (assuming a Schwarzchild black hole). One you've crossed it you will be added to the singularity.

Yeah, all possible trajectories within the event horizon lead towards the centre.

That's part of a post from Nibb31. He seems to be trying to respond to his post without having any idea how to use the quote function.

This is Progress M25-M, 57P is a NASA designation.

If you enlarge a cell, you'll end up with a puddle of assorted organic molecules. The mechanisms that produce cell membranes and otherwise allow cells to keep their shapes don't work at larger scales.

It's got two http://'s in it. Does KSPF add one automatically? I know some sites do; if it does it really shouldn't.

X-37 long predates whatever the payload is. It started as a civilian project at NASA.

Too small to be relevant to crewed flight, and flight rate much to low to be 'typical' of anything. You also could have said PSLV, Taurus, or Pegasus, but the same applies to them. I meant to say launchers of comsats, as he'd actually said in his post.

Name one current commercial launcher with a solid first stage.

Anybody with a telescope can track a satellites orbit, any nation with radar will detect a new one, and anybody equipped with eyes will notice a satellite launch.

I'd be extremely cautious. An unknown team coming up with a revolutionary design, that they refuse to even hint about the nature of? All the detail in the article is a size and power figure that together are ludicrous. 100 megawatts in 7*10 feet? Apparent two-dimensionality aside, how's that even supposed to exist without turning into a glowing puddle?

Gagarin's flight was announced by radio before he'd actually landed.

A common misconception. The outer space treaty only bans weapons of mass destruction in space, and weapons testing or military facilities on celestial bodies such as the moon. Orbital conventional weapons are a-ok. Still, it's very unlikely this is actually what it is, especially as a direct ascent missile such as developed by the Chinese would be far cheaper than something that requires an atlas V.

Molecular weight is not density, which is roughly intermediate between CO2 and O2. How would you be supposed to add more, anyway? It's a noble gas with boiling point well above the average temperature, all the argon on Mars is going to already be in the atmosphere.