Kryten

Replacing mass-reduced transfer stages and frequent launches with a complex tug and infrequent giant launches is hardly a compelling economic prospect; you're restricted by demands of different customers (Arianespave has trouble as it is just matching two satellites per launch), you have much higher maintenance costs due to your larger and more complex infrastructure, and-by the far the worst aspect-you've almost completely eliminated gains from economy of scale. Really, it's like you missed the entire point of the Aquarius proposal.

Read what I was responding to-he was complaining about the Orion test flight on a a Delta IV heavy, which is sat on the pad as I'm writing this. Even leaving that aside, FH as planned won't have remotely SLS' capability for BLEO trajectories; LEO might be good for bragging rights, but it's not a current government objective or large commercial market.

Unfortunately, there's a lot more information needed for your average eukaryote than just the DNA sequences. There are a lot of gene-regulating mechanisms necessary for proper development, most of which we barely understand. As far as we can tell, you'd at least need to copy the patterns of DNA methylation and histone modification. Given the right nutrients and environmental conditions, any bacterium will survive in a sterile environment, apart from a few obligate intracellular parasites. That's exactly what happens in your average petri dish.

They've started testing a HTPB hybrid again, but this one appears to be a different design without SNC involvement. Apparently the nylon motor is considered too expensive for operational flights.

You misunderstand. SS2 hit severe problems with engine development, and is currently too overweight and underpowered to actually achieve suborbital flight by most people's definitions (I.e. hit the Karman line).

Good idea? Certainly. Good execution of that idea? Not exactly... SS2 won't get you there, at least without a completely new engine.

There is no demand for 30 tons to GTO, in the same way there is no demand for 100 tons to LEO. Again, there were no payloads funded for energiya except Mir-2 components (most of which were modified Mir backups that already existed) Buran, and Skif. Proton was perfectly adequate for all government payloads to GTO, and still is.

How is that any more relevant to the original definition you were banging on about than clearing the neighbourhood? A meteoroid is as much a moving body as one of the traditional planets.

There is no geographical definition of a planet, they work with 'planetary bodies'. If you want to conflate the two, you've now got meteoroids and moons as planets.

I wouldn't exactly count on it. They started a similar program at about the same time, and haven't even selected a design yet. Whatever is picked isn't intended to first fly until the late 2020s, and the heavier configurations are 2030+.

Geology working with bodies other than earth is a subset of planetary science, and the planetary science definition is basically 'anything smaller than a star'.

A-12 was designed with low-ISP low-T/W LOX/Alcohol engines; it would be pretty much useless to anyone with more efficient engines. If built, it'd have been about the size of Saturn V, with about a tenth of the payload capability.

The rocket without Buran is Energiya; Vulkan was a 'super-heavy' configuration with an extra single-engined energiya core as well as more boosters. It wouldn't have been able to use the modified N1 infrastructure used by the base Energiya, putting up the projected cost dramatically. Regardless of that, you miss my point. Yes, Energiya, even in the base configuration, was a very powerful launcher. It would not have been viable because there were no funded payloads that required it, with the sole exception of Skif-DM. The Mir-2 components could have easily gone up on on Proton, and ultimately did; anything further, such as your Mars plans, were nothing more than basic outlines with very little chance of being implemented.

The costs to get that propellent anywhere useful are not remotely negligible. Every kg of fuel for return of a reusable upper stage is going to multiple kg less payload and more launcher. Using a 100 ton+ capacity launcher to put ~two Soyuz crews and a 40 ton payload in space isn't going to be cost-effective no matter what you do. The idea of a space shuttle is not cost-effective, full stop, regardless of individual implementation of that idea. SLS is 70s tech. What's your point? Because of Buran. No mission needed this; even Skif was to be about half that weight. Building in excess capability to support an unneeded shuttle doesn't make great economic sense.

Given there aren't any large objects in retrograde orbits, you'd have to transfer pretty much all of that momentum yourself with the engine. Why bother when you could do it directly?

I take it you've never ridden a horse, then?

It'd have to do something, or conservation of momentum would be broken.

The ones in museums are the ground testing prototypes and the jet-engined one they built for flight tests, OK-GLI. One mostly-finished one does exist, but it's just in another hangar somewhere in Baikonur, and AFAIK not viewable by the public. The rest were scrapped. On further thought I'll have to go for Buran from the museum exhibit angle, given it'd be far easier for me to see OK-GLI in Speyer than shuttle hardware in the US.

I'd say they proved equally good at getting cancelled, both being one-for-one. Having not visited artifacts of either programme, I have no basis to determine which is a better museum exhibit, so I'll just leave that aside. In terms of actually being used for space travel, both are completely useless due to destruction and repurposing of equipment and infrastructure; I suppose that sums to them being pretty much equal.

Only one of those is fully civilian, remember. The main point of most of them if the same as it's always been, missile guidance, and that's not a capability a nation will outsource if it can help it.

What happens to that system when somebody has a war? Or somebody uploads the wrong orbital parameters and messes up the whole thing, as happened to GLONASS a few months ago?

'Enough mass to reach hydrostatic equilibrium' is rather ambiguous. Vesta hasn't done it but has less mass than some moons that have, due to them having higher ice content.

Even that isn't too unique anymore; there are over a dozen binary KBO's, at least two also large enough to be dwarf planets (Orcus and Quaoar). The Earth-Moon system itself will be a binary within a few hundred million years.

I suppose that's to be expected, given the circut breaker here is on a hair-trigger. I'm replacing it with one to go in a student flat rather than the house the computer is in, so that shouldn't be an issue, but what kind of components can I expect to be damaged from that? Can I trust the power supply for reuse, for example?

That'd also apply to minor planets, of which there are well over half a million.