Kryten

There are some sources that claim the soviet equivalent of NERVA was suborbitally flight-tested, though details are sorely lacking. It certainly got closer to a practical flight model than NERVA.

Those designations are pretty much a mess. You've the test of the abort system on the pad, which were just called 'Pad Abort Test X', the in-flight abort motor tests, which were called 'A-000X', the rocket test flights which were called 'SA-X', the tests of the unmanned spacecraft which went from 'A-10X' to 'AS 20X' to 'Apollo X' as more systems were added...

Well, NASA varied between programs, as Nibb's already explained. Mercury and Gemini gave all of the missions program designations, while Apollo gave them to only the crewed missions-but took uncrewed missions into account in the mission number.

Depends what precedent you follow. The Chinese simply gave everything from the rocket test onwards a program designation (i.e. Shenzhou X), while the Soviets/ gave all of the orbital test missions Kosmos designations (used for every orbital flight not in another named program) and only gave program designations to actual crewed missions. Even crewed missions that were unsuccessful weren't given real designations-for example, the mission between Soyuz-17 and Soyuz-18 that failed to orbit was referred to solely as 'the April 5th anomaly'.

First you need to produce a functional rocket. You may or may not start with suborbital tests; they're only really necessary if it's a completely new rocket (e.g. Saturn) rather than a modified existing one (E.g. Atlas, Vostok, LM-2F). After that (or first) you do a test where you put something like your spacecraft in orbit with the crew-rated version of your launcher; given it's a rocket test, you only really need a payload with about the same weight and shape as the planned spacecraft. Then launch test versions of the spacecraft, slowly increasing the functionality after what's been added previously has been fully tested; e.g. launch one with a working heat-shield, then add life support after that's sorted. Once you've got all of your systems working, do a full uncrewed rehearsal of the first crewed mission, preferably with some animals to fully test the life support. Then, you launch the guy into space. Easy as that.

Depends on if 'space' is just suborbit, or you're talking about an orbital craft.

The actual density of dark matter in any given area is low, leading to it not really affecting amything at this kind of scale. It's only when you have extremely large 'empty' areas that the effects build up.

Isn't there a bit in one of the films where it gets them from earth to around neptune in about ten minutes? Seems like it would imply something a bit more than just fusion...

I'm afraid it's just another piece of standard treknobabble. 'Magically moves it' is the best you're going to get. There's no actual detail whatsoever.

Except scout didn't, athena didn't, and on most launches pegasus doesn't. Not to mention most ICBMs, which while not orbital do require very precise trajectory adjustment.

It's perfectly possible to use SRBs for precise, planned (e.g. GTO-GSO transfer) orbital maneuvers; the models used are designed so small amounts of fuel can be removed without affecting performance.

Near-shoemaker on eros.

We got along fine as a civilization without any metal, never mind clearly artificial alloys, for tens of thousands of years. There wasn't any such thing in america right up until Cortez.

But the development of Luna was considerably more useful, unless people are going to start throwing around tens of billions just for footprints and flags again. Luna ultimately gave us Hayabusa, Genesis, Stardust, et.c whereas Apollo was a giant dead end.

Like landing somebody on the Moon before the end of the decade? ()

How many million years do you think a brick building will last? How about a grass hut? Considering the many, many large gaps in the fossil record, the poor preservation of anything about human scale, and low population density of any pre-agricultural civilisation, it's very much possible.

Winds have diminished, launch is out of hold. About ten minutes.

http://www.ulalaunch.com/site/pages/Webcast.shtml On hold right now due to high-level winds.

Why would prices ever come up though? The supply can only increase.

Petroleum is just a source of energy. How much energy do you think is it going to take to turn air into plasma and move it with magnets compared to moving the same amount of air using a turbine?

Burning is a chemical reaction, oxygen forming bonds with something.

It would require an exactly equal amount of energy. Energy can't be created or destroyed.

If you do want to demonstrate quantum effects at home though, it is possible to demonstrate quantum entanglement with amateur-level equipment.

So you expect to have a mechanism where it's in the exact same state as the end of the cycle of the cycle as at the beginning, but produces excess energy?

The cheapest really practical way to observe single particles is scintillation counters, but 'cheapest; is very different from 'cheap'. In some experiments you can use gamma sources for your photons (which can be got or ~$50 over the internet) and geiger counters, but in this one there's no way to distinguish the photons you want to measure from background radiation.