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Kryten

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Everything posted by Kryten

  1. Kryten
    Er, no. There you've got Western Sahara, which isn't UN-recognised and in practice doesn't operate as a country, Taiwan which had ratified before being kicked out of the UN and still considers itself bound by the treaty, and Greenland which is covered by Denmarks's signature.
  2. Kryten
    There aren't any UN-recognised countries that haven't signed the OST.
  3. Kryten
  4. Kryten
    The Outer Space Treaty assigns responsibility to the state the Space Vehicle is registered to, which in this case would be the US.
  5. Kryten
    Blue are not trying to say they're better than anybody by saying they've been first to reuse; they're simply saying they were first, and it is a pretty significant first regardless of the bluster about total orbital energy. Before, the best anybody had done with regards to VTVL rocket reuse were flights to a few kilometres by the DC-X program.
  6. Kryten
    Charon didn't go to space, but how is that relevant? The point was that they were working on the technique long before SpaceX was, so they can hardly be 'taking credit' for the idea.
  7. Kryten
    In 2005 the SpaceX plan was to parachute cores to the ocean and pick them up, a fundamentally unworkable idea. It stayed that for four or five more years, well into production of Falcon 9. SpaceX didn't have anything VTVL until grasshopper in 2012. Reputation can't get you into space, and it's very dubious to say VG have a better reputation within the aerospace community. Blue haven't killed anybody, after all.
  8. Kryten
    Blue have been working towards VTVL reuse far longer than SpaceX have. They had a VTVL demonstration vehicle (Charon) flying in 2005. How do reckon that?
  9. Kryten
    VG have received a commercial spaceflights operator's licence for SS2; http://www.faa.gov/about/office_org/headquarters_offices/ast/licenses_permits/media/Virgin Galactic License Orders_07_29_20161.pdf The licence allows them to carry commercial non-deployed payloads, and opens the door to carrying 'spaceflight participants' as the FAA calls them. Passenger flights require FAA approval after flight testing, but wouldn't require a new licence. For comparison, the FAA experimental licence Blue are performing their New Shepard flights under doesn't allow any commercial payloads or passengers under any circumstances; this gives VG a much-needed leg-up relative to Blue. In other news, VG have started doing taxi tests on the new SS2, VSS Unity. It'll be flying captive with a few weeks, and free probably within a couple of months.
  10. Kryten
    Their next step is TSTO with at least first-stage reuse, we already know that. They'll be designing it for VTVL reuse from the start, with plenty of experience with that already from New Shepard; it'll be interesting to see what kind of design decisions they make relative to Falcon, which was originally designed for ocean recovery via parachutes and was basically jury-rigged into VTVL.
  11. Kryten
    I wouldn't say that's fair. New Shepard is a suborbital research and tourism platform, these flights are the same as it's 'actual missions'. The only reason they're not doing commercial missions right now is they don't have the right licence from the FAA yet.
  12. Kryten
    Their flight on the 30th was successful;
  13. Kryten
    Not quite.
  14. Kryten
    If you're including Falcon XX you might as well have the Starship Enterprise.
  15. Kryten
    The suit in the films isn't even big enough to have any proper padding, Stark would end up horribly bruised at best.
  16. Kryten
    You design and you make calculations. Engineering without calculations is basically just an unsubstantiated opinion.
  17. Kryten
    You haven't demonstrated that you even have an idea that's any better than what e.g. Paul Moller has been chasing for forty years.
  18. Kryten
    If you really can design some super-efficient flying machine, and it would need to be super-efficient to be economically viable in the niche you're talking about, it shouldn't be too hard to get somebody else to double-check your calculations. If literally all you have is an idea, there's no reason for anybody to give you anything.
  19. Kryten
    If you seriously think you can design some revolutionary transport system, then design it and then go drum up some venture capital.
  20. Kryten
    You aren't somebody with a fantastic idea, you're probably back thousands in line from the first person to have some version of this idea. More than one of those people made it to the prototype stage, as has already been pointed out, and still failed miserably. If you have something that really distinguishes you from all the earlier would-be-inventors, then tell us what it is instead of babbling about Galileo.
  21. Kryten
    I don't really think even anything 'neat' about the idea when you get down to it, it's essentially a brief for 'a helicopter but worse'.
  22. Kryten
    No, you're interpreting too literally. Withered technology in aeronautics is technology that's heavier and less efficient, it will inherently increase recurring costs through fuel.
  23. Kryten
    Operating costs are going to be the issue more than up-front costs, and using 'withered technology' would make them worse.
  24. Kryten
    You can only have collisions where object A comes to a complete stop if both objects are of equal mass.
  25. Kryten
    Cows don't break conservation of energy, so no if there's no external power source. If you're using the sun to grow the plants, then that's just a convoluted solar power system and photovoltaics would be better. If you specifically need methane, then there are bioreactors that can convert biomass to methane more efficiently than cows, while being less fussy about the feedstock. But bioreactors don't break conservation of mass either, so hard to see why you wouldn't just ship in methane instead of fertiliser/water/oxygen et.c. for farming.
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