Kryten
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KSP2 Release Notes
Posts posted by Kryten
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15 minutes ago, Shpaget said:
Or you can just register in and launch from any country that is not signatory to OST, which is garbage anyway.
There aren't any UN-recognised countries that haven't signed the OST.
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9 minutes ago, Findthepin1 said:
Wait. Why did they have to get permission from anyone to land something on the Moon? Nobody owns the Moon, there's no authority to ask. Is it just a matter of checking with other organizations to avoid hitting their satellites and stuff?
QuoteOuter Space Treaty Article VI (in part)
States Parties to the Treaty shall bear international responsibility for national activities in outer space, including the Moon and other celestial bodies, whether such activities are carried on by governmental agencies or by non-governmental entities, and for assuring that national activities are carried out in conformity with the provisions set forth in the present Treaty. The activities of non-governmental entities in outer space, including the Moon and other celestial bodies, shall require authorization and continuing supervision by the appropriate State Party to the Treaty.
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48 minutes ago, CSE said:
If the launch site is to be in New Zealand, won't it be the NZ government's responsibility under the Outer Space Treaty, and thus probably their official supervision?
The Outer Space Treaty assigns responsibility to the state the Space Vehicle is registered to, which in this case would be the US.
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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.
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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.
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Just now, Duski said:
Well did Charon go into space? And you do say it is a demonstration vehicle.
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.
2 minutes ago, Duski said:And I reckon Virgin Galactic are doing better as they probably have a better reputation imo. I know the head of Blue Origin is Jeff Bezos the man behind Amazon but Virgin have an airline and are probably more experienced in aerospace.
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.
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2 hours ago, Duski said:
I must say though, what annoys me is how they're trying to steal the credit of this concept of reusing boosters. It is also kind of confusing.. Jeff Bezos being the owner of Amazon and wanting to start a space program. It's like they're planning something big.
Blue have been working towards VTVL reuse far longer than SpaceX have. They had a VTVL demonstration vehicle (Charon) flying in 2005.
2 hours ago, Duski said:But then again, even Virgin Galactic is even further then them.
How do reckon that?
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VG have received a commercial spaceflights operator's licence for SS2;
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.
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4 minutes ago, tater said:
While their flights are indeed their mission, the New Shepard mission parameters are grossly less difficult to achieve than what the Falcon 9 has been doing. It's going to be interesting to see what they get up to next, however.
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.
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8 minutes ago, Gaarst said:
Falcon 9 is not reused (yet).
BO recover and reuse their launcher near the launch site from vertical suborbital flights which are made precisely to test it. SpaceX recover their launchers from actual missions, sending stuff into space at the same time, on barges in the middle of the ocean.
I'm no SpaceX fanboy, but BO is not even close to SpaceX.
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.
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Their flight on the 30th was successful;
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2 minutes ago, shynung said:
This one is called the Parajet SkyRunner. It debuted in late 2013 at a price of $119k. It's about as literal as a flying car could get.
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36 minutes ago, AlmostNASA said:
Falcon X and falcon XX in heavy or superheavy. Angara in medium or heavy. Delta A-N small.
If you're including Falcon XX you might as well have the Starship Enterprise.
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The suit in the films isn't even big enough to have any proper padding, Stark would end up horribly bruised at best.
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You design and you make calculations. Engineering without calculations is basically just an unsubstantiated opinion.
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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.
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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.
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1 minute ago, ZooNamedGames said:
My only limitation between the rest of the idiot herd is money. The same issue that will lead our species into destruction.
If you seriously think you can design some revolutionary transport system, then design it and then go drum up some venture capital.
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26 minutes ago, ZooNamedGames said:
You do realize those who made fantastic historical ideas were mad men in their time? Copernicus claiming that the sun was the center rather than Earth. Or that the Earth was round rather than flat, Aristotle. That all living things are made of tiny organisms called cells, Hooke; or that you can split the basic building blocks of everything, Einstien. These people were thought of as idiots and morons by their community yet it's them who made the accomplishments... not those who thought they knew everything.
Just because something doesn't seem logical doesn't mean you should kick it out on it's face.
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.
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8 minutes ago, Red Iron Crown said:
Personally, I've put the personal flying car in the "neat, but impractical" category a long time ago. Maybe we'll see some in the high end luxury market, but even there people are better served by cars + private aircraft.
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'.
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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.
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Operating costs are going to be the issue more than up-front costs, and using 'withered technology' would make them worse.
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You can only have collisions where object A comes to a complete stop if both objects are of equal mass.
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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.
Looks like the Google Lunar X-Prize is actually going to happen!
in Science & Spaceflight
Posted · Edited by 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.