Kryten

Same as for previous Dragon resupply missions. Shuttle was different because it had injection accuracy too poor for these kind of transfers, and a lot of delta-v capability to compensate.

It's going to Earth-Sun L1, and even earth-orbiting missions usually have much more stringent requirements than just 'in orbit'. Imaging sats usually need to go to SSO, communications or navigational sats into the right plane, and resupply craft obviously have to be heading to the station.

The SR-71 altitude record (and record for anything in level flight) is just under 30km. The record for altitude reached in a zoom climb by an air-breathing aircraft is about 38km, set by a modified MiG-25; still less than halfway to the Karman line. The only aircraft to have ever breached it are X-15 and SS1, both needing air-launch and using rocket engines.

Those being GO, Stratolaunch, and... that's it, really. Given the existence of EV-1 and -2, you're still unaware of most such systems, and all of them that havea actually flown. Falcon 9 is pretty close... and the maintenance costs for the legs and a few small control fins are going to compare extremely favourably to full plane-like aerodynamic surfaces. There's a reason all the reusable first-stagtes actually in development are either reasonably conventional rockets (BO, F9R) or rely on subsidisation through passenger flight (Lynx Mk. III). If RTLS with conventional rockets is viable, there's no need or reason to add the additional weight and complexity of a spaceplane, full stop. 'Not at all'-because why, exactly? I've seen the quotes for Skylon, I've seen the quotes for Venturestar, for HOTOL, nobody expected/s them to make any money without much higher flight rates than are currently supportable. If you disagree, come up with some figures, don't just say 'I don't think so'. But at temperatures too low to need proper heat-shielding, there's no advantage to bringing wings along. VTVL would work just fine. It's the world we have to live in. If you have to ignore aspects of reality you don't like to make your argument, you don't have an argument. Spaceplanes do have a major competitor; rockets, whether they be expendable or VTVL. Expandable beats them at sufficiently low flight rates, and I'm not sure they could hope to top a fully realised VTVL system at all. Bull. Name one manufacturer that doesn't operate it's own rockets. You can't seperate actions that are being performed by the same company, the overall business is still low-margin; payloads are where the money's at. There are people out there that don't understand quality control or certification. I'm talking to one of them. Again, it's what we have to live with, and you can't just ignore it. LM lost most of their market share long before the ULA formation, to Proton and Ariane; Boeing only retained market share by moving in with russian suppliers (they run ILS and previously had a large stake in SeaLaunch). ULA was the result of the bottom falling out of the market, and it's not in much of a position to slash anything. They're already barely at break-even, as I've said, most launcher suppliers are.

The only air-launched vehicle on the planet is Pegasus, and you said later in the post you'd never heard of it. How can you say they're a cheaper alternative to anything when you don't even know they exist? A conventional rocket has it to a lesser extent, there's much less extra systems to have to do maintenance on. With spaceplanes, that potential only exists with at unfeasibly high launch rates. STS was a lot more than an engine. A major part of the maintenance cost was the tiles; something a propulsively-returning rocket wouldn't need. Ask XCOR and the Spaceship Company, the only people currently working on suborbital spaceplanes. Certifying uncrewed aircraft for commercial flight is a nightmare, both financially and in terms of paperwork. Because of the flight volume. You need very high launch rates to afford spaceplanes, just as much as you need very high flight rates to justify modern jet aircraft. Most airlines are one short recession away from bankruptcy, it's another very low margin business. Launch vehicles are not 'high-profit' anything, it's an inherently low-margin business. Yes you can, but if wishes were fishes we'd all cast nets. Pesasus-sized payloads are a small part of the market, and most of that market is served by extremely cheap russian converted ICBMs. So the only niche for Pegasus is a small part of the small part, US government payloads in this mass class; and the system can't be expanded to more lucrative sizes without having to look at a custom airframe, massively jacking up the cost.

The X-15 was rocket-powered and had to be itself air-launched, and the X-37 is an orbital craft with no propulsion in the atmosphere.

Hits the same kind of issues as air-launch at larger scales, except much worse. All of the infrastructure to fly a unique aircraft, produce spare parts, keep the pilots trained, maintainence of the aircraft and infrastructure et.c. et.c. add up to a lot of money; this is one of main reasons OSC's Pegasus is so expensive for it's size. Turn the plane into a spaceplane, which much harsher and more esoteric maintenance requirements, and you probably aren't going to be competitive with an expandable rocket stage.

Yes, of course, you have an uncle who worked on perpetual motions machines. Can any passing mods clarify if somebody can get banned for repeatedly and blatantly lying? LF, do you think anybody is impressed by this stream of complete nonsense?

LordFerret, your 'friend' is toying with you. He's feeding you complete BS, watching you swallow it, and laughing about it with his actual friends later.

Current main PC is Geforce GT 730, because it's reasonably cheap for the performance you get. Older secondary PC is AMD 3000 series, as was similarly good value back when I built it.

Both rushed into service without proper checks. Proton spent most of it's first decade with a success rate below 50%.

I can't say too much without going some major spoiler territory, but you're looking at it the wrong way.

Roughly the same height as Black Arrow, but skinnier.

Roughly 4,000 launches, including the Russian derivatives.

If you add up the entire R-7 based launcher family, it comes out to 1,735.

if the current is in a superconductor, you can have the first case with no energy being used. Any field, whether electrostatic, magnetic or gravitational, does not fundamentally use or produce any energy.

It is. It's not in real physical contact, it's repulsed by electrostatic forces.

Do some research on basic physics. Start with conservation of energy. Seriously, think; where is this machine of yours supposed to be getting it's supposed over-unity energy output from?

Yes, and I saw a red mercury rocket with 3000s specific impulse in Korolyov in '92, I pinky-swear. Superconductors don't break conservation of energy, anybody with even a basic knowledge of the physics involved could tell you that.

The APXS alpha source decayed to useless levels years ago. Think the rest are still functioning.

The Soyuz-FG is a Soyuz-U with flight computer upgrades, it's had no propulsion system upgrades since some time in the 60s. You also ignore the fact that larger rockets are inherently more efficient, something you do clearly know about as it is one of the basis' for this thread.

Europe clipper would be flagship. They had a competition for EC proposals in the New Frontiers class, but none of them offered the kind of science return required by the decadal survey.

There's enough overlap that it depends on budget and what performance you're trying to get; you need to compare cards, not manufacturers. This is a pretty good guide for that.

Windows desktop, android phone and tablet.

LM-6 isn't derived from LM-5 anymore. The use of the 2.25m booster as first stage was a abandoned during development, it now uses a unique short 3.35m booster.