AngelLestat

?? Any spacecraft trying to change the orbit of an asteroid will be at very low accelerations, and the "capture" is done using the same gravity of earth to kill the asteroid velocity "gravitation assist" (which does not produce shatter either). The tide force in this case is very small. It does not matter because you got what you wanted, divert a tiny bit its trajectory. Besides, your asteroid of choice to be used as kinetic bomb will be much smaller than the one you want to divert, but it will be much more cost/effective than any thing launched from earth, even nuclear weapons. When you said capture.. I imagine earth capture.. But your way would be very hard, first you need to reach your "tool" asteroid which requires a lot of deltav and time (which each day you wait increase the amount of force needed to being diverted) and you still need the LUCK of having an asteroid that fullfil those orbits needs in that moment of need. In my way.. you always have an asteroid orbiting earth that works as fuel source, so in case you needed for something else, you can shoot it right away to hit your objective. That saves a lot of time by many reasons.

Ahh you are talking about the new vulcan upper stage, I thought it was about delta or atlas upper stage. The tech for that you mention is called IVF? or something like that. How can you be sure? I give them 5 or 7 years before, but with these news even 2 years seems uncertain. ?? why you make that quote? is confusing.. By the way.. I made the topic! and is about the future of ULA as company, which of course, any impact on its income also have repercussions in their vulcan development.. You think that if spacex fails the next 2 launches it would not have an impact with their MCT plans? They already said they have no interest in continue with delta4 because the difference in cost would be even higher vs spacex. The news is about that many congressmen are pushing to return that ban with very solid arguments than even ULA friends are taking them into account. The first question you need to ask... why US is paying a lot just to have their personal lauch providers? Because if they are in a conflict with russia or an russia allied, they can not said.. "sell me few engines so I can launch a sat to make your life harded", its complete pointless. there are many delays in the vulcan design, is not comparable with spacex and many investors already know this I am not saying they will disappear tomorrow.. only that their future is uncertain and not look too good If you have 4 or 6 is better, but that does not change the fact that ULA can not compete in price with spacex, so spent much time with a launch budget that you will lose is not fun. It may won some launches due its record and contacts. but no enough to keep with the competence. Yeah, I though they were talking about something else.

I like the idea.. because It has dual use. 1-We can capture in the most convenient moment (out of danger) an asteroid (with a big % of water) in a highly elliptical orbit, we paint the asteroid with a high albedo layer to avoid melting and damage from light.. Meanwhile we are out of danger, we use the asteroid as a refuel station, we install a nuclear reactor in its surface which energy help us to process the fuel and to get water (between other things). We can also steal speed to its elliptical orbit (which will reduce its apo) to push our ships to higher orbits (not sure how it will be the best way) 2-In case an asteroid menace earth, we use the nuclear reactor to provide propulsion using the water of the asteroid as propellent. Although I guess this will only would work for those menaces that are found in the same ecliptic.

And you can see me posting in that topic too.. the same I did with all previous ULA and spacex topics. That topic was about spacex landing their 1st stage and how reusability achievement could impact in the the future vulcan plans with their partial reusability. This topic takes into account more news and political climate related to the last words from John McCain and Kevin McCarthy in conjunction with Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James saying that her office may terminate a contract with ULA for $800 million annually. And you need to read the whole note to understand how serious is this. Ha, Is not the first time I read you using the "period" and in those times the period became into a comma. They have a great support for sure, but sometimes when a ship is sinking, it reach the point where everybody leave it before they sink with it. Why they didn't use those in the november proposal? That requires money and time (which if they lose this contract not sure they will have), and all that for what? To launch an old rocket like the Atlas? It will be able to compete with spacex? Now they need to take the decision of use their own money to solve their issues and still being in a big risk to lose the majority of the launches due cost. Which is still several years behind on development, and behind in capabilities. With a lot of development funding they are not sure to get. Also, forget that they will be able to compete in the commercial industry. That war is already lost. Their only friends is the army and even them are looking spacex with good eyes. Why not? they were ok all this time with just 1 provider.. By the way.. what it got of special that helium as pressure gas solution? You are mention that as it were a huge tech breakthrough. Is not the most common thing in all upper stages?

I always predict that ULA projects were a complete waste of money. But with so many senators and generals in their pocket, I always imagine that they could fight for a niche at least for 5 to 7 years more. Now these days is not even sure what would happen with ULA in the next 2 years. They were ok since 1990 with 800 millions each year from the Pentagon just to maintain infrastructure and then extra money for each launch. But spacex appeared from nothing and in few years make the ground tremble. Until that point all ok.. ULA still had their friends.. But with the ukraine-russian mishap, now US wants to ban russian engines, which are the ones that ULA uses because they never bother to design their own engines. Now spacex gain its certification to deliver US defense cargo to orbit and ULA did not submit any proposal for the next launch. Many politics are in rage against ULA with all the millions they give to the company and now they don't even bother to find a solution. Now ULA may lose the whole contract which will mean a huge % of their income. If we take all that plus the fact that the new vulcan rocket is still very behind falcon 9 capabilities, its near future is uncertain. Too bad for ULA fans. Source: http://fortune.com/2016/01/28/pentagon-congress-spacex-competition/

no, they are not. You can put together stages inside a spacex assembly line with lot of machinery and workers, no in orbit by themselves. Gaarst also points something very important, not sure how I miss it.. you can not place a first stage in orbit with full fuel. Like I said, is possible to design a tug with many parts if they are designed with that purpose, but it has also its drawbacks vs a specialized launcher as the MCT.

How do you: "Strap them together and you've got a launch stack"? If they was not designed for that? If you design each part of the special tug (no falcon9 parts) to be able of merge one with the other in a controlled way with a small engine (why you need 9 merlin engines for each booster with a total of 450 merlin engines which increase the chance of failure?) then you have a tug that can be build depending any deltav and cargo you need. PD: by the way.. I dont see much point in waste a lot more in deltav to save some consumables which increasing the risk a lot due extra deltav.

but these booster are not designed to be joint in orbit. A much better approach would be using falcon heavy in reusable mode, then rise all the pieces to make a big tug up there (lego way).

Yeah, and I guess if 2 dracos from the same side fail, dragon will be still able (in theory) to land just using two 2 opposite pairs (because they are enough separated to control the remaining axis, or using 1 of the opposite pair which dint fail with the one of the other pair that are more far.. There are a lot of possible combinations you can use depending the problem. So in theory you will be able to have a slow descent with just 3 draco engines.

Yeah, that is a nice way to solve all manually.. but you will not get rid of technology so easy, all cars still had complex mechanism and sensors for their doors or windows because it's cheap and faster. So that is a nice safe mode in case your power is off, but no sure how much you can save ignoring electronics.

there is absolutely no point in space battles by hundreds of logic reasons .. That is just a thing that we will continue to see in movies or series.

ok you misunderstood me, the link I provide just predict that el niño can be stronger each time, now it was other predictions before 2015 saying that 2015 it would be a stronger year for el niño. About data.. scientist knows how to correct possible errors in measurements (previous and new ones) to enclose the error in certain range. But I am agree, we can not scream global warming for each pattern change. It does not help to those who wanna understand the weather and climate. But even if is related or not with co2 increase.. is a good video to understand this phenomenon. In 1997 the economic cost was 45 billions, in 2015 is expected to be higher as economies have grown. It may not look as a big number for big countries, but it is a big number for countries in development.

http://www.climatecentral.org/news/climate-change-could-make-super-el-ninos-more-likely-16976 There are not 100% confirmed things in weather or climate. But you may find an overwhelming amount of evidence pointing to some conclusions. That study shows computer simulations using and combining many climate models in supercomputers. The outcome is always the same. It was predicted that 2015 would be a very hard year for el niño, and it was. So that means that theory is very close to the truth. I dont have time to name all, (and they still happen), but just hurricane patricia give us something to take note.

That source is not very accurate. Take into account that is build with the idea to provide guide for those who play RPG space games. Is not the first time I found errors in that site, some are commented in discussion over this same forum, here there are few more and I did not read the full page, so is not a recommended source.. Atomic Rockets shows as source Dr. Geoffrey Landis words, but is funny how then contradicts its own sources. To understand many of these issues we need to put the time into perspective. 1-"Blood starts to boils", Landis explains why this does not happen. In the Ebullism link also is mentioned that this does not happen, but that after several minutes starts to happen in a small scale (for long time flys) and symptoms appears with the word "may". 2-Freeze or burn. This also contradicts its sources. If you are in space with some cloth, you will feel just a little cool sensation due surface liquids evaporating. But in space is harder to get rid of heat than gain it.. Those numbers that we always see as -270c vs 120c on light.. does not has real meaning. Up there in orbit the sun power is 1300w/m2, in earth surface is 1000w/m2, you have UV that can intensify your skin burns, but instead 30 min as in earth, you will have the same burn in 5 min (constant exposure with no rotation or cloth to block it). 3-lungs damage over explosión decompression. To have that a big part of your ship needs to break on half, and the damage is not so severe upto the case of no being able to breath again... Most decompression happens in 20 seconds or hours. Facts: some monkeys or animals was exposure to vacuum by 3 to 10 min (no oxygen), and then they survive when they was reanimated. The main cause of death is always lack of oxygen.. this is the thing you solve with the syringe idea. And it gives you enough time to put you in save (wearing a spacesuit or reaching a pressurized area)

So you are saying that co2 increase does not have any effect on El niño?

The UN made a nice video explaining this phenomenon, someone ask about this few weeks back. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v92Iqihct98 The economic cost of this phenomenon is increasing each year.. Any solution to stop co2 will be much more cheaper than deal with the consequences.

you have a source to support all that? From what I read.. those are issues only after several minutes..

No.. the article said that 1 injection of that side "video" would work for 15 to 30 min. Is tested in animals who had the same oxygen limit in their blood although the amount injected was different. About your 0.3liter by min is wrong. "The human lung consumes about 5-6 ml oxygen per minute" Source. Your pressure drop calculation is fine for 1cm square to 1m3, but the thing change fast when diameter increase due cm2 area and lower friction surface for the same area. This mean pressure drop by a factor of ten in 2 seconds for a 5 cm orifice diameter or a flow rate of 10m3 of air by second for a 20cm diameter orifice. Any suit that work under pressure reduce a lot the mobility and its weight is high, skinsuits (which are better) are hard to design for different body sizes and sex. So, I am not saying that this injection should be the only safety mechanism in these cases, but your chances of survival would increase a lot if all people carries one of these all the time.. Maybe an automated mechanism that when detect low pressure activate the injection..

This is not a full remplace for a suit, but it could work like that in case of emergency. I guess the first step in this kind of emergency could be this injection, or just wear a prop attached to you that will automatically inject the right amount and when is needed. After that, we can go and wear our spacesuit without risk to be trap in the middle of the process (in case the base has one suit for each person). The evaporation on the lungs and skin, is slow.. you will be able to resist that for longer times than the injection period. it only helps for 15 min for two reasons, you can not inject a lot of these lipids in the blood because a lot of oxygen is bad and does not remplace the co2 filtration that the lungs do as sgt_flyer said. "This is a short-term oxygen substitute -- a way to safely inject oxygen gas to support patients during a critical few minutes," he says. "Eventually, this could be stored in syringes on every code cart in a hospital, ambulance or transport helicopter to help stabilize patients who are having difficulty breathing." The microparticles would likely only be administered for a short time, between 15 and 30 minutes, because they are carried in fluid that would overload the blood if used for longer periods, Kheir says. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/06/120627142512.htm https://youtu.be/R6OOWqdjaeA?t=8m16s Space exposure. http://www.geoffreylandis.com/vacuum.html

Yeah, but all you are dealing with helmets, suits, mechanic skinsuits, skinsuits tight with vacuum.. bags, etc. All those things takes valious time, and is possible that the suit would not be airtight, or the helmet fail, or the mobility is bad. My idea is the most lightweight, the most faster to apply, it gives you great mobility and it works over the time that it needs to work. In my case the suit, is your own skin, which is mentioned by many spacesuit engineers as the perfect material. So what if you dont have air in your lungs.. meanwhile you have oxygen in the blood where it should be.

Ok.. thinking out of the box.. No suit, no bag, nothing.. Just a syringe to inject oxygen directly to my bloodstream.. When I found vacuum, it will be bad.. but once I overcome the air leaving my lungs and the reflex arc to breath.. I can move and function fine over the next 15 minutes. http://gizmodo.com/5921868/scientists-invent-particles-that-will-let-you-live-without-breathing

well, I hope to end with this surface limit myth once for all, I will try to explain each point the best I can. Venus mining Things to overcome: Pressure: 90bar Temperature: 460c Energy source, PV is not a good option. 1-Pressure only matters if you want to keep a differential. We don't need a manned vehicle, so in practice it does not need to be strong at all, all elements can be at equal pressure, this saves money. But just in case you need to keep a differential, lets remember that the Trieste manned submarine from 1960, achieved 11km of deep in our oceans, 1100 bar. 2-High temperature is bad for our current circuits, special electronics was designed in many parts of the world that can operate normally at 350c, other electronics are being developed for even higher temperatures. This mean that rovers or probes designed to day can not work in venus? No.. It means that they just need to spent a bit of energy in cooling (just the electronics). Why a bit? Because the amount of heat you need to dissipate is related with how good is your insulation.. Very good insulation --> low heat flow, which is the heat you need to counter + electronics heat. Venus mining machines does not need complex electronics as a rover that needs to process a lot of data and take some instant decisions by it self. These machines are the most similar to RC vehicles. What about the other components? -lead melts in the surface. Well.. let's not choose lead then.. But you can choose more than 70 materials that resist higher temperatures over 1000c, and one of the best choices would be all Carbon base materials, with +3500c and no melting point. What about engines? Nasa has an electric engine that operates with no problem at 540c. 3-Energy... Ok.. this is the only thing that really bothers in case you want to design an independent probe or rover for venus, it limits how much time you can be down there. But NASA and different agencies already have many proposals that overcome that issue for 2 months of operation in the surface. Thermoelectric power with a radioactive isotope, or fuel cells using co2 as agent for a co+o2 reaction. those are just 2 of many options. Now.. if we already have medium habitats/cities in venus with some infrastructure.. then even with current technology all those things are much much easy to solve. You can use microwave beam energy from the cities to the mining ground, this is not like "space base solar power at 36000km", here you just need to transmit that energy for 60km top. Another way is with airborne wind energy, in this case you fill a much smaller volume with nitrogen, and you float your turbine at 10km with a cable attached to the ground close to your mining, at that height you find winds like earth but with 40 times the density. You can also use geothermal if the location allow it. But as everybody can see.. there is absolutely no problem mining the surface. You can even put a factory down there for metals as aluminum, where you just need to rise the temperature 200c (instead 650c) to melt it and shape it. This would save a lot of energy.. one of the advantages that the earth does not have.

it is not surprise that they would not use crossfeed for the first missions.. but they will use it eventually. Not sure what is the source of those who said that crossfeed is out of the question...

Trolling? Is really hard to believe that someone still think that venus surface is out of the question for a medium city or big city. I guess spacex prove enough already to avoid any kind of comparison with NASA. The future of space is not driven by nasa anymore, so you don't need to count the progress in decades.. Skylon will be in operation in just 7 or 9 years.

I found this, Geodesic spheres: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OuwHsQgRDn4 Is the only structure that becomes stronger at bigger sizes, there is another video in the links that show the same structure with a guy in each triangle, is also the structure more faster to build. Another possibility is tensegrity sphere. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-Ny3BfhVdw If we shape it as an ellipsoid, we can add a mechanism in the middle to allow certain expansion and contraction, then ballonets to let enter co2 and internal pressure envelopes to compress the air. With those 3 mechanism is safe enough of any kind of problem. How insects extract water from the deserts? Earth has an average water of 5000ppm, but much higher in some places or much lower in others, this is equal to 15000km3 of water. Venus has an average of 20ppm, but its atmosphere is 90 times ours, this is equal to 6000km3 of water, to that, we need to add the water trapped in the ground that should be much higher. You also have different concentrations at different places. In the clouds you have 60ppm of water-acid and is easy to catch when it "rains". If you go at 10 or 30 km, you dont have liquid water as in the clouds, but there is a concentration of 150ppm of pure water, you can condensate that with special surfaces and different methods to economize energy. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- I update the info post, now is complete I guess. There is now a chart that explain the different values find on temperature, altitude and pressure on different sources, like probes or sats. Problem was that latitude in some was not included and probes only measure pressure, and altitude is an approximation.