Nibb31

It does ignore the deadly radiation that would kill you in seconds in such close vicinity of the gas giants, but it is certainly beautiful and inspiring.

The Ranger is a reusable SSTO. Additionally, it's pretty small, meaning that its fuel source is quite compact already. I really don't see how launching a Saturn V (or whatever than rocket is), would be cheaper than 2 or 3 more SSTO flights to send up a few extra fuel canisters.

Because the Apollo-style launch is more spectacular. You're right, it doesn't make any sense. We can just be grateful that it was at least more plausible than anything from Star Trek or Star Wars. If they have a spaceship that is capable of SSTO and they are capable of assembling the Endurance in the first place, then it wouldn't cost them many more round-trips to just to bring up a bit more fuel. It doesn't look like it's carrying hundreds of tons of fuel anyway.

If you clone a species that is extinct, you also need to clone its environment (air, food) and the microbiote it needs to stay alive. The mammoth's gut flora alone is probably harder to reproduce than the actual genome.

Sadly, the size and fragmentation of military budgets in Europe doesn't allow envelope-pushing aerospace research programs any more. We can't even agree on a common jet fighter or a drone program, and we barely got a new turboprop cargo plane, so fundamental research in hypersonic cruise missiles is simply not going to happen. As for the halfway thing, hypersonic airlaunch is a whole other can of worms that is probably more complex than SSTO. Skylon doesn't make sense economically as an SSTO launcher. It will make even less sense as carrier aircraft with an expendable second stage. But yes, one of the problem's with REL's approach is that they are not doing incremental improvements on state of the art aerospace engineering. Skylon implements not one, but a dozen new unproven technologies: airframe structure, engine, TPS, propellant operations, business model, construction techniques, materials, etc... Nothing in Skylon is off-the-shelf or even a conventional design. To be successful, these theoretical technologies ALL have to work exactly as planned on paper. If any of these technologies underperforms in one way or another (cost, weight, schedule, reliability, supply-chain, performance...), then the whole project falls through and the entire effort is wasted.

Even that would be a stretch. The only organisations with the infrastructure, workforce, and supply chain to build airframes the size of the A350 in Europe are Airbus or BAe. Airbus employs thousands of people and hundreds of subcontractors. To build an industrial base like that takes billions of dollars over decades. Regardless of what REL says, you can't build a Skylon in your back garden shed, or even in a rented workshop on an industrial estate. Skylon will only happen if the big aerospace companies get involved, and that will only happen if they have secure orders for a minimum number of spacecraft. Companies like Boeing or Airbus only start designing a new aircraft when customers have preordered a certain number. Customers preorder because they know that those companies will deliver. They have an accurate idea of the operating cost before they commit. Given that there is no market for several orbital launches per day, there is no business model for operating a fleet of reusable fast-turnaround spaceplanes, it's impossible to calculate a positive return on investment on Skylon operations, there are no customers ready to buy Skylon. Therefore nobody wants to commit resources into building it.

I don't see what Voyager has to do with our current goals and objectives. Goals have to be technologically within reach, otherwise they are meaningless. Venturing anywhere beyond our solar system is a pipe dream with any foreseeable technology, including NTRs and Orion. As a KSP player, you should know that that's not true. Getting there faster is more about timing and trajectory than about thrust.

Alright then, no thread merging then... I suppose we'll have to debunk Skylon all over again for the umpteenth time... *sigh* REL doesn't have the resources, the industrial base, the logistics, the infrastructure, or the business model to pull off Skylon. All the figures they have communicated are either hugely optimistic with no margin for underperformance, or unrealistic, especially in terms of their market expectations.

I have the strong feeling that voice interaction with computers is a bit of a dead end, regardless of the efforts that Google, Microsoft, Amazon, and others are putting into it. I simply can't see a future where people will be talking with their devices in public or in the workplace.

The last thread was July 2014. If there has been any news, then it might be good to post it there.

Why? What has changed?

It has. Plenty of times. http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/86244-What-will-happen-if-Skylon-succeeds http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/72850-Skylon-may-fly-this-year-first-SSTO-spaceplane http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/65742-Why-is-skylon-unmanned http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/63293-Lift-vs-Weight-tradeoff-on-Skylon-style-spaceplane http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/50187-Will-Skylon-ever-fly Can a mod please merge this thread with one of the other ones so that we don't have to go through the same arguments all over again?

The problem is that by the time the Soviet Union was flying Buran and Mir, they already had those thousands of silos, mobile launchers, long-range bombers, and SSBNs. There was never any purpose for a manned orbital nuclear launch platform, because it has no strategic benefit over the other cheaper and more reliable delivery methods. Both the Americans and the Russians knew that.

Don't worry, it doesn't recognize proper english very well either. S-Voice is useless. You should try Google Now, it probably understands Polish too.

Yours is still a niche use case that doesn't warrant manufacturers investing in dual SD card slots. As you say yourself, even that would not be enough. For your use, you should get an OTG SD card reader or an external USB drive.

It is. Proof is, the USSR actually built thousands of silos, but only built one space station and only could only fund a single Buran flight. Silos only cost concrete and manpower. Those were cheap commodities in the Soviet Union. Why would it need so much delta-v? Even if you did, you are better off designing a specialized spacecraft around the propulsion system than to adapt an existing design into something it wasn't designed for in the first place. Or just stick Buran's engines on an FGB shell. Then why use a Buran in the first place? You don't need the robotic arm, cargo bay doors, fuselage, cockpit, landing gear, TPS... All those things are useless weight on a spacecraft that is designed to stay in space. They serve no purpose. Why spend so much effort modifying Buran when it would be easier to design a dedicated spacecraft from scratch? No it doesn't. There is no hypersonic maneuvrability. It comes down in a straight line on a highly predictable trajectory and much slower (and easier to detect and shoot down) than a traditional MIRV. It's also heavier and more expensive, which means fewer warheads and a much smaller total yield. Why would the area of destruction be wider than a conventional ICBM attack? You could just launch the MIRVs and re-entry vehicles in different directions at different times with their own guidance and propulsion system. You can reach any point from orbit. There is no need for the "BOR launcher Burans". That's wrong. A single shot could disable your only space station. And you can just design your system so that it doesn't need maintenance and refueling. The Soviet Union was perfectly capable of building unmanned spacecraft and reentry vehicles. No it isn't. A space station like this is ridiculously vulnerable. There are dozens of ways the enemy could disable it. A "Starfish Prime" explosion 50km below it would fry its electronics and kill everyone on board. And there is no way you could stop such an attack. A salvo of ASAT missiles would kill it too. And then there's the risk of something going wrong on the station. Mir had dozens of faults and malfunctions. If it had been a military station, it would only have been operational 50% of the time, at best. If you have only one of these battle stations, you have no redundancy. You would be better off with multiple Salyut-type stations. How is it "first-strike-proof"? It would be under constant observation and the first target to be destroyed.

The idea is so idiotic, I don't know where to start. - Building thousands of silos and SSBNs is cheaper, safer, and more redundant than building a single orbital space station. - What's the advantage of a wingless space shuttle when you have purpose built FGB or DOS spacecraft? - Why wingless? - Why would you want to put nukes inside BOR spaceplanes that are easy to intercept and provide ample time to retaliate when you have fast re-entry MIRVs? - Why launch the nukes from space shuttles when you can launch them from the station? - Why build a massive highly-vulnerable multi-core space station when you can have lots of smaller redundant ones? - Why build a space station at all when all you need is to put the MIRVs on orbit with a retromotor to deorbit them when needed? - How does this give you a faster response time than suborbital ICBMs launched from a fleet of SSBNs?

It's absolutely stupid.

Windows Vista came out in 2007. It must be older than that. No wonder it's shutting down randomly. The power supply might be dying, but it could simply be full of dust and in need of a good cleanup.

Reinstalling the OS has nothing to do with your problem with the CPU or fan. You can deal with an OS upgrade when you've fixed the other problem. If your computer has Windows XP on it, it must be ancient.

Marketing mostly. But the difference is visible between my old Galaxy Note (1280 x 800) and my new OnePlus One (1920x1080). Higher DPI means also more information on the screen. I don't see the point in going to 4K on a 5.5" screen though, but it will happen. What people tend to forget is that more pixels means more processing power required. Going from HD to 4K means that there are 4 times more pixels, which mean that you need more video RAM and a faster processor (not necessarily 4 times faster, but significantly faster).

How to you know the processor is dead? We told you it's either the fan or the power supply. Did you check those? You don't need to reinstall Windows. It sounds like you don't know much about computers. Your computer is new, right? Then bring it back to shop and get it fixed under guarantee. Oh, and if you do remove the CPU fan, DO NOT SWITCH ON THE COMPUTER WITHOUT A CPU FAN. It will fry the CPU in less than a second.

Many phones have HD 1080p screens nowadays, so it's not that ridiculous to want to watch your HD movies on one, and downscaling your library to watch them on a mobile is a tedious process. Also, some people might want to connect their device to a 1080p TV while they're on the go. It's not the size of the movies that's insane, it's the number of movies that he wants to carry with him all the time. The onboard camera has nothing to do with the resolution of movies. Also, a couple of phones can now record 4K video (which is ridiculous IMO). It's not technically far-fetched because 4K resolution (3 840 × 2 160 pixels) is equivalent to an 8 megapixel sensor, which is what the flagship phones are equipped with. I'm not saying that it will be high-quality or that it has any purpose (1080p is more than enough), but the sensors are perfectly capable of doing 4K.

Usually, when computers switch off randomly, it's because of thermal protection. Are you fans working properly? You should get a little program to monitor the CPU temperature.

Sounds like you're using it wrong. A phone is not for mass storage. It can get lost, SD cards are more expensive than hard drives, they can get corrupted (trust me, it happens) and 128GB is an awful lot of data to lose in one go. Why would you really need to carry around 40 HD movies on your phone? If you watched 2 movies a day, that would still be 20 days worth of video. Do you really spend that much time out in the woods without being able to sync with a PC ? The only reason to have them always with you is if you need to rewatch them regularly when you're on the go, which is ridiculous. How many times do you watch the same movie in a month or two? All you need is to bring the movies that you plan to watch, or enough entertainment to survive while you're away. The collection can stay on the hard drive at home. And as we already said, if you really need to travel with your entire movie collection, you can always bring a 2TB external USB drive. It will also be much cheaper than an SD-card, and more versatile (you can plug it into the USB on a TV). Or get one of the OTG devices I linked to up there.