Nibb31

A beautiful movie. But completely stupid.

One of the Buran prototypes had Jet Engines. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OK-GLI They used those instead for their gliding tests, because the AN-225 wasn't capable of doing drop tests. It was the equivalent of NASA's Enterprise, so it wasn't spaceworthy. The Jet engines and fuel took the place of the OMS. Of course, the actual Buran orbiters weren't designed to have jet engines mounted.

There are only 3 flights manifested for Orion: EFT-1 in 2014: This is a quick two-orbit high apogee test. The idea is to simulate a high-velocity re-entry similar to a trip from the Moon. It will really only test the heat shield and the avionics, because all of the rest will be dummy placeholder equipment. EM-1 in 2017: This will be an unmanned circumlunar flight with a real spacecraft, including a real service module, and launched on SLS. EM-2 in 2021: This will be the first manned flight. It will probably be combined with the Asteroid Retrieval Mission (ARM), involving loitering at EML-1, rendez-vous with the ARM spacecraft, several EVAs, and a return burn. That's a lot of "firsts" for a new spacecraft, but my hunch is that ARM will be delayed and EM-2 will just do a lunar orbit or something. Further missions are undefined and there have been no orders to build more service modules. The reason for the first manned flight to come so late is because the ECLSS (life support system) will not be ready before 2021 for budgetary reasons.

Of course they want to, but there is no budget for it. There is nothing currently planned between the EM-2 mission in 2021 where the SLS and MPCV are declared operational, and a hypothetical 2030 Mars expedition. That's a 10 year gap during which NASA would be designing and building MTV hardware. During that time, in order to keep SLS operational, NASA still needs to keep flying the SLS at least once a year. Otherwise, they are just throwing money away maintaining the infrastructure and personel. So they have to find 10 more missions before the MTV is ready, which means that they will need to develop and build hardware for one interim SLS payload every year, whether they get money for Mars or not. Guess which part of that plan gets cut when Congress has to vote the budget: interim payloads to keep the SLS running, a Mars expedition and a 10-year gap in SLS flights, cut the SLS and fly Orion on a smaller launcher, or scrap all of it and just assemble an MTV in LEO in smaller chunks and buy Dragon tickets to ferry people to it.

Orion can ride the Delta IV Heavy. In fact, that's what EFT-1 is going to demonstrate this september. Also, Orion has only 3 test flights manifested and only 2 service modules have been ordered. NASA still doesn't know what it's going to do with it. Although it's designed for BEO missions, those missions only make sense with specifici mission modules to be developed (landers, habs, SEP tugs, etc...), which will take another 10-15 years to develop with current budgets.

The external tanks weren't recovered. The SRBs were recovered and recycled, but they were basically just empty steel casings without much value. The Shuttle SSME engines are still the only rocket engines that have ever been recovered from orbit and reused.

Livestream? We're talking about the 60's guys! There was no such thing as digital video, it was either broadcast TV or film. That famous separation footage from Apollo 4 was parachuted down in film canisters.

It's not that nobody "wants" it. It's that there is no demand for ot because can afford to put anything worthwhile on top of it. There's no point in having a 130t launcher when there are no 130t payloads. NASA has no mandate to build anything beyond EM-1 and EM-2 and the science community hasn't got the money for large expeditions. Even if they did, they'd probably rather put into lots of smaller probes.

That is absolute rubbish. The bombing of the single city of Dresden in 1945 killed 25000 people. The truth is that there are no longer "battlefields" in the sense of WWII. The only sort of conflicts that industrialized nations are confronted with these days are strongly assymetrical. There is very little chance of ever entering an all-out conventional conflict between superpowers because everybody has too much to lose and because it would necessarily escalate rapidly into a nuclear exchange. When was the last true dogfight between two fighter jets? When was the last tank vs. tank battle ? Of course, it's probably not a great idea to completely give up on combat aircraft development, but it simply doesn't make sense for most industrialized countries to spend billions on maintaining hundreds of last generation fighter jets when the only potential conflicts will involve fighting folks with RPGs and AK-47s.

The A-10 is a tank killer designed to get up close and personal. Most of what it does can be done with drones or smart bombs without risking getting too close. Similarly, they announced today the retirement of the U-2. It will also be replaced with drones.

I wasn't that crazy. They used helicopters and cargo planes to catch Corona capsules before they splashed down. But to answer the OP, why on Earth would they want to retrieve burnt out, salt-water-soaked engines? They couldn't be reused anyway.

I wasn't that crazy. They used helicopters and cargo planes to catch Corona capsules. But to answer the OP, why on Earth would they want to retrieve burnt out, salt-water-soaked engines? They couldn't be reused anyway.

The F-22 or the A-10 can't operate from carriers. Air superiority these days is mostly the affair of weapon systems rather than the airframe, and ground support is done by drones. It's a post-Cold War world, and most countries don't need or can't afford the F-22. They also don't want to maintain multiple aircraft types for different mission roles. Most air forces in the World are looking to reduce the number of aircraft types in service in order to streamline their logistics, which means that they are ready to compromise on mission specialization. The rationale behind a multirole fighter like the F-35 makes sense. ...Of course, most of those operational cost advantages have been negated by the budget overruns.

If it's in a boneyard, then it's quite probably from an old or cancelled project. Claiming a stealth version of the FA-18 is jumping to conclusions. Stealth technology isn't exactly new these days. For all we know, this prototype could be 20 years old. It could have been a test platform for developing individual stealth components or for flying components and solutions that would go on the F-22 or F-35 before they were available... Or it could be from a cancelled project that came up before the F-35.

Chaos theory states that phenomenon that are seemingly random are actually complex systems that are determined by pre-existing conditions. The conclusion is that nothing is really random and everything is actually predictable, as long as you can create a complex enough model. In other words, the shape of a cloud in the sky might appear random, but it is actually the result of water molecules acting on each other, combined with atmospheric pressure and temperature conditions, wind, gravity, etc... all linked to the pre-existing configuration of those molecules. You could theoretically predict the shape of that cloud if you had a precise enough algorithmic model and enough processing power. The same goes for a functional brain. If you had a precise enough algorithmic model of the neurons, synapses, and their electrical and chemical bonds, then you could theoretically simulate a fully functional brain. The rest is just a matter of computer technology being capable of running such algorithms, which is just a matter of brute force.

Evolution doesn't work in "steps" or "levels". This isn't WOW.

Replace one of the iron balls with a feather and you will get your answer.

Who says that an artificial brain has to be small or implemented with nanotech or synthetic biology or even if it has to run in real-time. Those are just implementation details.

Nobody expects to "reduce brain functions to an electronic computer". What they are attempting to do is to create an abstract simulation model of brain cells. Whether the model is implemented as an algorithm on a silicon computer, a steam-powered turing machine, a holographic quantum computer, or a biological substrate is irrelevant. The hard part is modelling how the brain works, and neurobiologists have most of it worked out by now.

A CPU can simulate a neural net. There is a difference between any object and a CPU. However, we use computers to simulate all sorts of non-computer things every day. You can theoretically break down any object into a model that can be simulated by an algorithm: weather models, astronomical models, nuclear reaction models, cars, planes, bridges... Brain models are no different. It's just a matter of understanding how the physical object interacts with its environment and having the computing power to simulate that interaction.

EM-1 won't be manned because Orion's ECLSS system won't be ready before 2020.

You can simulate pretty much every natural or physical phenomenon at various degrees of fidelity. The processing power relates to the complexity of the model which relates to the For example, we have weather simulations that are quite capable, although they are simplified models of reality. There is no reason we couldn't simulate the atmosphere down to the movement of each molecule of air and model its reactions with neighboring molecules. They physics are well understood, so there is no theoretical limit to what we can simulate. The only limit is raw computing power, which is why we use simplified models. The same goes for the brain. We are already capable of simulating individual neurons and synapses to pretty high degree of fidelity. The chemical and physical ways in which they react to each other are well known nowadays. There is nothing mysterious or magical about it. We are already capable of assembling millions of simulated virtual neurons and observing how they react: http://singularityhub.com/2012/12/10/scientists-create-artificial-brain-with-2-3-million-simulated-neurons/ It's just a matter of time until we have the processing power to simulate an entire brain. The first models will probably work at a much slower scale than a real brain and only for short durations. For example, they might run a computer simulation for 2 months to get 10 seconds of brain activity. But as available processing power increases, dedicated hardware is designed, and the simulation model is optimized, it's pretty inevitable that we will reach the Singularity event during the next couple of decades.

SpaceX is a private corporation, not a non-profit organization or a money sink for his personal fortune. In order to survive, it's going to have to generate revenue.

It's a bit high... Why not design it so that the engine fits in a hole between the tanks?

The best safety device would actually be a huge metallic spike mounted on every steering wheel and pointed at the drivers chest. If this was mounted on every vehicle, I think everybody would keep a nice safe braking distance from the vehicle in front.