Nibb31

No, the SSMEs were removed, serviced and tested after each flight, but were completely overhauled after a certain number of flights (I don't remember how many).

The thermal tiles were reused. They were only replaced if they were damaged. There were all sorts of covers and shrouds there were expended too. The SSME engines were removed, serviced, and reused in rotation. The SRB casings were refurbished and reused, but they were pretty much just steel shells that weren't worth much. The nosecones and parachutes were discarded, and so were the nozzles.

And who do you think pays the private companies? SpaceShipTwo isn't a spaceship. It's a suborbital stunt plane.

People used to think that they could turn lead into gold, build a ladder to the Moon, or make perpetual motion devices. It turns out those things are still not possible, and probably never will be. You can dream all you want about pink unicorns and time travel, it doesn't mean that it just takes a dreamer to make impossible things possible. For all those dreamers who had succeeded despite naysayers, a whole lot more perished for not listening to naysayers. You are saying that the claim "People said we couldn't ever fly, but now we can" implies that "people said that we couldn't do FTL travel, therefore we should be able to". That is the fallacy. In other words, if some ideas were proven wrong in the past doesn't mean that all ideas will be proven wrong in the future. We have a much better grip on science than we did in the Middle Ages when myths like those were created. Physics and causality are pretty constant and we have a good enough grasp on most things to figure out what is impossible, what is impractical, and what is highly improbable with pretty good certainty levels. I'm not saying we know everything, but I can quite confidently rule out things like my cat building an antigravity device or you flying to Mars tomorrow morning. Similarly, developing the technology and infrastructure to fly to Mars in 10 or 15 years is going to be impractical, expensive and therefore improbable to a rather high degree of certainty. Beyond that timeframe, nobody knows really, so it's a bit pointless to speculate on what might or might not be possible in 30 or 50 years depending on what technological breakthroughs, social movements or economical events might or might not happen.

Making methane/oxygen fuel from the Martian atmosphere is not "current technology". It hasn't even been conceptualized into an experimental model. It has a TRL (Technology Readiness Level) of 1 at best, whereas it needs to be at least 7 or 8 for human lives to rely on it. And it's not a matter of dedication, it's a matter of budget. NASA barely has the resources to build Orion and a SLS right now, but not enough money to develop any mission-specific hardware. That's a classical fallacy. There are also many more things which seemed impossible and still are, and most likely always will be.

It might not be natural selection, but of course there is still selection. People with massive abnormalities often have trouble finding a partner who is willing to procreate with them. Attractiveness plays a larger role in determining whether an individual procreates or not. Different traits are being selected than just survivability. We don't really know where we are going with this, and maybe the genetical changes due to evolution will actually slow down, but they won't stop and neither will cultural or societal changes. We have wildly different lives and societies than our ancestors from just 500 years ago.

Some of the fuel bundles were damaged by the collapsing roof and other debris. They might also have corroded from the use of sea water as coolant. Removing them is potentially quite dangerous.

Really, it's apples and oranges. Most of the radionucleides released at Chernobyl were vented to the atmosphere when the reactor exploded. Only a relatively small portion of them are still contained in the sarcophagus. After the explosion, it was pretty much over and cleanup operations could start. With Fukushima, only a small amount was released into the atmosphere. Most of it is slowly leaking from the reactor and dumped into the ocean, but there are 4 leaky reactors instead of 1. The main difference between Fukushima and Chernobyl is that radioactive elements are being released continuously into the sea over several years instead of into the atmosphere in one explosion, and nobody really cares about what goes into the sea. Also, Fukushima isn't over yet. The fuel removal job isn't part of the cleanup, it's still damage control. The spent fuel pools are located at the top of the badly damaged reactor buildings. Even a minor quake could cause leaks to appear in the pools or the buildings to collapse totally, which could expose the damaged fuel rods. If that happens, you risk a nuclear fire with molten fuel rods and criticality events, and the consequences would be catastrophic. So basically, even though the amount of radioactive particles emitted into the atmosphere is lower than Chernobyl, the amount dumped into the ocean is probably comparable and the potential of Fukushima getting worse than Chernobyl is still there.

I didn't say that our descendance wouldn't be tracable genetically. I said that they would be physically unrecognizable as today's humans. Look at humans from only 50000 years ago. Even in that short period, there have been many physiological changes. They were noticeably smaller than us, their teeth and digestive systems were different, their cognitive capabilities were different, and they lived shorter lives. But mostly their culture, beliefs, and social organization would appear completely alien to us and incompatible with modern society. And that is my point. Those fundamental changes happened in a tiny timeframe when compared to the OP's "hundred billion years". I doubt that any kind of organized society (or "civlization", but I hate that term) could survive those massive mutations as a recognizable entity for more than a few thousand years.

What makes you think that a single "civilization" could live billions of years. We don't know of a single complex organism that could live that long without evolution turning it into something completely different? Civilizations would rise and fall and go extinct in much less than the pace at which a single species would evolve into something completely unrecognizable from its original state. In other words, if our descendants still exist in a million years, they will be so physically, socially, culturally, and genetically different from us to be unrecognizable, and the introductions of any major physical, social, cultural and genetical differences are bound to cause enough instability to bring down or deconstruct most forms of civilization as we know it.

Since radioactive elements from Fukushima are still being released into the environment 2 and a half years after the actual meltdown, and there is no sign of the situation actually getting under control any time soon, I don't see anyone can confidently say which one is worse. Fukushima is also closer to a major capital city, so the actual amount of irradiated people might end up being higher. http://enenews.com/quite-extremely-radioactive-sample-tokyo-air-filter-150-times-uranium-expected-fukushima-busby-video If car filters are contaminated, then so are peoples' lungs. Irradiated people don't drop dead immediately, so the actual casualty count is irrelevant. We will only know the actual impact of Fukushima on health in a couple of decades, when we have some clear numbers for cancer rates and birth defects. There is still a complete lack of transparency in the measurements, especially in the ocean where most of the radioactive elements are being dumped, and TEPCO as well as the Japanese authorities still seem to be very much in panic mode when it comes to securing the plant: http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/11/12/us-japan-fukushima-removal-idUSBRE9AB15L20131112

POGO effect was mitigated by clever use of materials damping materials and acoustic effects. It had nothing to do with Apollo 13.

I'd say it's pretty much the other way round. I hardly ever use any stock parts any more, because I don't like their comic look. I much prefer the realistic look of the fustek pack and other mods.

are you seriously expecting a reply from them other than "Thanks for interest in Space X, but..." ?

France's electricity is cheap because it only takes into account the operational cost of producing electricity. Most of the R&D that went into the construction was paid for by the French government. The cost of securing and monitoring nuclear sites is paid for by the government, and so is the cost of storing and processing used fuel. But the biggest expense that is not factored into the operational cost is the decommissioning of nuclear power plants. Most of France's nuclear power plants were built in the 80's and will be reaching their end of life during the 2020's and the total decommissioning cost for the 58 reactors has been estimated at 750 billion euros.

"Graveyard orbit" is where GEO sats go when they die. It's at 36000 x 36000km. Falcon 9 cannot launch a school bus there and GEO is regulated by ITU agreements. The 13 ton payload capability is for LEO, which means that it's coming down, which means that you need to provide a controlled way for it to come down, which means that you need comms to tell it when to come down, a deorbit motor to bring it down, and attitude control to make sure it's pointing the right way when you fire the deorbit burn. If you don't add those things, then you don't meet regulations, which means that you don't get insurance, which means that you don't get to launch with an FAA-licensed launch operator. I'm sorry, but you can't just launch any old piece of junk into kind of orbit. There are rules, regulations, approvals, licenses, as well as governments and corporations who have huge investments in space infrastructure. The ISS orbit for example is protected by international agreements. You don't get to approach it in any way without proper authorization and certification. GEO activities are governed by the International Telecommunication Union. Anything that goes up or comes down in the USA must meet FAA regulations. And of course, you don't want to interfere with the operation of any other military or civilian satellites, or else you will probably end up on the wrong end of a billion dollar lawsuit... or worse! Besides, SpaceX has nothing to gain except bad publicity from a stupid stunt that could go terribly wrong. They are working hard to establish credibility in the industry, to accumulate experience and demonstrate their technology in a multi-billion dollar market. They are trying to make space affordable and open it up to customers that have a real purpose. Even if you do raise the funds, they are not going to take the job because stupid stunts is not what they do. They would get better PR by offering free launches to universities or schools. As romantic as it sounds, launching a school bus on top of a commercial rocket is simply not going to happen.

Because the SLS core uses smaller engines than the Saturn V. The payload of the Saturn V was 120 tons to LEO, but it was far from an optimal design. It was built to be quick and dirty, with whatever parts they had available at the time. The SLS has to built with whatever parts are available now. What would be the point of making variant with 4 SRBs ? There are still no 100 ton payloads to put on the rocket.

The SLS core isn't the first stage. The first stage of the SLS is core+boosters. The delta-V of the core stage standing on the pad is actually zero, because it can't take off without the boosters.

On what sort of vehicle? What kind of flight? For what cost? This sounds like baseless PR from someone who is pretty ignorant on the subject.

How long do you want the bus to live in space? What are the basic requirements? Is it going to LEO, do a couple of orbits and then perform a controlled deorbit, or are you planning to send it into a higher "permanent orbit". GEO graveyard is not really practical with such a heavy payload. Remember that Falcon 9's 13t capability is only to LEO. If you want to go higher, you're going to need an upper stage of some sort, more shielding and more resistant hardware. Do you really need it to be a real bus? Since you're going to be stripping everything from it, including windows, seats, wheels, engine... why not simply make it a space-rated fibre-glass shell that looks like a bus?

To launch a satellite, the launch provider will require that the payload is properly insured in order to cover damages that might happen to the payload itself or be caused to third parties by the payload, including the school bus falling on an actual school, or hitting the ISS. Insurance companies inspect and monitor spacecraft integration and testing before they agree to insure anything, so you would need to prove that your school bus won't risk falling down on someone, disrupting communications, or becoming a hazard to other spacecraft. That would include environmental testing in vacuum chambers and vibration testing, which are extremely expensive. Non-space-rated materials, like oil, paint, rubber, glue, etc... will probably burn off and evaporate in space, which would become a cloud of debris and might be considered a hazard. Anything that might break off during the launch (windows, mirrors, seats, bodywork...) could damage or unbalance the rocket during launch. You will also need a launch licence from the FAA: http://www.faa.gov/about/office_org/headquarters_offices/ast/licenses_permits/ Of course, you wouldn't be able to get any of that paperwork with a cobbled together school bus. Unless you actually attach it to a proper generic satellite bus like a Boeing 702, with RCS and comms and controlled deorbiting provisions, and you ensure that everything is made of space-rated materials, that no debris will be created and nothing will fall off. And of course, anything manned cobbled together with cork or aluminium foil is simply out of question whatever you do. FAA will not grant you a license. Insurance won't cover you. SpaceX will refuse to launch it. Sorry for raining on the parade.

At any rate, we all want more money. The problem is that increased funding simply isn't likely to happen. So if we were in charge of a space program, we simply couldn't have ISS and SLS and Orion and Ares I and unmanned exploration. The ISS is there and it cost a lot to build, so at this point, we want to really wring every drop of science we can get out of it. Orion to LEO makes no sense. It's pretty much useless without some sort of mission module, whether that be a hab, a SEP tug or something else. It's problem is that it keeps being scrapped and redesigned. The SM design still isn't frozen and is being delayed yet again... The other problem is that no mission modules are being designed and Congress can't seem to agree on what the mission actually is, which means that NASA will have a spacecraft, a rocket that is too big and too expensive, and nothing for it to do. Ares I was never really needed. It didn't have the performance to launch Orion and it certainly wouldn't have been cheap. Delta IV Heavy can already technically launch Orion to LEO, since that is how Orion will fly its first unmanned test flight. Of course, Delta would have to be modified for manned launches, but that would certainly be cheaper than developing a whole new launcher. Terraforming is science fiction bull****. We are talking about using current space technologies (TRL > 6) with actual space agencies.

Doesn't that depend on how long it takes to stop turning? Any kinetic damage would depend on the amount of deceleration. If the the process was spread out over several years, then the actual trauma from the deceleration might be bearable. But of course, we would have other problems. Any coriolis effects would disappear, meaning that we would lose most of our ocean and atmospheric currents, like the Gulf Stream or Jet Stream. The climate would be screwed, with super hot summer/days and super cold winter/nights. That would probably cause cataclysmic storms and winds around the terminator. If it took millions of years, then some species might be able to adapt to the new environment, but if it's oonly to happen over a few years or centuries, then the wildly varying temperatures would probably cause the extinction of most species. Some microbial lifeforms might survive though, so all is not lost. I agree that it's a bit of a silly postulate and that it needs a bit more hypothetical precision, such as what causes it and how long it takes.

It used to take several days but now they can do a direct ascent and rendez-vous with the station in a matter of hours. One of the reasons several days were preferable was because it was less stressful on the crew. There was too much work to do in a single shift: crew preparation, hours of pre-flight activities, launch, spacecraft configuration, rendez-vous, approach, docking, all this without time to actually take a break, stretch, have lunch, go to the bathroom, etc... It makes for a hell of a work day all suited up and without time to leave your seat, so they decided that it was better to go for a long rendez-vous. It's mainly the better automation and shortened pre-flight ops that makes it more manageable to go for a direct rendez-vous. This is why the CC-Dev competition vehicles don't have a toilet or galley.

Ah the good old 17th Century comparison... None of that is relevant, because exploration of space is vastly different from the exploration of the world. For one, most of the places where these resources were found were actually habitable. You could set up a homestead in the Caribbean and actually breath and live off the land without relying on regular supplies or complex technology. Those luxury products were not essential, but there was actual demand for them because they were rare and they were hard to produce locally in Europe, so trade was worthwhile. None of that applies to anything we could find in space. Anything we can find on asteroids can be produced more easily, in more quantities and more cheaply here on Earth. It makes me cringe whenever people bring up the old Far West or 17th Century colonization analogies, because they are culturally biased and none of them are applicable to space.