Nibb31

Why is this in the Science Labs ?

by definition, a monopropellant cannot be hypergolic.

Sure, but I doubt they will add the extra complexity for the first flight of a new rocket. Is it true that the new Falcon will have a longer tank? They are already having trouble preventing the stage from toppling over after landing. The reason for the tall and thin design is to reduce transportation costs by allowing road transport, but a wide and short design would allow for a lower CoM and higher stability. A taller Falcon 1.2 will just make things harder.

Not sure what "how Musk operates" has to do with it. Whether they attempt a landing or not depends on mission requirements. SES-9 will be the first flight of "Falcon 1.2", with uprated thrust and densified propellant. It will also be a GTO flight, which pushes the envelope of Falcon 9. There will be no landing attempt this time.

Why would you even want to save Ares I ? Its only reason for existing was the synergy with Ares V in the J2-X and the 5 segment SRBs. No Ares V means no synergy, and therefore no need for Ares I.

Sidemounted Shuttle-C would have made sense if it flew alongside the Shuttle because it would have used the exact same infrastructure. Once Shuttle was cancelled, Shuttle-C made no sense. Don't forget that Shuttle-C was expendable. It would have expended 3 SSME's on each launch. There was no expendable RS-25.

So why do have records of the Nedelin disaster, Bondarenko, and Soyuz 1 and 11, as well as various other industrial and nuclear mishaps ? - - - Updated - - - If there is no evidence, then it is pure conjecture with zero substance. By that standard, there is also the possibility of pink unicorns on the Moon.

The Nedelin disaster killed over 120 ground personnel. http://www.aerospaceweb.org/question/spacecraft/q0179.shtml

We're talking about space applications here. Comparisons with wind and hydro dams do not apply. The problem with nuclear in space is that you need huge radiators. Those radiators are going to be heavier than solar panels that produce the same amount of power as your nuclear reactor.

I like that lander design. This is the first time I see such a design from NASA. Where did you find it ?

It can't be serviced in space because there are no parts that are accessible to astronauts in EVA suits. There are no hand rails and there are fragile and delicate parts that would either interfere with any EVA activity or might be damaged if they are approached by another spacecraft. When you have something as delicate as JWST, you don't want an Orion thrusting fuel particles all around it. To be serviceable in space, a satellite needs to be especially designed for it, including lots of extra hardware, extra complexity, and extra safety features that cost money and add mass. Most space probes and observation satellites are not designed for servicing and they work fine. They didn't design Gaia, or DISCOVR, or Curiosity, or New Horizons te be serviceable. There is no reason to believe that JWST is more prone to failure than others.

We are talking about space applications here. How would you put hydro power on a spacecraft?

What capsule interior?

I've tried Linux several times. Each time, it was nice and refreshing at first. It's fine for browsing the web or office stuff, but I kept on running into roadblocks when I wanted to use specific programs. There is always some obscure command line that you need to search for to install the latest library or to set specific permissions for something. Google is your friend, but sometimes the help you get is for a different flavour of Linux or for an old version, and the commands don't work. In the end, I usually get tired of the constant googling for help and reinstall Windows. Windows has its faults, but in most cases, it just works.

Then what other documents could they probably disclose to prove that the lost cosmonauts never existed? You can't prove a negative. There is conjecture with zero evidence on one side, and networks of corroborated testimonies and documents on the other. I don't understand how there could be any doubt about the nature of the Lost Cosmonauts hoax. You don't need "full disclosure", when everything corroborates the real story, including personal diaries, testimonies, news articles, and Russian and US military archives.

From its inception, Orion was designed for "Apollo on steroids" missions, i.e. The Moon. In the current scheme, it has been repurposed for trips to Lagrange points and cislunar trips, but it's still limited to 21-days of on-orbit life with limited living space and only 700m/s of dV. Its only role in a Mars architecture is as a 22-ton dinghy for transferring to and from the MTV, which is a role that could be taken by a slightly beefed-up 11-ton Dragon or CST-100 for half the mass and without using a precious SLS for the launch.

Yes, but we know so much more that corroborates the official story. And why lie about some fictitious astronauts that don't appear in any other documents, rosters, or military archives, and not lie about Komarov, Dobrovolski, Patsayev, and Volkov. Or Bodarenko and the Nedelin disaster. No, actual historians who have studied the archives and published books know a lot more than that actually. The "Lost Astronauts" hoax is a classic that has been debunked over and over: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_Cosmonauts https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judica-Cordiglia_brothers http://www.aerospaceweb.org/question/conspiracy/q0235.shtml

You'd be hard pressed to get everything you need to keep the crew and Orion alive for a year in space, plus propulsion to enter and leave Mars orbit, in a single MPLM. That would be a pretty miserable journey. It might be inspiring (although I don't know what it would really take to inspire young folks these days), but it's not gonna happen in 2024.

It doesn't "land". http://www.thelivingmoon.com/41pegasus/02files/Space_Debris_04.html

Highly speculative. An Orion can't go all the way to Mars and back without being attached to a much larger spacecraft. Saying that you go to Mars in a crewed Orion would be like saying that Christobal Columbus crossed the Atlantic in the Santa Maria's dinghy.

We hardly ever use equatorial (not equilateral) orbits in real life, except for GEO sats, because higher inclinations provide better coverage for ground observation. Equatorial orbits are also difficult to reach, unless your launch site is exactly on the equator. The Moon also isn't on the equatorial plane, and neither are GPS sats. Real life isn't KSP.

The Mars Sample Return mission is unmanned. It might use SLS, but not Orion.

I don't think so. For most space hardware like this, they usually budget one or two spares for each component. Endeavour was built with spares from the other Shuttles. Phoenix was built with spares from Mars Polar Lander. Mars 2020 is being built with spares from Curiosity, etc... But once the spares are gone, it's usually cheaper to make a new design. On the other hand, Orion is going to need an IDA docking port, and so will all of the Commercial Crew vehicles, so there might be some synergy in part production.

Of course they're not. If they were, a structural failure at the attachment point would be catastrophic. They spread the load by having redundant attachment points. And of course, if they were all in a central attachment point, where would you put the docking port? It's not uncommon for capsules to land upside down. This is due to the parachute reinflating on touchdown. Soyuz lands vertically but is usually tipped over after touchdown. Apollo had two recovery modes: "Stable 1" (floating upright) or "Stable 2" (floating upside down). There were balloons to upright the capsule, but they don't always work. I guess Orion will work in the same way.

There were 2 IDAs planned and spares for a third, so they are building a replacement for the IDA-1. IDA-2 is going up on CRS-9, which was planned for December 2015, but will probably be rescheduled. 2 IDAs are required so that two Commercial Crew vehicles can dock for crew rotations. For BEAM, I don't think Bigelow needs to contract launch insurance because the BEAM module belongs to NASA. NASA, like most government endeavors is "self-insured". The Falcon 9 RTF mission will be NET november 2015. At this point, the exact date hasn't been set yet, so we don't know if it will be CRS-8, Jason-3, or SES-9. But CRS-8 certainly isn't launching next week... The ISS has 6 months of supplies in advance. The decrew procedure brings home the astronauts when there are less than 3 months worth, so that a recrew/repair mission has some supplies in advance.