Nibb31

Baseless speculation. Predicting borders, names, and flags at this stage is ridiculous. The geopolitical landscape and balance will be as different in 200 years as it was 200 years ago. There is no way you can predict how political structures will work that far in the future.

I had this kit when I was a kid: Lego Moon Landing kit from 1975, only a few years after the real thing (and yes, it was really ugly and looked nothing like a real LM+LRV)

What is a Tyne ?

It doesn't mean that they are. Technically, they were owned by the Soviet government, whose assets were transferred to the republics when the Soviet Union split up. Military assets were no exception. - - - Updated - - - It's hard to imagine a space enthusiast who has never heard of the Energia, N1, or Buran. - - - Updated - - - The reason the Soviet Union built a Space Shuttle was because the US had one. They figured that if the US was building a fleet of them, it must have been for some unknown military purpose, because they knew that it didn't make any sense economically. So they went ahead and scrapped their smaller MAKS/Spiral spaceplane programs and went for the larger Buran, which was so expensive that it participated in bankrupting the Soviet Union. Well played Mr Reagan!

The propellers wouldn't be turboprops. From the CGI it looks like they are pretty light electric motors, which of course means that there needs to be some sort of battery.

Hot bunking is common practice even on surface ships and fishing vessels. Some ships go in fishing campaigns for several months.

It's cute, but it needs lots of moving parts and complexity. The most expensive part is going to be to develop a new deep-throttlable reusable engine or to reengineer Ariane 5's Vulcain for multiple reuse. There needs to be a serious trade study to determine the development cost of the new hardware vs continuing to use disposable SRBs. The video shows a notional launcher with 2 SRBs. The previous Ariane 6 concept used 4 SRBs, which means that you get economies of scale out of a higher production rate. The news article claims that Airbus DS has been flying prototypes since 2010, but all they are showing is some crappy CGI...

Just like any other international treaty. A treaty binds the nations who sign it. Countries don't usually violate treaties that they have signed, not because they are afraid of enforcement, but because it's a matter of credibility in international relationships. The Outer Space Treaty and the Antarctica treaty have been pretty well respected until now. We also have pretty well respected laws for international waters that have existed for centuries and survived major conflicts. There is no reason to believe that the principles of non-ownership are going to change any time soon. It isn't in anyone's interest really. In extreme cases, of course, there are always UN resolutions, trade sanctions, and the usual range of military and diplomatic tools. - - - Updated - - - http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Human_Spaceflight/International_Space_Station/International_Space_Station_legal_framework

There are a couple of others. OK-GLI is actually at the Technikmusem Speyer in Germany. OK-TVA (Static test mockup) is at Gorky Park (55°43'43.63"N 37°35'48.41"E), Moscow OK-ML1 (static test mockup) used to be outside (45°55'10.13"N 63°18'35.99"E), but it looks like it has been moved inside the MZK building with OK-1K2 (45°56'25.98"N 63°19'5.18"E) OK-1K1 (Buran) was destroyed in the hangar collapse (45°55'40.92"N 63°17'51.83"E) OK-1K2 (Pitchka) is in the MZK building in Baikonur (45°56'25.98"N 63°19'5.18"E). OK-2K1 (Baikal) is now at Ramenskoye–Zhukovsky Airport (55°33′06″N 38°08′40″E) OK-2K2 is a half-built fuselage at the Tushino Machine Building Plant (55°50'28.83"N 37°27'57.90"E) near Moscow (not much to see) OK-2K3 was only just started and dismantled. In fact, it's amazing how many Buran airframes were built when only one of them flew to orbit. They might have been able to save the program if they had stuck to 1 or 2 orbiters instead of going straight for a fleet of 5 or 6.

Load of rubbish. Nations cannot legally claim ownership of celestial bodies due to the Outer Space Treaty. Bases or outposts on the Moon or Mars are likely to be treated in a similar manner to international waters or Antarctica. Actual colonies with more than a few dozen astronauts, if they ever exist, are so far away in the future that the concept of nations as they exist today, or the current balance of powers, will likely be totally irrelevant.

Virgin isn't going orbital, let alone galactic.

No. A solid surface would make an even harder landing, with increased risk of buckling the steel casings. It would require even larger parachutes, which would be impractical, and the landing would still be violent. Not to mention that the slower you come down, the harder it is to aim for a small area. And as said previously, there is no land to land on. Orbital launches are deliberately towards the east (because you get a small boost in dV due to the Earth's rotation) and over the ocean (so that a mishap doesn't rain fiery bits on populated areas), which is why Cape Canaveral was chosen as America's main launch site. The risk of launching SRBs over land is too big, they have to launch over the ocean. And the biggest cost of an SRB is the casting of solid fuel, which is no longer there when its burnt out. It's not like a liquid booster, where the most expensive part is the engine.

It didn't take the USA 500 years to declare independence. Of course, it's hard to compare hypothetical space colonies on barren worlds with Historical colonialism of the past. I don't think that we will ever see a future where massive populations will want to emigrate off-world. The energy requirements are simply unfathomable and there simply doesn't seem to be any economical return on investment.

No numbers... I don't know if any are available, but it's pretty much common knowledge in the industry. The two ships were acquired at the beginning of the STS program. A huge investment was made in terms of infrastructure and training, and reuse was the major selling point of the STS to Congress and the general public, so it wasn't something that they could afford to turn around on. Recovery was a rather involved process, which involved sending recovery ships, helicopters and divers to safe and secure the SRB. They were then towed back to KSC and dismantled on site. Most of the SRBs components were scrapped, including the fustrum and the aft skirt with the thrust vector control systems, which were the most expensive parts. Parachutes and pyros were expendable of course. The steel casings, which are the cheapest parts of the SRB had to be sent back to Utah, inspected, cleaned, rinsed, repainted, and reassembled. Many of them ended up buckled or corroded by seawater, so assembly lines had to keep making replacements throughout the program. At the peak of the program, they had 1500 people working on the SRBs. There is no way that whole malarkey could have been cheaper than manufacturing new steel casings for each flight.

Politics. STS was sold as a reusable launcher, so they made the SRBs "reusable". Maintaining two recovery ships, packing the largest parachutes ever made, and refurbishing the steel casings never made any economical sense.

As Rune said, there isn't much point in reusing SRBs. They are basically just tubes of sheet metal which are quite inexpensive to make. Recovering them out in the ocean simply isn't worth it. - - - Updated - - - Surely you mean KSC.

Why would any organization make the massive initial investment of setting up a self-sufficient colony if there is a risk of secession? Historically, colonies have always been a loss in the long term. The return on investment is simply too huge with too much risk involved, which is why colonies are simply not going to happen.

Going to Mars in a Space Shuttle and landing with a LM. Hmmm... sounds good.

Time to see a speech therapist. Seriously. There's nothing hard about pronouncing SLS.

Yes, but the first to colonize must be driven by some sort of business model or incentive. No return on investment, no colonization.

Yes, but who calls it Raptor? Everyone calls it the F-22. And AMRAAM isn't an acronym? I really don't see the difference unless you pronounce it "iss" instead of "eye-ess-ess".

SLS isn't going to be regularly travelling between two points. And Space Shuttle was never a name. It was a nickname. Can't you pronounce SLS ? What makes it worse than F-22, X-37B or ISS ?

Look up the definition of the word shuttle. SLS is the exact opposite of a shuttle system. Space Launch System is good enough for me, although a bit too generic. Space Exploration Launch System (SELS) or Heavy Launch System (HLS) would have been better.

Orion was designed to go to the Moon, and that is all it is ever going to do. Anybody who seriously thinks that NASA is going to Mars in the next 30 years is delusional at this point. There is no habitat or MTV or Mars lander and there is no funding to build them. SLS and Orion are all we're getting, so they are going to have to include the exploration mission life-support and operational capabilities if we want to ever leave LEO. NASA was banned from mentioning the Moon in its PR because the current administration cancelled Constellation, which is why they are desperately talking about using Orion for hypothetical and unfunded Mars and asteroid missions. After the next US election, things are going to change, because whether they like it or not, they are going to have find a use for SLS-Orion and the Moon is really the only place they can go. For Lunar missions, either Apollo-style (LOR) or using an EML gateway and a reusable lander, Orion is perfectly adequate. Dragon isn't, and it needs a lot of extra hardware in order to acquire the same capability. For ARM missions, the EVA capability is a baseline requirement because there is no extra mission module. But I know this is a circular argument, because with Orion there is no purpose for the ARM mission. For Mars missions, all Dragon can do is get the crew to a larger MTV and back, and I agree that is all that is needed. It doesn't even need to go all the way to Mars if you include the dV for EOI on return. However, carrying that dV all the way to Mars and back is likely going to be heavier than carrying a crew capsule all the way to Mars and back. But I agree that you don't need an Orion for Mars.