Nibb31

The ATV program is over. The assembly lines have been dismantled. The contractors have been disbanded. Besides, it's not American, it's European. The companies working on it are now working on the Orion service module. The US does have Cygnus, which is basically a small hab module attached to a tug module. It's cheap and modular and still in production, so you would probably be better off with that. The tug is based on a generic spacecraft bus, so you could probably attach it to something like an ISS Node. Maybe you could just stick a CBM on the end of the tug so that you can dump it once its cargo module is attached to the station.

Are you sure the USB stick is bootable? I had a problem once where it was bootable on one computer and not on another depending on the OS image that I flashed and the program I used for flashing it. It was a weird situation. Try a different USB stick or using a different program to prepare the USB stick.

You're right, I intended to add "if your local electricity is produced with a low emissions method", but I forgot. Of course, if your country has chosen to burn stuff to produce electricity, then switching to an electric vehicle doesn't help. Which pretty much illustrates my point that individual choices don't have a big influence.

It's better to be a hypocrite than to live in denial. Awareness is better than ignorance. At least hypocrite recognizes that there's a problem, which is the first step to finding a solution. But really it's not something that can be done at an individual level, or even on a national level. In today's world, it's hard to completely cut your emissions as an individual, but you can always get an electric car, use electric heating, and buy stuff that is produced locally. You can also vote for people who will take measures to reduce industrial emissions instead of those who are funded by oil companies. Still, that's not a reason to burn more and more oil. Reducing our reliance on burning stuff is just as much an economical issue as an ecological one. We have nothing to lose by slowing down. We have a lot more to lose by not even trying. It's a no brainer.

If it's going to hurt you when she dates someone else, then yes. A good friend is someone who is happy to see you happy. You won't be a good friend if you have feelings for her and she is happy with someone else.

You can only have one periapsis and one apoapsis. Your orbit has two of each, which is impossible.

Man, I'd rather face Chthulu than go through some of the stuff I've gone through.

Run kid. Put some distance between you and this chick. Throw a bucket of water on that little spark of hope in the back of your head. If you have feelings for her and she doesn't, then sticking around her will only hurt you even more.

Same as Skylab was supposed to be visited by an early Shuttle flight. The Shuttle was delayed, so Skylab reentered before the Shuttle was ready. The feasibility of the idea, however, was dubious from the start. The Shuttle and Skylab worked at different atmosphere pressures, si they would have needed a special airlock to be developed, and people at NASA expected that Skylab would be unfit to breath in anyway because of mould and bacteria that would have developed.

If you have grown plants, you would know that if you cut down all your plants, you have no more plants left. That might be ok if you're a GMO farmer on contract with Monsanto, but the tropical rainforests contain an amazing variety of ecosystems that are thousands of years old and cannot be replaced. Some of the species in there might actually be useful to us. Biodiversity is something that might actually be worth preserving. So, irregardless of whether global climate change is real or not, do you actually think that it's ok that we base our entire economy on burning stuff and that we should definitely go ahead and get more and more people to burn more and more stuff?

I had an Atari ST in those days. I found console games boring.

Well, no it isn't. The only place where there is a debate is in one particular country from a vocal minority of people who are not experts in climatology, and by some strange coincidence, have vested interests in the oil industry. The rest of the world outside of that country, including some pretty smart people who have been studying the subject for decades, are pretty unanimous about the issue. And these scientists, from hundreds of organisations from all over the world, aren't all subsidized by large industries. Usually, when you certain that you are right and the entire world is wrong, then either you are a misunderstood genius or you are wrong. Statistically, most people who are in denial aren't all misunderstood geniuses. You're grasping at straws here. If you are that oblivious of the obvious consequences of doing something, you shouldn't do it. But really, it doesn't take a degree in environmental science to figure that cutting down all the trees isn't a great idea.

Hey, just because it didn't live up to its promises doesn't mean that the Shuttle wasn't a great technical achievement. Hindsight is a great thing, but at the time, it did seem like a good idea. I'm not one to usually defend the STS program, but I don't think it's fair to belittle the extraordinary people who designed, maintained, and flew it.

I love the show. Clarkson and the others really make me laugh, but he always gave me the feeling that he's a bit of douchebag in real life.

Besides, I'm not even sure that his chart is true. Maritime piracy is still very present in some parts of the World, and since the World's population is now over 10 times what it was in the 17th Century, and it is much easier to get your hands on a speedboat and an RPG, I wouldn't be surprised if there are actually more pirates now than 400 years ago.

Yep, and she should probably stop using her computer or smart board. Damn, when I was in school, we had chalk black boards and overhead projectors with handwritten transparencies. No messing with that.

Gravity gradient will be weak. All it needs is a fluid leak or an MMOD strike to pull it out of a stable attitude. With metal fatigue and aging mechanical connections, a tumbling motion could be catastrophic. If you switch everything off maintain an atmosphere inside, then all sorts of fungus and bacteria are going to develop, making the place unfit for visiting. If you vent the atmosphere, you kill all the equipment inside. Anything made of plastic, rubber, or any other material that is not rated for vacuum is going to outgas, deteriorate, become brittle, porous, or crumbly. Paints will flake. Liquids and lubricants will evaporate. The result will be a cloud of crap particles and a lack of sealing that would take ages to repair and clean up if you ever want to repressurize it. NASA is doing exactly that. They are responsible for maintaining orbit, and when it's done for NASA, it's done for any other purpose. They are going to deorbit it properly. By 2024, some parts of the station will be over 25 years old. Have you ever tried fixing a 20 year-old computer or car or washing machine? Have you ever worked on renovating a 20 year-old electrical installation? Technology moves on, parts become harder to find. In most cases, you are better off starting from scratch.

What makes you think that it will survive in one piece for thousands of years? After breaking into pieces and flaking away into a cloud of broken parts, leaked pollution and degraded material, it will just be a navigational hazard, an annoyance, like an old shipwreck in the entrance of an estuary. Since when does Fregat have a docking probe and automatic rendez-vous systems? You would have to redesign a whole new specialized vehicle and it still needs a Soyuz to launch on, so there are no big savings there.

Yet that's pretty much the definition of all human activity since the dawn of its existence. Whether or not climate change is happening is not up to debate. We are seeing the effects with glaciers melting, sea levels rising, methane being released from melting permafrost, and more violent meteorological events than ever. The positive feedback loops are measured, explained, and predictable in models. The entire scientific community agrees that there is a climate problem and that it's getting out of control. And no, the entire scientific community is not part of a Greenpeace-driven conspiracy. You might debate whether climate change is due to human activity or not. So we really have two options here: - Either it is due to us burning stuff, in which case we should probably stop burning stuff. - It is due to some other unexplained natural cause, but burning stuff is making it worse, in which case we should probably stop burning stuff. Other than that, there are plenty of other reasons for us to stop burning stuff (burnt stuff residue isn't healthy to breathe, the more stuff we burn, the less there is to burn, and the more expensive it gets, we need to import stuff that burns from countries that are run by bad people, etc...) I see absolutely no rational reason for us to keep on burning stuff, other than "I sell stuff that burns, so I don't want people to stop burning stuff" and "I want to keep on burning stuff because I don't care". Funnily enough, the only place in the World that has influential decision-makers who are constantly denying scientific results also happens to be the only place in the World where politicians are openly funded by people who sell stuff that burns and are elected by people who don't care. What a coincidence !

Ion thrusters need a lot of power. The power output of the solar arrays is going to degrade after nearly 25 years in space. If you want it to stay up there for a long time, you're going to need to refill the Xenon tanks from time to time. And you are going to need ground resources to monitor and control the station. All that for a outdated worn-out wreck. There really is no point. Remember that the ISS is 400mT. A controlled deorbit burn would be done by a Progress after letting the station decay for a while. Reboosting to a few thousand km would require the equivalent of quite a few Progress burns. So how do you justify the cost of several Progress launches?

They will shut it down because it will reach its end of life. By definition, that means that it can't be used any more. Systems will be breaking down, solar panels will no longer be producing enough power, fluids will need changing, systems will need replacing, structural parts will be stressed out, there might be leaks, insulation and paint will be flaking and peeling off... Like an old car, you can theoretically keep it running forever, but there comes a point when it is no longer economical to keep on maintaining it and it is cheaper to get rid of it and buy a new one. By the time it reaches end-of-life, the ISS will need new solar panels, new CMGs, replacing valves, seals and filters, probably fluid lines as well. Its systems will be obsolete with no spare parts available. And a lot of that work has to be done by EVA. Maintaining it after "end-of-life" is going to cost as much as a new station. It's pointless. As for leaving it up at a high orbit forever, powered down and vented, with no attitude control or active debris avoidance, it will eventually tumble, get MMOD hits, and break up into a cloud of debris, which is bound to become a hasard for future missions.

SLS block I is designed to launch Orion (~20mT) and an EDS (~50mT) into LEO, not just Orion. SLS block II is supposed be able to launch Orion (~20mT), an EDS (~50mT) and some sort of mission module (~20mT) which can be a hab, a lander, a SEP tug, or anything else... The US Congress insisted on a writing a "backup" role for ISS operations into the law in case the CCDev program failed to deliver. However, NASA will never ever use it in that role, nor would any administration approve of it because it would cost way to much. There will be 2 US manned vehicles for ISS crew rotations, plus 2 for unmanned cargo, and it would still be cheaper to buy seats on Soyuz than to launch Orion to the ISS. Note that the barter agreement with ESA is only for 2 Orion service modules and only 2 flights have been manifested. Anything beyond EM-1 (an unmanned circumlunar flight in 2017) and EM-2 (a manned circumlunar flight in 2021) is pure speculation at this point because no further hardware has been funded.

I wonder who is going to pay for your giant blimps that house 8 billion people? There isn't enough helium on Earth to fill them up, and to produce enough hydrogen from seawater probably creates more ecological problems than it solves. You need the materials to build them, and power to transform raw minerals into a giant blimp. Do you have any idea how much kinetic energy you need to accelerate a single person, with life-support and supplies, from 0 to 26000 km/h? Now multiply that by 8 billion people, add the construction materials to build a space colony that can support such a population, and try to find an energy source that can be converted into that amount of kinetic energy. Good luck with that.

Remember that Falcon 9 is made of aluminium. You could improve performance by building it with modern composites, or even some sort of futuristic alloy since this thread is in the realm of warp drives. A similar incremental improvement in engine technology should make a VTVL SSTO possible with a small payload. Personally, I'd go with something like DC-X or X-33. There was nothing stopping these projects from working on paper. Whether they made sense economically or politically is another matter, of course.

I don't know if we should or shouldn't. I believe that we will do it when there is a strong enough push to do it. I don't see any political, economical or social forces that are pushing right now, which is why there is no strong resolve to send humans to Mars. I certainly don't believe that colonization is anywhere in our future. As a species, the only hospitable environment for us is the one that we evolved into. Our survival as a species lies here, not in some sci-fi dreamworld. To live anywhere else is always going to be dangerous and expensive with excessive reliance on technology to stay alive. I don't see Mars or the Moon as ever being a better place for people to want to raise kids than Earth.