Apotheosist

Hello all. So last night I watched the first The Matrix film. I've been asking a lot of my friends what they would have chosen. You don't have to have seen the film to take part, just answer the following question about what you would prefer. Red pill to find out the truth, no matter how terrible it may be, or blue pill to continue to live in blissful ignorance? At the end we can all see a statistical representation of percentage of people who would choose each Invite all your friends to take part! So what do you choose?

Should make it stock parts only

Really guys? Elon Musk. He is like the Jesus of the sane world.

Technically heat is the oscillation or vibration of atoms/molecules. So you could store energy as heat. In fact this is actually done. For example molten salt energy storage.

I don't think overpopulation is a problem. The problem is we don't have a way of moving vast amounts of people into space

I've read through all of the replies so far, they make for very interesting reading indeed. I've made a list of all the problems people have suggested. I have 25 points. Obviously I don't count the repeated ones. Overpopulation, stupidity, and ourselves seem to be the most popular ones I was thinking, maybe I should add a poll onto this thread with all the main problems so far mentioned, so people can vote which they think is the biggest one and we will all be able to see the results. What do you guys think?

What do you guys think is the single biggest problem facing humanity at the moment?

How/where can I watch it?

No. 89% with the Proton M, which has only been flying since 2001 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proton-M 62 successes/70 flights=89%. It seems to me that even after many decades, this rocket still has fundamental flaws. I hope rockets like Falcon 9 will set the standard for reliability. They are actually designed to withstand component failures, like the Saturn V did too. Thanks for the detailed explanation of why the proton is shaped as it is though, I learnt a lot! I think those universal rocket designs are awesome, I'd love to see something like that be made.

89% reliability. That's lower than average for rockets. Also I don't like the fact that when it does fail, if it's near or on the ground it spreads toxic stuff over the place. Also, what's with the six tanks sticking out the sides? It's just a visual thing I have a problem with, but if someone could explain to me the engineering rationale for it i might change my views. Oh, and just because a rocket is man-rated, doesn't make it reliable. If you have a launch escape system that doesn't matter so much. Space Shuttle had no escape system, that was still fairly unreliable.

Maybe we should discuss our least favourite rocket. Or maybe that should be in another thread. Anyway mine would be the Proton. That thing's just damn ugly. Not to mention unreliable. However, I suppose It did give us possibly the most spectacular explosion ever recently

Falcon 9 for me. The design just makes so much sense. And of course it can be used to make Falcon heavy, which will be epic. And when they can reuse the first stage, that will be momentous. But I also have a soft spot for Black Arrow The nearly invisible exhaust is cool, and it was a neat, small launcher. I also like the propellants it uses, HTP and kerosene. HTP is not cryogenic like LOX, so it can be stored for longer, more flexibility etc, also look how little suporting infrastructure it needs. And I heard somewhere that this was one of the cheapest launchers developed. Pity they cancelled it.

This is certainly the way forward. Most exciting!

Yup. It's a fine line between a solid rocket and a leaky bomb, and in fact, as the performance of solid rockets increases, (higher chamber pressures, lighter casings) the solid rocket tends towards being a bomb.

SpaceX also use Kerosene in the later stages because they can use the same engine throughout the vehicle. With slight modifications on the vacuum version of course. But having common engines vastly increases the reliability of the vacuum engine and thus the whole rocket over time. If you think about it, the engine on the falcon 9 second stage has been flown about 9x5=45 (I think it's been 5 flight of falcon 9?) times as well as the times it was in the second stage alone (5 times). That makes for an engine that has been flown 50 times. This must surely give lots of confidence in the reliability of the second stage. But the ultimate fuel for SpaceX would be methane, which as Musk said, is the cheapest fuel in terms of cost per joule, and it can even be made on mars. SpaceX is working towards methane propulsion, so all is looking well