Dragon flew today!

[Salyut]

Here's some feel good news for the day. (http://www.spaceflightnow.com/falcon9/002/status.html)

Launch pix. (http://www.spaceflightnow.com/falcon9/002/remotes/)

[Tablo]

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[Kiev Communard]

I don't think it consitutes some kind of breakthrough for space exploration. Most likely, they will construct several modules for transporting cargo to ISS, and the whole thing will end there. The large-scale expolration programme is simply meaningless from the capitalists' point of view.

[Ele'ill]

I thought you meant George R. R. Martin finally wrote and released the next book, god damnit.


This stuff is equally as impressive though.

[Salyut]

I don't think it consitutes some kind of breakthrough for space exploration. Most likely, they will construct several modules for transporting cargo to ISS, and the whole thing will end there. The large-scale expolration programme is simply meaningless from the capitalists' point of view.

Hopefully that isn't the case. You need to drop launch costs to something like a thousand dollars a kilo to make a economic case for space industrialization stuff. Boeing-Lockmart doesn't really have a interest in making things cheaper so...

The amount of work they've done in the time they've had is really impressive.

[Sean]

This begs a question maybe more scientific people can answer: why cant they have a plane that doesnt go vertically but in fact flies to high altitude then breaks out of orbit? I mean its literally rocket science but I doubt they could, from my comfy chair lose that much control versus the ability to spin around a planet.

Im not suggesting someone would land on the moon on a craft made of hemp, stinky farts and the pale wide eyed delirium of vegans but I'm pretty sure it must now be possible to send shit up via rather than against the orbit if it was possible to fight against it.

[Salyut]

This begs a question maybe more scientific people can answer: why cant they have a plane that doesnt go vertically but in fact flies to high altitude then breaks out of orbit? I mean its literally rocket science but I doubt they could, from my comfy chair lose that much control versus the ability to spin around a planet.


Thats how its done with everything really.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

This begs a question maybe more scientific people can answer: why cant they have a plane that doesnt go vertically but in fact flies to high altitude then breaks out of orbit? I mean its literally rocket science but I doubt they could, from my comfy chair lose that much control versus the ability to spin around a planet.

Climbing a slope takes the same amount of energy as scaling a cliff of the same height, but you have to expend less energy per second to do so. This also extends the amount of time taken, but if your propellant tanks last long enough and your thrust-to-weight ratio is greater than one (and your engine can work outside an atmosphere), then you can do it.


Im not suggesting someone would land on the moon on a craft made of hemp, stinky farts and the pale wide eyed delirium of vegans but I'm pretty sure it must now be possible to send shit up via rather than against the orbit if it was possible to fight against it.

Launch vehicles routinely use the rotation of the planet's orbit in their favour, so far as I'm aware - just that it represents only a small portion of the total energy required to attain orbital velocities.