Boosterdude
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What an awesome launch!
Sorry Braden but you got your facts wrong.Our president (sadly Obama) chose not to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things not because they are easy, but because they are hard.....because that challenge is one that he is not willing to accept, one he is willing to postpone, and one which he does not intend us to win....:eyeroll:
I'm really glad someone will be continuing with the space program. I've got a few words about Obama canceling the shuttle...but most teenagers like me won't say them in front of adults
A while back I promised my dad when I grew up I'd take him to a shuttle launch
-Braden
I'm really glad someone will be continuing with the space program. I've got a few words about Obama canceling the shuttle...but most teenagers like me won't say them in front of adults
-Braden
Canceling the Shuttle was like the railroads canceling steam locomotives.
Sadly the Shuttle never lived up to its hype. Those of us old enough can remember how the shuttle kept being lowballed from a completely reusable/recoverable vehicle to what we know today.
Then there was Challenger and the cancellation of the Air Force shuttle program which was to be launched from Vandenberg AFB and would have allowed the Shuttle to attain Polar orbits.
A shuttle launch won't help you there -- SRBs are ANCP.
-Kevin
Are you sure about that? From the KSC website: The propellant mixture in each SRB motor consists of an ammonium perchlorate (oxidizer, 69.6 percent by weight), aluminum (fuel, 16 percent), iron oxide (a catalyst, 0.4 percent), a polymer (a binder that holds the mixture together, 12.04 percent), and an epoxy curing agent (1.96 percent).
Our president (sadly Obama) chose not to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things not because they are easy, but because they are hard.....because that challenge is one that he is not willing to accept, one he is willing to postpone, and one which he does not intend us to win....:eyeroll:
I'm really glad someone will be continuing with the space program. I've got a few words about Obama canceling the shuttle...but most teenagers like me won't say them in front of adults
A while back I promised my dad when I grew up I'd take him to a shuttle launch
-Braden
I agree that we need to move away from the shuttle, but the Shuttle system worked remarkably well in every aspect except for cost and on the two occasions where NASA's management totally failed to follow their own written safety procedures.I believe that the cancellation of the Shuttle was a good thing, if done a little bit too quickly. The Shuttle is old technology, and moving on to newer and better things is the way to progress. It will be expensive, but worth it in the end. The Falcon 9 is going the right way.
Also, with the cancellation of the Constellation program, there may be a small chance that the Venture Star program will be brought back. If it works, then a new era of space travel will begin.
I just had someone else ask me, so I checked. Web sites list both, and it was from an ATK VP (at a talk) that I had heard it was AN. The other rocketry guy and I then specifically asked him why they used AN instead of AP.
Apparently, his facts were wrong.
I just verified on the NASA website (apparently same one you did) that it's APCP.
>sigh<
-Kevin
People often see the term PBAN (polybutadiene acrylonitrile) as the binder in the shuttle solids and think it refers to AN as the oxidizer.
The isn't a chance in hell that another Single Stage to Orbit concept will be funded, by anyone, and that's a good thing. The concept is fatally flawed from the beginning by physics. It simply is not an efficient, or cheap way to get into space. A winged man capsule on a convention booster is a great way to go, but for whatever has never been persued by anyone.
Bob
BrianThere isn't a chance in hell that a chemically powered SSO will be funded, and there isn't much better a chance that any other will be funded. I believe that we need to start stepping away from chemical reactions and moving to higher energy sources. Fission would be nice, but it would leave a radioactive trail. Fusion would be better, but it is a hundred years away if that.
VASMIR has some promises. If they can be reliably amped up and paired with a small nuclear reactor, it could have a diddley chance at making it to orbit. The only thing better would be fusion, but that won't be around for awhile. Of course, the technology needed for something like this would probably come around late in my lifetime.
Sorry Braden but you got your facts wrong.
1.) Obama did not cancel the Shuttle Program, President Bush did in 2005 when he initiated the Constellation Program to go to the Moon and Mars.
2.) The failure of the Constellation Program to meet performance, cost and schedule milestones lead to the cancellation of the Bush moon program.
This was the only decision to make. There was in 2005, and are now, a number of viable options to get the US back into space quicker than continuing with Constellation.
1.) Back in 2005, most space experts favored man-rating the existing Delta IV or the Atlas V LVs, but this was not considered by the White House for political reasons. The Delta IV Heavy has more payload capacity than the full-up Ares I to LEO and the Moon (without inefficient and expensive solid boosters) and had flown in 2004. The man-rating of the Delta IV (or Atlas V) would have cost less than what has been spent on Ares-1, and would have been done by now. This is still an option that should be pursued.
2.) The decision to fund the COTS program of Space-X using the Falcon-9 and eventually the Falcon-9 heavy with the Dragon capsule is looking better and better after each success. This effort has proceeded quickly, and at substantially lower cost, than the Ares-1/Orion effort which progressed at a glacial pace and expended all of it's planned funding before completing a single flight. (The Ares-1X was not an Ares-1, it was an unused Shuttle booster with extra bling, and the Orion capsule hasn't even been built.)
Bob
I find it interesting that SpaceX now has flights scheduled from Vandenberg.
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