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Originally posted by Harry Tuttle
It will be made out of hemp...
It will be made out of hemp...
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And therefore it will burn up on reentry when it inevitably fails, spreading the fumes all through our atmosphere. Result: world peace. Your fancy math-major satellites just gave us the means for nuclear war. So shut up, sucka' fool. -
For me, it's too early to tell whether this will happen. There are some indications that it might. For instance, SpaceX is building and launching conventional rockets in such a manner that the whole company of 400 employees may be able to handle Saturn V-sized human-rated rockets. Compare to the hundreds of thousands of people working on Apollo and the several tens of thousands of people working on the Space Shuttle. SpaceX had a failed first launch a couple of months ago, but seems to have the fortitude to keep working until success.Originally posted by TCO
I think eventually things will get moving. It will be a lot like the long, long wait for "radiophones" that when it eventually happened, happened. private space travel seems like it is on the cusp. And I say this as someone who laughed at it for the longest time.
Now string theory and tokomak research. That is butt stupid.
The efforts in which I have some confidence include Bigelow Aerospace (space structures, $75 million invested), SpaceX (conventional rocket space launch, ~ $125 million invested), Scaled Composites (spaceplane space launch, ~$50 million invested), and Armadillo Aerospace (more experimental space launch, ~ $2 million invested). These are all relatively modest efforts. Small companies that don't burn through cash at a huge rate. There are other companies on which we will have to wait and see (Blue Origin, XCor, SpaceDev, etc.)
At this point it's a numbers game. Most will fail, and we do not know if there are enough credible efforts to succeed in creating a viable industry outside of the gov't's heavy hand.Last edited by DanS; July 14, 2006, 12:59.I came upon a barroom full of bad Salon pictures in which men with hats on the backs of their heads were wolfing food from a counter. It was the institution of the "free lunch" I had struck. You paid for a drink and got as much as you wanted to eat. For something less than a rupee a day a man can feed himself sumptuously in San Francisco, even though he be a bankrupt. Remember this if ever you are stranded in these parts. ~ Rudyard Kipling, 1891Comment
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tipping point baby. You'll never tell it before it happens. And you'll always misjudge it when it's hot. but if you listen to TCO, you will do well.Comment
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tipping point baby. You'll never tell it before it happens. And you'll always misjudge it when it's hot. but if you listen to TCO, you will do well.Comment
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Here's the first photo back from the Genesis. Apparently, this is a low quality quick image meant to confirm that the module has deployed and expanded. Better stuff to follow.
Attached FilesI came upon a barroom full of bad Salon pictures in which men with hats on the backs of their heads were wolfing food from a counter. It was the institution of the "free lunch" I had struck. You paid for a drink and got as much as you wanted to eat. For something less than a rupee a day a man can feed himself sumptuously in San Francisco, even though he be a bankrupt. Remember this if ever you are stranded in these parts. ~ Rudyard Kipling, 1891Comment
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Here's a local Las Vegas station's news story regarding Genesis, for those who have broadband.
Click on "Exclusive: Las Vegas Company to Make Outer Space Trips Possible" for video.
I came upon a barroom full of bad Salon pictures in which men with hats on the backs of their heads were wolfing food from a counter. It was the institution of the "free lunch" I had struck. You paid for a drink and got as much as you wanted to eat. For something less than a rupee a day a man can feed himself sumptuously in San Francisco, even though he be a bankrupt. Remember this if ever you are stranded in these parts. ~ Rudyard Kipling, 1891Comment
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Impressive. Most impressive..
Snip from the klastv story you linked,
Each of Bigelow's spacecraft -- and he expects to have eight of them floating around up there within the next three years -- will carry an array of video cameras, inside and out. Genesis One has already sent back still images of itself. What if the exterior surface of the craft were used as a message board -- Happy Birthday Mom or Drink Duff Beer -- images that would be downloadable on your home computer.
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DannyBoy, have you spocked out the balloon to orbit plan another company is working on? The idea is to launch a balloon from a floating platform near the edge of space. IO read it in the analog newspapers about a month back.Christianity: The belief that a cosmic Jewish Zombie who was his own father can make you live forever if you symbolically eat his flesh and telepathically tell him you accept him as your master, so he can remove an evil force from your soul that is present in humanity because a rib-woman was convinced by a talking snake to eat from a magical tree...Comment
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That's JP Aerospace. The plan is to have a very large hydrogen-filled airship launched from way up (no hazard at those elevations). It would use an ion thruster to build up orbital velocity over the span of several days.
It is an interesting concept, but from what I have heard, the physics don't make sense. The company keeps saying that it does make sense, but can't discuss it for competitive reasons...
There are other reasons why I am not following that effort, such as the company doesn't have the financial side sorted.I came upon a barroom full of bad Salon pictures in which men with hats on the backs of their heads were wolfing food from a counter. It was the institution of the "free lunch" I had struck. You paid for a drink and got as much as you wanted to eat. For something less than a rupee a day a man can feed himself sumptuously in San Francisco, even though he be a bankrupt. Remember this if ever you are stranded in these parts. ~ Rudyard Kipling, 1891Comment
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This is just awsome stuff.Comment
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One would think that a $75 million company could afford a better camera.Originally posted by DanS
Here's the first photo back from the Genesis. Apparently, this is a low quality quick image meant to confirm that the module has deployed and expanded. Better stuff to follow.
http://www.bigelowaerospace.com/out_there/index.php
Anything, very interesting stuff! I remember reading about Transhab long ago when it was still a NASA project, and thinking that it sounded like the way to go
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I wonder if space tourism is really big enough, or if we will need to wait for another killer app for space flight to take off commercially. It is a good thing that we have a few space enthusiasts with lots of money to get things started.http://www.hardware-wiki.com - A wiki about computers, with focus on Linux support.Comment
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It's not the camera. It's the bandwidth. Apparently, they are building out their antenna arrays in Alaska, Hawaii and Spain. Right now, they only have contact with the satellite for a small portion of the day (through a small contract with a Virginia firm) and therefore bandwidth is constrained. Sit tight and they will give us better pictures before too long.One would think that a $75 million company could afford a better camera.
NASA has the TDRS system which gives them 24 hour contact with their spaceships.
Last edited by DanS; July 16, 2006, 22:56.I came upon a barroom full of bad Salon pictures in which men with hats on the backs of their heads were wolfing food from a counter. It was the institution of the "free lunch" I had struck. You paid for a drink and got as much as you wanted to eat. For something less than a rupee a day a man can feed himself sumptuously in San Francisco, even though he be a bankrupt. Remember this if ever you are stranded in these parts. ~ Rudyard Kipling, 1891Comment
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Damn cool stuff.
Damn cool.Apolyton's Grim Reaper 2008, 2010 & 2011
RIP lest we forget... SG (2) and LaFayette -- Civ2 Succession Games Brothers-in-ArmsComment
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Here's a better image of the outside. It's a little washed out because of the color of the module (?). Doh! The dawn/dusk of the Earth is awesome from this picture.Attached FilesI came upon a barroom full of bad Salon pictures in which men with hats on the backs of their heads were wolfing food from a counter. It was the institution of the "free lunch" I had struck. You paid for a drink and got as much as you wanted to eat. For something less than a rupee a day a man can feed himself sumptuously in San Francisco, even though he be a bankrupt. Remember this if ever you are stranded in these parts. ~ Rudyard Kipling, 1891Comment
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This is simply amazing. First time try with modest investment and infrastructure, and they get it right.Comment
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