Happy Moon Day!

[DanS]

The US has lost 14 crew on launch. The Russians haven't lost any (4 died on reentry, but not because of the launch). The Russians were smart to keep an escape tower and capsule in all of their designs. The US wasn't.

Advantage Soviets/Russians.

[Asher]

Cheaper yes. Safer? No.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proton_%28rocket%29

[Az]

Cheaper yes. Safer? No.

as we can see in "Armageddon",

[SlowwHand]

It's not just the initial launch, Sloww. The Russian rockets are much safer and less expensive than anything we've built.

If you say so. I can think of nothing that substantiates this thought, but I know you're a smart man and all.
How many launches per country? The more tried, the more the possibility of failure, or success.

[DanS]

Here's the relevant reliability statistics overall. Note the much earlier start dates for the Russian/Soviet rocket programs.

http://www.spacelaunchreport.com/reliability2009.txt

[KrazyHorse]

That's a straw man, KH. Primitive rocket tech is more than good enough to conquer the solar system, f.e.

Dan, do you mind paying attention to the conversation please?

Lori's explanation had to do with "conquering the Universe" before something else did. My comment was a response to that.

[Drake Tungsten]

Just glass the ME and be done with it.

Nuking them all is cheaper than moving the jooz to the moon.

Should probably use neutron bombs around the oilfields, though.

[KrazyHorse]

wwjd.

Lori, you and I both know I don't read his posts. Why would you quote him?

[DanS]

Dan, do you mind paying attention to the conversation please?

Lori's explanation had to do with "conquering the Universe" before something else did. My comment was a response to that.

Ah, OK. I misread. The solar system is part of the universe, but, well... whatever.

Would you agree that we have the fundamental knowledge needed to conquer our solar system? It seems to me that at this point it's a challenging engineering problem, but no more than that.

[KrazyHorse]

Your complaint about chemical propulsion was that it would take a long time to do something. I pointed out that this was not so. If you want high thrust (do things quickly), rely on chemical propulsion. Simple.

?????

Not at all simple. This presumes that you're able to run a powered flight on interplanetary distances. Why would you think that?

[KrazyHorse]

It's not. It's (sort of) a political realities issue. The US public would never agree to to use this money for covering debt or something like improvement of education. I think such a solution for actually creating something productive, for engagement in a space race is good propoganda.

????????????

I have no idea what the **** you're talking about. Revenue and expenditure are not directly linked. If the Congress hadn't allocated money to Apollo it does NOT imply that it would have necessarily spent money on something else. It might simply have run less of a deficit/more of a surplus in those years. Or cut taxes, etc.

Congress doesn't HAVE to spend X$ per year, no more no less. They have a soft budget constraint.

[DanS]

What do you mean by "powered flight"? Do you mean that electricity is available? Or that the propulsion would be chemical?

[KrazyHorse]

Ah, OK. I misread. The solar system is part of the universe, but, well... whatever.

Would you agree that we have the fundamental knowledge needed to conquer our solar system? It seems to me that at this point it's a challenging engineering problem, but no more than that.

Depending on your division between "fundamental knowledge" and "engineering", then yes.

But my major point is that it might not be a good idea to "conquer" the solar system currently. The longer we wait, the cheaper it will get. Throwing a hundred billion dollars at landing a dozen men on the moon is not a sustainable path for space development.

This is precisely the sort of calculation that we should be letting the private sector make.

There is/was a very valid reason for the government to be involved in early commercial space tech (namely the fact that military apps give you the capability to lift commercial sats). But wtf military application did Apollo have outside of some minor propaganda value (minor compared to the 100 billion dollar price)? What commercial applications have come of it?

Like I said, Apollo was an engineering freak. When you push tech that far beyond its natural economic boundaries you end up solving problems that might not even exist 20 or 30 years down the line, or solving problems in an expensive way which might be solved cheaply later on.

[DanS]

I agree with all of that wholeheartedly, KH.

And to back up those thoughts, I suggested that currently we are mainly using 50s and very early 60s tech rather than the Apollo tech.

[KrazyHorse]

What do you mean by "powered flight"? Do you mean that electricity is available? Or that the propulsion would be chemical?

Dan, "powered flight" means that you are under lift the entire time.

The fact that you can get high acceleration from chemical rockets DOES NOT mean that it allows you to do things quickly on interplanetary scales. Fuel considerations are THE limiting factor on such distances.

Chemical rocket burns last a few minutes, then you run out of gas (if you're talking about multi-m/s^2 burns and a "reasonable" payload ratio)

The effective jet velocity of chemical rockets is extremely low, and this is PRECISELY why they suck for interplanetary stuff.