Also, why aren't people freaking out right now! This is an incredible fucking moment! aghh!!
I am not freaking out since I don't really care about it. Sure it is nice but we could have done it any time in the past 20 years or in the future. I don't see the big deal. Kind of like sending another rover to the moon. It's nice but doesn't mean anything unless you actually get anything worthwhile from it. What we confirm or might discover is the interesting part, not the act itself.
Well, take the wind out of my sails why dontya.....But yeah i understand what your saying, and i am referring the project as a whole, not just the act of landing on the comet, were going to digging n shit and i cant wait to see what we find!
I think its pretty exciting. We landed on a comet! Its still pretty cool that we can land on such fast moving objects and investigate them. For the first time in history we get to see what a comet looks up close, what it might contain, some information about the universe! If google put it up on their front page, I think you're not alone
Also I love that picture you posted...I wonder what it would be like to walk on one :D
Hard. As in, if you take a step, you float off into space. Comets don't have a lot of gravity.
the harpoons not firing means its not entirely secured but the fact that it depressed into the comet itself means that it might have enough gravity to stay on. hopefully the little buy is able to hold on until the next cycle comes up and they can secure the thing.
This is a huge advancement in humanity and 10 years in the making. The information that can come from a rock thats been around from before the solar system formed can change everything.
WASHINGTON — The U.S. Defense Department “strongly disagrees” with congressional proposals to initiate a large, government-run program to replace a controversial Russian-made rocket engine that currently is used to launch national security missions, according to Pentagon correspondence obtained by SpaceNews.
While Defense Department leaders have stressed the need to wean the agency from dependence on the Russian-made RD-180 engine used on United Launch Alliance’s Atlas 5 rocket, the new correspondence, which appeals provisions in pending defense legislation, clearly favors alternatives to a major government-funded development effort.
“The Department firmly believes that it should not allocate resources to develop yet another engine that would fail to be integrated into a viable launcher, especially when it can meet the assured access to space requirement with existing privately funded vehicle families,” the Pentagon’s legislative affairs office said in a 30-page packet of conference appeals. “It is nearly impossible to develop a stand-alone rocket engine that can meet the needs of more than a single launch vehicle, or without extensive changes to even that single vehicle.”
Earlier this year, the House drafted defense appropriations and authorization bills that recommended spending $220 million in fiscal year 2015 to develop a new liquid-fueled rocket engine that would debut in 2022. The defense appropriations and authorization bills drafted in the Senate propose spending $25 million and $100 million, respectively, on the effort next year.
Some redditor took some of those pictures and put a 747 in for size. I'm sure it's very imperfect so take it with a grain of salt. Seems like people weren't trashing it though.
Also, why aren't people freaking out right now! This is an incredible fucking moment! aghh!!
I am not freaking out since I don't really care about it. Sure it is nice but we could have done it any time in the past 20 years or in the future. I don't see the big deal. Kind of like sending another rover to the moon. It's nice but doesn't mean anything unless you actually get anything worthwhile from it. What we confirm or might discover is the interesting part, not the act itself.
Well, take the wind out of my sails why dontya.....But yeah i understand what your saying, and i am referring the project as a whole, not just the act of landing on the comet, were going to digging n shit and i cant wait to see what we find!
I think its pretty exciting. We landed on a comet! Its still pretty cool that we can land on such fast moving objects and investigate them. For the first time in history we get to see what a comet looks up close, what it might contain, some information about the universe! If google put it up on their front page, I think you're not alone
Also I love that picture you posted...I wonder what it would be like to walk on one :D
Hard. As in, if you take a step, you float off into space. Comets don't have a lot of gravity.
Yeah I was more imagining what it might look like though. Just imagining the alien environment on a comet is interesting. What kind of cave structures (if any) might exist? Would would it look like to walk around inside? I get your point practically speaking
That was a pretty good video, a few spots too unfocused but good. From what people are saying in this and other similar things Mars is possible within a decade of financing it. Faster if you want to take a lot of risks.
Current relevant projects include making better rockets to get into earth orbit. Rest of the large project mostly irrelevant to colonizing/travelling to Mars.
NASA's industry partners continue to complete development milestones under agreements with the agency’s Commercial Crew Program. The work performed by Blue Origin, Boeing, Sierra Nevada Corporation and SpaceX during partnership and contract initiatives are leading a new generation of safe, reliable and cost-effective crew space transportation systems to low-Earth orbit destinations.
Blue Origin conducted an interim design review of the subsystems in development for its Space Vehicle spacecraft designed to carry people into low-Earth orbit. The September review was performed under an unfunded Commercial Crew Development Round 2 (CCDev2) agreement with NASA. In October, NASA and Blue Origin agreed to add three additional unfunded milestones to the agreement to continue the development work and partnership. Those milestones will include further testing of Blue Origin’s propellant tank, BE-3 engine and pusher escape system.
"The team at Blue Origin has made tremendous progress in its design, and we’re excited to extend our partnership to 2016," said Kathy Lueders, manager of NASA's Commercial Crew Program. "It's important to keep a pulse on the commercial human spaceflight industry as a whole, and this partnership is a shining example of what works well for both industry and the government."
Boeing successfully closed out its Commercial Crew Integrated Capability (CCiCap) agreement with NASA, which significantly matured the company’s crew transportation system, including the CST-100 spacecraft and Atlas V rocket.
Meanwhile, both Boeing and SpaceX began work on the Commercial Crew Transportation Capability (CCtCap) contracts the agency awarded them Sept. 16 to develop systems to transport astronauts to and from the International Space Station while the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) considers the GAO bid protest filed by Sierra Nevada Corporation.
Sierra Nevada Corporation (SNC) continued to perform incremental tests of its reaction control system as it prepares for a CCiCap milestone review for NASA that details the system, which would help maneuver the Dream Chaser spacecraft in space. SNC also is preparing for the CCiCap free-flight milestone test of its Dream Chaser test vehicle at NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center.
Funny enough the philae lander has its own twitter account @Philae2014
The lander is now on sleep since its battery is dead and needs some sun light. 8 out of 10 of its measurement devices worked properly and sent data to earth. A pretty successful mission after some issues with the landing.
United Launch Alliance CEO Tory Bruno last week reiterated a promise to transform ULA into a more affordable and nimble launch provider as it braces for increased competition from SpaceX.
But ULA won't mimic SpaceX's focus on developing reusable rockets any time soon.
Bruno said reusable rockets' time will come, but it's not here yet.
"For the near-term, expendable (rocket flight) is going to be the most practical and cost-effective access to space," he said Thursday during a talk at the Atlantic Council in Washington, D.C.
Why?
Bruno said firing engines to control a rocket's flight back to Earth, as SpaceX is now trying to do with its Falcon 9 booster, wastes fuel that could help deliver payloads to orbit.
"That's how rocket engineers see the world," he said. "That's all energy you could have used to put a bigger payload in the same orbit, or the same payload further up."
ROANOKE, Va. - Virginia's Secretary of Transportation says it could take a year and up to $20 million to repair the commercial spaceport on Virginia's Eastern Shore, after a mishap damaged the launchpad last month.
Aubrey Layne says he expects the flights to resume, but with additional protections for Virginia taxpayers. "We do need to have our launch partner and the federal government take responsibility with us in this particular incident," Layne told WDBJ7.
A resupply mission to the International Space Station ended just seconds after liftoff from Wallops Island on October 28th.
Thursday in Roanoke, Layne said the state is workingwith Orbital Sciences and NASA to develop a plan that "makes sense for our taxpayers."
SpaceX has confirmed it is now into the construction phase of converting Kennedy Space Center’s Pad 39A for its Falcon Heavy debut, with a large amount of work now taking place to build a new vehicle facility at the complex. The former Apollo and Space Shuttle pad is being re-purposed to host the maiden flight of SpaceX’s new rocket, set to launch as early as next summer.
Should SpaceX’s busy launch schedule allow, 39A will debut another launch vehicle next summer, namely the maiden flight of SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket.
On November 19 2014 05:32 Yurie wrote: What is the limiting factor for launching rockets? Manufacturing? Launch pads? People paying for launches?
A truism in pretty much all industries is that increased volumes means decreased cost.
Government subsidies goes a long way..... Rockets are basically a tool used to get to space. There's a lot of things that are involved, but it's basically moving something from point A to point B. Things like roadways, railways, oil pipelines, etc, which all do similar things usually have large government subsidies in order to get the infrastructure established, because the taxable profits from use of the infrastructure pays for itself several/hundreds of times over during the lifetime of the project. Unfortunately, the US government doesn't seem to be investing in itself very well at the moment, and I'm pretty sure that will come back to bite them in the ass when countries like Russia, China, India, and the EU as a whole start taking much more command of things.....
EPT
