I know why the original shuttle was scuttled, but not why the idea itself was never improved upon. Launching a shuttle from a plane would eliminate the need for rocket boosters and should allow for quicker turnaround, and one would hope that a shuttle designed 40 years later would be able to use safer materials for the heat shield
In the 1980s, NASA and the Air Force collaborated on a highly secretive project known as the X-30 National Aerospace Plane (NASP). Due to the classified nature of the project, few details are known, but the concept was envisioned as a single-stage-to-orbit space plane. The program lasted over a decade, but technical hurdles and budgetary issues forced its eventual cancellation in 1993, before a prototype could be built.
Other test programs that fell short include the X-33, which was a joint development between NASA and Lockheed Martin in the mid-1990s. The X-33 suborbital space plane was planned as a technology demonstrator for Lockheed's proposed VentureStar orbital spacecraft.
"This was another space plane concept, a potential shuttle follow-on, in which NASA and Lockheed both put money," Launius said. "But it was underfunded and there wasn't the political support for it. They again ran into technical problems, and no one was willing to open a pocketbook to solve those, and that program was canceled as well."
Among other test programs, NASA experimented with a cargo-only version of the space shuttle, called Shuttle-C. This side-mounted carrier would be flown from the ground, unmanned, and used solely to ferry supplies into low-Earth orbit.
Virgin Galactic has a plane mounted sub-orbital space plane mounted on WhiteKnightTwo which is bigger than a 747 and it's just a sub-orbital trip, which is infinitely easier than orbit.
Much to their surprise, the mice not only outperformed their age-matched counterparts, but their neurons had drastically reverted back to more youthful characteristics. Examining the brain cells at a molecular level, some 800 genes unexpectedly began reverting back to “young brain” levels. With so many punctuated changes arising from a single protein, FKBP1b (and calcium levels it controls) is much more relevant to mental aging than previously thought.
I know why the original shuttle was scuttled, but not why the idea itself was never improved upon. Launching a shuttle from a plane would eliminate the need for rocket boosters and should allow for quicker turnaround, and one would hope that a shuttle designed 40 years later would be able to use safer materials for the heat shield
Probably has to do with weights.
A quick Google says the launch weight of the shuttle with fuel and everything was 4.4 million pounds plus up to 65,000 pounds payload capacity. The max takeoff weight of a 747 says 735,000 pounds.
When they carried the shuttle on the 747 it was minus the booster rockets and fuel tank. Granted it would probably require less fuel weight to get the shuttle into orbit from 40,000 feet and moving 500 mph, but that is for smarter people than me to calculate.
Somewhat related, one cold war idea for launching icbms was to put them in cargo planes and push them out of the rear during flight. I think the concept did advance with tests but never reached active service if I'm not mistaken.
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Originally Posted by Hemi-Cuda
So in For All Mankind season 2, they launch an advanced version of the shuttle that launches into space on it's own after piggy backing off a 747. Can someone more knowledgeable on space stuff than me explain why it's preferable to keep using rockets vs a more advanced shuttle setup?
Getting into orbit is all about getting enough speed than it is about getting high enough.
Getting high enough, which a 747 can help with, is pretty easy, it's the going fast enough part that is really hard, and why the fuel tank for the shuttle is larger than the shuttle itself.
Same thing for all the other rockets we see.
Most of the mass/volume is fuel to get you going fast enough.
In FAM, the shuttle they were using was using "Nuclear engines", which are probalby meant to be ion engines/thrusters which are a thing, and do require a lot less fuel mass, so kind of on track, but the ones we have now aren't really suited to what they were doing in FAM. Ion thrusters use electricity to accelerate a small amount of mass/fuel to a very high speed, so you get better thrust/kg of fuel vs a chemical rocket, but you need enough electricity to get it going, so I guess that's the premise of the nuclear engine is at least kind of correct.
But for now, it's not really feasible, so using a plane doesn't do you any good.
Virgin uses the plane/rocket setup because it's a sub orbital flight. They get high enough to be in space, but not fast enough to be in orbit, so for them using a plane to start at a higher point means they need a smaller rocket with less fuel, it's more efficient for them that way.
If you want to go to orbit with anything larger than a small satellite, the plane doesn't do you any good.
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I would like to see people's mental facilities improved during the span of a human life before humans live longer. If therapy/medicine/research can lead to fit neurological performance well into senior years, I'm all for it. Alzheimer's/dementia/schizophrenia and other mental conditions can be incredibly debilitating for those who suffer from them as well as their families and communities.
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Probably has to do with weights.
A quick Google says the launch weight of the shuttle with fuel and everything was 4.4 million pounds plus up to 65,000 pounds payload capacity. The max takeoff weight of a 747 says 735,000 pounds.
When they carried the shuttle on the 747 it was minus the booster rockets and fuel tank. Granted it would probably require less fuel weight to get the shuttle into orbit from 40,000 feet and moving 500 mph, but that is for smarter people than me to calculate.
Somewhat related, one cold war idea for launching icbms was to put them in cargo planes and push them out of the rear during flight. I think the concept did advance with tests but never reached active service if I'm not mistaken.
For reference, to orbit with the ISS you're looking at an altitude of ~400 km, and a speed of ~17,000 mph, so starting from 40,000 ft, and 500 mph, makes essentially no difference.
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Whether you're watching enormous Saturn V rockets carrying humans to the moon or slender candlesticks launching smaller spacecraft, the rockets you see produce immense amounts of thrust. The vast majority of rocket fuel, though, propels the spacecraft laterally, not up. When you watch a rocket launch, the tilt toward the horizontal begins almost immediately after the craft leaves the launchpad.
For reference, to orbit with the ISS you're looking at an altitude of ~400 km, and a speed of ~17,000 mph, so starting from 40,000 ft, and 500 mph, makes essentially no difference.
That would make sense. The shuttle burns 11000 pounds of fuel per second and takes approximately 63 seconds to reach 40000 feet. So if it didn't need those 693000 pounds of fuel on board you're still far beyond what a 747 can lift off with, weight wise anyways.
But since its about speed, the shuttle hits 500 mph after about 30 seconds. So yeah, not much difference.
I would like to see people's mental facilities improved during the span of a human life before humans live longer. If therapy/medicine/research can lead to fit neurological performance well into senior years, I'm all for it. Alzheimer's/dementia/schizophrenia and other mental conditions can be incredibly debilitating for those who suffer from them as well as their families and communities.
It sounds selfish, but as someone who's dealing with a parent with Dementia, and doing recruiting with health care professionals that work in long term care homes that work with Dementia and Alzheimer, that there really needs to be more funding and a global effort on it. They are devastating to not only the families but the victims, and nobody should end their lives in this way.
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It sounds selfish, but as someone who's dealing with a parent with Dementia, and doing recruiting with health care professionals that work in long term care homes that work with Dementia and Alzheimer, that there really needs to be more funding and a global effort on it. They are devastating to not only the families but the victims, and nobody should end their lives in this way.
Psilocybin has shown some promising results in treating dementia, among many other things. There's plenty of research going on right now which is good news.
In my personal experience with it, a few trips has done more for my mental health than I could imagine.
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It sounds selfish, but as someone who's dealing with a parent with Dementia, and doing recruiting with health care professionals that work in long term care homes that work with Dementia and Alzheimer, that there really needs to be more funding and a global effort on it. They are devastating to not only the families but the victims, and nobody should end their lives in this way.
It's all good, I can be even more selfish. As somebody who plans on getting old one day (because I'm not a big fan of the alternative). I'd really like them to put a lot into this, it's not the way I want to get old.
NASA’s Voyager 2 space probe, launched in 1977, has sent us some fascinating and unexpected data. In 2018 it began passing through the heliopause, a region surrounding our solar system. Here, the probe discovered a wall of interstellar plasma, something like a shield of fire-like gas made of solar-wind.
This sphere of piping hot plasma is low density, so Voyager 2 can pass right through it. However, as far as cosmic radiation is concerned, the wall of interstellar plasma is like a physical barrier, blocking 70% of the radiation from getting into our solar system. As soon as the wall is breached, we step into interstellar space where the level of cosmic radiation spikes. If it weren’t for the heliosphere’s solar-wind shield, all that radiation would strike us here on Earth.
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Not sure if this video qualifies for this thread, as this isn't 'important' news?
But really, if you like this thread, just subscribe to these guys on youtube
I am not an atheist, or either really religious. However, when you think of the odds of Humans being ... well intelligent life, it makes you wonder.
I don't know how harmful this radiation would be to life here if it made it to earth without the protective wall of plasma, but sometimes it sure seems like something set up protection after protection to allow intelligent life to grow on this one planet in this solar system.
Heck, Jupitar being where it is relative to earth protects earth from a great deal of asteroids from the asteroid belt due to its gravity.
Most Christian groups believe in the same basics of evolution, only that the evolution sequence of events follow a master plan from an all-knowing, super calculator wizard who could forecast every outcome from every reaction.
I am not an atheist, or either really religious. However, when you think of the odds of Humans being ... well intelligent life, it makes you wonder.
I don't know how harmful this radiation would be to life here if it made it to earth without the protective wall of plasma, but sometimes it sure seems like something set up protection after protection to allow intelligent life to grow on this one planet in this solar system.
Heck, Jupitar being where it is relative to earth protects earth from a great deal of asteroids from the asteroid belt due to its gravity.
On the flip side, if we didn't have radiation shielding, would life have evolved to be less vulnerable to radiation, say with better DNA repair mechanisms? Life evolved on Earth to match the conditions of Earth.
What I find interesting is how similar all life on earth is, from how all cells make energy to how all animals have four limbs. How would life look if it evolved somewhere else?
Philosophical debates in which “fine-tuning” appears are often about the universe’s fine-tuning for life: according to many physicists, the fact that the universe is able to support life depends delicately on various of its fundamental characteristics, notably on the form of the laws of nature, on the values of some constants of nature, and on aspects of the universe’s conditions in its very early stages. Various reactions to the universe’s fine-tuning for life have been proposed: that it is a lucky coincidence which we have to accept as a primitive given; that it will be avoided by future best theories of fundamental physics; that the universe was created by some divine designer who established life-friendly conditions; and that fine-tuning for life indicates the existence of multiple other universes with conditions very different from those in our own universe. Sections 1–4 of the present article review the case for this fine-tuning for life, the reactions to it, and major criticisms of these reactions. Section 5 turns from fine-tuning for life to the criterion of naturalness—a condition of no fine-tuning in a rather different sense which applies to theories in quantum field theory and plays a large role in contemporary particle physics and cosmology.
Yesterday was the anniversary of the discovery of the Great Comet in 1861. Now known as C/1861 J1.
Between June 30 and July 1st, it reached its closes point to earth, it was so bright that it cast shadows on the Great Observatory. As well its was unprecedented as the Earth passed through its tail. Its calculated that it will return in 2265, so book your calender's.
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