SyCo_VeNoM

or just hire the spacex teams (which I think they are doing)

elven wizard

HimmlerHimself - good idea there

SyCo_VeNoM - that's a good idea too

elven wizard

The Orion Nasa capsule



Boeing
Private orbital flight by 2014 taking people into space

Eman77

LOL - cramped, true. But so was Mercury/Gemini/Apollo, whose capsules had 1, 2, and 3 astronauts in them respectively. Incredibly cramped, this is no different I guess.

Breaking wind is not permissible.

SyCo_VeNoM

yup they are on nasa's payroll already http://www.spacex.com/press.php?page=20110419

According to nasa the cost averaged out to be about $450 million per shuttle mission.(found in a nasa.gov faq)
where the falcon 1 costs $10m, falcon 9 $54m-$59m, and falcon heavy $80m-$125m
http://www.spacex.com/dragon.php seems the falcon 9 is needed for launching to the ISS so in theory nasa will save almost $390m a pop
Lets face it not to talk smack on the shuttle as it was a fine piece of engineering, but for most missions I'm pretty sure its cargo bay was hardly even remotely full so that was a lot of wasted fuel(that was damn expensive) spent launching it.

elven wizard

Eman77 - I can only imagine skinny people fitting in there with certian weight requirements. Cramped, yes very cramped !



SyCo_VeNoM - That is some major cost saving's there ! !I would ASAP shelve the space shuttle too.

tommygun32

I'm pretty sure the fee of lifting something into space via the shuttle should have covered the cost of the mission (that is just my uneducated and uninformed guess...I could be WAYYYY off the mark with that though). Having said that, there are obviously easier and much more efficient ways of doing the same job. I would think there would be quite a few more missions in any one shuttle launch than just what was in the payload bay.

I remember one shuttle mission that not only launched 3 different sattelites, but also met up with the ISS with resupply and additional missions.

SyCo_VeNoM

true but even so the falcon 1 is for satellites, and costs $10m for a launch. So even launching 3 satellites, a crew of 6, and a supply transport using 5 different rockets still is under $200m with spacex's pricing. That would include transporting 117844 lbs of equipment, and supplies (10,000lbs counting the astronauts on the one) Vs the shuttles 59000lbs max payload based off the faqs I found.

Thing the shuttle could do that the capsules I think would have a hard time would be satellite recovery. The shuttle could safely grab a satellite from orbit, and transport it down.

Hell spacex has a best price guarantee even lol

tommygun32

Ya, it's a bit of give and take with that situation....[&:]

Just look at what the shuttle was able to do with the Hubble telescope. Don't think a capsule could have brought up all the different elements and equipment to do all those upgrades they accomplished. Plus think about the length of EVA's that were able to launch out of the cargo hold.

Wonder if a capsule could handle that?

elven wizard

HimmlerHimself - Might be able to save some money by firing a small capsule from a modified Blackbird at high altitude. Smaller rockets, etc



Might be a aerodynamics problem, but with modification like you said it might work as in this picture, the Blackbird is carrying a mini plane of some sort.

SyCo_VeNoM

ahh something like http://www.virgingalactic.com/ is doing.
Only thing is that can only hit low orbit from what I read. I doubt it could hit high orbit without alot of issues.

elven wizard

SyCo_VeNoM - I been flowing them for years. It's really cool what there doing. It's makes space that much more fun.

tommygun32 - It will be interesting see how Nasa will adjust back to the capsule idea. I don't think they'll be any problems.

Nik.

the russians quit their shuttle program early on because of lack of funds and went back to continue development of capsules. Look like we are doing the same.

elven wizard

Welcome Nik. - looks like were flowing in the same path as the Russians. That might be a good thing, if it saves a lot of money.

tommygun32

That plane sitting on the back of the Black Bird is an early ROV version of the Black Bird.

Randomly I just watched a show about it yesterday on History channel. I don't know how many were made, but they flew four of them over China and Russia on photographic spy missions. Two were lost while on mission and the other two were lost coming back home. They gave up on the idea. After the wall came down, the president of Lockheed visited Russia. The Russians gave him a box of some broken up pieces of airplane. He immediately recognized the wreckage was from one of the ROV versions. They told him it had been found somewhere in Siberia.

The Russians never realized what they had in their posession.

FahrtAutoRC

I am not suprised. i am sure there have been uncountable times in history when "the other side", whichever side that be, had no clue what they were holding!


Side note- suprised to see after my absence this thread is STILL up and going! Has to be the most successful one Ive ever started hehe Winning!


Another side note- Vacation to the henry Ford Museum was awesome! Great fun, pics sometime soon on their own thread. just got my lil bro a Slash 4X4 yesterday too, used, will be off again for most of today doing a full refurbishment for him.

elven wizard

tommygun32 - Very interesting story on the ROV mini Blackbird. HimmlerHimself - I bet there were mystified on what they had in there hands. First maybe thinking is this a UFO ?

elven wizard

The new X-men movie has the Blackbird in it.

elven wizard

Possible alien base on Mars [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sTJt0LJZG2k[/youtube]

Just in - http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_theloo...deo-goes-viral

tommygun32

SNAP!!!! You beat me to it EW...[:@]

I never knew we had a 'google mars'...[&:]

elven wizard

Tommygun - Me either it surprised me ( google on Mars ) Pretty neat find that was...... Alien base .... interesting !

proanti1

My Feedback: (2)

He could at least have released the coordinates so everyone could find it...

Video has since been removed.

Edit: found another video of the same thing. Honestly... I have no idea what it could be. Could very well be a digital anomaly, but there could also be something there, like part of one of the many rockets we (and the Russians) have sent to mars over the years.

elven wizard

I hope this is looked into, sure looks like a base of some sort.

here's another video, that works

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n75YFiYsr4A[/youtube]

FahrtAutoRC

It may be a rocket from Earth or it may be a highly pixelated and well-shaped clump of martian ice. I highly doubt it is alien, and it would not be a base being that close to the poles, with Mars being this much colder than Earth one would assume any Earthling bases would be more near its "equator", where there is more warmth. A base near a martian pole would make as much sense as a tropical resort in NorthEastern Ohio...

elven wizard

the video just makes things interesting....lots of possibilities