Rockets make rackets

[Inkubus]

Put the headphones on and skip to 7:20.

Edit to add link.

[skyking]

linky no linky

[Inkubus]

linky no linky

Awe fek!

[Dānu]

To quote Dubya, not gonna do it.

[Inkubus]

I don't know what the safe distance is but I would dearly love to be within that radius to feel the boom when the solid boosters ignite. Eardrums, who needs um?

[c172]

I don't know what the safe distance is but I would dearly love to be within that radius to feel the boom when the solid boosters ignite. Eardrums, who needs um?

In the 80's, I used to attend movies at my Imax theater a lot ("Omnimax", fwiw). I saw a movie on the space program, and because the theater was curved around us spherically, I suppose, the immediate aftermath of a launch was like we were all enveloped in the exhaust. Kind of scary seeing clouds of it coming at you and you have to just sit there. It was really neat, though. ETA: the sound was just as intense.

Can't remember the movie, though.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

I don't know what the safe distance is but I would dearly love to be within that radius to feel the boom when the solid boosters ignite. Eardrums, who needs um?

I was in the Rag Bag when Big Mo set off a full broadside.

Like that.

[Cavebear]

I don't know what the safe distance is but I would dearly love to be within that radius to feel the boom when the solid boosters ignite. Eardrums, who needs um?

I was in the Rag Bag when Big Mo set off a full broadside.

Like that.

Too many meanings of "rag bag" on the net.. Please elaborate. I am guessing cleaning out the artillery, but not sure of the term.

[Gwaithmir]

Aw, shucks! I thought this thread was going to be about this kind of rockets:

[Fireball]

I don't know what the safe distance is but I would dearly love to be within that radius to feel the boom when the solid boosters ignite. Eardrums, who needs um?

Miles, at least 3. If the rocket experiences trouble and detonates, you'd better be in a hardened building, at that distance. I've supported launch processing for 3 spacecraft at Cape Canaveral. We were about 5 miles from the launch complex for two of those, and much closer on the last one. For the last one, we were in a hardened shelter. The first two, we stepped out of the hangar to watch them go up. If a rocket goes off course and has to be destroyed, there's a bunch of explosives for the job. Don't want to be in that debris field!

[Gawdzilla Sama]

I was in the Rag Bag when Big Mo set off a full broadside.

Like that.

Too many meanings of "rag bag" on the net.. Please elaborate.  I am guessing cleaning out the artillery, but not sure of the term.

Flags => rags

The signalmen worked on the flag bridge, morphed into sailorspeak as "the flag bag". High up on the ship, good view.

[Inkubus]

Russian lander resorts to litho-breaking.

Russia's unmanned Luna-25 spacecraft has crashed into the Moon

This will be a hard one to pin on Ukraine but they'll try.

[Cavebear]

Russian lander resorts to litho-breaking.

Russia's unmanned Luna-25 spacecraft has crashed into the Moon

This will be a hard one to pin on Ukraine but they'll try.

I almost feel sorry for the Russians. Learning about space travel is a gain for all of us. But they are so difficult lately, I have to say "almost".

[Inkubus]

Russian lander resorts to litho-breaking.

Russia's unmanned Luna-25 spacecraft has crashed into the Moon

This will be a hard one to pin on Ukraine but they'll try.

I almost feel sorry for the Russians.  Learning about space travel is a gain for all of us.  But they are so difficult lately, I have to say "almost".  

Russia is fucked, with or without a massive war they are still fucked. This is a country that never learned how to make washing machines or cars, they couldn't even copy western products. They also have a huge demographics problem the reproduction rate is down to ~1.5. This is unsustainable, in two or three generations Russia will be a wilderness, that's if NATO don't do it before then.

And fuck them! Russia has always been a basket case

[Cavebear]

I almost feel sorry for the Russians.  Learning about space travel is a gain for all of us.  But they are so difficult lately, I have to say "almost".  

Russia is fucked, with or without a massive war they are still fucked. This is a country that never learned how to make washing machines or cars, they couldn't even copy western products. They also have a huge demographics problem the reproduction rate is down to ~1.5. This is unsustainable, in two or three generations Russia will be a wilderness, that's if NATO don't do it before then.

And fuck them! Russia has always been a basket case

Russia is probably the most dangerous "basket case" the modern world has ever known. Followed by China with falling population and economic failure and then by N Korea with insane leaders and nuclear weapons. A vote for Iran, but they are failing also and not quite so dangerous.

[Inkubus]

Russia from day one has been crabs on the balls of civilization. Fuck them!

[Cavebear]

Russia from day one has been crabs on the balls of civilization. Fuck them!

I read once that Afghanistan is where empires go to fight and die. And it is true. The people there are desperate and nearly insane. But Russia is really where the trouble is. Just read their novels. The place is hopeless (literally and figuratively). Gloom surrounds them like a London fog.

In the 90's, I took a Senior/Graduate University seminar class on 'The Breakup Of The Soviet Union'. What I learned about the mutually-hating "nationalities was both enlightening and depressing. So I understand the whole area is a hot mess.

Oddly, a lot of individuals in Russia like the US a lot. Many are energetic and skilled. and would right into any Western Democracy. And I suppose that many would leave if they could. I will probably never understand the nation, though.

[PopeyesPappy]

Not trying to change the current subject or anything like that but...

[Inkubus]

Not trying to change the current subject or anything like that but...

And the all time undisputed champion of the world:



Skip the first 20 secs.

Use headphones. I dare you.

[Cavebear]

I don't know what the safe distance is but I would dearly love to be within that radius to feel the boom when the solid boosters ignite. Eardrums, who needs um?

Off-topic slightly, but I need my eardrums. More on a new thread.

[Inkubus]

Not any more, not this one anyway. 

NASA finally admits what everyone already knows: SLS is unaffordable

Officials from the space agency said they had a four-step plan to reduce costs of the SLS rocket program over time:

• Stabilize the flight schedule
  
• Achieve learning curve efficiencies
  
• Encourage innovation
  
• Adjust acquisition strategies to reduce cost risk
  

Setting aside that some of these goals sound suspiciously like corporate speak, the report makes clear that these are aspirational aims for now. "NASA, however, has not yet identified specific program-level cost-saving goals which it hopes to achieve," the authors write. "NASA has made some progress toward implementing these strategies, but it is too early to fully evaluate their effect on cost".

This is typical NASA bafflegab, what is means is: 'we have no idea how much money has been thrown at this thing'. But we do know how this situation came about:

Pork barrel politics

Bridenstine, testifying before the Senate Commerce Committee, said the agency was looking at using a pair of commercial launch vehicles, likely provided by SpaceX and/or United Launch Alliance, to launch the Orion spacecraft...

And the predictable response?

While I agree that the delay in the SLS launch schedule is unacceptable, I firmly believe that SLS should launch the Orion,” Sen. Richard Shelby R-Alabama...

...Shelby is chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee and his state is home to the Marshall Space Flight Center, which is NASA’s lead center for SLS development.

So what's the problem? The cost of the engines for one thing.

Are you sitting down?

...it is not at all clear that they will be able to control costs. For example, NASA recently said that it is working with the primary contractor of the SLS rocket's main engines, Aerojet, to reduce the cost of each engine by 30 percent, down to $70.5 million by the end of this decade.

You read that correctly; today these engines cost 100 million dollars to build, and that's just parts and labour so to speak, that figure does not include administration and other overheads. Blue Origin can build the similar spec BE-4, for less than $20 million. And SpaceX say their Raptor engine will eventually cost about $1 million per engine.

The objections to the SLS are not new:

Ultimately, jobs—and not actual progress in space—seem to be the driving force of the program. Even if it never actually flies, SLS may still meet its primary mission requirement: delivering federal funding to the states and districts of those in Congress with a particular interest in NASA's budget. Whether that's the best thing for U.S. space policy is another story.

That's twelve years ago

[Minimalist]

Ultimately, jobs—and not actual progress in space—seem to be the driving force of the program.

Every bit as true of the Pentagon budget...as we learn every year when 50 year old flying dinosaurs like the A-10 keep being financed.

[Chas]

Ultimately, jobs—and not actual progress in space—seem to be the driving force of the program.

Every bit as true of the Pentagon budget...as we learn every year when 50 year old flying dinosaurs like the A-10 keep being financed.

The primary difference being that the A-10 actually works.


There really is no good reason to retire it.