The thread for space cadets!

One way travel is not the problem as much as the ability to come and go as we please.
 
Winner said:
Most important in what respect?

V-2 -> everything else is derived from it in some way or another.

R-7 (the Vostok->Voschod->Soyuz launcher) -> the first medium-lift rocket, still in use. Without it there would be no Russian space programme.

Other than that, hobbs has listed the major American designs. He forgot the European Ariane rocket family, which has historically covered about 50% of the commercial GEO market... ;) Ariane-4 and Ariane-5 especially are robust, reliable vehicles which should not be omitted from any such list.
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hahahaha

You wanna know something funny?

I thought about this question the other day in the shower and realized I had forgotten the Ariane family. I was going to come in and edit it after I got out of the shower, then though, 'nah, Winner will catch my error. :hatsoff:

I also skipped the Japanese/Korean/Ukranian/Indian Launchers cuz who the hell cares? :lol:

MrAzure said:
Hobbs limited to space launchers, I see you have a nice list.

Winner Most important in space use.
If I was going to make a mod about modern space travel, which rocket designs would I include that had the most technological or historical impact.

I have more details in this post:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=12802020
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Here's probably the bare essentials:

V-2, R-7/Soyuz, Saturn V, Space Shuttle, Ariane 5 (probably skip Ariane 4 cause 5 looks cooler and has MOAR THRUST), Long March 3 (is it the LM3? idk)

Probably the Proton too as it launched a lot of ISS/Mir components but I personally don't like it.

The Delta/Atlas aren't as important as the others when it comes down to it. Though currently the Delta IV Heavy is the largest rocket in existence.

........maybe the Falcon 9 but it's too early to tell. Antares is too limited in what it can do at the moment whereas the Falcon 9/Falcon Heavy are theoretically capable of much more so I would probably skip Antares but include the F9/FH (but there's the risk they won't work out)

Clarification: How accurate do you want your progression to be? What I mean is that almost all of these rockets were developed independently and had very different goals and were operated by different countries. So if you want some sort of historical progression that people won't laugh at that would suit a Civ game, you're probably going to want to tailor this list a bit. If you got
V-2 --> Soyuz --> Saturn V ---> Ariane 5
people may hate you. Or not, it just depends again on your audience, how you'll use the progression and so on.

If you want a historically accurate list of rockets that are sequential, from the same nation and can do increasingly more things, I'd probably pick the American list as it will give you the most flexibility. It would probably go something like:

V-2 --> Atlas --> Saturn V --> Space Shuttle

Everyone can lay claim to the V-2 in some way because even though it's technically German, everyone used it and built off of it. The V-2 gives you a basic rocket. The Atlas gets small missions to orbit. The Saturn V gets you to the moon and launches large, monolithic stations such as Skylab. The Space Shuttle gives you large modular stations like the ISS and medium payloads to orbit and some interplanetary probes. If you want to get a more detailed and flexible list, you will have to include the Delta series, probably between Saturn V and the Shuttle. It was developed originally as the Thor before the Saturn V but really hit it's stride as an interplanetary launcher around the Shuttle era. They've launched a lot of interplanetary probes with it. They used to use the Titan II/III system too but that's probably too much for the list.

The Russian list would go:

V-2 --> R-7/Soyuz --> Proton

The R-7/Soyuz gives you small to medium missions in orbit. The proton gives you medium to medium-heavy space station missions like the ISS and Mir (though it doesn't fly manned missions). They both can launch interplanetary probes. There are some others such as Zenit that they use but not as often and they aren't nearly as important.

The European Space Agency's list goes:
V-2 --> Ariane 1-4 ---> Ariane 5 <--- Ariane 6

Ariane 1-4 give you small-medium missions in orbit (none manned). Ariane 5 gets you medium/medium-heavy missions to orbit (none manned). Ariane 6 takes you backwards
:p
 
PlutonianEmpire said:
Are we ever gonna shift away from the constant ogling over giant flying wieners in this thread? :mischief:
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If you want some quality rocket porn check out the movie "Nukes In Space" on Youtube. William Shatner narrates it, it's very good and focuses more on rockets (and rocket explosions) than it does on the nukes.
 
Current 'heavy' launchers can put less than a quarter of the Saturn V's payload on Low Earth Orbit.

The Saturn V could put 130 English tons in LEO. The Delta IV heavy can put 25.25 English tons on LEO. Proton can lift 23 English tons. Ariane 5 can lift 23.14 English tons to LEO.


If the Falcon 9 Heavy works out, it can theoretically put 58.5 tons in LEO.
 
:dubious:
What's up with the English Tonnes units, spaceboy? METRIC OR DEATH!! due to irrelevance and cumbersome aspects of imperial units, which should be abandoned ASAP
 
hobbsyoyo said:
If you want some quality rocket porn check out the movie "Nukes In Space" on Youtube. William Shatner narrates it, it's very good and focuses more on rockets (and rocket explosions) than it does on the nukes.
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Why do you think I made that post in the first place? ;) I was hoping for less rocket pr0nz, not moar. ;)

But hey, I fetishize blue alien babes, so really, I'm just being a hypocrite :hammer2: ; so I concede. :lol:
 
peter grimes said:
:dubious:
What's up with the English Tonnes units, spaceboy? METRIC OR DEATH!! due to irrelevance and cumbersome aspects of imperial units, which should be abandoned ASAP
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Preaching to the choir, I used them because our audience is mainly murican.
 
Someone posted in the Celestia forum a while back about a military sci-fi novel he wrote, using visuals from Celestia for his trailers:

http://www.solwarone.com/

(Dunno if someone posted this before, but I'm too lazy to dig for it.)

Anyone heard of it?
 
Now, don't mistake me, but, while I applaud India being technologically sophisticated enough to be able to do this, I still have some misgivings.
At $72m (£45m), the mission is comparatively cheap, but some commentators have still questioned whether a country with one of the highest rankings for childhood malnutrition in the world should be spending millions on a mission to the Red Planet.
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An equally valid criticism was made of the US in the sixties. I remember someone riding up to Cape Canaveral with a mule train, making this very point.
 
Borachio said:
Now, don't mistake me, but, while I applaud India being technologically sophisticated enough to be able to do this, I still have some misgivings.

An equally valid criticism was made of the US in the sixties. I remember someone riding up to Cape Canaveral with a mule train, making this very point.
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On the one hand, I can sympathize with this basic argument even without agreeing with it. On the other hand, it is still FAR less stupid then pouring billions into nuclear submarines, aircraft carriers, ICBMs and other toys India keeps buying to keep up in its ongoing dick-measuring contest with China.

Investing in space exploration is a pretty good way of expanding high-value sectors of the economy, which in the end may help the huge malnourished masses either directly (satellite observation and monitoring to help with land management, disaster prevention, etc.) or indirectly (economic growth spurred by money flowing from the hi-tech sector).
 
Apparently India's space program is one of the only ones that doesn't lose money to corruption, or at least doesn't lose crazy amounts of money to corruption and is relatively corruption free - unlike most other arms of the government or public institutions in India or whatever.

So why they should get the shaft, just because the rest of the country can't get it together? They are doing incredibly amazing science for super cheap - any criticism of them spending money on this is not warranted.
 
NASA? Space! Spacespacespacespace NASA!

SPACE!

....been too long since I posted here.




So a big thrust of India's program is to steal a chunk of the commercial satellite launching market from China and other nations. To that end, they have to do a ton of missions like this using their launchers to gain the trust of satellite owners and launch insurers. It could potentially make the country a lot of money if things go the way they want, so that kind of negates the argument that 'well people in India are poor so they shouldn't launch rockets' because in this instance launching rockets will directly benefit the poor people. Then of course there is the fact that India uses the ISRO to launch communications satellites and weather satellites to enable TV/internet and weather forecasting services especially for the poorer regions.
 
Winner said:
On the one hand, I can sympathize with this basic argument even without agreeing with it. On the other hand, it is still FAR less stupid then pouring billions into nuclear submarines, aircraft carriers, ICBMs and other toys India keeps buying to keep up in its ongoing dick-measuring contest with China.

Investing in space exploration is a pretty good way of expanding high-value sectors of the economy, which in the end may help the huge malnourished masses either directly (satellite observation and monitoring to help with land management, disaster prevention, etc.) or indirectly (economic growth spurred by money flowing from the hi-tech sector).
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Can't argue with that.

hobbsyoyo said:
So a big thrust of India's program is to steal a chunk of the commercial satellite launching market from China and other nations. To that end, they have to do a ton of missions like this using their launchers to gain the trust of satellite owners and launch insurers. It could potentially make the country a lot of money if things go the way they want, so that kind of negates the argument that 'well people in India are poor so they shouldn't launch rockets' because in this instance launching rockets will directly benefit the poor people. Then of course there is the fact that India uses the ISRO to launch communications satellites and weather satellites to enable TV/internet and weather forecasting services especially for the poorer regions.
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Can't argue with this.


However, if India can launch satellites into space it is surely capable of feeding malnourished children. So why doesn't it?

And if it can make money from launching satellites, just how likely is it that the money will trickle down? Doesn't seem very likely to me. Old Snatcher Thatcher used to be very fond of the trickle-down effect; at the very same time stopping the supply of school milk to primary school children.
 
Attended a presentation by the lead propulsion engineer at SpaceX for the Raptor engine project. What really struck me is how many times he mentioned Mars during his talk. I mean, I guess I knew that SpaceX wanted to send people to Mars, but listening to all of their plans for Mars exploration really made it sink it.

Hell, I'm 99% sure the Raptor engine itself is being developed specificially for Mars. It's a closed-cycle engine that runs on Methane. Methane is slightly more efficient than Kerosene (which SpaceX's engines currently use) but has some disadvantages to it that have kept companies from actually developing engines that use it. However, you can synthesize Methane on Mars, so I think the whole point of this engine is to enable some key Martian infrastructure to be sent over in the not-too-distant future.

And by that I mean in the next decade. They are dead-serious about getting a colony going on Mars, no joke people. Pretty crazy stuff if you ask me but also very thrilling. Here's hoping the company doesn't implode in the meantime. :cheers:


They also talked about their last mission - they launched the first upgraded Falcon 9 rocket (v1.1) and it got the satellite it was carrying into orbit successfully. there was an anomoly on the second stage but it wasn't mission critical. They did a supersonic retro-burn of the first stage to try and slow it down to soft landing in the ocean. It was going well (and was in fact the first time anyone had done this) but the stage started spinning and the centrifugal force pulled the propellant to the sides of the tank which meant it couldn't reach the engine, which then cut-off and the rocket plunged into the ocean.

All in all it was a pretty big deal for them and the spinning problem should be rectified by the landing legs they are going to put on future rockets. They are pretty damn big and they act as stabilization fins during descent. SpaceX plans on flying the first stage back to the launch pad (which still comes across as black magic to me given how much propellant they would have to use I think) where it will land, be refitted and can reused within hours. They haven't worked out yet how to do the same with the 2nd stage but they are working on it.


In other news: Blue Origin had a captive-drop of their mini-shuttle and one of the landing gear collapsed and it had a bad crash on landing. The landing gear was taken from an old F-5 and isn't the type they will use on real spaceships so they aren't too worried as everything else went well.

@Borachio -

It's easier to launch a rocket than it is to command the weather to cooperate with farmers, that's for sure. Though I'm not sure how much the weather actually has to do with starving children in India as much as a lack of a social safety net (though of course many, many millions of people there are in fact sustenance farmers - still they should be able to recieve food aid in times of need).

But the point about weather forecasting and information services to poor rural areas can't be downplayed as it is a big part of their space program.


I think the bigger point is that clearly India can provide basic necessities for their people and still support a space program though they don't due to corruption, mismanagement and the fact that communist rebels actually control a sizable chunk of the country IIRC. In other words, the ISRO isn't the problem India has when it comes to feeding the poor; the government is.

Edit: And I think you are spot on about the money not going back to the poor Indians. I very much doubt that whatever they earn goes to the general fund and instead probably goes back into the ISRO's (indian space research organization) coffers. That's not really a trickle-down economics thing so much as poor governance.
 
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