The thread for space cadets!

[PlutonianEmpire]

Uh. No. It's not realistic. Neither is Avatar (for one thing I am particularly amused that Earth-vetted aircraft can function just fine in the Pandoran atmosphere, despite all the effing anomalies that cause floating goddam mountains and a host of other factors that have to be different and considered out of necessity).

While Avatar is one of my favorite movies, there are two thing that bug me: a) The waterfalls falling out of the aforementioned floating mountains, because they need a SOURCE for all that water to come out for long periods of time, and it's a bit difficult to find a perpetual source if they're thousands of feet in the air; and b) the Na'vi's skin look like, at least on HD sets, look more like those rubber(?) fitness/wrestling mats one finds in gyms and fitness centers, than the exteriors of biological life forms.

I hope they did. Because

I...

Want...

Chiron...

...there!

This made me go on the Celestia forum looking for it. He never released the 4096x2048 map of it.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

I landed on the frakkin Mun gaize!

 

[Winner]

and b) the Na'vi's skin look like, at least on HD sets, look more like those rubber(?) fitness/wrestling mats one finds in gyms and fitness centers, than the exteriors of biological life forms.

Really? I'd say their texture is pretty similar to that of other lifeforms we see in the film.

BTW, about the Valkyrie shuttle:

The Valkyrie is roughly four times the size of the twentieth-century Earth shuttles. Because it uses fusion engines, the Valkyrie can redirect its containment fields for active EMF damping, so it can function very well in the high magnetic field areas of Pandora. It does not rely solely on passive shielding.

Source

I'd say this is what separates dumb science-fantasy from science-fiction: at least *trying* to explain the stuff we read about/see on screen.

This made me go on the Celestia forum looking for it. He never released the 4096x2048 map of it.

Yeah, that's because I made that add-on and all data from my disk are gone, so all the source files are gone.

Really? I thought they had a pretty good run of racking up many space firsts.

Effective in terms of efficient use of their resources and assets. If it had been better organized (and, ironically for the Soviets, more centralized), the USSR would not only score a few early propaganda victories; it would probably utterly trounce the US.

I landed on the frakkin Mun gaize!

I felt like this when I first managed to fly the DeltaGlider IV from Earth to the Moon and landed near the Aurora base without any automated landing MFDs helping me. And without cheating about fuel, of course.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

U talkin about Orbiter Winner?

If u liked orbiter, I suggest giving KSP a whirl.

 

[Winner]

U talkin about Orbiter Winner?

If u liked orbiter, I suggest giving KSP a whirl.

I will. After I get back to my Earth-Venus-Mercury-Earth round trip (with a big mothership, aerobraking shields, and two landing craft). I already have times of departures/arrival for low energy transfer orbits figured out. And I plan to land on Venus (Before I lost my HDD data, I ran about 50 simulation runs of landing - it's hard as hell in the dense atmosphere, you need to pull up exactly few seconds before landing or you bust your landing gear. It felt almost as if I were preparing for the real deal ).

 

[hobbsyoyo]

I will. After I get back to my Earth-Venus-Mercury-Earth round trip (with a big mothership, aerobraking shields, and two landing craft). I already have times of departures/arrival for low energy transfer orbits figured out. And I plan to land on Venus (Before I lost my HDD data, I ran about 50 simulation runs of landing - it's hard as hell in the dense atmosphere, you need to pull up exactly few seconds before landing or you bust your landing gear. It felt almost as if I were preparing for the real deal ).

I only brought up KSP here because it seemed like something space cadets would enjoy.

In any case, it's $18 (US) and it's in the alpha phase. They are still implementing new things into the game.

Having said that, it already has a lot in it. You can build your own rockets and space planes and take them to any one of the five major planets in the the Kerbal solar system and the many moons there of. It's reasonably realistic (to the average user it's extremely realistic but to a professional astrophysicist not quite, or so I heard on a youtube video by an astrophysicist - who still loves the game).

It can be buggy and crash unexpectedly, but it's getting better as it goes along. Also, as it nears completion the price goes up, but if you buy it now you are locked in and never have to pay for the updates or final release version.

It also sports a ton of mods from extra parts (to build rovers, probes, satellites, space stations, moon bases, cooler rockets) to autopilots to a mod that lets you search for valuable space 'kethane' on planets and moons that you can mine and use to refuel your ship. The modding is really fantastic but I haven't downloaded any just yet. I wanted to master the basics before I started messing with mods.

One thing that does frustrate me is that you can't do 'simulated runthroughs' (yet) of one aspect of a mission like your repeated Venus landings. You pretty much have to start off from the ground and go through the whole launch and orbit sections over and over again just to practice something. But there are a few training missions you can redo, but not enough and they don't use your rockets, but rather rockets they give you for the training mission.

 

[Crezth]

I prefer Moonbase Alpha.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

I prefer Moonbase Alpha.

Never heard of it. I have heard of Space Station Alpha though.

 

[Winner]

I wish someone made a totally realistic space programme simulation-strategy game. You know, play as one of the major space agencies (NASA, ESA, Roscosmos, JAXA, CNSA), or perhaps as a private company, and manage the programme, generate interest points which help you to convince politicians to give you more money, build space stations, lunar bases, propellant depots, orbital space docks, privatize and outsource parts of the programme, and so on. Make it open ended, but hard sci-fi (so you'd only be able to develop stuff we can foresee, no warp drive silliness). Final goal - go interstellar.

On the other hand, if somebody made such a simulation-game, I'd resign on my real life and spend the next few years locked in my flat, so...

 

[Crezth]

That's not a bad idea, actually.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

I wish someone made a totally realistic space programme simulation-strategy game. You know, play as one of the major space agencies (NASA, ESA, Roscosmos, JAXA, CNSA), or perhaps as a private company, and manage the programme, generate interest points which help you to convince politicians to give you more money, build space stations, lunar bases, propellant depots, orbital space docks, privatize and outsource parts of the programme, and so on. Make it open ended, but hard sci-fi (so you'd only be able to develop stuff we can foresee, no warp drive silliness). Final goal - go interstellar.

On the other hand, if somebody made such a simulation-game, I'd resign on my real life and spend the next few years locked in my flat, so...

This is the idea behind KSP actually. It really is, the game is just in Alpha so they are working out the basics of spaceflight, the planets and the Spore-ish way you build ships. They will implement a campaign mode and they have described it a lot like what you want, no joke.

Of course it's not Earth and NASA, etc, but the game mirrors real life.

In it's current state, the game is a big sandbox. You can build all kinds of rockets and go to all the planets and moons. There are easter eggs (monoliths, faces on Mars, etc) on the planets and moons you can find. But there is no real 'goal'.

With mods, you can add space stations, fuel depots, fuel mining equipment, Moon bases and all kinds of stuff, but there is still no 'goal'.

As we get closer to release, they will add in a campaign mode where you have to captivate public imagination with the space program and try and get more funding from politicians. There will be goals to complete and lots of things to do. They are also adding in a lot of the functionality that the mods add to the game. Right now it's $18 and the price will go up as it gets closer to completion. If you buy it now, you get all the updates for free, so you are essentially getting a full, super-awesome game for less than $20.

I should note that there is a free demo available (that lacks a lot of what's in the paid version) and that even in Alpha state, it's still a very fun game.

 

[Winner]

Speaking of mini-shuttles...

Testing at advanced stage for Europe's new spacecraft

(Sen) - A series of descent and landing tests are nearing completion for Europe's latest spacecraft designed for low-Earth orbit, the IXV Intermediate eXperimental Vehicle.

Early next year they will culminate in a full-scale splashdown test that will pave the way for a launch by the European Space Agency's new small Vega rocket in 2014.

IXV, which looks more like a simple shuttle than a capsule, is 4.4 metres long and designed as a prototype for an unmanned craft that will be able to return autonomously from a range of orbital missions.

These will include carrying cargo into space, flights of exploration and robotic servicing of satellites already in orbit. Unlike Europe's Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV) which has made successful visits to the International Space Station before being destroyed on reentry, IXV will return to make a precise landing on Earth.

A number of tests of the IXV's systems and subsystems have already been carried out including dropping it by parachute. One prototype landed safely in the Arizona desert after being dropped from an altitude of 5.7 km.

A third is being built to be dropped by helicopter from a height of 3 km into the Mediterranean Sea off Sardinia.

In 2014, an IXV will blast into space from ESA's launch site at Kourou, French Guiana, atop a Vega rocket. After being launched into a suborbital trajectory that avoids inhabited regions, the spacecraft will fly a hypersonic phase over the Pacific Ocean before parachuting into the sea.

It will reach a height of around 450 km during the experimental flight, which is an attempt to mimic a return to Earth from a low orbit mission.

ESA is determined to recover the vehicle and its data records so that they have all the information to hand in the event of any communications failures with ground stations during the test flight. Click here to watch ESA's video of the 2014 mission.

Giorgio Tumino, IXV Project Manager, said: “The IXV mission into space is now becoming a concrete reality. It will provide Europe with credible and unique knowhow on atmospheric reentry system aspects and unknowns and flight-proven technologies essential to support the realisation of the Agency’s future ambitions in the field.”

Vega, which was launched for the first time this year, is an important addition to Europe's rocket arsenal. It now complements ESA's heavy-lifting Ariane launchers and recently introduced, medium-sized, Soyuz newcomers with its ability to put smaller payloads into orbit.

• ESA celebrated the 52nd consecutive launch of its biggest rocket, the Ariane 5, from Kourou yesterday. It was the sixth successful Ariane launch of 2012 and sent two telecommunications satellites, Eutelsat-21B and Star One-C3, heading for geostationary orbit.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Maybe I'm wrong, but are the main benefits of a spaceplane like the one Winner just posted about or the X-38 controlled landings and reusability?

If so, I don't get their point. A capsule can both have controlled landings and be reusable, while also (probably) being cheaper to build and simpler.

 

[Winner]

IXV is an experimental vehicle. ESA needs it to test/develop techniques of controlled re-entry, and I guess they must have a reason for that, otherwise they'd hardly spend so much money on it.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

IXV is an experimental vehicle. ESA needs it to test/develop techniques of controlled re-entry, and I guess they must have a reason for that, otherwise they'd hardly spend so much money on it.

I get that and I'm not knocking either the IXV or the X-38 or even the Tinydong. I'm just asking what makes them special or better platforms than a capsule based system? What inherent advantages do they really have when you come down to it?

The only way I can buy into their advantages (about reusability and controllability) is when they are scaled up to a SSTO system or even just a large orbiter with a big payload (the Space Shuttle). Smaller than that and I am just not sure why they are better.

 

[Winner]

I get that and I'm not knocking either the IXV or the X-38 or even the Tinydong. I'm just asking what makes them special or better platforms than a capsule based system? What inherent advantages do they really have when you come down to it?

Better controlled landing (at least potentially)? That's what IXV is also supposed to test.

The only way I can buy into their advantages (about reusability and controllability) is when they are scaled up to a SSTO system or even just a large orbiter with a big payload (the Space Shuttle). Smaller than that and I am just not sure why they are better.

I think I agree. I don't see much point in Dream Chaser and the like if they still need a huge standard booster to get them to orbit, and then you're carrying all the excess weight that could otherwise be used for something useful.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

(I've been reading Red Mars and getting impatient that we're not on our way yet. )

How is your reading going LucyDuke?

I prefer Moonbase Alpha.

So what is Moonbase Alpha? A game?

Also:

SEXY AND YOU KNOW IT

Look at that rocket, look at that rocket.​

I've been fascinated by the Buran since I saw it in a children's space book decades ago. I don't know why, but I think it's really cool and the Energia booster was downright incredible. (And though you can't tell from this pic, the Buran's one and only launch was in a snowstorm; ironically Buran translates to blizzard)

Does anyone know of a good book on the Buran's development and history in English?

 

[LegionSteve]

So what is Moonbase Alpha? A game?

An awesome TV show Space 1999

I loved this when I was about 6 years old, though some of the aliens were a bit too scary. Of course back then 1999 was the distant future, not the distant past.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Thanks!

 

[PlutonianEmpire]

Ok, enough douchebaggery from me..... For now.

Here's something that may be a good read, for Mars-lovers.

http://news.yahoo.com/astronauts-could-survive-mars-radiation-curiosity-rover-finds-215510178.html

Radiation levels at the Martian surface appear to be roughly similar to those experienced by astronauts in low-Earth orbit, NASA's Mars rover Curiosity has found.

The rover's initial radiation measurements — the first ever taken on the surface of another planet — may buoy the hopes of human explorers who may one day put boots on Mars, for they add more support to the notion that astronauts can indeed function on the Red Planet for limited stretches of time.

"Absolutely, astronauts can live in this environment," Don Hassler, of the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colo., told reporters during a news conference today (Nov. 15).

Yeah, it's still early, so it may be a bit optimistic, but hey, better than nothing.