Guest alex Posted July 30, 2009 Share Posted July 30, 2009 Isn't it the Devils peak, Devils hill or whatever from Close Encounters? Devil's Tower. Or it looks like it. Real location anarl. Incidentally this is a quality website for those sort of pics : http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/archivepix.html I watched 'In The Shadow of the Moon' last night as well btw. Cracking documentary that, Alex. I've seen bits of it before and I rented it as I've gone a bit space travel-tastic lately with the 40th anniversary of the moon landings (watched '2001', 'Moon' and 'For All Mankind' plus a few docs on BBC4 and so on). Anyway, it makes a great companion piece with 'For All Mankind' as that is more of an 'artistic' look at Apollo, with fantastic footage and a great soundtrack but no real storyline whereas this goes into greater detail by interviewing those involved and giving the events some order. I probably like both equally. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Park Life 71 Posted July 30, 2009 Share Posted July 30, 2009 (edited) What is the Nasa budget these days anyway? If we compare it to the 50's and 60's the equivalent in today's money would be approaching $500 billion dollars. You see you only have to look at what is visible and none of it makes sense. Edited July 30, 2009 by Park Life Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fop 1 Posted July 31, 2009 Share Posted July 31, 2009 What is the Nasa budget these days anyway? If we compare it to the 50's and 60's the equivalent in today's money would be approaching $500 billion dollars. You see you only have to look at what is visible and none of it makes sense. Obarma could kill 2 birds with one stone, Guantanamo and Mars. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rob W 0 Posted August 3, 2009 Share Posted August 3, 2009 Apollo 11 was a much greater technical achievement than Gargarin's mission and has much more elements to it. Gargarin went up in space by himself, orbitted the Earth a few times (much like the dogs before him), and came down, end of story. I can't see that making a terribly enthralling film or book really. Plus Earth orbit is entirely routine now, where as the Apollo missions are yet to be emulated. except for the fact he was FIRST you mean............... After that it was just a matter of technique and planning TBH Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest alex Posted August 3, 2009 Share Posted August 3, 2009 Apollo 11 was a much greater technical achievement than Gargarin's mission and has much more elements to it. Gargarin went up in space by himself, orbitted the Earth a few times (much like the dogs before him), and came down, end of story. I can't see that making a terribly enthralling film or book really. Plus Earth orbit is entirely routine now, where as the Apollo missions are yet to be emulated. except for the fact he was FIRST you mean............... After that it was just a matter of technique and planning TBH Aye, it was that simple. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Fish 9221 Posted August 3, 2009 Share Posted August 3, 2009 Isn't everything just a matter of technique and planning (and luck)? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Meenzer 14136 Posted August 3, 2009 Share Posted August 3, 2009 "Planning" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Craig 6321 Posted August 3, 2009 Share Posted August 3, 2009 Apollo 11 was a much greater technical achievement than Gargarin's mission and has much more elements to it. Gargarin went up in space by himself, orbitted the Earth a few times (much like the dogs before him), and came down, end of story. I can't see that making a terribly enthralling film or book really. Plus Earth orbit is entirely routine now, where as the Apollo missions are yet to be emulated. except for the fact he was FIRST you mean............... After that it was just a matter of technique and planning TBH Aye, it was that simple. Flight plan written on the back of a postage stamp, wasn't it? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Park Life 71 Posted August 3, 2009 Share Posted August 3, 2009 Apollo 11 was a much greater technical achievement than Gargarin's mission and has much more elements to it. Gargarin went up in space by himself, orbitted the Earth a few times (much like the dogs before him), and came down, end of story. I can't see that making a terribly enthralling film or book really. Plus Earth orbit is entirely routine now, where as the Apollo missions are yet to be emulated. except for the fact he was FIRST you mean............... After that it was just a matter of technique and planning TBH Aye, it was that simple. Flight plan written on the back of a postage stamp, wasn't it? Cue cards tbh. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest alex Posted August 3, 2009 Share Posted August 3, 2009 Apollo 11 was a much greater technical achievement than Gargarin's mission and has much more elements to it. Gargarin went up in space by himself, orbitted the Earth a few times (much like the dogs before him), and came down, end of story. I can't see that making a terribly enthralling film or book really. Plus Earth orbit is entirely routine now, where as the Apollo missions are yet to be emulated. except for the fact he was FIRST you mean............... After that it was just a matter of technique and planning TBH Aye, it was that simple. Flight plan written on the back of a postage stamp, wasn't it? It's not like it's rocket science, is it? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Craig 6321 Posted August 3, 2009 Share Posted August 3, 2009 Apollo 11 was a much greater technical achievement than Gargarin's mission and has much more elements to it. Gargarin went up in space by himself, orbitted the Earth a few times (much like the dogs before him), and came down, end of story. I can't see that making a terribly enthralling film or book really. Plus Earth orbit is entirely routine now, where as the Apollo missions are yet to be emulated. except for the fact he was FIRST you mean............... After that it was just a matter of technique and planning TBH Aye, it was that simple. Flight plan written on the back of a postage stamp, wasn't it? It's not like it's rocket science, is it? Perhaps he is Rob W Bush? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Park Life 71 Posted August 3, 2009 Share Posted August 3, 2009 Rob Van Winkle tbh. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rob W 0 Posted August 4, 2009 Share Posted August 4, 2009 (edited) Naaa - it was a clever and very risky idea to go the way NASA went to the moon - it came off which shows what brilliant engineers they were My point was that it all flowed from Gagarin's flight - the Russians WERE first and that also took some serious engineering and "PLANNING" - maybe it has a new name such as Systems Engineering these days but its still a plan FFS I quite liek the idea that I lived through those great days while you lot have to larn them in school or watch a documentary .......................... nowhere near as much fun....................... Edited August 4, 2009 by Rob W Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest alex Posted August 4, 2009 Share Posted August 4, 2009 Naaa - it was a clever and very risky idea to go the way NASA went to the moon - it came off which shows what brilliant engineers they were My point was that it all flowed from Gagarin's flight - the Russians WERE first and that also took some serious engineering and "PLANNING" - maybe it has a new name such as Systems Engineering these days but its still a plan FFS I quite liek the idea that I lived through those great days while you lot have to larn them in school or watch a documentary .......................... nowhere near as much fun....................... No? Really? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fop 1 Posted August 4, 2009 Share Posted August 4, 2009 Naaa - it was a clever and very risky idea to go the way NASA went to the moon - it came off which shows what brilliant engineers they were My point was that it all flowed from Gagarin's flight - the Russians WERE first and that also took some serious engineering and "PLANNING" - maybe it has a new name such as Systems Engineering these days but its still a plan FFS I quite liek the idea that I lived through those great days while you lot have to larn them in school or watch a documentary .......................... nowhere near as much fun....................... If you follow Fop's advice you may live to see Mars. Then the Russian invented the metric system (now taken over and maintained by Iran) and destroyed the US space program in one fell swoop. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fop 1 Posted August 4, 2009 Share Posted August 4, 2009 Not only didn't the USA land on the moon, but Obama wasn't born in the USA either. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/8171314.stm Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rob W 0 Posted August 5, 2009 Share Posted August 5, 2009 Naaa - it was a clever and very risky idea to go the way NASA went to the moon - it came off which shows what brilliant engineers they were My point was that it all flowed from Gagarin's flight - the Russians WERE first and that also took some serious engineering and "PLANNING" - maybe it has a new name such as Systems Engineering these days but its still a plan FFS I quite liek the idea that I lived through those great days while you lot have to larn them in school or watch a documentary .......................... nowhere near as much fun....................... No? Really? this is true dear boy and all your wishing cannot change the fact that I've lived longer, been to more places, seen more things and generally am SO superior in knowledge it is frankly embarrassing. I see my time on here as a penance, spreading wise words amongst sw....... the less experienced................. However I have great hopes for some of you - see me as Yoda to your Ewen McGregor Alex. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Renton 18038 Posted August 5, 2009 Share Posted August 5, 2009 Naaa - it was a clever and very risky idea to go the way NASA went to the moon - it came off which shows what brilliant engineers they were My point was that it all flowed from Gagarin's flight - the Russians WERE first and that also took some serious engineering and "PLANNING" - maybe it has a new name such as Systems Engineering these days but its still a plan FFS I quite liek the idea that I lived through those great days while you lot have to larn them in school or watch a documentary .......................... nowhere near as much fun....................... No? Really? this is true dear boy and all your wishing cannot change the fact that I've lived longer, been to more places, seen more things and generally am SO superior in knowledge it is frankly embarrassing. I see my time on here as a penance, spreading wise words amongst sw....... the less experienced................. However I have great hopes for some of you - see me as Yoda to your Ewen McGregor Alex. Are you suggesting you were involved in the US space programme? Or that merely you watched some Space documentaries the first time round - in black and white? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest alex Posted August 5, 2009 Share Posted August 5, 2009 Naaa - it was a clever and very risky idea to go the way NASA went to the moon - it came off which shows what brilliant engineers they were My point was that it all flowed from Gagarin's flight - the Russians WERE first and that also took some serious engineering and "PLANNING" - maybe it has a new name such as Systems Engineering these days but its still a plan FFS I quite liek the idea that I lived through those great days while you lot have to larn them in school or watch a documentary .......................... nowhere near as much fun....................... No? Really? this is true dear boy and all your wishing cannot change the fact that I've lived longer, been to more places, seen more things and generally am SO superior in knowledge it is frankly embarrassing. I see my time on here as a penance, spreading wise words amongst sw....... the less experienced................. However I have great hopes for some of you - see me as Yoda to your Ewen McGregor Alex. I see you as the boring gobshite in the pub to be avoided at all costs tbh. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rob W 0 Posted August 6, 2009 Share Posted August 6, 2009 but I can get a rise out of you EVERY TIME!!!!!! simple pleasures for an old, old man.............. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rob W 0 Posted August 6, 2009 Share Posted August 6, 2009 Naaa - it was a clever and very risky idea to go the way NASA went to the moon - it came off which shows what brilliant engineers they were My point was that it all flowed from Gagarin's flight - the Russians WERE first and that also took some serious engineering and "PLANNING" - maybe it has a new name such as Systems Engineering these days but its still a plan FFS I quite liek the idea that I lived through those great days while you lot have to larn them in school or watch a documentary .......................... nowhere near as much fun....................... No? Really? this is true dear boy and all your wishing cannot change the fact that I've lived longer, been to more places, seen more things and generally am SO superior in knowledge it is frankly embarrassing. I see my time on here as a penance, spreading wise words amongst sw....... the less experienced................. However I have great hopes for some of you - see me as Yoda to your Ewen McGregor Alex. Are you suggesting you were involved in the US space programme? Or that merely you watched some Space documentaries the first time round - in black and white? Oddly enough I was at JET Lab seminar on "Structure of the Moon & Planets" with another 100 academics & graduate students when things went tits up on Apollo 13 - which rather stopped the discussions - but I gave up academia not long afterwards and went out into the world instead Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Happy Face 29 Posted April 23, 2010 Share Posted April 23, 2010 Last year, the Pentagon’s space program received $22 billion, one third more than NASA’s entire budget, so it seems reasonable that funds could be shared. But it sounds like NASA could be merging certain aspects of the civilian space program with the US military space program, probably scrapping Constellation and making military Delta IV and Atlas V rockets “human rated”… What is the pentagon's space program I can hear you thinking... A prototype spaceplane developed for the US military has been launched into orbit from Florida. The X-37B, which has been likened to a scaled-down space shuttle, blasted off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station at 0052 BST (1952 EDT). The military vehicle is unpiloted and will carry out the first autonomous re-entry and landing in the history of the US space programme. The spacecraft can return experiments to Earth for inspection and analysis. At 9m long (29ft), 4.5m (15ft), the reusable spaceplane is about one quarter the size of the shuttle, with a large engine mounted at the rear of the ship for orbit changing. And while the space shuttle uses a fuel cell power system; the military vehicle is powered by a solar array and lithium-ion batteries. The precise objectives and cost of the programme are secret. But the first few flights will allow officials to evaluate the vehicle's performance and ensure components and systems work the way they are supposed to. "The top priority technology demonstration on this first flight is the vehicle itself," Gary Payton, the US Air Force's deputy under secretary for space programs, told journalists on a teleconference this week. "Getting it into orbit, getting the payload bay doors open, the solar array deployed, learning about on-orbit attitude control and bringing it all back." The X-37B was launched vertically atop an Atlas V rocket. The Air Force (USAF) says the vehicle will be used to test advanced guidance, navigation and control, thermal protection systems, avionics and high temperature structures and seals. The Pentagon has not specified a duration for this mission, but the X-37B is designed to operate on orbit for up to 270 days: "In all honesty, we don't know when it's coming back for sure. It depends on the progress that we make with the on-orbit experiments, the on-orbit demonstrations," said Mr Payton. Once the mission is complete, a command will be sent from the ground prompting the 5,000kg (11,000lb) spaceplane to fire its engine to re-enter the atmosphere. It will then autonomously navigate its way to the 4.5km (15,000ft) -long primary runway at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. The X-37B started life in 1999 as a US space agency programme, but Nasa handed the project over to the Pentagon in September 2004. As such, the Air Force is in a position to talk openly about the craft's design, but its purpose remains classified. Dr Joan Johnson-Freese, chair of national security and decision making at the US Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island, said the military would be waiting to see if this project yielded new capabilities: "It might be at this point in time that [the US Air Force is] going to roll the dice and see if something good happens. "If it does, they'll continue with it. Otherwise, this will be another one of those [experimental] projects that goes into a bin somewhere." Second plane The USAF has requisitioned a second experimental plane from the prime contractor Boeing; this is being targeted for launch sometime in 2011. Speculation about the craft's purpose has led to accusations that the project could move us a step closer to the weaponisation of space. Mr Payton responded: "I don't know how this could be called weaponisation of space. It's just an updated version of the space shuttle type of activities in space. We, the Air Force, have a suite of military missions in space and this new vehicle could potentially help us do those missions better." Dr Johnson-Freese told BBC News: "At one point they were talking about an ability to loiter in space. The Air Force has a long history of wanting a spaceplane with those kinds of capabilities." "If in fact it lives up to its speculated hype, it could be a manoeuvrable satellite. You could move it to, for example, hover over the straits of Taiwan and it could evade attempts to shoot it down. It could do a lot of things that up until this point have been mostly fiction." One space propulsion expert told BBC News said that the spacecraft would have to expend lots of fuel in order to hover and thus would only be able to do so for limited periods of time. The programme is now led by the Air Force Rapid Capabilities Office (AFRCO). Edwards Air Force Base, also in California, has been designated as the vehicle's back-up landing facility. The Soviet Union carried out an autonomous re-entry and landing with its Buran space shuttle in 1988. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8601172.stm Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Renton 18038 Posted April 23, 2010 Share Posted April 23, 2010 How utterly uninspiring. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Craig 6321 Posted April 23, 2010 Share Posted April 23, 2010 I bet Rob W's already flown it.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Park Life 71 Posted April 23, 2010 Share Posted April 23, 2010 I bet Rob W's already flown it.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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