Spaceship Orion

[Scriveyn]

US space exploration profits from German technology - again

1960s cult series


ETA: Plenty on Youtube (w/ subtitles too)

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[tw]

Why don't German astronauts laugh and smile?

[monster]

OMG I'm ruined, I tell you. There's a "village" near here called Lake Orion and they pronounce it Ore - ih - on.

as you were...

[Sundae]

Am I the only one who read the post title as Spaceship Onion?

I'll get my coat...

[tw]

Orion is what the technically naive call innovative. An upgraded Apollo. The entire Orion, Ares, Constellation system costs something like ten times more per seat compared to existing and upcoming European, Russian, Chinese, and Japanese systems.

Editors of Machine Design (an engineering publication) define what drives obsolete technology.

NASA just finished building a $350million, 300 foot tall rocket-testing tower, A-3. It was built to test engines and hardware for the Constellation program to send astronauts to the Moon and perhaps Mars. The program was canceled in 2010, the same year a Mississippi senator sponsored an earmark forcing NASA to build the A-3 tower even if it was not needed. The senator surely rationalizes that he was only bringing home the bacon since the tower now stands in his home state at Stennis Space Center. Taxpayers are now on the hook for $840,000 per year to maintain and secure the tower, a "bargain at only $2,300/day

Constellation was needed to launch Orion - according to rationalization by George Jr's administration to justify rebuilding ane Apollo and Saturn V. Promoted by same people who also invented Saddam's WMDs.

Instead, a workhorse of the American space program (Delta was first launched before Space Shuttles existed) launched Orion. If something larger is need, another and existing workhorse is Atlas.

These workhorses were upgraded as innovation and science required larger systems. Based upon need; not upon extremist politics.

Meanwhile, the Air Force flies a space shuttle without humans. This innovative machine (X-37B), a next generation space craft, has set new world records for reusable spacecraft. Patrolling space for almost two years.

Raumpatrouille, I was told, means Space Patrol. Which Orion makes more sense? Well, innovative and existing technology (without humans) actually does a Space Patrol for two years. Raumapatrouille Orion is fiction. Raumapatrouille X-37B is innovation, reality, and exists. Why do we need Orion? To create jobs duplicating what is now obsolete technology.

[classicman]

The entire Orion, Ares, Constellation system costs something like ten times more per seat compared to existing and upcoming European, Russian, Chinese, and Japanese systems.

Blame the unions!

[tw]

Another publication demonstrates American science subverted by extremists who would promote their emotions rather than learn facts. From the Washington Post of 15 Dec 2014;

NASA's $349 million monument to its drift
That program had begun in 2004, with a call from President George W. Bush. "We will undertake extended human missions to the moon as early as 2015," Bush said then.

But its funding never matched its ambitions. The nation's ETA on the moon was repeatedly pushed back. By 2009, a study commissioned by President Obama found that - at its current budget - NASA might not get a man back to the moon until the 2030s.

A-3 was finished last June for $350 million - without any rocket to test - for no purpose. When not even half way done in 2010, Mississippi's Senators (both extreme right wing who love deficits and then blame Democrats) successfully got it saved. For the past six months, work has continued on now mothballing it. It and the entire piece of crap invented by George Jr's wackos was created on a principle that created America's massive govenment debt: "Reagan proved that deficit don't matter." Any informed American knows who said that.

Meanwhile,

It turned out that the engines required for the new Space Launch System needed a new test stand, with no vacuum involved. So NASA is renovating another stand just a short distance away from the A-3, called the B-2. That project is supposed to cost $134 million.

For another engine created by that George Jr screwup - Constellation, Orion, and Ares. Senators from Mississippi rape the American taxpayer to enrich constituents while destroying America's space program. Extremists are into their own advancement rather than the advancement of America or science.

Seven of these rocket test stands are in mothballs and without purpose.

Meanwhile Kennedy's Man on the Moon project came in under budget. But then it was proposed by someone who learned facts rather than promote their emotions, political rhetoric, and contempt for science.

[tw]

Best science is done by robots. Making humans in space mostly unnecessary. Only 8% of NASA's budget (for unmanned platforms) does almost all the science.

CBS on 11 May 2015 describes another science tool: Air Force set to launch another mysterious X-37B space plane mission

[Gravdigr]

Originally Posted by classicman

Blame the unions!

You spelled onion wrong.

[BigV]

I'm just curious, tw. What do you mean by "doing science"?

[tw]

Originally Posted by BigV

I'm just curious, tw. What do you mean by "doing science"?

The CBS article demonstrates space science. I did not suspect X-37B was doing science. I had assumed it was another spook bird.

For most of its life, the ISS has done no science. Science was not possible until the station could support a fourth astronaut. That has only happened recently after spending over $80billion. Most space science is done by unmanned birds including the most successful science experiment - Hubble.

[Gravdigr]

Robots don't have ideas. Robots don't ask "What if...?", they don't ask "Why?", "How?".

That's where science comes from.

[infinite monkey]

Originally Posted by Gravdigr

Robots don't have ideas. Robots don't ask "What if...?", they don't ask "Why?", "How?".

That's where science comes from.

pffft, you've obviously never watched Lost in Space.

A robotoid is an "artificial lifeform" that is created through processes that are totally different from cloning or synthetics.

Perhaps the first mention of "robotoid" was in the Lost in Space episode War of the Robots which originally aired on February 9, 1966 and credits Robby the Robot as a "robotoid" and William Bramley and Ollie O'Toole as uncredited "robotoid voice" actors. In the episode, the Lost in Space Robot says: It is more than a machine...it is a robotoid. The robot goes on to explain that as a robot, it is constrained by its programming, whereas the robotoid has the capability of making a choice. The episode is described as: The family's robot is seemingly replaced when Will repairs a robotoid from an advanced civilization - until the new machine wreaks havoc by trying to take over the ship.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robotoid

(Am I gonna get into trouble for using a wikilink about a thing of fiction?)

[it]

I feel like we should reserve the name Orion for something grander.

I mean we're in the Orion arm of our galaxy, so a spaceship called Orion... It's like miss America or miss Canada, except for the entire section of our galaxy. If we're going to have an Orion spaceship it should be one that can stand in a pageant against the ones from all the other solar systems.