Orbital ATK Returns To Flight With Successful Antares Launch To Space Station (techcrunch.com) 68
An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: The Orbital ATK Antares rocket -- the same rocket that exploded on its way to the International Space Station two years ago -- returned to flight today with a much-anticipated launch. Lifting off from NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia, the Antares rocket is now on its way to deliver the Cygnus spacecraft filled with over 5,000 pounds of cargo to crew members aboard the ISS. Today's launch was particularly special for Orbital ATK, a company contracted by NASA to deliver 66,000 pounds of cargo to the ISS through 2018. After their Antares rocket exploded during a launch in 2014, destroying thousands of pounds of experiments and cargo bound for the space station, Orbital ATK worked for two years to upgrade that rocket and prepare for its return to flight. Today, the Orbital ATK was finally able to fly Cygnus on top of their own rocket again. The RD-181-equipped Antares rocket carried Cygnus, which housed science experiments and supplies for the ISS crew, for their fifth operational cargo resupply mission for NASA. Along with crew supplies, spacewalk equipment and computer resources, Cygnus will bring over 1,000 pounds of science investigations to the five crew members on the ISS. One of those experiments is Saffire-II, the second Saffire experiment to be conducted inside Cygnus in order to study realistic flame propagation in space. Cygnus will spend over a month attached to the ISS. In late November, the spacecraft will be filled with about 3,000 pounds of trash and then released to begin its descent back to Earth. During reentry through Earth's atmosphere, the spacecraft, along with trash and Saffire-II, will be destroyed.
Satellites monitor global warming (Score:5, Informative)
Think before you post.
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Help stop climate change. Turn off your computer.
Re:Great, now let's do something useful instead (Score:5, Informative)
Beautiful photos and videos from the cameras on the Space Station, and human damage seen from there will have a massive impact on people's passion to see this earth fixed and cared for.
go and spend a while looking at https://www.nasa.gov/topics/ea... [nasa.gov]
https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/1238... [nasa.gov]
http://www.nasa.gov/feature/go... [nasa.gov]
https://weather.com/tv/shows/t... [weather.com]
Space Science is going to help us understand how El Nino and El Nina work - and that is critical for the lives of millions of Americans.
Yes, porkbarreling by Senators for useless space projects needs to stop. That is why NASA is supporting SpaceX, etc and focusing themselves on deep space missions like Pluto and Juno.
Anyone living on the Moon or Mars will be living underground. Humanity will move to the stars - we will solve these problems.
Look at the Space Budget, and the War Budget and see where money is really being wasted. Fix the health bureaucracy in America if you want to see money not being wasted.
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I know Spanish isn't your native language, and I am not trying to be a jerk, but to honestly teach here.
It is La Niña, not El Niña. El is male, La is female, Niña is female, Niño is male.
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I'm wondering how it could take out both Hillary and Trump, and their running mates in one shot, after all, that is the only thing that would improve anything.
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And they fall back to Earth on their own; LEO is not a perfect vacuum, and drag still exists. The point of a controlled deorbit maneuver is that it's controlled.
Re:Why dump the trash? (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah, they could just store it in all that extra space they don't have.
1) The trash is mostly plastic
2) You seem to envision that there's some sort of little magical manufacturing box that takes random trash as inputs and produces random useful things engineered to spacecraft tolerances as outputs. The real world doesn't work that way. In the real world, trash is a jumbled mix of materials in an extremely wide range of forms, often inseparable, while manufacturing processes require carefully controlled input streams, which differ for each desired output product. Some random food pouch may be comprised of various bulk polymers like polyethylene, polypropylene, etc, with an aluminized EVOH lining or similar. Think you can break it back down into polyethylene beads, polypropylene beads, EVOH gel and aluminum dust? Yeah, good freaking luck with that.
I know it's popular in sci-fi circles to envision that it's cheaper to make things in space. But in the real world, it distinctly is not. Yes, launch costs are expensive, but even more expensive is labour in space and the engineering costs to make each potential type of new production system. Unlike in sci-fi, you can't just magick these things into existence.
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I think AC was suggesting that the capsule is useful, not necessarily the trash they deorbited with it, but I understand what you are saying too; without the capsule, it is rather difficult to deorbit the trash.
Most of the trash is likely the food containers and biological waste, I don't know what else they have up there that they need to get rid of, but it isn't like we have massive farms attached to the ISS to utilize the fertilizer people output.
Maybe that would be a good addition to the station, a farmi
here's a picture (Score:2)
What's a pound? (Score:1)
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Pound (force) definition (Score:2)
Pound-force is dependant on gravity, pound-mass is not.
Not quite. Pound-force [wikipedia.org] is defined based on an arbitrary reference value for acceleration under standard gravity [wikipedia.org] but is not actually dependent on gravity as the definition of a pound (force) does not change as gravity changes. The mass used in the equation is the international standard avoirdupois pound which is defined as exactly 0.45259237kg. If you go into space a pound-force is still the same value. A scale would lose its ability to measure it but that doesn't change the value of a pound. A standard
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Arbitary definitions (Score:2)
The definition of pound force depends on the factor 9.8... m/s2 which never changes
It never changes because it's defined based on an arbitrarily agreed upon value for what to use for Earth's gravity on the surface. While they could I suppose redefine the pound if Earth's gravitational field changed that would have to be an affirmative action - it would not automatically change because the reference value is a chosen one, not a natural one. Bear in mind that acceleration due to gravity is not uniform on the Earth's surface because the Earth is not a perfect sphere and it does not have un
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Definition of a pound (Score:2)
4.45 Newtons.
More precisely 4.4482216152605 Newtons [wikipedia.org].
On earth, it is approximately 0.45kg, according to Google.
Doesn't matter if it is on Earth or not since it is defined in relation to standard gravity [wikipedia.org].
A pound of mass is defined as exactly 0.45359237 kg [wikipedia.org] by definition.
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You mean american pounds? :) JFYI.
The german pound is exactly 500gram, aka 0.5kg
Avoirdupois pound (Score:4, Interesting)
You mean american pounds?
Specifically I'm referring to the international pound [wikipedia.org] sometimes called the Avoirdupois pound which is by far the most commonly used measurement by the name of pound.
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Rofl.
This countries use that strange pound: The six nations were the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. (copied from the wiki article)
So it is first of all debatable if is the most used pound and secondly we can assume there are plenty of countries that don't use any pound at all, which of course does not contradict your 'most used pound'.
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Antares 200: not quite the same (Score:1)
The Antares that just flew is the same chassis but different motors, and the old explodey one is retired. These new ones are Antares 200.
No snipers this time (Score:1)
Luckily enough, there were no snipers on the roof of the ULA building this time
Still using Russian equipment? (Score:3)
Mentioned only in passing, the RD-181 [wikipedia.org] is Russia-designed and created rocket engine...
While lower-level Democrats are gleefully spreading rumours about Trump being a Putin's man, the Democratic Administration continues to buy this high technology from the adversary. In a typical manifestation of hair-splitting, even though Congress banned the use of RD-180 [defensenews.com] in 2015, NASA claims, use of RD-181 is acceptable [nasawatch.com]...
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While lower-level Democrats are gleefully spreading rumours about Trump being a Putin's man, the Democratic Administration continues to buy this high technology from the adversary.
And I could buy Stolichnya at the height of the civil war.
Rather importantly, Russia is not exactly an adversary. Putin to the US is probably kind of like G.W. Bush was to the rest of the world 15 years ago.
The engines, which are sound technology, are irrelevant to the relationship between Mr Putin and Mr Trump. The politics of their relation is a different matter entirely.
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Fact Check. We investigate the claim made by a Slashdot poster "Ol Olsoc", that he could buy Stolichnaya at the height of the civil war.
Because it is unclear, which civil war the poster was referring to — and he did not respond to our request for clarification in time for this publication — we give the poster a benefit of the doubt and examine both relevant civil wars: that of the United States and in Russia.
Stolichnaya brand of vodka,
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The Nagorno-Karabakh War was a Soviet civil war which started in 1988, as was the South Ossetia war that started in early 1991. Learn some history, dude.
Quality of Fact Checking (Score:1)
You can certainly say this about most fact-checking, including that by Pulitzer-winners [usnews.com], which is now just as much partisan hacking [zerohedge.com] as the rest of the "journalism".
The simple truth is, of course, the OP meant "Cold War" not "civil war" (in any country). Woosh-woosh-woosh...
Personally, I, actually, toured both Baku and Yerevan with my father in 1988 — Aeroflot was still flying to both capitals from my native Kyiv, and the trip was very educational...
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Sucks to be you - Kiev is really ugly.
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Re: Quality of Fact Checking (Score:2)
He sure is, but that was nevertheless a non-sequitur.
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As was your spiteful lie about Kyiv being "ugly" [thehungrypartier.com]. Non-sequitur and off-topic too.
Moskalya — na tryzub!
Re: Quality of Fact Checking (Score:2)
And this nationalism is the reason why Ukraine is a failed state.
I have been in Kiev. It is fugly and dirty. And most people were arseholes calling me churka because they never heard a German accent before. Also the worst drivers I have ever experienced, worse than Arabs. Prague is beautiful, Tallinn is mostly beautiful, Lwow is bearable, even though the people suck. But Kiev is ugly.
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The simple truth is, of course, the OP meant "Cold War" not "civil war" (in any country). Woosh-woosh-woosh.....
Who knew?
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Fact Check. We investigate the claim made by a Slashdot poster "Ol Olsoc", that he could buy Stolichnaya at the height of the civil war.
Apologies, I meant "Cold War". The one between the US and the old USSR. That's about as much weirdness of your post I care to reply to, other than I have no idea why you think I was against buying the Russian engines. They are good engines.
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Nice attempt at shilling, but the group opposing the ban was primarily Republicans from ULA areas, particularly Richard Shelby (R-Boeing)
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Citations missing.
Ukrainian expats, such as myself, have also been — and remain — very vocal calling for tightening sanctions against Russia.
But, whoever called for it, it makes no sense that RD-180 is banned, but RD-181 is not. None... Clearly, NASA/White House are exploiting a loophole.
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Let me Google that for you [lmgtfy.com]
For what it's worth, the Pentagon did argue for being able to purchase a fixed number of RD-181s. But while the Obama admin has funded commercial crew and spawned the creation of a whole host of new domestic launch vehicles, Shelby and his band of Russia-firsters have worked relentlessly to try to kill it off in order to maximize profits for and minimize costs to ULA.
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I'd rather Trump wins, than Clinton, who:
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Seriously? Oh for crying out loud.
The "ending of the Georgian sanctions" and Skolkovo were part of Obama's attempt an attempt at a Russian reset (and which was Clinton's job as secretary of state to implement). Something that was of course naive, and a policy which has since been quite reversed (NATO troops deployed to eastern Europe, sanctions on Russia (with the US always taking a stronger position on the issue than Europe), etc). But you're comparing Obama's naivite with someone who thinks the US shou
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It was not just Obama's naivette — Hillary Clinton was running the State Department at the time. More to the point, it was not just the two of them either — the entire Democratic Establishment thought so, dismissing "Republican hawks" as "war-mongers". Whether they did it for personal gain, like Clinton, or out of sheer idiocy, like Biden ( the fount of foreign policy expertise [nytimes.com], according to Democrats), they'll keep doing it.
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You know, if you're not going to listen to Trump's own words which you can watch with a minute long visit to YouTube, I'm through wasting my time here. Go live in your own alternate reality. All I can say is, I'm glad for Ukraine's sake that your candidate has not a snowflake's chance in hell of ending up in office and giving Putin everything he's ever dreamed of. And when President Clinton starts giving Ukraine Javelins, I expect you to write an apology.
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You make claims, you supply proof. As far as I know, Trump never expressed the sentiments you attribute to him (without any evidence).
Deal. Will you apologize, when she starts talking about "the need to move one beyond past hostilities" or "work out a reasonable compromise" — such as, when Putin is replaced
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Oh, and since you're citing the Wikileaks emails..... have you ever actually read any of them? Directly, not, you know, carefully selected blurbs designed to make you mad at Clinton? Have you read what she says about Russia behind closed doors? Here, since the Goldman transcripts were the most recent news, let's look what she says there. She talks about them thusly in relation to Syria:
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Any particular reason you neglected to mention that the ban on the RD-180s relates to national security launches, while the RD-181 purchased by Orbital ATK are used for civilian and commercials launches?
What's that? Because it helps your personal political narrative? Yeah, thought so.
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Because it is irrelevant. First, all space launches, even those ostensibly for civilian use, are related to national security. Second, the real reason for a ban is not the fear, Russia may suddenly take over an ascending rocket and send it into Miami, but a desire to choke — or, at least, stop helping — Russia's rocket industry. Which it is already using to update/increase its collection of ICBMs [bbc.com] — mostly pointed at us.
You don't have to be a "hawk" to realize this...