Ira Gaines Posted October 16, 2015 Share Posted October 16, 2015 "Also known as the Lord of Chaos, the Chaos Bringer, and the Planet Eater" Sounds a charmer. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fide Posted October 16, 2015 Share Posted October 16, 2015 "Also known as the Lord of Chaos, the Chaos Bringer, and the Planet Eater" Sounds a charmer. And, for fans of trivia, it was Orson Welles' last role before he popped his clogs. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dorlomin Posted October 18, 2015 Share Posted October 18, 2015 If it was a Dyson Sphere you wouldn't be able to see the star as it would be inside the sphere. The same amount of energy would be getting emitted but over a much larger space, thus mostly in the infrared rather than visible. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
D.A.F.C Posted October 19, 2015 Share Posted October 19, 2015 (edited) Some boi, Edited October 19, 2015 by D.A.F.C 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
welshbairn Posted October 19, 2015 Share Posted October 19, 2015 http://youtu.be/YjpcZPT1-NAQ Some boi, Doesn't work, unless that's a picture of the alien artefact. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
D.A.F.C Posted October 19, 2015 Share Posted October 19, 2015 Doesn't work, unless that's a picture of the alien artefact. Must be people from Uranus. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FlyerTon Posted December 15, 2015 Share Posted December 15, 2015 Major Tim Peake, 43, to become first publicly funded (ESA) British astronaut. Blast off today from Baikonur, Kazakhstan at 11:03 am (GMT) onboard Soyuz TMA-19M. About a six month mission to the International Space Station. Time to orbit: 8min 48 secs. Docking at 17:23 (GMT) Hatch opening approx 19:00. http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Human_Spaceflight/Principia/Principia_live 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dee Man Posted December 15, 2015 Share Posted December 15, 2015 At least we're guaranteed nothing will go wrong at the launch as there was a few Russian Orthodox Christians with their funny robes and hats walking around the launch site yesterday carrying their crucifixes and splashing water everywhere. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
welshbairn Posted December 15, 2015 Share Posted December 15, 2015 Launch is live on BBC1 from 1030. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dee Man Posted December 15, 2015 Share Posted December 15, 2015 I seriously hope this doesn't crash. You fucking liar. You just want to re-hash all the 'heads and shoulders' and 7-Up jokes from the Challenger crash. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
renton Posted December 15, 2015 Share Posted December 15, 2015 (edited) Major Tim Peake, 43, to become first publicly funded (ESA) British astronaut. Blast off today from Baikonur, Kazakhstan at 11:03 am (GMT) onboard Soyuz TMA-19M. About a six month mission to the International Space Station. Time to orbit: 8min 48 secs. Docking at 17:23 (GMT) Hatch opening approx 19:00. http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Human_Spaceflight/Principia/Principia_live I'm not sure what's more depressing, the fact it took this long to get a British badged astronaut into space, or the fact he's doing it on a 45 year old design of a spacecraft. Having said that, aerospace products tend to need to last a long time due to the epxense of building them, but still.... soyuz. It's really depressing when you look at how successive British governments threw away early advancements in space technology, from Blue Streak to Prospero, we actually did have the makings of a decent space program. Later on thatcher cancelled the public funds for the old HOTOL design, now reconstituted as the SABRE engine being built by Reaction engines Limited and looking like it might actually work. It seems to be a common theme of British governments is that they tend not to see the future coming until it's bearing right down on top of them like a juggernaut. Edited December 15, 2015 by renton 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dorlomin Posted December 15, 2015 Share Posted December 15, 2015 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
1320Lichtie Posted December 15, 2015 Share Posted December 15, 2015 I hope Todd Lumsden has somehow managed to end up on this f**king rocket. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dorlomin Posted December 15, 2015 Share Posted December 15, 2015 it took this long to get a British badged astronaut into space, Helen Sharman 1991 or the fact he's doing it on a 45 year old design of a spacecraft. The R7 first flew into space in 1957 taking Sputnik up. But its reliable. Lots of much cleverer designs have come and gone, the R7 (now Soyuz) gets the job done with minimal fuss. , from Blue Streak to Prospero, we actually did have the makings of a decent space program. To be honest at a time when the US was knocking out Titan IIIs, Saturn I, Vs, Atlas and the Soviets had the R7 family and the N1 nearing production I dont think there was much call for a UK launch vehicle. The UKs screw up was it was supposed to get involved in Ariane but got cold feet on the pre-Ariane Europa rocket to try to build its own Black Arrow. They had not the money to really produce something novel enough to have any commercial future and it was up to the French and other Europeans who pooled enough money to make a commercial launcher viable in part by ditching much of its ICBM heritage early. SSTOs (single stage to orbit) have been explored in depth by US and Soviet militaries and seen some eyewateringly expensive projects go nowhere. DX-C, X33, X30, Venture star and some shady "black projects" may also have existed. Vast amounts of money and nothing to show for it. SpaceX seems to have the right idea, reusable first stage rockets. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
renton Posted December 15, 2015 Share Posted December 15, 2015 (edited) Helen Sharman 1991 The R7 first flew into space in 1957 taking Sputnik up. But its reliable. Lots of much cleverer designs have come and gone, the R7 (now Soyuz) gets the job done with minimal fuss. To be honest at a time when the US was knocking out Titan IIIs, Saturn I, Vs, Atlas and the Soviets had the R7 family and the N1 nearing production I dont think there was much call for a UK launch vehicle. The UKs screw up was it was supposed to get involved in Ariane but got cold feet on the pre-Ariane Europa rocket to try to build its own Black Arrow. They had not the money to really produce something novel enough to have any commercial future and it was up to the French and other Europeans who pooled enough money to make a commercial launcher viable in part by ditching much of its ICBM heritage early. SSTOs (single stage to orbit) have been explored in depth by US and Soviet militaries and seen some eyewateringly expensive projects go nowhere. DX-C, X33, X30, Venture star and some shady "black projects" may also have existed. Vast amounts of money and nothing to show for it. SpaceX seems to have the right idea, reusable first stage rockets. Sharman went up more or less as a private citizen, Foales and the rest were naturalised Americans, Peake is the first to be sent up as a direct result of British investment of money, time and effort in a space program, even if it's collaborative with the rest of Europe, that still makes him the first official 'made in Blighty' Astronaut. As I said, it's more i find it a bit of a quirk, rather than thinking it's majorly wrong to still be going up on those legacy designs. As for Blue Streak/Black Arrow, yeah - but that was the British aerospace industry all over - plenty of innovation, no support or vision from government, going all the way back to the Miles M.52, through Blue Streak to the TSR.2. Space-X certainly have the right idea in terms of the manned Dragon capsule - not sure they'll get the reliability on those first stage re-usables. The DC-X, X-33 and Venture Star were all using variants of pure rocket engines, some fairly innovative approaches as well to be fair, while the Venture Star used a Scramjet, which has some of the same design challenges (particularly cooling of the air into the engine at hypersonci velocities) - Sabre is a hybrid jet/rocket engine that seems to have solved those issues via a set of liquid heat exchangers and ultimately I still think SABRE has much more potential - the use of a jet mode for the first part of the flight saves a hell of a lot of wieght in terms of carried Oxidant for the rocket mode, as well as using wings for lift - so the fuel fraction is much improved. They are finally moving to building a working demonstrator, having run a great number of tests on the pre-cooler and having ESA and the US military both sign off on it's feasibility (BAE systems now have a major stake in it's development) Edited December 15, 2015 by renton 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zen Archer (Raconteur) Posted December 15, 2015 Share Posted December 15, 2015 At least we're guaranteed nothing will go wrong at the launch as there was a few Russian Orthodox Christians with their funny robes and hats walking around the launch site yesterday carrying their crucifixes and splashing water everywhere. That'll be the Astro/Cosmonauts, there is a tradition that they piss against the wheel of the bus* before boarding the capsule. *IIRC started by Yuri Gaggarin. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FlyerTon Posted December 17, 2015 Share Posted December 17, 2015 International Space Station sighting opportunities until 1 Jan 2016. Good shout to see it today around 5:05pm (rain due later but may be still clear at that point) Aberdeen Dundee Edinburgh Glasgow Inverness 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
THE KING Posted December 17, 2015 Share Posted December 17, 2015 That'll be the Astro/Cosmonauts, there is a tradition that they piss against the wheel of the bus* before boarding the capsule. *IIRC started by Yuri Gaggarin. And a tradition of being cooked alive when the equipment fails. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dee Man Posted December 17, 2015 Share Posted December 17, 2015 International Space Station sighting opportunities until 1 Jan 2016. Good shout to see it today around 5:05pm (rain due later but may be still clear at that point) Aberdeen Dundee Edinburgh Glasgow Inverness Nice one. I've just signed up to alerts from Nasa which is cool as I've just bought my boy a big(ish) telescope for Christmas. Hopefully we'll be able to look up and see Tim looking down with his big stupid face. (Mr X, is it OK that I referred to the British astronaut by his name?) 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FlyerTon Posted December 18, 2015 Share Posted December 18, 2015 Live video from the International Space Station: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/live-iss-stream Pop out version: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/live-iss-stream/pop-out 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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