On 11/01/2014 11:01 PM, Tim Wescott wrote:> On Sat, 01 Nov 2014 08:15:05 -0400, Randy Yates wrote: > >> Anyone have the innie on what happened to the Virgin Galactic flight in >> CA and the rocket explosion in VA? > > I don't think you need to sign up to read this. Here's a screed from a > rocket scientist (Brett Buck works for some defense-related place, making > sure that the nukes only blow up when they're supposed to). > > <http://stunthanger.com/smf/index.php/ > topic,37142.msg379493.html#msg379493> > > If you've ever seen his political rants you'd be amused -- normally he's > someone who would view Attila the Hun as a dangerously left-leaning > lunatic, yet here he is ranting against private industry and on the side > of Big Government. >He isn't really ranting against private industry, although he does say private industry has not nothing novel. He's basically calling this particular group a bunch of cowboys.
Recent Space Accidents
Started by ●November 1, 2014
Reply by ●November 2, 20142014-11-02
Reply by ●November 2, 20142014-11-02
On 01.11.2014 22:50, Tom Gardner wrote:> On 01/11/14 19:04, kaz wrote: >> I blame Russia (and Vlad) > > I am, apparently, 6 degrees of freedom away from President Putin > (distant relative married to a Russian whose mother was in the KGB and > regularly met Putin). > > The Russian part of that chain absolutely refuses to believe that men > have walked on the moon. It was, apparently, all A Western Conspiracy. > No, the ALSEP retroreflectors and photos of all the landing sites taken > recently from lunar orbit are not sufficient evidence. > > Those people aren't merely country yokels from the shallow end of the > gene pool. Frightening. >You might make use of a book by Anton Pervushin, "Battle for the Moon", to alter the opinion of your Russian in-law: http://www.amazon.com/Bitva-za-Lunu-Pervushin-Anton/dp/5367005438/ Mr. Pervushin is a sci-fi author who also writes popular non-fiction books about space and has a decent STEM background. A sensible person, he isn't into conspiracy theories. The caveats are that the book costs only 10$ in Russia, and a new edition (a shortened version) was recently published. Evgeny.
Reply by ●November 2, 20142014-11-02
On 02/11/14 15:21, Evgeny Filatov wrote:> On 01.11.2014 22:50, Tom Gardner wrote: >> On 01/11/14 19:04, kaz wrote: >>> I blame Russia (and Vlad) >> >> I am, apparently, 6 degrees of freedom away from President Putin >> (distant relative married to a Russian whose mother was in the KGB and >> regularly met Putin). >> >> The Russian part of that chain absolutely refuses to believe that men >> have walked on the moon. It was, apparently, all A Western Conspiracy. >> No, the ALSEP retroreflectors and photos of all the landing sites taken >> recently from lunar orbit are not sufficient evidence. >> >> Those people aren't merely country yokels from the shallow end of the >> gene pool. Frightening. >> > > You might make use of a book by Anton Pervushin, "Battle for the Moon", to alter > the opinion of your Russian in-law: > > http://www.amazon.com/Bitva-za-Lunu-Pervushin-Anton/dp/5367005438/ > > Mr. Pervushin is a sci-fi author who also writes popular non-fiction books about > space and has a decent STEM background. A sensible person, he isn't into > conspiracy theories. > > The caveats are that the book costs only 10$ in Russia, and a new edition (a > shortened version) was recently published.What's the "elevator pitch" contained in the book? How does it address the point I made? (As opposed to some other point that I didn't make) Anybody that denies Americans landed on the moon is a country yokel from the shallow end of the gene pool. That's the case whether they are Russian or American or British or Hutu or Nepali or whatever. There is no way that /any/ book can change that! A completely separate issue is that the West may have downplayed or overlooked Russian achievements. Another completely separate issue is the cold war mentality at the time.
Reply by ●November 2, 20142014-11-02
On Sat, 01 Nov 2014 15:54:15 -0400, Randy Yates <yates@digitalsignallabs.com> wrote:>robert bristow-johnson <rbj@audioimagination.com> writes: > >> On 11/1/14 8:15 AM, Randy Yates wrote: >>> Anyone have the innie on what happened to the Virgin Galactic >>> flight in CA and the rocket explosion in VA? >> >> crappy Rooskie rocket engine that they bought cheap that was >> *literally* built in the 1960s and never used before. > >The engine quality is what was in the back of my mind, but it's >pure suspicion. Got any facts? >-- >Randy Yates >Digital Signal Labs >http://www.digitalsignallabs.comI don't think there's been enough time passed for anybody to know anything for certain. The explosion was almost certainly the Range Safety Officer detonating the craft, which appeared to be because it lost thrust and was headed back to the ground, anyway. What that happened appears to still be unknown, or at least not yet published. I worked for Orbital Sciences for a few months right after grad school, (yeah, more than twenty years ago), and even at that time the vast majority of launches were made using recycled components and stages out of decommissioned ballistic and other defense missiles. That solved a lot of problems, including disposal for the decommissioning processes. Even in the short time I was there there were a couple of spectacular and expensive failures that seemed to me to boil down to either simple things that could easily be tested out or well-understood things that weren't mitigated. I got the impression that that was just the industry culture, and I've seen little in the decades since to indicate otherwise. FWIW, I think Scaled Composites was actually trying to break away from some of the cultural problems in that industry, but maybe they've been doomed to repeat some history because of it. And everybody has to work within a limited budget that restricts what you might actually like to do to what you actually can do, and it's often hard to know which tests or precautions willl actually matter and which won't. The fatalities and injuries are always sad, especially when they're avoidable. I don't think we'll know details on either accident for a while, since it's often hard to really sort them out when the pieces are small and scattered over a large area. Telemetry only tells you so much. Eric Jacobsen Anchor Hill Communications http://www.anchorhill.com
Reply by ●November 2, 20142014-11-02
On 02.11.2014 19:51, Tom Gardner wrote:> On 02/11/14 15:21, Evgeny Filatov wrote: >> On 01.11.2014 22:50, Tom Gardner wrote: >>> On 01/11/14 19:04, kaz wrote: >>>> I blame Russia (and Vlad) >>> >>> I am, apparently, 6 degrees of freedom away from President Putin >>> (distant relative married to a Russian whose mother was in the KGB and >>> regularly met Putin). >>> >>> The Russian part of that chain absolutely refuses to believe that men >>> have walked on the moon. It was, apparently, all A Western Conspiracy. >>> No, the ALSEP retroreflectors and photos of all the landing sites taken >>> recently from lunar orbit are not sufficient evidence. >>> >>> Those people aren't merely country yokels from the shallow end of the >>> gene pool. Frightening. >>> >> >> You might make use of a book by Anton Pervushin, "Battle for the >> Moon", to alter >> the opinion of your Russian in-law: >> >> http://www.amazon.com/Bitva-za-Lunu-Pervushin-Anton/dp/5367005438/ >> >> Mr. Pervushin is a sci-fi author who also writes popular non-fiction >> books about >> space and has a decent STEM background. A sensible person, he isn't into >> conspiracy theories. >> >> The caveats are that the book costs only 10$ in Russia, and a new >> edition (a >> shortened version) was recently published. > > What's the "elevator pitch" contained in the book? How does it address > the point I made? (As opposed to some other point that I didn't make) > > Anybody that denies Americans landed on the moon is a country yokel from > the shallow end of the gene pool. That's the case whether they are > Russian or American or British or Hutu or Nepali or whatever. There is > no way that /any/ book can change that! > > A completely separate issue is that the West may have downplayed or > overlooked Russian achievements. > > Another completely separate issue is the cold war mentality at the time.It's a no-brainer for me that Americans have landed on the moon, and I don't actually see what's to be discussed there. May be I'm not addressing the point you've made. However, I wanted to show that there are real professional writers in Russia who would be considered mainstream in the U.S., too. Mr. Pervushin's book is not about conspiracy theories, but about American and Soviet accomplishment in Moon exploration. So it might be useful as a learning material for your in-law, written in her or his native language. You can use the Google Translate tool to view the contents and a few free chapters of the book (unfortunately the Google Translate doesn't correctly handle large texts): https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=ru&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fapervushin.narod.ru%2Fbook%2FMoon%2FMoon.htm&sandbox=1 Evgeny.
Reply by ●November 2, 20142014-11-02
Evgeny Filatov <e.v.filatov@ieee.org> wrote: (snip)> It's a no-brainer for me that Americans have landed on the moon, and I > don't actually see what's to be discussed there. May be I'm not > addressing the point you've made. However, I wanted to show that there > are real professional writers in Russia who would be considered > mainstream in the U.S., too.Anyone remember the movie "Capricorn 1"? -- glen
Reply by ●November 2, 20142014-11-02
On 02/11/14 18:05, Evgeny Filatov wrote:> On 02.11.2014 19:51, Tom Gardner wrote: >> On 02/11/14 15:21, Evgeny Filatov wrote: >>> On 01.11.2014 22:50, Tom Gardner wrote: >>>> On 01/11/14 19:04, kaz wrote: >>>>> I blame Russia (and Vlad) >>>> >>>> I am, apparently, 6 degrees of freedom away from President Putin >>>> (distant relative married to a Russian whose mother was in the KGB and >>>> regularly met Putin). >>>> >>>> The Russian part of that chain absolutely refuses to believe that men >>>> have walked on the moon. It was, apparently, all A Western Conspiracy. >>>> No, the ALSEP retroreflectors and photos of all the landing sites taken >>>> recently from lunar orbit are not sufficient evidence. >>>> >>>> Those people aren't merely country yokels from the shallow end of the >>>> gene pool. Frightening. >>>> >>> >>> You might make use of a book by Anton Pervushin, "Battle for the >>> Moon", to alter >>> the opinion of your Russian in-law: >>> >>> http://www.amazon.com/Bitva-za-Lunu-Pervushin-Anton/dp/5367005438/ >>> >>> Mr. Pervushin is a sci-fi author who also writes popular non-fiction >>> books about >>> space and has a decent STEM background. A sensible person, he isn't into >>> conspiracy theories. >>> >>> The caveats are that the book costs only 10$ in Russia, and a new >>> edition (a >>> shortened version) was recently published. >> >> What's the "elevator pitch" contained in the book? How does it address >> the point I made? (As opposed to some other point that I didn't make) >> >> Anybody that denies Americans landed on the moon is a country yokel from >> the shallow end of the gene pool. That's the case whether they are >> Russian or American or British or Hutu or Nepali or whatever. There is >> no way that /any/ book can change that! >> >> A completely separate issue is that the West may have downplayed or >> overlooked Russian achievements. >> >> Another completely separate issue is the cold war mentality at the time. > > It's a no-brainer for me that Americans have landed on the moon, and I don't > actually see what's to be discussed there. May be I'm not addressing the point > you've made. However, I wanted to show that there are real professional writers > in Russia who would be considered mainstream in the U.S., too. > > Mr. Pervushin's book is not about conspiracy theories, but about American and > Soviet accomplishment in Moon exploration. So it might be useful as a learning > material for your in-law, written in her or his native language. > > You can use the Google Translate tool to view the contents and a few free > chapters of the book (unfortunately the Google Translate doesn't correctly > handle large texts): > https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=ru&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fapervushin.narod.ru%2Fbook%2FMoon%2FMoon.htm&sandbox=1My apologies - I /completely/ misinterpreted what you were trying to say! I've never met the in-laws in question, so I doubt I will have the opportunity to point them in the direction of the book. My info comes from an aerospace engineer that has discussed the subject with them, and he's surprised at how closed their minds are on this subject.
Reply by ●November 3, 20142014-11-03
eric.jacobsen@ieee.org (Eric Jacobsen) writes:> [...]Thanks for the data points and insights, Eric. It's good to hear from someone who actually worked in the industry (which I did not know, but am not surprised). -- Randy Yates Digital Signal Labs http://www.digitalsignallabs.com
Reply by ●November 3, 20142014-11-03
Den l�rdag den 1. november 2014 16.43.56 UTC+1 skrev robert bristow-johnson:> On 11/1/14 8:15 AM, Randy Yates wrote: > > Anyone have the innie on what happened to the Virgin Galactic > > flight in CA and the rocket explosion in VA? > > crappy Rooskie rocket engine that they bought cheap that was *literally* > built in the 1960s and never used before. >afaiu they have used those Russian engines for a long time, because they are cheap, available, and a very design efficient. building something else would probably take forever end up being more expensive and more complicated that the space shuttle why bother for cargo?> hey, i guess if there's gonna try it out on humans, you gotta begin > sometime. >from what I've heard the Virgin Galactic crashed because the "feather" used to stabilize and slow down for reentry deployed at low altitude, tearing it apart -Lasse
Reply by ●November 3, 20142014-11-03
langwadt@fonz.dk wrote:> Den l�rdag den 1. november 2014 16.43.56 UTC+1 skrev robert bristow-johnson: >> On 11/1/14 8:15 AM, Randy Yates wrote: >>> Anyone have the innie on what happened to the Virgin Galactic >>> flight in CA and the rocket explosion in VA? >> >> crappy Rooskie rocket engine that they bought cheap that was *literally* >> built in the 1960s and never used before. >> > > afaiu they have used those Russian engines for a long time, because they > are cheap, available, and a very design efficient. > > building something else would probably take forever end up being more > expensive and more complicated that the space shuttle > > why bother for cargo? > > >> hey, i guess if there's gonna try it out on humans, you gotta begin >> sometime. >> > > from what I've heard the Virgin Galactic crashed because the "feather" > used to stabilize and slow down for reentry deployed at low altitude, > tearing it apart > > -Lasse >If that's the cause, then the likely root failure is (co)pilot error - I would guess. Whoops. Makes me wonder if an interlock is better or worse. -- Les Cargill
