Russian Super Rocket

On Fri, 30 Jan 2004, Henry Spencer wrote:

In article ,
Joseph S. Powell, III wrote:
Well, in addition to the single, unmanned Buran flight (and the Polyus
death-star test), wasn't Energia used to launch the segments of the
now-defunct-killing-teenage-American-girls-with-it's-toilet-seats-upon-reent
ry Mir?

Nope. Mir's modules all went up on Proton. There was, at one point, a
plan for a much larger Mir 2 using Energia launches, but that didn't last
long.


The original plans for Mir 2 used the full up Energia booster to loft 100
core segments with Buran acting in a support role as a resupply and crew
exchange vehicle. The later incarnations of Mir 2 planned on the
never flown, smaller derivitive Energia-M (only two strap-ons and the core
booster stage used a single RD-0120 main engine) to loft the station to a
65 degree inclination.
-Mike

"Eric Fenby" wrote:

Through the success of it's design and it's longevity the MIR was a great
deal more successful than the ISS has been to date,

I always find it odd when people insist the ISS should already have
accomplised great things. Let me ask you Eric; Do you move into a
house that only has the foundation poured and bitch about the rain?

D.
--
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"Derek Lyons" wrote in message
...
"Eric Fenby" wrote:

Through the success of it's design and it's longevity the MIR was a great
deal more successful than the ISS has been to date,

I always find it odd when people insist the ISS should already have
accomplised great things. Let me ask you Eric; Do you move into a
house that only has the foundation poured and bitch about the rain?

D.

No; but remembering the torrent of US news which criticised the MIR project
to the point of ridicule when it was at least complete and doing some
science
one is forced to ask when the ISS is going to equal it's success.

Eric Fenby.

"Eric Fenby" wrote:


"Derek Lyons" wrote in message
...
"Eric Fenby" wrote:

Through the success of it's design and it's longevity the MIR was a great
deal more successful than the ISS has been to date,

I always find it odd when people insist the ISS should already have
accomplised great things. Let me ask you Eric; Do you move into a
house that only has the foundation poured and bitch about the rain?

D.

No; but remembering the torrent of US news which criticised the MIR project
to the point of ridicule when it was at least complete and doing some
science one is forced to ask when the ISS is going to equal it's success.

One is only forced to asked when one is agressively clueless
seemingly.

D.
--
The STS-107 Columbia Loss FAQ can be found
at the following URLs:

Text-Only Version:
http://www.io.com/~o_m/columbia_loss_faq.html

Enhanced HTML Version:
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Corrections, comments, and additions should be
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In article , derekl1963
@nospamyahoo.com says...
I always find it odd when people insist the ISS should already have
accomplised great things.

ISS Expedition 1 was launched over three years ago. From first to last
(manned) flights of Mercury was 2 years. Gemini: 2-1/2 years. Apollo:
just over 4 years, with the first lunar landing less than a year after
the first manned flight. So isn't is reasonable to expect *something*
from ISS?
--
Kevin Willoughby lid

Imagine that, a FROG ON-OFF switch, hardly the work
for test pilots. -- Mike Collins

"Eric Fenby" wrote:
"Derek Lyons" wrote:
"Eric Fenby" wrote:

Through the success of it's design and it's longevity the MIR was a great
deal more successful than the ISS has been to date,

I always find it odd when people insist the ISS should already have
accomplised great things. Let me ask you Eric; Do you move into a
house that only has the foundation poured and bitch about the rain?

D.

No; but remembering the torrent of US news which criticised the MIR project
to the point of ridicule when it was at least complete and doing some
science
one is forced to ask when the ISS is going to equal it's success.



Some how I doubt that Mir was doing full-up science from Day 1.
Krystall and Qvant 2 were added rather late in its life. And I think
most of the ridicule in the US news came after US astronauts had a
chance to count the baling-wire-and-bubble-gum fixes that became
characteristic of the later Mir flights.

To have kept Mir going longer than it did might have required that
original modules be deorbited after orbiting a new node and other
replacement elements. (Note to self -- time to acquire Oberg's book.)

/dps

Kevin Willoughby wrote:

In article , derekl1963
@nospamyahoo.com says...
I always find it odd when people insist the ISS should already have
accomplised great things.

ISS Expedition 1 was launched over three years ago. From first to last
(manned) flights of Mercury was 2 years. Gemini: 2-1/2 years. Apollo:
just over 4 years, with the first lunar landing less than a year after
the first manned flight. So isn't is reasonable to expect *something*
from ISS?

Depends on what you expect to accomplish. If you want to demonstrate that
large, complicated systems and structures can be designed and built
piecemeal on the ground and successfully assembled on-orbit, then yeah,
that's "something" from ISS. That and loads of useful experience in
operating increasingly complicated systems over extended times.

On the other hand, if you want reams (well, I guess the better term would be
terabytes these days) of useful, relevent scientific data, then no, it's
not reasonable to expect that yet.

Look at it like a car on a hill or a motorboat - if you use very little
throttle, you will eventually get where you're going, at the price of very
high fuel use and wear-and-tear on your powertrain from "lagging" the
engine. It's not an efficient way to travel.

The Station has been "lagging" since the First Element Launch milestone due
to years of budget cuts, programmatic restructures and general delays. If
six to eight flights per year were devoted to construction and assembly, as
was planned during SSF days, the entire station would have been built in
about 2 1/2 years from FEL to the PMC milestone (Permanently-Manned
Capabilitly). Until that point, there would have been no crew aboard
except during assembly missions and even then it would be only to support
assembly. After PMC, however, you would have had the capability and
expectation to sustain 4 full-time crewmembers, at least two of whom could
be expected to perform full-time research, with the crew size increasing to
8 (yes, 8) after another couple of years. *Then* you could expect 5 or 6
full-time researchers, probably working in overlapping shifts either 18 or
24 hours per day on research.

Now, however, dragging out the assembly for so long, understaffing it at the
same time, all ISS *can* do is "lag" around in orbit, waiting to be
completed and staffed properly, and using up the on-orbit life expectancies
of major ORUs and components the whole while.

--
Herb Schaltegger, B.S., J.D.
Reformed Aerospace Engineer
Remove invalid nonsense for email.

Kevin Willoughby wrote:

In article , derekl1963
says...
I always find it odd when people insist the ISS should already have
accomplised great things.

ISS Expedition 1 was launched over three years ago. From first to last
(manned) flights of Mercury was 2 years. Gemini: 2-1/2 years. Apollo:
just over 4 years, with the first lunar landing less than a year after
the first manned flight. So isn't is reasonable to expect *something*
from ISS?

Accomplishing "something" and accomplishing "great things" are two
very different expectations.

Why is it reasonable to expect *anything* to have been accomplished in
something that isn't even finished abuilding yet?

D.
--
The STS-107 Columbia Loss FAQ can be found
at the following URLs:

Text-Only Version:
http://www.io.com/~o_m/columbia_loss_faq.html

Enhanced HTML Version:
http://www.io.com/~o_m/columbia_loss_faq_x.html

Corrections, comments, and additions should be
e-mailed to , as well as posted to
sci.space.history and sci.space.shuttle for
discussion.

Kevin Willoughby wrote:

ISS Expedition 1 was launched over three years ago. From first to last
(manned) flights of .... Gemini: 2-1/2 years.

Actually, it was just less than 2 years: Mar 1965 - Nov 1966. (20 months)

--
Dave Michelson

(Derek Lyons) writes:

Kevin Willoughby wrote:

In article , derekl1963
says...
I always find it odd when people insist the ISS should already have
accomplised great things.

ISS Expedition 1 was launched over three years ago. From first to last
(manned) flights of Mercury was 2 years. Gemini: 2-1/2 years. Apollo:
just over 4 years, with the first lunar landing less than a year after
the first manned flight. So isn't is reasonable to expect *something*
from ISS?

Accomplishing "something" and accomplishing "great things" are two
very different expectations.

Why is it reasonable to expect *anything* to have been accomplished in
something that isn't even finished abuilding yet?

Isn't it? We're not asking for the moon. Actually, I think there is
science being accomplished aboard ISS, but labwork doesn't make the
news, and much of it is remote with an occasional human to set things
right if necessary (like after maybe setting things wrong?).