MOVIE REVIEW: 'The Last Days on Mars' - Washington Times:
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Thursday, November 28, 2013
Friday, November 22, 2013
James Brown Comes Up With A Brilliant Idea For A Reuseable Falcon-9 Booster
7:13 PM (10 hours ago)
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I sent this to Bill Douglass. Is it OK, is it clear? This is basically what I want to say. I hope to help get the first stage back safely to the their landing pad. The Draco is the 18 attitude rockets for both Dragons, and the 8 Super Dracons are also the Launch escape, and landing rockets for the Dragon Rider.
Jim Brown
I see two problems that SpaceX is having with getting the first stage of the Falcon 9 quickly and safely returned to the original launch pad.
I believe one problem is that the fuel is not settled to the tank output to reliably feed the engines when they need to be restarted after the second stage separation. This leads to the second stage not being able to turn around quickly and using much more fuel
The gimbals system is wonderful for launching. I believe it is the only way the Falcon 9 first stage can currently affect control. After the tank is nearly empty the center of gravity is close to the engines and is pointed in the wrong direction. To make matters worse even at max gimbals almost all side or horizontal components of the forces end up in a side movement instead of an angular movement making it difficult to turn around. Using just gimballing takes lots of fuel accelerating in the opposite direction we want it to go, then that much more fuel is needed once we are finally turned around and going the way we want.
I suggest adding one or two Super Draco rockets and between two and four Draco attitude rockets mounted at a forty five degree at the top of the first stage. This would enable a quick turn around using very little fuel. Also a few seconds burn of the Draco attitude rockets can settle the fuel to the bottom of the tanks enabling restart.
I hope you will take these thoughts into consideration. I believe this could solve those two problems.
Tuesday, November 19, 2013
Tuesday, November 12, 2013
Sunday, November 10, 2013
Monday, November 4, 2013
India Shrugs Off Criticism To Prepare For Launch For Launch Of Mars Mission
November 4, 2013 7:06 am
India shrugs off criticism to prepare for launch of Mars mission
Shrugging off criticism that the money would be better spent on toilets or teachers, India is preparing to launch its first interplanetary space mission on Tuesday to take a satellite to Mars.
Although Indian officials have denied wanting to compete with China, they have not disguised their desire to join the trio of superpowers that have so far carried out successful Mars shots – the US, Russia and Europe.
ON THIS STORY
- India’s Singh stands by Mars mission
- India’s Mars ‘fantasy’ defies earthly woes
- India's space programme suffers setback
- China launches its longest space flight
- Russia launches joint Soyuz space mission
ON THIS TOPIC
- India raises rates to combat inflation
- Bombs kill five in Indian poll violence
- India trade data offer economic relief
- Solar seeks its day in the Indian sun
IN INDIA
- Mobileless Singh can opt out of NSA row
- India opposition’s election hopes on rise
- Slideshow Nature’s fury
- Himalayan floods climate change blamed
Known as Mangalyaan (“Mars craft”) or more formally the Mars Orbiter Mission, the satellite is designed mainly to test India’s technology in areas such as deep space communication and navigation but will also measure methane in the Martian atmosphere and do other scientific work.
When the project was first announced last year, a few Indians criticised the project as a needlessly expensive hunt for prestige when the country has failed to solve severe shortcomings in sanitation, education and child health – although more expressed fierce pride in India’s achievements as a space power and nuclear weapons state.
Jean Drèze, a development economist, called the project “part of the Indian elite’s delusional quest for superpower status”, but Manmohan Singh, prime minister, said it would be “a huge step for us in the area of science and technology”.
Some of the criticism has been deflected by the speed with which the project has been implemented by theIndian Space Research Organisation (Isro), and its low cost by international standards.
The budget is $72m, about a tenth of the bigger scientific mission to Mars to be launched later in November by Nasa of the US, which is helping India with communications for the mission and whose officials urged their Indian counterparts not to forget to eat peanuts for luck at the launch.
Indian officials have been cautious about their chances of success. K. Radhakrishnan, Isro chairman, has noted that only 21 of the 51 missions to the red planet have succeeded.
India is due to launch the 1,337kg-satellite plus rocket from the island of Sriharikota north of Chennai on India’s east coast at 1438 local time (0908 GMT) on Tuesday. The plan is that the satellite should enter Mars orbit on September 24 2014.
The late Vikram Sarabhai, father of the Indian space programme, championed the use of technology for solving humanity’s problems and rejected what he called the “fantasy of competing with the economically advanced nations in the exploration of the moon or the planets or manned space flight”. Isro has projects in all three areas.
However, postings on Twitter and on Indian newspaper websites on Monday, the eve of the launch, suggest that Indians with access to the internet are overwhelmingly in favour of the country pursuing its ambitions in space. “Mars, the Indians r finally coming! good luck isro!” said one comment on the Times of India site.
Indian officials, especially meteorologists who derive much of their data from satellite observations, won high praise for correctly predicting the strength and path of the powerful Cyclone Phailin in October, enabling thousands to be evacuated with minimum loss of life.
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