Getting the Most Out of the Space Station (Before It's Too Late) 155
bmahersciwriter writes: NASA administrators are strategizing a push to do more science on the International Space Station in the coming years. The pressure is on, given the rapidly cooling relations between the U.S. and Russia, whose deputy prime minister recently suggested that U.S. astronauts use a trampoline if they want to get into orbit. Aiding in the push for more research is the development of two-way cargo ships by SpaceX, which should allow for return of research materials (formerly a hurdle to doing useful experiments). NASA soon aims to send new earth-monitoring equipment to the station and expanded rodent facilities. And geneLAB will send a range of model organisms like fruit flies and nematodes into space for months at a time.
Direct economic confrontation with Russia (Score:4, Informative)
Now, if Russia wanted to negatively impact US, then they'd mass produce tech and sell to anyone/everyone willing to pay. This would remove technological edge from US and enrich Russia.
Centrifugal gravity (Score:5, Informative)
For your reading enjoyment:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C... [wikipedia.org]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N... [wikipedia.org]
Re:Mother Russia... (Score:5, Informative)
You do not know what you are talking about. They recently developed the RD-191 and RD-0124 staged combustion engines. They are developing the Angara rocket to replace Proton. Russia is one of the largest launch services providers in the world.
In other words, they upgraded the labels on rocket designs from the 1960s and 1970s. The RD-0110 was first flown in 1964 and the RD-170 was first developed for the Engergia rocket in the late 70s.
If instead, we're going to compare apples to apples. we'll also have to note that SpaceX has similarly upgraded its rocket engines during the same period. For example, there are three substantial upgrades of the original Merlin 1 rocket engine (the rocket used on the Falcon 9) and a second upgrade to the Draco rocket engine (a in-space rocket engine used for maneuvering). So
And while Russia claims to be developing Angara, as you already noted, they aren't due to the "delays" attributed to funding (which is actually the easiest part of the puzzle for Russia to fix - just add money).
So to summarize the current count: SpaceX has developed four rocket engine designs from scratch and upgraded these four times in the same sense that Russia has upgraded the RD-170 and the RD-0110. Then they developed two launch vehicles while Russia has experienced delays in its alleged development of the Angara. Finally, SpaceX developed a new spacecraft and vertical landing technology while Russia did neither. I think you see where I'm going with this.
Re:Mother Russia... (Score:5, Informative)
I guess you don't get the point. State of the art is not economical. An engine that is trivial to design and build, and which gives reasonable ISP and thrust/weight is a superior choice for rockets where you want more value out of them than you put in.
The Russians claim staged combustion engines are more cost effective than gas generator engines. Who am I to say any different? As for SpaceX they wouldn't be working on the Raptor using a LOX/Methane staged combustion cycle while moving away from gas generators like Merlin if they thought the Russians were wrong.
In fact if you look at the Merlin-1D a lot of the advances it has are clearly Russian tech derived like the channel wall nozzle. You know which other two stage to orbit LOX/Kerosene rocket is available in the market other than Falcon 9? Zenit.
SpaceX is not using staged combustion now because solving those issues to get LOX/Kerosene oxidizer rich staged combustion is certainly not trivial. RD-171 took a long time to develop. Supposedly it is easier to solve the technical issues with LOX/Methane staged combustion, of which the Russians also have working engines, because it has less polymerization and coking issues.