Russia Abandons Super-Rocket Designed To Compete With SLS 179
schwit1 writes Russia has decided to abandon an expensive attempt to build an SLS-like super-rocket and will instead focus on incremental development of its smaller but less costly Angara rocket. "Facing significant budgetary pressures, the Russian space agency, Roscosmos, has indefinitely postponed its ambitious effort to develop a super-heavy rocket to rival NASA's next-generation Space Launch System, SLS. Instead, Russia will focus on radical upgrades of its brand-new but smaller Angara-5 rocket which had its inaugural flight in Dec. 2014, the agency's Scientific and Technical Council, NTS, decided on Thursday, March 12." For Russia's space industry, it appears that these budgetary pressures have been a blessing in disguise. Rather than waste billions on an inefficient rocket for which there is no commercial demand — as NASA is doing with SLS (under orders from a wasteful Congress) — they will instead work on further upgrades of Angara, much like SpaceX has done with its Falcon family of rockets. This will cost far less, is very efficient, and provides them a better chance to compete for commercial launches that can help pay for it all. And best of all, it offers them the least costly path to future interplanetary missions, which means they might actually be able to make those missions happen. To quote the article again: "By switching upper stages of the existing Angara from kerosene to the more potent hydrogen fuel, engineers might be able to boost the rocket's payload from current 25 tons to 35 tons for missions to the low Earth orbit. According to Roscosmos, Angara-A5V could be used for piloted missions to the vicinity of the Moon and to its surface." In a sense, the race is now on between Angara-A5V and Falcon Heavy.
hydrogen not an improvement. (Score:5, Informative)
SpaceX found that hydrogen fuel is not an improvement over methane when you include all the extra complexity (and weight) of dealing with super cold and very small atoms, both resulting in brittle metals. SpaceX does intend to switch to methane, which is a small improvement over kerosene, and unlike kerosene does not leave difficult to clean residue in pipes and engine parts.
Re:hydrogen not an improvement. (Score:4, Interesting)
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Hydrogen, even used chemically, could be quite useful (especially with detonation based rockets (constant volume combustion)) for large interplanetary spacecrafts once you have them in orbit.
Once you are in orbit, wouldn't it make more sense to use an ion engine [wikipedia.org]?
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Not for SpaceX it isn't. Others - already there. (Score:2)
Yes hydrogen has many issues, like the embrittlement problem that's been known about and dealt with since the 1940s, but it's a tradeoff that some can do already but is uneconomic for others to go near.
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I'd think that hydrogen is somewhat uneconomical for launch vehicles also because it generally gets used in upper stages, so you need more different pieces of launch pad infrastructure, and all-importantly, at least two types of engines. The fact that some other companies are not "little startups" still doesn't protect them from the effect of economies of scale. (And if you want to suggest unifying on hydrogen, check out the boondoggle named "Delta IV".) Look at how hideously expensive the RL-10 has ended u
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Yes, but in addition to that the trade-offs are inherently different for re-usable rockets. Embrittlement is probably a pretty big problem if you intend to re-use your fuel tank many times, like SpaceX intends to.
If SpaceX fails to make their second stage re-usable I would not be surprised to see them switch to hydrogen for that stage at some point down the line.
Re:hydrogen not an improvement. (Score:5, Interesting)
At about 10m15s in this press conference [youtube.com], Elon calls hydrogen a "pernicious molecule" while fielding a question about fuel cells. He also mentions some other drawbacks, such as its being odorless and invisible (so you can't smell when it's leaking), and it's extremely flammable... and burns with an invisible flame.
Hydrogen is very efficient as a rocket fuel, which is why it's used. But liquid methane is pretty good too, and has a lot fewer "issues" to deal with.
MOAR BOOSTERS! (Score:3, Informative)
Re:MOAR BOOSTERS! (Score:4, Informative)
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Legacy of Sergei Kololev (Score:3, Interesting)
This "four booter rocket" configuration is not new to the russians. It was introduced by Sergei Korlev http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S... [wikipedia.org] already in the 50:s, with the R7 line of rockets http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R... [wikipedia.org] . In fact, it was one such R7 carrier rocket (8K71PS) that launched Sputnik-1 (and -2) into orbit. The detachment of the booster rockts were such a common sight, that it got its own name: Korolev cross https://www.google.se/search?q... [google.se].
Translation (Score:2)
Translation: "Russia can't even afford the power points for it's super heavy booster, so it's going to concentrate on the development of an unproven booster that budget crunches have already delayed for over two decades."
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Translation (Score:5, Interesting)
The "space truck" was actually a complete space station. It had living space for seven people, airlocks for EVAs, a shower and a toilet as well as having 20 tonnes of cargo space in the back of the "truck" and a payload arm/manipulator.
The Shuttle had considerable cross-range capability once in orbit with up to 18 tonnes of manoeuvering fuel (twice the total payload of a current Falcon 9) and could stay in orbit for up to a month if needed with a reduced crew. It did most of the heavy lifting of the construction of the ISS in orbit and carried out multiple Hubble repair and upgrade missions. At the end it came back down to Earth and landed on a runway.
The Dragon capsule is purely for canned monkeys with no toilet, no shower, no airlocks and no EVA capability. It has no cargo capacity, no manipulator arm, limited cross-range capacity in orbit and limited endurance and it certainly can't be used to carry out maintenance flights to the Hubble or its successors.
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How much would it cost to build and launch an 50-tonne "workshop" spacecraft to do the Shuttle's job and then ditch it into the upper atmosphere after every flight? A lot more than a billion a flight, never mind the extra launch of a manned capsule to dock with the Space Workshop module.
A recoverable and reusable spacecraft with the capabilities to do the same job as the Shuttle would need heat-tiling, some aerodynamic appendages to control re-entry and oh look! it's a Space Shuttle!
Saying that the Shuttle
Re:Translation (Score:5, Interesting)
The Shuttle never lived up to what it was sold as -- cheap, reliable access to space. The most damning evidence of that is that the only major sponsor/user besides NASA, the US Air Force, abandoned it as soon as its actual operational limitations became clear. The Air Force went to the expense of developing new large expendable launch vehicles rather than try to stick with the Shuttle. For the last few years the Shuttle had only one mission -- support the ISS, every other mission had been taken from it. And, the US had a perfectly viable space station program without the Shuttle -- Skylab, and for that matter, so did the Russians. Speaking of the Russians -- they figured out pretty quickly that the Space Shuttle concept was operationally a loser and abandoned their Buran version after one flight. So, the Shuttle looked good in the marketing slides from the 70's and early '80s, but has to be judged an operational failure by the standards set for its justifications to be built. The Shuttle could do things that no other vehicle can do, but those capabilities, such as its huge cross range landing capability, just turned out to be not very useful and not worth the cost.
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There is no evidence that abandonment of Buran had anything to do with its practicality. A far more likely explanation, given the dates, is that it was all about the country being in a financial shithole where it simply couldn't afford the program.
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How much would it cost to build and launch an 50-tonne "workshop" spacecraft to do the Shuttle's job and then ditch it into the upper atmosphere after every flight?
Why would you need such a thing, especially "on every flight"? Even Salyuts were under 20 tonnes, and that was with hard (and rather rugged) structure and with all amenities. I suspect that with Bigelow's inflatable modules, you could cut that down almost by half, even when still keeping such things as robotic arms etc. Most of the mass of the Shuttle is the airframe, thermal protection, ten tonnes of engines, and the payload bay. There's absolutely no reason to haul it into orbit every time. It cost the US
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Every Shuttle flight needed spacewalks, the cargo bay, the spacelab, the manipulator or other features sadly lacking in a people-only spacecraft like the Dragon until the ISS was ready for habitation. The ISS couldn't have been built without the Shuttle though, not without a (non-existent at the time) SLS that could throw a complete space station or large ready-to-go part of it with spacesuit airlock(s), manipulator arm, power systems etc. into orbit in one launch. Even then a "fork-lift truck" spacecraft l
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Every Shuttle flight needed spacewalks
Wrong.
, the cargo bay,
The thing is that one shouldn't be forced to haul large payloads with such a useless reusable vehicle in the first place. So some cargo capacity is certainly desirable but not for 300 m^3 and 24 tonnes. Even the lousy large launchers we already have are much more economical for such things.
the spacelab,
A thing like that could have stayed in the orbit.
the manipulator
A thing like that could have stayed in the orbit, too.
The ISS couldn't have been built without the Shuttle though, not without a (non-existent at the time) SLS that could throw a complete space station or large ready-to-go part of it with spacesuit airlock(s), manipulator arm, power systems etc. into orbit in one launch.
Mir was assembled without the Shuttle. Granted, even with the additional modules, it was smaller, but it could h
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You can easily put an airlock in a capsule. Soyuz has one as does Shenzhou (orbital module). The manipulator could have been attached into the first space station core launched into orbit using a regular launch vehicle like a Delta IV Heavy. Delta IV Heavy has more payload than the Proton rocket which was used to launch the Mir modules and the Russian ISS segment. If, for whatever reason, you actually needed a mobile construction yard you could just launch a space tug into space and use that instead of wast
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They also decided that they didn't have the money to make the first stage design reusable so they tacked together a fuel tank with a couple of solid rocket boosters to do the same job. Then they gave the task of building the solid rocket boosters to ATK. The worst of both design choices. Why? So the pork could be spread to Utah as well. Then Challenger happened.
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How much would it cost to build and launch an 50-tonne "workshop" spacecraft to do the Shuttle's job and then ditch it into the upper atmosphere after every flight? A lot more than a billion a flight, never mind the extra launch of a manned capsule to dock with the Space Workshop module
Why do that when you can launch 10-20 ton chunks into orbit and do all your "workshop" stuff on a permanent space station? For example, instead of developing the near useless Space Shuttle, NASA could have launched and assembled the ISS with the Saturn 1B back in the early 80s.
And looking at your further post [slashdot.org] on the subject, it's not that hard to launch a teleoperated mechanic arm or two for moving and mating components of the station.
Also, you claim the ISS wasn't even on the drawing board back in th
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At the moment Dragon's only intended purpose is ferrying crews to the ISS
Google "DragonLab".
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Re:Translation (Score:4, Informative)
The Dragon has no airlocks, no space (heh) for spacesuits, no external cargo capacity in the service module (although they're working on it) to carry spare parts, no manipulator arm to tether and position EVA personnel around the Hubble or other large space infrastructure item like, say, an ISS Mark 2. It's a minimal spam-in-a-can meatbag-to-orbit delivery system, not a lineman's truck with a cabover as the Shuttle was.
The Shuttle's OMS fuel load could be maxed out to 18 tonnes if lots of in-orbit manoeuvering was planned at the cost of a reduced payload bay manifest. Most flights it didn't carry that much fuel but it didn't need to be rebuilt to take max fuel/oxidiser if the next flight necessitated it. Any Dragon plus disposable workshop mission is going to cost more and take longer as each workshop will have to be built and individually tailored to the expected mission's requirements. The other option is to build a son-of-Shuttle recoverable workshop/living quarters spacecraft, a bit like the autolanding X-37, but I don't see any budget for that anywhere.
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"The Dragon doesn't need any of those things. Its purpose is to take a few people into orbit and back"
Where are they going to go when they get to orbit? The ISS won't be there after 2020 or so. Bigelow is a lot of hot air. The Russian ISS-remnant will be serviced by Soyuz. So what's left for Dragon/Falcon apart from space tourism?
The Dragon alone can't build an ISS Mark 2 or even a Mars Expeditionary vehicle, it needs a workshop vehicle/microstation to dock to for the crew to do anything significant in orbi
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Where are they going to go when they get to orbit? The ISS won't be there after 2020 or so
I think you meant 2024?
Bigelow is a lot of hot air.
Here's your first lot of hot air :-) [nasa.gov], already having been packaged for delivery to the ISS, probably in September.
The Russian ISS-remnant will be serviced by Soyuz.
What "ISS remnant"? There most likely won't be any such "remnant". Russians don't have money to even finish their planned modules and to launch them, much less to refurbish an already expired set of modules in orbit. Zarya will be 30 years old by 2024, but it is American property now. Zvezda's structural frame dates back to 1985! It will be almost 40 years old by 2024...
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For all we know the Russians could build their next space station together with the Chinese.
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I think you and me have VERY different definitions of what a shower is.
"But on the International Space Station and NASA shuttles, astronauts have a squirt gun that shoots water and a wash cloth. They also have a special rinse-less shampoo to keep their hair clean."
http://www.space.com/7060-slee... [space.com]
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Note: I wasn't saying that your definition is wrong, just I wouldn't quite refer to such a device as a shower.
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Adding landing legs to the first stage and not using all the fuel in the tanks, that could have been payload. Wait, what?
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The same engine design is also be basis for the RD-191 rocket engine used in Angara.
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No, it was the stupid PR people and managers that insisted on launching it when every fucking engineer associated with the launch told them otherwise. If they would have waited for everything to warm up, the Challenger would likely have had a normal launch.
Likewise, had NASA management effectively killed engineering plans to deal with ice damage the Columbia disaster might well have been averted. Certainly, space flight is risky and the Shuttle overly complex and prone to breaking down, but the proximate
Wrong Again (Score:2)
More dependable than anyone else - by about .2%, much celebrated by the clueless, irrelevant in the real world.
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At least Soyuz is still around. And will be for the foreseeable future.
Propaganda much? (Score:4, Insightful)
Wow... Was the summary written by Putin? (Hello Mods: The author is even Russian!)
There may be no current commercial need for the SLS, but you can bet that it will appear once the system launches successfully a few times.
Also, I'm sure the US military and NASA will be excited to be able to launch heavier and heaver things into space and stop being reliant on Russian launch technology, especially with the Russians dusting off their 1950's era bombers to test NATO defenses.
Re:Propaganda much? (Score:5, Insightful)
There may be no current commercial need for the SLS, but you can bet that it will appear once the system launches successfully a few times.
At a total cost of way over $1B per flight (unless it flies more than once or twice per year, which is highly unlikely), you can be sure that even the 130 mt version of SLS will be in much smaller demand than a $100M semi-reusable Falcon Heavy with a ~40 mt capacity, or even the expendable ~$150M, ~55 mt version.
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I'm not sure exactly what commercial uses there are for really heavy launches. Comms and science do not need to be so large. Only thing I can think of is a space hotel, and that's not going to be commercially viable unless you can bring the human launch cost down far enough for the moderately rich to afford a holiday there, rather than just the obscenely rich. There aren't enough billionaires around to constitute a sufficient market.
Re:Propaganda much? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not sure exactly what commercial uses there are for really heavy launches.
Economy of scale? But that's only worthwhile as long as the heavier launcher won't hit low launch frequencies and unsustainable infrastructure costs. Which is definitely the problem that the SLS will hit.
Comms and science do not need to be so large
Circular logic. Right, they don't need to be so large because we've learned to make them smaller...and we've learned to make them smaller because we had no choice, large rockets were prohibitively expensive. But that doesn't mean that, e.g., science couldn't use more capable vehicles. Science can always use more capable vehicles. Missions could be much easier with them (or even possible in the first place), and a cheaper larger launcher could make even the mission itself cheaper (besides launch costs).
Galileo would have gotten to Jupiter almost four years faster with Centaur-G instead of the less-capable solid stage it was forced to use. That meant extra four years of running (and paying) the mission team without results, and also four years less of hardware lifetime once the probe got to its destination. The Mars Science Laboratory wouldn't have had to use a working but convoluted and custom-designed landing system. In a few years, a payload of this size (or even somewhat larger) would simply use a "marsified" Dragon-derived lander with no parachute and just a longer segment of propulsive landing. It might weigh almost twice as much, but who cares?
You could use serially manufactured components instead of custom designs if you weren't forced to shave every kilogram.
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I should have clarified that I was limiting the discussion to commercial uses. Commercial science means things like weather monitoring and resource surveys - things you do in LEO. There's absolutely nothing beyond geostationary that pays for itsself - that's why those missions you mention all had to be paid for with someone's tax money.
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Yeah no kidding. The SLS is supposed to fly once every two years.
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And that's why it's a good thing that FH will be using the same parts as F9, only with a few struts added. Don't need heavy launches? Simply don't strut it together, and make three regular launches!
But don't limit your thinking to what we do now with what we have now. Just like with oil reserves increasing as the price of oil goes up (due to cost of recovery), the things people will want to launch rockets for will increase as the cost of launches goes down. And likewise, as the cost of heavy launches comes
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There may be no current commercial need for the SLS, but you can bet that it will appear once the system launches successfully a few times.
The difference compared to the Apollo days is that now we have a lot of experience building modules and docking them in orbit to form the ISS. The biggest single piece we've sent up there so far is the S3/S4 truss at 16,183 kg. Falcon Heavy will do 53,000 kg. SLS will do up to 130,000 kg. The total launch mass of the ISS is 417,289 kg, so even with the SLS it's not enough to launch as big structures as we might like. Most plans for a human mission to Mars seem to involve many SLS launches to assemble a ship
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My guess is that 53 tons dry weight is plenty. They only publish a standard cost these days not a full weight launch but it used to be $135m, let's say $150m and that we need 20 launches. For $3 billion you have your launch capability.
Even the semi-reusable version ought to be even better for fuel in terms of $/kg for bulk transport. I think one could reasonably expect a 45+ tonne capability (15% payload decrease) for about $90M (say, -40% cost) - that's perhaps even conservative. Fuel flights also have the benefit of being largely risk-insensitive and fungible, thus being prime candidates for flying reused stages. If something goes wrong, you'll be sending another fuel flight from the payload queue soon anyway.
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There may be no current commercial need for the SLS, but you can bet that it will appear once the system launches successfully a few times.
Even if that were really true (it weren't for the Space Shuttle, which got payloads by forcing everyone to launch on the Space Shuttle through to 1985 or so), you still have the problem that a few successful launches puts you somewhere past 2030. That's at least 15 years of fucking around.
Also, I'm sure the US military and NASA will be excited to be able to launch heavier and heaver things into space and stop being reliant on Russian launch technology, especially with the Russians dusting off their 1950's era bombers to test NATO defenses.
The SLS has to successful fly first. NASA's last success construction of a launch vehicle was the Space Shuttle Endeavor which was delivered to NASA on 1991 and first launched a year later. Since the Space Shuttle has been
I used to be happy about... (Score:2, Insightful)
... Russia being in space. But given their conduct, I think they should have as limited capabilities as possible.
Russia is out of control and entirely unrepentant. If they have fewer capabilities their frequently bat shit crazy leaders will have more limited aspirations.
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Replace "Russia" with "humans" and I would agree with you.
We're all assholes.
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I do not hate my own species and I encourage any member of my species that does hate its own species to dig a hole in the ground, stand in it, and then blow their own brains out. That way whomever has the ignoble duty of dealing with your corpse can do so with a minimum of effort.
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In what way?
Russia's recent actions would be like the US invading Mexico and then annexing Baja California.
Can you cite something the US did that is in anyway like that or would you like to roll over right now and play dead?
Now if we could only kill SLS (Score:3)
I have to agree with the summary, this could be a blessing in disguise for the Russians given the right future economic conditions. We're burning enough money here in the US just on DEVELOPMENT of SLS that we could launch the mass of a WWII aircraft carrier into orbit on commercial launchers in todays launch market let alone the economies of scale you would get if we tried to do so. And the "$500 Million" per launch claim that NASA is putting out is hysterical, It will probably cost at least $1.5 Billion per launch not including development. If our intention is to make space access more reasonable there simply is no good reason for a SHLV at this time, we can do everything and more with standard LV's and if we get enough yearly flights economies of scale and competition will kick in and help space access costs even more. SHLVs are currently only good for shoveling massive amounts of money into the bank accounts of a few well connected defense contractors.
Article surreptitiously pushes an agenda (Score:2)
For Russia's space industry, it appears that these budgetary pressures have been a blessing in disguise. Rather than waste billions on an inefficient rocket for which there is no commercial demand — as NASA is doing with SLS (under orders from a wasteful Congress)
samzenpus is using this article to present his opinions as facts while completely ignoring the valid reasons for building the SLS. The SLS is not going to be used for launching communication satellites or taking tourists to space. SLS is not a commercial project but a scientific and exploratory project to enable mankind to escape low earth orbit while preserving the U.S. space launch capabilities.
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You will be. You will be.
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we get to launch rockets without having to have a profit requirement for it!
You say that as if it were an advantage. Interesting.
That's why the US gets to launch big expensive, and awesome science projects like Hubble, Cassini, Voyager, Apollo, etc.., while Russia is stuck with shitty Space-X sized rockets that only has commercial appeal.
NASA doesn't currently have a way, aside from the commercial launchers, to launch those various probes you mentioned. NASA doesn't even have the capability to launch crew to the International Space Station.
Re:And in the US (Score:5, Interesting)
The government should not be run for profit. The government should be an alternative to markets, provide a safe haven for those who want to do things because they're interested in advancing knowledge, not selling something. Space exploration is in the General Welfare, not only for the 1%.
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The government should not be run for profit.
But that's not an argument in favor of wasteful projects (when cheaper alternatives are available), I hope.
Re:And in the US (Score:4, Interesting)
The gov't could at least lose less money if it issued its own currency (beyond just coins) instead of borrowing its money supply from privately owned banks.
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Hmm, just printing more money as needed...
Seems to me that's been tried a few times in history. Worked pretty well for Germany in the 1920's and -30's, as I recall....
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And the Fed's so-called "quantitative easing" is different from that... how?
It appears that the debt-backed money system we've been using since 1971 (when Nixon closed the gold window) has run itself out to its logical conclusion: an exponential explosion of debt as we approach the vertical asymptote.
I'm not arguing for a gold standard; a fiat system can work just fine as long as the quantity is controlled sensibly, as you imply. But I don't think that ceding the "issuing power" to private banks is a good s
Re:And in the US (Score:4, Insightful)
And the Fed's so-called "quantitative easing" is different from that... how?
It is different because the Fed is independent, and not subjected to short term political pressure.
Re:And in the US (Score:4, Interesting)
LOL!! The Fed may be independent of gov't but it's not independent of corporate plutocracy. Indeed, this is the crucial struggle of our times, wresting control of our politics and our economy from these fat-cat SOBs.
Get thee hence to Wolf-PAC.com [wolf-pac.com] and pitch in to help save our democracy from these blood-suckers.
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The government should not be run for profit.
Profit is a strong indication that you are generating more value than you cost. If you aren't generating a profit, there should be a good reason why. You don't provide such a reason. Let's look in more detail.
The government should be an alternative to markets, provide a safe haven for those who want to do things because they're interested in advancing knowledge, not selling something.
First of all, no. There's no "should" here. Second, who gets this safe haven and who doesn't? We can't have everyone sucking up money just because they're more interested in advancing knowledge than in the alternatives. Someone has to generate that tax revenue in order for the scheme to work.
Then th
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The government needs a frame in which it can legally operate. For instance you don't want the government to get into iron mining, steel making and knife making just so it can run hospitals. It's fine for a government-run hospital to buy surgical knives from private companies.
The horror example where this separation from government subsidies never happened is the airline industry, where you have two giant corporations, Boeing and Airbus, that leech billions off of various governments.
Re:And in the US (Score:5, Insightful)
I forget which scientist was asked by a general if it had "military use, if it could protect America?" and he replied "no, but it will make America worth protecting."
This is the reason we should do things. Not for profit, for material gain, for defense, or any other flimsy reason. It should be done because it is beneficial to us all, because it advances us all as humans.
Re:Didn't think it through did you? (Score:5, Informative)
See state owned power utilities regulated by the state that owns them for an example - eg. price rises of around 500% over 8 years and no alternative other than putting a solar panel on your roof.
As opposed to what? Private power companies that stage brownouts to drive up their own prices?
At least state owned power utilities have to face a public board of inquiry before they can raise their rates, and the state regulates how much of their income has to go to keeping their own services repaired. Unlike telecoms letting wired phone service wither because they can make more money on cellular.
Yeah, the private market has always been such an example of fairness and customer service. *eye roll*
Re:Didn't think it through did you? (Score:4, Interesting)
As opposed to what? Private power companies that stage brownouts to drive up their own prices?
False dichotomy. Government monopolies and private monopolies are not the only alternatives. What seems to work best is to separate ownership of the grid (which is a natural monopoly) from power generation (which is not). Whether the grid is owned by the government or by a regulated private utility doesn't much matter. The grid owner charges a fee, which can vary with load, for transporting power from producer to consumer. But the production of power can be done by anyone that can meet the technical requirements of feeding power into the grid, including individual homeowners with extra solar power or residential micro-cogeneration [wikipedia.org].
Re:And in the US (Score:5, Informative)
while Russia is stuck with shitty Space-X sized rockets that only has commercial appeal.
Russia regularly launches Proton-M, which has a Shuttle-like LEO payload capability. With the exception of Apollo, it should have been able to launch any of those things, and at a much lower cost. The problem for the Russians is that they hoped that Angara would be cheaper than the Proton-M. In retrospect, achieving that turns out to be quite problematic. Angara's saving grace is that it is - yet again - a military rocket, and unlike Energia, it's a military rocket for which they have no replacement (at least not after the Proton gets retired). It could have commercial appeal, but if Falcon Heavy works out well, which is very, very likely, few people are going to bother with Angara. Between ITAR, costs, transportation issues, general shunning of doing business with Russia these day, etc., I'm not sure there's a lot of potential. It may very well end up just launching scores of spy sats.
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Proton uses toxic hypergolic fuel. Energia was too expensive. That's why they made Angara. It's a cost-effective replacement for Proton.
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That article is old news.
Aborted launches happen all the time in the industry. Let alone in a new launch vehicle.
The Angara A5 vehicle they are talking about in that article was successfully launched last December.
They could use a better second stage for the rocket (i.e. the A7 version) but what they have is working fairly well. It would have been ready earlier if they didn't keep stalling the funding all the time. But it is ready now.
All that's needed is for them to finish the construction of their new lau
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There are also plans to retrofit the KVTK LOX/LH2 second stage into A5. The whole A7 may or may not happen. It doesn't matter as A5 with KVTK would have more performance than Proton.
The cost of handling hypergolics can be quite high. That is one reason why everyone is moving away from them. The costs for manufacturing the actual rocket may be higher but I kind of doubt it. Angara A5 is manufactured with more modern tools and it has less engines and parallel stages than Proton. Once it goes into full product
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It's not an ICBM like Proton. Angara was designed to launch satellites. Nothing more.
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Re:That's what happens (Score:4, Informative)
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You're dreaming. In the US, the Fed creates money to backstop banks, and contrary to quantity theory of money predictions, inflation decreases and the dollar gains strength. Now the Fed should create money and transfer it directly to individuals.
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That is only happening because the printed dollars aren't filtering down the market. If they did you would get inflation.
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Maybe in a far more subtle manner...
An analogy would be if Obama privatized the USPS and then split it up into companies he essentially gives to his friends turning them all into billionaires.
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But the Fed is the issuer, and returns interest to the Treasury. Hence, zero cost funding.
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What SLS can do that other rockets can't?
It can launch more suitcases of money into the right congressional districts. ;-)
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That does not really describe the USA anymore. Most of us don't pin too much nationalist pride on things like the tallest this or the longest that anymore. Hell, we didn't even bother maintaining a manned space program.
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It may be flamebait, but that doesn't make it any less true.
I say we clone Soyuz 11 and give Putin a ride!