The problem with the V3 was they were a gun type that broke down easily (a bunch of acceleration explosion flinging a dart shell down a tube? That spells break down easy to me) and it could only be aimed at London.
So it was a pretty shitty idea. Hitler had a lot of shitty ideas. "My Tank is FIGHT" is a great book that covers most of them, like the Ratte, the Submersible Tank and that parasite bomber plane.
Venturing in to space useless?
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On the contrary I was talking about the V3, and my information came from here:
http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/v3.htm
However I seem to have forgottent eh details and mistook again:
http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/v3.htm
However I seem to have forgottent eh details and mistook again:
so much for jumbling up the factsIn January 1944, the guns that were to be used on the V3 project were fired for the first time in Germany at a test range. The velocity of firing was only 1000 metres a second - 50% too weak for a shell to hit London from Mimoyecques. As important, the shells that were fired were well below the size expected for an all-out attack on London:
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grumpy_Bastard
- Posts: 105
- Joined: 18 Oct 2006, 22:31
Im not really a big fan of the space exploration, its sort of the same issues I have with the USA's missile defence crap. I live in the 2nd largest city in this state, and if someone is trying to steal my car or breaking into my house, the police will not come. Im not trying to exagerate, but they will not come if you call 911 and report that someone is stealing your car, or breaking into your home. Vehicle prowlings arnt a priority for them, and they wont come to a house unless someone has already broken in. Its true that many inventions and findings have come from these space exploration missions, and im sure we all love our high-definition pornography coming from the satellites in orbit... but:
Myself and a few older friends are working at places like wal-mart, because none of us could otherwise afford health insurance. A good friend of my family had lost his whole house, due to a skiing accident (no health insurance). I cant even drive my car down some of the streets here, because I dont have enough ground clearance and suspension travel to drive without damaging my car, even on the freeways which are supposedly the most well maintained roads in this country. The paved street just a block down from me, my friends toyota had its strut-tower shoved right through the damn hood from a "bump" in the road, he was speeding of course... but the roads are more like a roller-coaster than a road. Public transportation like trams and increased bus coverage, is too expensive. Education here is a laugh in comparison to many european countries, and I might as well stop here.
I understand that cutting things like space exploration wont increase services like police and firefigthers nation wide, nor will it really be adding more money to education... but out of all priorities, I would assume things like health care and education would come before space exploration and missile defense. Knowing that a police officer can come when a burgaler is trying to steal my TV, rather than knowing we might have a man living on mars in 50+ years is a lot more comforting.
http://www.slackerastronomy.org//slacke ... x.php/NASA
"NASA's FY07 budget is $16.8 billion (the United States Department of Defense spent about $12.4 billion on military space activities in FY05). This compares to the European Space Agency's FY06 budget of around $4 billion, Russia's budget of around $1 billion and the Chinese budget of $1.3-$3 billion (estimated). NASA's budget is greater than that of the rest of the world's space programs combined."
How far would 16 billion a year go, toward education or health insurance? Im not sure, and maybe im being selfish, but I just dont see how its a priority.
You can try and argue that money going into other things has nothing to do with what ive already mentioned if you would like, but I just dont see it being worthwhile considering current problems here on earth, all around us living here.
Myself and a few older friends are working at places like wal-mart, because none of us could otherwise afford health insurance. A good friend of my family had lost his whole house, due to a skiing accident (no health insurance). I cant even drive my car down some of the streets here, because I dont have enough ground clearance and suspension travel to drive without damaging my car, even on the freeways which are supposedly the most well maintained roads in this country. The paved street just a block down from me, my friends toyota had its strut-tower shoved right through the damn hood from a "bump" in the road, he was speeding of course... but the roads are more like a roller-coaster than a road. Public transportation like trams and increased bus coverage, is too expensive. Education here is a laugh in comparison to many european countries, and I might as well stop here.
I understand that cutting things like space exploration wont increase services like police and firefigthers nation wide, nor will it really be adding more money to education... but out of all priorities, I would assume things like health care and education would come before space exploration and missile defense. Knowing that a police officer can come when a burgaler is trying to steal my TV, rather than knowing we might have a man living on mars in 50+ years is a lot more comforting.
http://www.slackerastronomy.org//slacke ... x.php/NASA
"NASA's FY07 budget is $16.8 billion (the United States Department of Defense spent about $12.4 billion on military space activities in FY05). This compares to the European Space Agency's FY06 budget of around $4 billion, Russia's budget of around $1 billion and the Chinese budget of $1.3-$3 billion (estimated). NASA's budget is greater than that of the rest of the world's space programs combined."
How far would 16 billion a year go, toward education or health insurance? Im not sure, and maybe im being selfish, but I just dont see how its a priority.
You can try and argue that money going into other things has nothing to do with what ive already mentioned if you would like, but I just dont see it being worthwhile considering current problems here on earth, all around us living here.
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SwiftSpear
- Classic Community Lead
- Posts: 7287
- Joined: 12 Aug 2005, 09:29
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DandyGnome
- Posts: 61
- Joined: 25 Jun 2007, 06:43
I have to agree with this. Although the space program is interesting and all there are plenty of more important things like education, promoting efficiency, promoting renewable energy sources, in some places police fire etc (in some places all the police do is drive around trying desperately through any means possible to fill their quotas), public transportation (we still don't have a bullet train in this country), promoting sustainable populations, etc etc etc. Of course there are also much less worthwhile things that we are also spending more money on like corruption and the military that really should be reduced. Oh well.
Getting to th moon and getting that heium isotope would pretty much cover most of the costs if they managed to regularly get a lot of it down to earth or even just a tonne a month.
Mars however, I agree, the US is in a bad enough state as it is they dont need to spend money on big rockets to reach mars untill its cheap enough for me or you to get into low orbit.
In the mean time, people in the US get away with a lot more stuff they shouldnt. For example your car. Here in the Uk those roads would have been resurfaced by now, and that car wouldnt pass its MOT and youd be breaking the law by driving it, your healthcare would be government funded, and your education wouldnt cost anything save travel costs,uniforms, and stationary sort of stuff for the first 18 years.
You pay a £110(iirc) TV license and can get 40 TV channels for free and 60 radio channels, all of a much higher quality than the american crap, and with adverts at every 15 or 30 minutes with points where you can tell the americans have an extra advert break but you dont. At 60 you'd get unlimited free use of buses, free tv licence, and money towards your water gas and power.
Should you loose your home somehow there're council houses to house you. If you do own your own home, the government offers several thousand pounds towards paying for solar panels and insulationa nd other energy savers. And should your water bills mount up, its illegal for the water board to cut off your water supply.
Ontop of all that government spending in law enforcement, education, and health care has risen every year for the last decade. They're even discussing having allowing kids free school dinners at summer time to help prevent obesity, and thats after a huge push for healthy food last year, whereas american cafeteria food is notoriously disgusting, here all children under 5 get free fruit.
Yet not once have I heard anyone say anything good about american domestic services.
Mars however, I agree, the US is in a bad enough state as it is they dont need to spend money on big rockets to reach mars untill its cheap enough for me or you to get into low orbit.
In the mean time, people in the US get away with a lot more stuff they shouldnt. For example your car. Here in the Uk those roads would have been resurfaced by now, and that car wouldnt pass its MOT and youd be breaking the law by driving it, your healthcare would be government funded, and your education wouldnt cost anything save travel costs,uniforms, and stationary sort of stuff for the first 18 years.
You pay a £110(iirc) TV license and can get 40 TV channels for free and 60 radio channels, all of a much higher quality than the american crap, and with adverts at every 15 or 30 minutes with points where you can tell the americans have an extra advert break but you dont. At 60 you'd get unlimited free use of buses, free tv licence, and money towards your water gas and power.
Should you loose your home somehow there're council houses to house you. If you do own your own home, the government offers several thousand pounds towards paying for solar panels and insulationa nd other energy savers. And should your water bills mount up, its illegal for the water board to cut off your water supply.
Ontop of all that government spending in law enforcement, education, and health care has risen every year for the last decade. They're even discussing having allowing kids free school dinners at summer time to help prevent obesity, and thats after a huge push for healthy food last year, whereas american cafeteria food is notoriously disgusting, here all children under 5 get free fruit.
Yet not once have I heard anyone say anything good about american domestic services.
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maverick256
- Posts: 115
- Joined: 21 Sep 2004, 19:41
What the US need to stop using, is the space shuttle. It's a good tech demonstrator, but seriously, that thing costs more per launch than the Saturn V rocket. And to Consider that the Saturn V's are single use non-recoverable systems. Ultimately, a space craft that has to bring all its fuel to get in orbit is going to be hugely inefficient. I think the hybrid systems could have quite a lot of potential in this area.
Actually Nasa wanted a system similair to those used by the private industry thats sprung up recently, by the military people high above, oblivious to the way things go demanded a large rocket to keep development costs down, not realizing it would make the project hudnreds of times more expensive in the longrun.
Well, in my experience cheap Chinese things tend to be a bit less reliable than expected, so I wouldn't use a cheap rocket made by them (unless it was tested extensively and found to really be good).
A hybrid launch system was designed for the old Soviet shuttle Buran, but it wasn't used. It was to be lifted up to some 15 km by a heavy transport plane Mriya and then launched using its own engines.
Unfortunately, the one and only flight of Buran was made using classic launch procedure (like that of US shuttles) and it even was unmanned.
It did land safely after that, though (AFAIK US shuttles still cannot land without pilots onboard).
A hybrid launch system was designed for the old Soviet shuttle Buran, but it wasn't used. It was to be lifted up to some 15 km by a heavy transport plane Mriya and then launched using its own engines.
Unfortunately, the one and only flight of Buran was made using classic launch procedure (like that of US shuttles) and it even was unmanned.
It did land safely after that, though (AFAIK US shuttles still cannot land without pilots onboard).
The Buran isn't so similar to the Shuttle as it seems to be. It's similar in appearance because of aerodynamics, that's all.
The rocket used to launch it is very different from the US design. Shuttles use their own engines for launch, that big "rocket" thing is essentially just a giant fuel tank that supplies fuel to Shuttle engines (so that engines return with the Shuttle). Two smaller "rockets" in Shuttle launch device are solid-fuel rockets.
Buran used a real Energiya rocket with its own engines for launch, that were lost on re-entry. No solid-fuel rockets there at all. Quite a different design, yet based on the same idea of reusable spacecraft.
The rocket used to launch it is very different from the US design. Shuttles use their own engines for launch, that big "rocket" thing is essentially just a giant fuel tank that supplies fuel to Shuttle engines (so that engines return with the Shuttle). Two smaller "rockets" in Shuttle launch device are solid-fuel rockets.
Buran used a real Energiya rocket with its own engines for launch, that were lost on re-entry. No solid-fuel rockets there at all. Quite a different design, yet based on the same idea of reusable spacecraft.