I think THEY told you all to say all this...
You're ALL with THEM...
Me against the world...
But there's always beer!
Posts by Kharkov
419 publicly visible posts • joined 16 Sep 2011
Climate denier bloggers sniff out new conspiracy
Elon Musk says he's planning a 'supersonic, electric hover jetplane'
Tuesday 4th September 2012 08:44 GMT
Elon Musk invest in Skylon? Let's hope...
Quote
I wish he would invest in Reaction Engines. The Skylon seems like something SpaceX could really use/develop.
Unquote
I wish he WOULD. They'll need up to 10 billion dollars over the next ten years. That said, REL will never co-operate with SpaceX (an American company) because if they did, ITARS would kick in, all the REL Skylon technology would become American & REL would have to lease their own technology back from SpaceX.
So he could buy shares and get dividends but that's about as far as it could go. REL is likely to licence construction to EADS (Airbus) or British Aerospace, keeping only the Frost Control technology & precoolers for themselves.
Tuesday 4th September 2012 00:52 GMT
Re: This is what the Republicans mean when they say millionaires are job creators
While the story of the self-made millionaire is a popular & oft-repeated one, the truth is, most of today's millionaires inherited their wealth.
As the saying goes, making a million out of nothing, that's hard. Making two million out of one million, that's inevitable.
When you make your first million, you're keenly aware of the people/systems/networks around you that enabled you to make that million so you're more likely to invest in those people/systems/networks etc. When you get handed your first million, you're less likely to make that investment and more likely to let it turn itself into two million while you jet around living the high life.
Tuesday 4th September 2012 00:45 GMT 
Reality - It's where we have to go, once in a while
Flying car? Doable, but not in the next ten years without a lot of money thrown at it and you'd still have big concerns about safety. A car going off the road at 40 to 60 mph is one thing but a car falling out of the sky at 100 to 160 mph? Even if the flying bit worked, the debate over control systems & safety would take years.
Electric car? Doable, (in fact, it's being done) but it won't replace regular cars until the price comes down, the battery life goes up and the recharge time gets down to 10 minutes or less for a daytime top-up.
An electric jet? I have no idea what that is. An electric propellor engine now...
A supersonic, electric jet that can do vertical takeoffs & landings? Yeah, we'll have those just after we get unicorns to ride.
China mutates plants ... IN SPAAAAAACE
NASA funds sexy, stealthy, sideways supersonic flying wing
Robot rover Curiosity sets out on first long Mars trip
UK: 'We're legally bound to arrest Mr Assange'
Friday 31st August 2012 00:45 GMT
A No-Fly List?
put him on a no fly list
I'm not sure but I don't think that'd work. The last time I came through Customs, some guy looked at my passport & waved me through. No scanning, fingerprinting or anything. If Julian dyes his hair & takes off his glasses, he's got a good chance of making it through an airport if he times it so the Customs guy is about 3/4's of the way through his shift.
Remember, Kim Philby's name was supposed to be on a piece of paper in Customs so he could be arrested if he ever returned to the country. Like that would have worked...
Low sunspot activity linked to rivers freezing: Mini Ice Age on way?
Wednesday 29th August 2012 08:36 GMT
Are we lucky or what?
The peoples, societies & industries of the world have been blasting out CO2 & other pollutants pretty much non-stop, particularly in the last 50 years or so. Behaviour pretty much guaranteed to send the world's average temperature up a few degrees with much greater variation in weather.
And Nature, strange & undeservedly benevolent (fingers crossed) as she is, gives us signficantly lower levels of energy from the sun to...
A: Balance things out exactly. Damn, we're lucky barstewards.
B: Mitigate the effects of our own pollution. Damn, we're lucky barstewards.
C: Freeze our brass monkeys off because we didn't pollute enough. Damn, we're unlucky barstewards who didn't pollute enough
RIP Neil Armstrong: The reluctant American hero
Wednesday 29th August 2012 00:30 GMT 
He left a camera for us...
When asked (and he's been asked this hundreds of times, I'd bet) if the Moon Landings were faked, he'd say 'No.'
When asked how he could be so certain, he never shouted or raged, he simply pointed out that he left a camera there.
And one day, people will go and get it...
RIP Neil, I hope we can all inspire humanity even half as much as you did.
Arctic ice shrinks to ‘smallest in satellite era’ - NASA
Tuesday 28th August 2012 07:35 GMT
The Arctic? Look a bit further south...
Arctic ice melting is something to watch, sure, but what about Greenland's ice cap? Let its ice warm a bit and slide off into the Atlantic & it's goodbye Gulfstream. England will become roughly equal to Northern Canada.
In China, in their Northern region, there's a city called Ha'erbin (Harbin). In winter, it gets down to -30 degrees or worse. And it's further south than the UK...
China could penetrate US with new huge missile
Monday 27th August 2012 01:36 GMT
Re: 21st century warfare
What can China do if the US decides not to pay? Fair question (the answer is 'not much') but it kind of misses the point. Not paying the Chinese will be seen (rightly) as a partial default on American Bonds & T-Bills.
Once that happens, watch the private sector - who are holding about 4 trillion dollars (this number will go up a lot in the next ten years or so) of American Debt - freak out, panic, run around like chickens with their heads cut off and then refuse to rollover their Bond/T-Bills, forcing the US to find up to 4 trillion dollars in a hurry.
Repercussions, repercussions...
Friday 24th August 2012 08:36 GMT
Re: 21st century warfare
To bring the US to its knees, all the Chinese have to do is wait. The US is 16 trillion dollars in debt, by 2016 - at current rates - it'll be 21 trillion dollars in debt (more than a trillion dollars a year) and by 2020, it'll be 26 trillion dollars in debt.
And the interest repayments will be a bitch...
Neil Armstrong dies aged 82
Curiosity's laser turns Mars rocks to 'glowing plasma'
Monday 20th August 2012 05:16 GMT 
Yep, NASA's getting sexy, alright.
In the beginning, NASA said, "Let's put mold in a petri dish, send it into orbit, bring it back and look at it."
And the reaction was, "YAWN"
Now there's a big laser, "Hooray!"
Next, it'll be a Playboy Centerfold. Bending over a rock, brushing with a feather duster, accidentally losing her knickers...
NASA Science Missions, now Pay-Per-View...
NASA picks the target for Curiosity's first road trip
NASA hands out $millions to wannabe spaceship builders
Friday 17th August 2012 03:00 GMT
NASA - The Future
NASA has a grand history and has acheived many things.
NASA's current activities, aside from ISS and ISS-related missions, are, in my opinion, primarily Curiosity (of course), the upcoming MAVEN Mars orbiter, the Mercury probe MESSENGER, Casini & Juno and the still-enroute New Horizons probe to Pluto, arriving in 2015.
Those'll keep NASA busy for a while but increasingly, to me, it seems like it's future activities/missions will be sharply reduced as SLS (which I think will be cancelled prior to it ever flying) gobbles down every last NASA dollar, leaving nothing for science & exploration.
Note that ISS is due to be scrapped by 2020 but there's nary a sign of a replacement station.
There's some lean years coming...
Saturday 4th August 2012 04:29 GMT
Re: $440 Million
Ah, if only...
If it WERE true though, there's supposed to be between 21 TRILLION dollars & 35 TRILLION dollars held off-shore by the 1%.
Just think, you could have one hell of a space program AND schools AND healthcare AND conventional infrastructure (roads, bridges & stuff) AND hi-tech infrastructure (High-speed internet).
I'm just saying...
Hypersonic Waverider scramjet in epic wipeout
Friday 17th August 2012 02:45 GMT
Re: Nice! - @Aaron Em
I wouldn't say that we've lost the capability exactly but the companies that get the headlines and so come to mind in discussions like this spend most of their time sucking on the government teat and are, IMHO, horribly inefficient.
Case in Point: The US Air Force has budgeted 1.7 Billion dollars in FY2012 for 4 satellite launches (with ULA). That works out at 435 million dollars per launch. SpaceX (not closely associated with the US Government - yes, I know they're taking contracts from NASA) will do a launch for 60 million dollars - 7 TIMES LESS.
Make a business plan showing that people can make a profit going NY-London Heathrow in less than 2 hours (again) and the Private Sector (that part of it not addicted to Government handouts - it's not socialism (evil) if it's a corporation taking money) will come up with a design and construction blueprints.
British boffin builds cool maser after argument with wife
Friday 17th August 2012 02:19 GMT 
Applications?
There's a lot of jokes about death rays and the like but seriously, what are the applications for masers?
More accurate rangefinders? Optical scanners? Higher resolution spectographs?
The key to significantly more information-dense radio signals?
Or is it weapons after all? Something 747-sized to shoot down missiles? F-15-sized to shoot down directly incoming small missiles (think AMRAAM-type) and the (many) aircraft that launched them at ranges of up to 50 kilometres? Tank-sized to shoot down incoming aircraft/missiles/artillery shells? Infantry-weapon-sized to shoot, with great lethality, from ranges of 10 metres to 1 kilometre?
UK.gov to clear way for Britain's first SPACEPORT
Saturday 14th July 2012 12:18 GMT
Re: Britain: Good place to build, bad place to launch from.
What? Campbeltown Airport (formerly RAF Macrihanish)?
Runway length 1.75Km - should be 5km - on a Scottish island - High Northern Latitudes. Suitable only for Polar/Sun-Synchronus orbits, lousy place for getting stuff to GTO.
Probably not the best choice.
Although the aurora would be cool...
Thursday 12th July 2012 01:09 GMT 
Britain: Good place to build, bad place to launch from.
Runway? 5KM (not 15KM) needed to give enough space to abort takeoff while just below takeoff speed.
Source: Mark Hempsell - 1st Space Show Interview.
Britain? Really in the wrong place for space launches, except polar/sun-synchronous. Big issues with noise etc.
Source: Everyone.
Build it? The UK is fine for this since it can take off (with a shorter run) with just enough fuel to ferry itself to... basically wherever.
Source: Mark Hempsell - 1st Space Show Interview.
Best place to launch from? Ascension Island will be good presuming people don't mind giving up a HUGE chunk of their island to do it. (Won't happen). Kenya would be good. You could build a big runway near the coast (a couple of degrees south of the equator) as long as you don't mind being quite near Somalia. (Bit iffy). Brazil would work nicely - it shouldn't be too hard to find 15 square kilometres (5km x 3km) of flat(tish) land on or near their east coast.
Source: Me, just me.
Asteroid miners to strap 'scopes to new Virgin Galactic rocket
Friday 13th July 2012 01:10 GMT
Re: The most useful thing you could do...
Check out (Asimov's?) short story The Martian Way. A small group of ships (3, I think) head of to Saturn's rings (ice chunks, remember?), find a nice big chunk of ice (about a mile across, I seem to remember) and fly it back to Mars, using a small percentage of the ice in the chunk as fuel for a fast flight.
Today, of course, I don't think you'll find chunks in that size but you could combine smaller bits to make a bigger one to be sent to Mars, remembering to have it go through the atmosphere & break up, which is better than smashing it into the surface of Mars. You could do something similar with comets, too.
50 miles across would be a bit big though.
Thursday 12th July 2012 14:05 GMT
Re: Valuable stuff?
Despite his two thumbs down, Gorand2 is right.
10 million dollars for 225Kg? Do the math!
SpaceX is offering a secondary payload (light and/or small stuff) for very reasonable prices and, truth be told, I think you'd get your payload up there a lot sooner than waiting for Virgin.
Quite a few pre-sold Sub-Orbital flights bought & paid for but nary a one has taken place and probably won't this year...
Hubble finds fifth moon orbiting Pluto
US federal boffins insist that mermaids DON'T exist
Wednesday 4th July 2012 06:44 GMT 
What? They're saying mermaids aren't real?
Nonsense! Why, back in the late 80's, when I was a paladin operating out of Waterdeep on Toril with my wizard & cleric pals, my key informant on pirate activities was a beautiful red-haired mermaid!
It was a long time ago now but I remember it so it must be true...
First lady taikonaut and pals plunge into the dirt after space mating
Friday 29th June 2012 11:21 GMT
Next?
First of all, kudos to China! From the 1st Russan man in space (1961) to the first single-module space station (1976 I think) a 15-year trek, the Chinese have done it 2003 to 2011, in half the time.
2014 sees Tiangong-2 with Tiangong-3 to follow to make the first Chinese multi-module space station.
And there's a larger station planned for 2020...
Not to mention more moon probes coming.
NASA counts down to nuclear tank invasion of Mars
Wednesday 27th June 2012 12:28 GMT
Re: "any sign that the planet is, was or could be supporting life"
Remember what they said in the 50's (and more recently by that good fellow Monty Burns), "Radiation gives you a healthy glow!"
So it'll be easy for us to find the Martians in about 20 to 30 years...
Let's hope the Martians are forgiving about the other bit (being as impotent as a Nevada Boxing Commisioner)
Chinese 'nauts couple successfully without help of machines
Tuesday 26th June 2012 01:54 GMT
Yes, let's all diss the Chinese...
First they ignore you.
Then they laugh at you.
And then you win.
Quite a lot of El Reg readers seem to be at No. 2 but you can bet the Chinese have their eyes fixed on No. 3.
ISS is slated to decommision around 2020. There is no, and likely there will be no, political will to set up a replacement. People talk about Bigelow and his inflatable modules but I haven't seen or heard of any announcements from Bigelow or anyone else saying that, "Construction will begin in..." or, "The first launch will be on..."
So, barring changes and developments, the only space station in orbit in 2021 will be a Chinese one. I'd call that success.
America's X-37B top-secret spaceplane returns to Earth
Tuesday 19th June 2012 07:33 GMT
Re: Used to be a NASA project
Better value than the shuttle? Certainly not!
It launches on a very expensive ULA rocket which is non-reusable.
While it can do orbital science, test new materials & develop data to be used in later versions of the X-37, it is a more complicated way of doing those things which usually means more expensive.
Add in the fact that a US company is LESS likely to try to develop an SSTO because they MAY find, halfway, that they have infringed on research and/or materials used by the classified X-37 program and you have an active impediment to developing a cheaper, better SSTO vehicle.
Can you launch a satellite with it? Yes, but only in a more complicated & expensive way.
Can you keep the payload secret? Yes, but there are cheaper, simpler ways of doing it.
Is it a waste of money? Yes.
China a lover, not a fighter ... IN SPAAAAAACE
Friday 8th June 2012 13:26 GMT
UKSA is not in a position to do more than wave and nod. It's small and barely funded.
Getting involved with the Chinese will p*ss the Americans off something chronic so forget about that.
And licensing Bigelow Tech? Check out the various treaties that stop the US from sending its technology abroad.
Friday 8th June 2012 08:38 GMT 
Aren't they putting the cart before the horse?
Either they're looking for free funding from other countries (not likely) or they're looking for non-Chinese to use their station (probably for a fee).
Except...
Aside from the cost of building your station, the major cost (and choke point, logistically speaking) is getting people to and from the thing, ideally for a low price. It's not public domain AFAIK but I doubt that China can send people up for low, low prices.
US military gives NASA two better-than-Hubble telescopes
Tuesday 5th June 2012 23:13 GMT
JWST has eaten all the money?
JWST has gone way over-budget, true.
But it's eaten all the money? SLS is planned to suck down 10 BILLION dollars prior to its first scheduled launch in December 2017. MPCV (Orion) is planned to suck down another 6 BILLION dollars over the same time-frame.
Dropping the likely-to-be-cancelled-before-it-ever-flies (and stunningly expensive) SLS will free up more than enough money to equip, run and launch both satellites. It's worth noting how ridiculously overfunded the US defence/security budget is while NASA has to rub along with less than the Defence Department air-conditioning budget.
SpaceX signs deal to put its giant rocket to good use
Thursday 31st May 2012 01:37 GMT 
Is it the rocket that's important? Or is it the Business Model?
Kudos to SpaceX on getting Dragon to ISS & I'm sure they'll get it back down again safely.
Hats off for coming up with the Falcon Heavy too. People say that there isn't a market for a heavy-lifter, overlooking the fact that, up until mid-2013, there hasn't been a heavy lifter anyway. Build it and they will come and all that.
But where SpaceX REALLY deserves praise is on its ability to lower the cost of Access-To-LEO. Seriously, nine tonnes of cargo to ISS or up to nine tonnes of satellite(s) for only 60 million dollars? Five or more astronauts delivered to ISS for 140 million dollars? Can anyone in the world compete with that? Government subsidies handed out to the likes of ULA, China, Russia, Japan & India don't count.
If SpaceX can do that consistently and reliably then ULA can kiss its business model goodbye. The Ariane rockets will start to look very outdated and expensive. Resource/Funding competitors in China & Russia will take a long, hard look at their cost/return-on-investment figures.
And if SpaceX can make the Falcon rocket even partially reusable?
This is what the beginning of a space revolution looks like.
And Skylon (due to enter service around 2021) hasn't even arrived yet...
Soyuz hooks up with Space Station, delivers new 'nauts
Let’s send 3D printers TO THE MOON
Wednesday 9th May 2012 08:29 GMT
Good thinking, terrible application
Sending stuff to pave the way and set up for people before they arrive? Great.
Do we currently have the technology? Nope.
3D printers? Well, if people want stuff like freaky shoes... (clear heels - Chris Rock shout out!) but building homes, digging caves, setting up infrastructure? Give it another 20 years, I'm afraid.
SpaceX test-fires Falcon 9 rocket as Dragon sleeps
Billionaire astro mining venture long on hype and timescale
Thursday 26th April 2012 00:35 GMT
Telescopes in space? Cool!
A small (nine-inch) telescope launched as a secondary payload on an Atlas V (cheaper to do Falcon but whatever) which will, from LEO, look for asteroids in the region between Earth & the sun.
Well, first steps and all but if you want to look for rocks in that zone, surely it'd be better to fire off a telescope (or two) and send them above (and below, if you're doing two) the plane of the system so they can look without having their search impeded by the glare of the sun.
Wednesday 25th April 2012 06:19 GMT
Don't look at all the gold!
Remember that the actual words spoken by these guys talk about WATER as the first thing to get. Water gets you the fuel you need for LOTS of stuff going out of Earth-zone.
Remember, they're talking about bringing metallic asteroids back to... lunar orbit, not Earth's.
The first smelter/refinery to go up to orbit (whenever that is) may well have a lot of stuff to work on...
Google founders, James Cameron, go asteroid mining
Tuesday 24th April 2012 06:15 GMT
Getting rid of the blue people?
Well I heard they've got lean WMD's. Actually it might have been 'green cheese' but let's take no chances! Fire up Dick Cheney & Karl Rove! Let's take the fight to...
who are we fighing again?
Oh, right the roo people - BLUE people, I mean.
Get them over there before...
Oh, who am I kidding? There's no need to fire Americans up, it's a war, they love that kind of stuff. At least the important (Yearly income >1 million) people do...
Monday 23rd April 2012 13:26 GMT
It's unlikely but maybe the Private Sector could get there first...
Assuming they're going to try and make money at this, then their first step is to get some ice and set a fuel manufacturing system. Electricity (from solar energy) plus melted ice (don't forget the impurities) and you've got H2 & Oxygen.
You'd need special arrangements for that and you'd probably have to go get a nice ice asteroid (say that three times!) that wasn't too big and bring it back to LEO/GEO.
And after that, they'd need an OTV and then the rest of the solar system is, in technical terms, very easy to get to, as long as you're not in a hurry to get there.
Monday 23rd April 2012 04:39 GMT
Re: The resource is water
Basically, Mikel is right, I say. You need to lower the cost of access to orbit and, more crucially, the cost of orbit-to-the-ground by a huge margin before mining the asteroids becomes profitable.
You need very high (unrealisticaly high) levels of purity (above 4% at the very minimum) in sufficient quantities before bringing rocks, or bits of rocks, back to Earth AND MAKING A PROFIT.
But once you've got your first refinery/smelter/factory going, then building/fueling the (rapid) expansion of humanity across the Solar System becomes eminently possible.
We'll have to wait until tomorrow before we see if they are talking about propellent depots or whether they're going to try and send a miner off to a rock somewhere...
POWERFUL solar flare belched at Mars rover Curiosity
Wednesday 18th April 2012 02:46 GMT 
What nobody realises is...
Curiosity was sent by X-COM (look it up) as our first wave of assault on the evil Sectoids, Ethereals & Mutons at Cydonia Base.
Obviously they've tried to intercept it half-way and it's been forced to whip out its laser cannon (seriously, it's got a big-ass laser) and blast away.
There IS no solar flare, that's just the cover-up by the X-COM Funding Council so nobody notices the increased radiation out there (from blowing up a Muton battleship or two).
Next thing out is... The Avenger(s)!
Sign me up for the squad!
SpaceX Dragon gets green-light for launch to Space Station
Third European supply podule blasts off en route to space station
Thursday 5th April 2012 02:49 GMT
Re: You just keep making it up.
Yes, facts are so inconvenient...
Like the fact that the Upper Stage (the one with three J-2X engines) you're referring to isn't due to be used for the first flight...
Or even be in existence...
And it won't fly, or even exist, for the second... or the third... or fourth...
Or at all until the 2030's...
When the 130-tonne-payload version flies...
But yes, it'll be heading off to Deep Space any time now...
Because the huge costs and being only SLIGHTLY better than the private sector don't matter at all...
Biting the hand that feeds IT
