NASA Armstrong is the premier test facility for everything supersonic. If a flying vehicle needs to go to space it earns its wings here before it goes up there. X1, X2, X-15, Blackbird, Lifting Bodies, Shuttle, HyperX, and now Dreamchaser all have earned their wings here at Edwards and NASA Armstrong.
oddly enuf some things about flight haven't changed one bit since the "Wrong Bro's" first left the ground, LIFT , & even that theory is up in the air so to speak-)
Still my opinion is that concept that allows to enter sub orbital and orbital flight like space shuttle or x-43 are erroneous. Because you need 2 engine platforms for launching 1 vehicle. scramjet engine is useless too because you need to gain supersonic speeds to start it. Rocket engines and rockets itself have a huge mass of fuel and payload are less than 15-20 percent of the total weight. To gain clean acces to space i think best concept is air to space vehicle with engines on a new principles. Only when space crafts will be able to take off from landing pad with no external boosters or special vehicles fly through troposphere, stratosphere etc. And deorbit, and safely land. and I think that we already have the required amount of technology for the implementation of this principle of flight into space.
This is good but right now we need new technologies. Where is progress? When 20th century started we invented flight, and now 21th century, we invented nothing. Moon program and flight to mars are just financial speculation and the write-off of money, because we dont have space ships and platforms to perfom such a mission. And All that demonstrates Lockheed and Boeing complete crap that does not allow you to perform such tasks.We need a breakthrough quality improvement rather than on 5-10% technology of the 20th century.
Well not exactly. First of all even if gov WILL fund alpha centaury flight, we cant fly there because of many things. We cant fly even to mars, because last data shows that human brain degrades very quick in outer space because of radiation and cosmic rays. So if astronauts fly 1.5 years to mars at the point of landing they will be imbeciles. We need a solution in radiation protection, engines, astronavigation, space medicine etc. Science is so young. Money not the issue here. But they could boost science, but you still need a genius who will do the job.
I forgot to tell, US Gov invest tons of money into the science. For example NASA`s budget is 17 billion of dollars per year, and roscosmos has only 2.7 billion of dollars. In fact Canadian Space Agency has only 350 million of dollars budget per year. For me mistury is why with all that bunch of money they still cant make any progress.
Comparing our(us) space budget to other nations with space programs either in its infancy or geared only toward the occasional satellite launch...is not a relative comparison The scale and breadth of NASA work is in orders of magnitude larger than its closest rival i.e Russia. They were neck and neck till the end of the cold war...now the money isn't there to sustain that level of activity... I say that to say this...To understand how much the NASA budget has been slashed and starved, you have to conduct a time-series analysis of their budget over-time i.e. comparing NASA during the glory days to its poor cousin of today. You also, need to split the budget into 1/ R&D innovation: Moonshot projects, new concepts etc like Google ATAP type stuff 2/ R&D continuous improvement: These are new ideas to improve existing functions and requirements. Improvements along the 7 waste dimensions described in Lean manufacturing i.e. immediate benefit realisation (less fuel etc) 3/ Operations, Maintenance and Repair: Keeping things in the pipeline working You will then see that a large chunk goes to 3, while 1 has been slashed heavily compared to golden era and 2 has been squeezed forcing prioritization of 'moderate-to-high benefit low cost projects and eliminating virtually all ''high benefit but high cost' projects. hence why you are seeing joint co-operation projects with companies like space-x across activities in 1,2,3 that are part of the current NASA budget. In an effort to cut existing costs further.... You are also seeing some of the high benefit-high cost project opportunities across 1 and 2 being bid out to private firms in the form of competitions. Hoever, this means only those projects that could be commercialised are tested... as no private company is entering a competition and spending millions if not billions if there's zero profit potential or ifif benefit realisation is at a time horizon investors find unacceptable.. / 25 year wait to break-even, / consumer adoption not guaranteed at volumes for desired ROI / threat of alternatives possible in that time-frame (china, russia). Or substitute is developed by a competitor benefiting to bypass any patent protection you had but using your concepts without the r&D expense i.e. Marconi stealing Tesla's ideas One thing has never changed, if there's a military application the money will flow in to NASA. Moon-race was so well funded not cause of our love for space travel, but our love for ICBM delivery system. Switch out the space pod for a warhead, change guidance system programming....and make Stalin and Kruschev sh88 their pants
Wonderful work. To someone like me, the Armstrong Flight Research Center is probably the most interesting place on Earth. Fascinating work!
NASA Armstrong is the premier test facility for everything supersonic. If a flying vehicle needs to go to space it earns its wings here before it goes up there. X1, X2, X-15, Blackbird, Lifting Bodies, Shuttle, HyperX, and now Dreamchaser all have earned their wings here at Edwards and NASA Armstrong.
NASA = The Right Stuff
oddly enuf some things about flight haven't changed one bit since the "Wrong Bro's" first left the ground, LIFT , & even that theory is up in the air so to speak-)
Still my opinion is that concept that allows to enter sub orbital and orbital flight like space shuttle or x-43 are erroneous. Because you need 2 engine platforms for launching 1 vehicle. scramjet engine is useless too because you need to gain supersonic speeds to start it. Rocket engines and rockets itself have a huge mass of fuel and payload are less than 15-20 percent of the total weight. To gain clean acces to space i think best concept is air to space vehicle with engines on a new principles. Only when space crafts will be able to take off from landing pad with no external boosters or special vehicles fly through troposphere, stratosphere etc. And deorbit, and safely land. and I think that we already have the required amount of technology for the implementation of this principle of flight into space.
This is good but right now we need new technologies. Where is progress? When 20th century started we invented flight, and now 21th century, we invented nothing. Moon program and flight to mars are just financial speculation and the write-off of money, because we dont have space ships and platforms to perfom such a mission. And All that demonstrates Lockheed and Boeing complete crap that does not allow you to perform such tasks.We need a breakthrough quality improvement rather than on 5-10% technology of the 20th century.
Well not exactly. First of all even if gov WILL fund alpha centaury flight, we cant fly there because of many things. We cant fly even to mars, because last data shows that human brain degrades very quick in outer space because of radiation and cosmic rays. So if astronauts fly 1.5 years to mars at the point of landing they will be imbeciles. We need a solution in radiation protection, engines, astronavigation, space medicine etc. Science is so young. Money not the issue here. But they could boost science, but you still need a genius who will do the job.
I forgot to tell, US Gov invest tons of money into the science. For example NASA`s budget is 17 billion of dollars per year, and roscosmos has only 2.7 billion of dollars. In fact Canadian Space Agency has only 350 million of dollars budget per year. For me mistury is why with all that bunch of money they still cant make any progress.
Comparing our(us) space budget to other nations with space programs either in its infancy or geared only toward the occasional satellite launch...is not a relative comparison
The scale and breadth of NASA work is in orders of magnitude larger than its closest rival i.e Russia. They were neck and neck till the end of the cold war...now the money isn't there to sustain that level of activity...
I say that to say this...To understand how much the NASA budget has been slashed and starved, you have to conduct a time-series analysis of their budget over-time i.e. comparing NASA during the glory days to its poor cousin of today.
You also, need to split the budget into
1/ R&D innovation: Moonshot projects, new concepts etc like Google ATAP type stuff
2/ R&D continuous improvement: These are new ideas to improve existing functions and requirements. Improvements along the 7 waste dimensions described in Lean manufacturing i.e. immediate benefit realisation (less fuel etc)
3/ Operations, Maintenance and Repair: Keeping things in the pipeline working
You will then see that a large chunk goes to 3, while 1 has been slashed heavily compared to golden era and 2 has been squeezed forcing prioritization of 'moderate-to-high benefit low cost projects and eliminating virtually all ''high benefit but high cost' projects.
hence why you are seeing joint co-operation projects with companies like space-x across activities in 1,2,3 that are part of the current NASA budget. In an effort to cut existing costs further....
You are also seeing some of the high benefit-high cost project opportunities across 1 and 2 being bid out to private firms in the form of competitions. Hoever, this means only those projects that could be commercialised are tested...
as no private company is entering a competition and spending millions if not billions if there's zero profit potential or ifif benefit realisation is at a time horizon investors find unacceptable..
/ 25 year wait to break-even,
/ consumer adoption not guaranteed at volumes for desired ROI
/ threat of alternatives possible in that time-frame (china, russia). Or substitute is developed by a competitor benefiting to bypass any patent protection you had but using your concepts without the r&D expense i.e. Marconi stealing Tesla's ideas
One thing has never changed, if there's a military application the money will flow in to NASA. Moon-race was so well funded not cause of our love for space travel, but our love for ICBM delivery system. Switch out the space pod for a warhead, change guidance system programming....and make Stalin and Kruschev sh88 their pants