Comments by "Helium Road" (@RCAvhstape) on "Scott Manley" channel.

  1. It'll be a sad day when the last Atlas rocket flies, that program is well over 60 years old at this point, been passed through multiple companies, and many of the people who worked on it have passed. Centaur will live on, but Centaur didn't start off as an exclusively Atlas-related program, the two programs just wound up being a good match for each other and by the time the Atlas V was introduced they were tied at the hip. Original balloon-tank Atlas was the closed thing we ever had to SSTO, as well. Wasn't great as a weapon, but is a great launch vehicle. Besides, there aren't many rocket names as badass as "Atlas".
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  2.  @neithere  But that was the best part: Clooney gets killed off the film.
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  3.  @benjaminhanke79  Redesigning the systems when you have something that works perfectly well is riskier than making changes just so everything looks neater. As @Owen Smith says, the movie dramatized the procedure a bit, but Apollo 13 proved it worked under adverse conditions, and that real life testing is worth a lot. Especially since the program was already facing cancelation and getting the last few expeditions to the moon depended on them staying on schedule.
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  4.  starshipeleven  No need to get personal. But I'm sure the Rockwell engineers had a clue.
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  5. That can be computed easily by multiplying the mass of the spacecraft with the acceleration created by the drive. Would have to look it up, but it would vary based on which version you were talking about. The smallest design was a 10-meter diameter pusher plate vehicle designed to be lofted on a Saturn V class launcher and used for Mars missions; the largest was the size of a small city that was designed as an interstellar generation ship firing fusion bombs out the tail. That would undoubtedly be the most powerful thruster ever built, insane mega-engineering at it's finest.
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  6. While I congratulate SpaceX for getting so afar ahead they've almost cornered the market for launch vehicles, I hope ULA and others get in gear soon. You never want to be in a position where you rely on only one launch vehicle. The Challenger accident was how we learned that the hard way. If something goes wrong and Falcon 9 gets grounded for some time the US, and for that matter, many non-US customers, will be in a jam.
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  7. Those suits...just weird. For starters they look like costumes from a cheap sci fi movie more than functional suits, made out of what looks like oven mitt materiel, paintball helmets, and hunting boots. But what really makes them look odd is the lack of visible external connections and other stuff. Other suits have always had connections on the front for hoses and comms, as well as visible fittings made of shiny metal. I think that's what makes these look like costumes more than anything else.
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  8. But I am also 80% water, which makes it very toxic.
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  9. He's wearing a hoodie in this vid, indicating that it's cool in Scotland. I'll take that any day over 95degF and super humid with mosquito bites all over my body, which is every summer where I live.
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  10. "Boeing, Fueled by Our People"
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  11.  @Gregnier  Sounds like the B-70 Valkyrie Mach 3 bomber.
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  12. Not to be confused with the Chevrolet Chevette, sometimes known as the "Shove-it".
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  13. The simplest thing would be to build a replacement for Hubble.
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  14.  @fairwinds610  Yes, Bolo! Loved those books.
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  15. A lot of cargo planes use a similar scheme and it works quite well for them, including the C-5 and the cargo version of the Boeing 747.
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  16.  @johnrielley7756  I loved that show. I remember they developed that magic rocket fuel called "monohydrazine" which had huge specific impulse and allowed all the single stage to orbit adventures on the show.
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  17.  @awilliams1701  The two poor bastards who were mangled by the transporter died horrible deaths in TMP.
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  18.  @cplpetergriffin1583  Don't argue with him, let the pinhead think he's got it all figured out if that's what makes him happy.
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  19. Well this explains why the SRBs are so stylish.
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  20.  @Splattle101  The Nike family ABM warheads were supposedly designed to kill inbound warheads through "neutron heating". In vacuum there is no air to carry the blast effect of a nuclear explosion so you need radiation effects to do the damage. The idea was to bombard the enemy warhead with neutrons at close range and cause it to undergo fissions, thus rendering it useless. Even the fairly high yield ABM warheads relied on radiation effects due to lack of air as a medium. I read that in one source, and I'm no expert, but it makes sense to me anyway.
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  21.  @esquilax5563  No it's not hard. It's defined by the spacecraft body. The space shuttle's left wing is the port side, for example, no matter whether it's upside down or not. Airplanes can fly upside down but it doesn't change the meaning of the lights.
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  22. Don't give 2020 any ideas...
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  23. NASA will defraud the taxpayers. Research the SLS fiasco as well as the JWST. Like pouring money down a toilet.
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  24.  @paulhaynes8045  Racism is protected speech.
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  25. The surrealist artist would say, "Ce n'est pas un verre." The Treachery of T-shirt Images.
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  26.  @Graham-ce2yk  Great movie. Poor mission planning.
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  27. 10:20 Gotta love how even in the era of modern HD video China's rocket launches still manage to look like Cold War Soviet rocket films.
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  28. They can't dispose of it, period, they ran it out of propellant. There is nothing anyone can do about it.
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  29.  @davidb6576  So then, how does that make you feel?
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  30.  @Ccs4646  You can fly cheap or you can fly safe. Atlas doesn't blow up. Falcon does.
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  31.  tommy aronson  "Boomers" seriously?
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  32. Lots of film and TV shows have stock NASA footage.
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  33. AT-AT's that will operate on Mars. Imagine how cool that would look.
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  34. As if the whole Pluto controversy couldn't any dumber, the seemingly minor semantic change of classification prompts a huge shift in coordinate system, upsetting all mapping work to that point, because common sense isn'tcommn. SMH.
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  35.  @EFCasual  Well, you have high standards for your dictators.
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  36.  @patreekotime4578  No, the warning comes later in the story.
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  37. I love these rocket history vids!
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  38. It would be beneficial for NASA to partner with the UK to develop the Skylon tech as long as it's actually viable. We've heard about that project for years now, time to get it moving.
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  39.  @Astronist  How would US investment in Skylon not be helpful? It's not like the UK government is dumping piles of money on them.
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  40.  @Astronist  I was thinking about the Harrier, and how US Marine Corps interest in it kept it going for another generation or two.
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  41. 18:37 Mike Collins' Omega Speedmaster watch. Buzz wore his on the outside of his spacesuit, visible in photos. Neil's watch was strapped to the LEM control panel to act as a backup for a failed cockpit clock. Sadly, Buzz's watch went missing after the mission, likely stolen during shipping back to Houston.
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  42. The APAS docking system used by both USA and Russia was developed for the Apollo - Soyuz Test Program which flew in 1975.
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  43. STS gets dumped on a lot, but had they stuck with it and developed some of these various upgrades and spin-offs, I think the whole sidestacked/reusable SSME system would've proved very versatile. Even as it flew, the straight up STS configuration managed well over a hundred missions and accomplished a lot of stuff. There certainly was nothing like the Space Shuttle before, so considering everything they did was pretty much the very first time ever, it's not really fair to hate on it so much. As for Wayne Hale complaining about the abort options on the stretch ET, there are ways to engineer around that.
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  44. Years ago I at Cherry Point Marine Corps Air Station and was on the running trail off the end of the gigantic runway there. A loaded C-5 was all the way at the end of the threshold taking off away from me, so the business end of the engines were pointing right at me. That was awesome. That sound, and the fact that the heavy jet took its time moving away.
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  45. Youtube's little propaganda banner: "Robust safeguards help ensure the integrity of elections and results." lol
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  46. It takes them a couple of days to separate from each other after they are deployed, so you have a few opportunities to spot the line of them. Mainly, when the satellites are in sunlight and you are in the dark, near sunrise or sunset. There is at least one website that tells you when and where to look to see them, I forget the name.
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  47. All you need is an awkward family birthday wish to Frank Poole on that tablet screen.
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  48.  @jwenting  Tru dat
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  49. It's too bad the booster won't live, but then again, which rocket does?
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  50. Sounds interesting. Can you tell us more about this? Is there a picture somewhere?
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