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

  1. Robert Heinlein wrote a classic sci fi story about swamps and plantations on a colonized Venus. It's called Logic of Empire and it's about a guy who gets drunk and accidentally signs up as an indentured servant to a colony company, who ships him to Venus and puts him to work in miserable circumstances. Obviously written before the facts of Venus were known, but a great story. It's in the book Green Hills of Earth IIRC.
    3
  2.  @peterebel7899  That's not what I wrote at all, if you can't handle basic reading comprehension why bother even posting.
    3
  3. The mentioning of Bessel Functions suddenly gave me a flashback to my darkest college days...
    3
  4. I was partial to Gowron myself.
    3
  5. Wish away the stupid coronavirus.
    3
  6. Carry 20+ tons of up mass along with 7 crew and then return 7+ people to a soft runway landing along with another huge payload? Not really. Space Shuttle was expensive and dangerous, but it was way more capable than anything else.
    3
  7. They were trying to build a rocket without Von Braun's help, so they only half knew what they were doing.
    3
  8.  @absalomdraconis  True, it failed at its goals of safety and cost effectiveness. But it was still a technical marvel and was truly an awesome thing to see in action. I'd say it's not bad for a first-ever spaceplane. Hopefully the data from it will be useful in the future. X-37 is likely already benefitting from it.
    3
  9.  @cassgraham7058  RL-10 is also only ood for upper stage use.
    3
  10. "24 million Isaac Newtons" sounds like a Rick and Morty episode lol
    3
  11. The footage of those reentry vehicles coming in always reminds me of Atari Missile Command. Which is a little nostalgic and a little nightmarish at the same time.
    3
  12.  @Shindiggity Who pissed in your Wheaties this morning?
    3
  13.  @peteranderson037  Who hurt you?
    3
  14. 14:18 "Mynocks, chewing on the power cables."
    3
  15. It's a good design, but it's still built by potato-drinkers like the guy who drilled a hole through one a couple of years back.
    3
  16. "If you find a missile like this, please don't try firing it, it will probably explode in your face." Got it, thanks. I'll remember that next time I'm wandering around in the woods or digging through my mom's garage. ;-)
    3
  17.  @jimsmith7212  Of course, banana is also a unit of radiation, too, bananas do it all!
    3
  18.  @invadervim9037  No, he used a sextant.
    3
  19. In the novel Red Mars they used an airship. The author is pretty hard sci fi, but I still question it.
    3
  20.  @headcrab4090  Obviously it's meant for overland travel, not tunnels.
    3
  21. @ So maybe if the government pays for more woke Sesame Street in Iraq the rockets will work better? Makes sense, I guess.
    3
  22. Cruise may get to space and even hang around astronauts, but that doesn't mean the movie will be in any way accurate. Seen it too many times before where they ignore the technical advisors and make films with garbage physics anyway.
    3
  23. Silver boosters? Because they look awesome. See the Atlas IIAS for an example.
    3
  24.  @bobroberts2371  Wow, I think I remember that cover. I used to subscribe to that magazine.
    3
  25. A side note to Iridium is that the first collision between two satellites was between an Iridium vehicle and an old Russian satellite in 2009.
    3
  26. New Glenn's plan: it's a bold strategy, Cotton.
    3
  27. Alliteration always amazes and arouses all aviators.
    3
  28. In the Bugs Bunny cartoon, the tortoise wins by tricking the hare into getting himself arrested and taken to jail. This would be the equivalent of Jeff using lawfare tactics against Elon lol.
    3
  29. Skow clap, sir.
    3
  30.  @somedude4805  Nope. Figured you were referring to 2001: A Space Odyssey. When it comes to space sims I'm an old Orbiter guy.
    3
  31.  @tybofborg  "Did you say explode? I don't want to explode."
    3
  32. We need that giant wheel station from 2001: A Space Odyssey, along with the nuclear-powered moon shuttle that gets you to Tyco Station.
    3
  33. I think ULA made a poor decision to rely on Blue Origin for their engines, but hopefully I'll be proven wrong.
    3
  34. Sounds like a job for worker THX-1138.
    2
  35. I always wondered how they measured angles from such distant observations. Cool.
    2
  36. I hate when they name things "Starship" that obviously will not ever fly to other star systems. There was also a very cool airplane (that was unfortunately a commercial flop) called the Beech Starship as well.
    2
  37. I agree, but sometimes I kind of need the dumbed down version, since I feel pretty dumbed down sometimes.
    2
  38. I love 727's, I think they are still sleek and futuristic looking. My dad worked for Delta Airlines when I was growing up. At one point in the 80s I think Delta owned something like 200 727's, and as I used to get a discount, I flew on them a lot. I used to keep a mental note of the numbers on the nose gear door, and I think there was one particular 727 which I flew on multiple times. Delta also owned a ton of DC-8's, which is a whole other classy cool old jetliner.
    2
  39. Apollo 1 accident was 19 years before the Challenger accident, not 15. So the trend is flat at best.
    2
  40. Time magazine has been a joke for a long time now, along with lots of other traditional media publications.
    2
  41.  @asandax6  You need to quit telling Americans what to do.
    2
  42.  @TheKakan1337  Hence "Soviet"
    2
  43.  @TheKakan1337  Ukraine was part of the USSR.
    2
  44.  @nzoomed  He wasn't destined to live a long happy life in any case. Despite being quite smart when it came to chemistry, he was pretty simple-minded about almost everything else. He was very poor at writing and spelling, for example, and when he handled all these hazardous materials he exercised laughably ineffective safety measures, showing up at school with radiation burns on his wrist under his watch and so on, with little concern over what he was doing to himself or his neighbors. His "reactor" was never close to being an actual fission reactor, but it was a stupidly toxic and radioactive pile of hazardous garbage that got hotter as the days went by, irradiating the nearby houses, until he dismantled it and stuck it in trash bags in the trunk of his car like the idiot he was. He later joined the Navy but didn't have the common sense to succeed in that career either.
    2
  45.  @marcmcreynolds2827  The commando raids were a good idea, but the fact was that Germany never took nuclear weapons as seriously as the UK and US did, and their work on the subject was half-assed by comparison. They never had anything on the scale of the Manhattan Project, and even that took a good three years to produce results.
    2
  46.  @lektwik  Yes? And?
    2
  47.  @toweri_li  Well, there have been airplanes which flew away after the crew bailed out.
    2
  48. What is "sensitive" that needs to be redacted? I thought the ISS was all civilian?
    2
  49.  @Ye_Old_Grog  No, "we" don't, not when compared to lots of other countries.
    2
  50. It's cool, but that enormous number of satellites at that altitude there will be a substantial number of failed units that can't be deboosted to a high drag altitude for disposal and will thus create more space junk. Especially considering there are multiple companies doing this.
    2