1960's actually, but no less impressive for that.

The blackbird is just an incredible machine. When I was a kid, one of my lifes ambitions was to fly one. Sadly, I'll never get to do that, but I did get to see one in person on the USS Intrepid in New York. Also they have a Space Shuttle there! I highly recommend it.

I think this is a very important point. I watched a movie about the Challenger disaster yesterday with Richard Feynman on the committee. Richard Feynman was some sort of kook, who asked the experts at NASA what was the failure rate of the Challenger. They said there was a 1 in 100,000 chance that a Space Shuttle would fail catastrophically (Destroyed and all Crew Dead). Feynman knew that was "a wish" because that would mean if you launched Space Shuttles every day it would be 274 years until one failed (on average). Furthermore he polled the engineers of the shuttles and their numbers were 1 in 200 some as low as 1 in 50.

You throw numbers at people and a lot of times they don't know what to do with them. How to categorized what they're hearing. And if you throw science at them which specifically NASA was doing to the public to try and confuse them, it takes a brilliant mind such as Feynmans to explain in basic terms what is going on.

The same method to determine whether or not the world is heading for serious ecological collapse is why we are all standing here today. Why our medicines work, why our machines work, why the little rectangles that we gaze at all day bring us the entire world.

If you are curious about this sort of thing, and you come at it with an open mind and work off of a basis of scientific knowledge to understand the world, you will come to the conclusion that global climate change is happening and it's getting very serious. If you come at this with cynicism, or superiority, or especially politics you won't get it and that's on you, not science.

Um, well, if that's your only complaint . . Wings can actually be useful for a ship that does both atmosphere and space flight. Like the shuttle. It has wings. And it's a space ship . . . of sorts.

Let's see . . . Lasers. Yeah, we've already had lasers debunked as a weapon in space. Unless there's some breakthrough later on. But, that said, it wouldn't be visible as there's no atmosphere to reflect it back to us. It would be traveling at the speed of light.

Explosions would be limited to the amount of oxygen in the ship being destroyed. They wouldn't create sonic waves or sound, or cause the nearby camera to rattle.

Ships wouldn't fly in arcs. That's atmosphere. In space, a ship can turn 180° and still be going the same direction. Babylon 5 is a good example of newtonian physics in action while in space.

Humans wouldn't be flying small ships. It'd kill us. Literally. Unless we have inertial dampeners like in Star Trek, making those turns and twists would destroy our bodies. Just ask a pilot.

Lastly, anyone advanced enough to do FTL and navigate massive star clusters with pinpoint precision who DOESN'T have a targeting system that can predict a ships movements and then fire a at speed of light weapon and destroy it, well, failed somewhere.

Not to mention, we'd use missiles that would self-destruct. Fire a physical projectile at near speed of light velocities and it not hit it target? Well, you may have just fired a bullet that would take out your space base in 1,000 years. It's be fruitless, require tons of energy and end up killing yourself with your own bullet.

But I'm glad we focused on wings. The only thing that has a real legitimate use in space travel.

It's a space dogfighting game, so there is atmosphere in space, or at least it controls like it is. The human spaceships are supposed to look something like WW2 era fighter planes, since that's what this game is about, WW2 dogfighting in space.

You can even see what could be atmospheric maneuvering controls on one of the ships at the 4 minute mark. Wings or rudders or something wiggling about.

As for realism, there's much worse lapses here than just "omg spaceships with wings!". You could put wings on a spaceship for practical purposes, to make a spaceplane like the space shuttle. Or for decoration. But then you get things like the really fast military fighters have a top speed much lower than C, they can turn and kill their old inertia as if pushing against air, all the fighting is done at visual ranges under accelerations slow enough for a human to react to (and survive physically), lasers fire discrete, visible, tracer like lines rather than an invisible ray traveling at the speed of light... I'm sure there's more.

Your video, Space Shuttle Thermal Tile Demonstration, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

Yes, but each square foot on the shuttle(s) and the ISS is probably quite costly.

Found this Choggie: The rocket was fueled by Aluminum Perchlorate, which is also used in fueling the Space Shuttle Solid Rocket Boosters.

The mission generally dictates the engineering and design of a mechanical system. The Buran and the Shuttle are prime examples. The new X-37 resembles both in general shape because a reusable "space plane" needs certain specific physical characteristics.

The Mig-25 looks like the F-15 because both were originally designed as high altitude, high mach interceptors. The demand placed on the system by the overly large engines dictates the shape.

The basic principles of radar "stealth" dictate certain shapes to be effective. The Have-Blue shape was effective against high frequency radar through deflection. As materials technology advanced, e.g. radio absorbing materials, more aerodynamic shapes could be implemented and still retain "stealthy" characteristics, if not improve upon them.

All the F-22 vs Pak50, M1a1 Abrams vs T80 videos are funny. The 1 versus 1 advantages are fun to debate, but its the entire system that wins or loses the fight. In the same vein, its common knowledge that German armor in WW2 was vastly superior to American armor in every technical way. Similarly, German fighter aircraft were more maneuverable than the P-47s and P-51s that they fought. Unfortunately for the Luftwaffe, this superiority was not enough to defeat the allied system as it rolled east across Europe.

The term 5th generation does not define the aircraft themselves, but the system they belong to. If you read wikipedia, this does not mesh, but the wiki values maneuverability (which is inherently limited by the pilot), stealth features (limited by current materials and design), advanced avionics (what does this mean?) and multi-role capabilities (we have had this since the 1980's). The key to 5th generation fighters and its defining characteristic is the ability to integrate the new fighters with every other piece of war equipment in the theatre, not just in tactical use, but the total meshing of sensors and 2-way data links. Its the difference between a war of attrition and a war of "look first, shoot first".

The Russians appear to be building an excellent stealth fighter that looks sexy as hell. The Chinese are doing the same. What they both lack at the current time is the "backend" systems to make these new 5th generation-esque vehicles fully capable. The Pak50 and the J20 won't be sharing targeting data with their Navy or other ground forces anytime soon.

always get a kick out of how russian designs are so similar to US designs.

The proposed russian design for the space shuttle was ridiculously similar to our space shuttle.

And there at the end of the street is my van, spray-painted ONE DIRECTION CONCERT SHUTTLE

Reusable launch vehicles aren't flawed as a concept. They just require innovation that a bureaucratic risk averse govt organisation like NASA can't produce.

The space shuttles were designed in the 60s/70s, its like saying cars are unsafe because a government designed 80's car doesn't have a modern 5 star crash rating.

Captain Cook or Christopher Columbus would never have sailed if people worried about ships sinking or people dying.>> ^deedub81:

"reusable launch vehicles"
Just ask NASA how that worked out for them.

This is how a Space Shuttle is was Prepared for a Flight

>> ^pumkinandstorm:

dead


Dead? It works for me. Maybe region blocked?

Da fuck does MLK have to do with drive-bys?
>> ^quantumushroom:

MLK Blvd? A drive-by in the space shuttle, now that would be something.

MLK Blvd? A drive-by in the space shuttle, now that would be something.