[this is all horribly offtopic, but since the listadmins haven't commenced
summary execution yet... i have a suggestion to make about offtopic
discussions, which appears at the end]
On Mon, 22 Sep 2003 19:12:37 -0400 Joseph Shraibman <jks@selectacast.net> wrote:
> Ron Johnson wrote:
> > Who's want to build a 40-year-old rocket?
> You'd be surpised. Some plans for replacing the shuttle call for going
> back to Saturn
> V's.
sort of. a NASA committee has proposed reviving the Apollo capsule in an
evolved form. they'd use the existing mold lines, with new avionics and
probably a different service module. it'd be launched by a man rated
version of either a heavy Atlas 5 or a heavy Delta 4. the committee is
regarded as fairly credible, one of the co-chairs was John Young who has
flown in space more than once.
however, the russian Soyuz is the direct descendant of the old R-7
ballistic missile, which happens to be the first true ICBM (it beat all the
US ICBMs into operational service back in the 50s.) it's basically the same
rocket that launched Sputnik, Vostok, and all the other manned russian
space craft. it's well understood, reliable, and since the russians don't
have a budget to engineer new rockets, will be in service for the
forseeable future.
> NASA went with the shuttle design in the first place because
> resusable was supposed
> to be cheaper, but it hasn't turned out that way.
that's because they decided to pretend that the engineering prototype was
ready for production service, instead of testing to destruct and then
building the real system.
re offtopic discussions:
i suggest creating an offtopic@postgresql.org list for them. that way,
you can suggest taking a discussion to offtopic. i've done this for my
mailing list server, with good results.
of course, rocketry discussions are welcome on offtopic@digest.net, but
you'll have to put up with motorheads discussing politics, religion, linux,
unix, and SCO (topics which are not always distinguishable from each
other.)
cheers,
richard
--
Richard Welty rwelty@averillpark.net
Averill Park Networking 518-573-7592
Java, PHP, PostgreSQL, Unix, Linux, IP Network Engineering, Security
