Image Dump VIII (POST YOUR RANDOM IMAGES HERE)

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I hope you're not serious, Monkey.

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Oh my ****ing god... that is the funniest god damn thing I've seen all week.

I can't stop laughing. I keep looking at it and keep laughing.
 
internet nerds FTMFW -- all the best ideas comes from the internets

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It's a new experimental craft with speeds 5 to 6 times the speed of sound.

There's another one that went nearly 10 times the speed of sound (340.3 meters per second). The X-43A.

At Mach 7, the front leading edge of the vehicle would see about 2,400 degrees Fahrenheit. At Mach 10, its probably twice that twice the heat load essentially, Sitz explained.

Those blistering temperatures will be tamed by special thermal protection applied to the Mach 10 vehicle, Sitz said. The coatings that we are using were sort of a mini-research experiment in itself.
So they've made use of further developed ceramic plates, based off of those used on the Space Shuttle, I guess.

At Mach 10 -- or 10 times the speed of sound -- the X-43A is traveling at about two miles per second. Thats in the range of 7,500 miles per hour. Speeds over Mach 5 are defined as hypersonic.
It's got a unique signature so it won't be picked up as a nuclear warhead.

For right now, Sitz concluded: We have the worlds fastest air-breathing aircraft. Were going to fly at Mach 10 even though its only for a few seconds. Were moving along.
 
If it wasn't so fast I'd have called it the Sky Spooner.
 
The X-51 WaveRider has a wiki page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_X-51

What is a waverider: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waverider
A waverider is a hypersonic aircraft design that improves its supersonic lift-to-drag ratio by using the shock waves being generated by its own flight as a lifting surface.

And the X-43A: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA_X-43
The engine of the X-43A was primarily fueled with hydrogen. In the successful test, about two pounds (or roughly one kilogram) of the fuel was used. Unlike rockets, scramjet-powered vehicles do not carry oxygen onboard for fueling the engine. Removing the need to carry oxygen significantly reduces the vehicle's size and weight. In the future, such lighter vehicles could bring heavier payloads into space or carry payloads of the same weight much more efficiently.


After the X-43 tests in 2004, NASA Dryden engineers said that they expected all of their efforts to culminate in the production of a Two-Stage-To-Orbit Crewed Vehicle in about 20 years.
 
imagine going from NYC to Tokyo in 1 hr?? thats insanely fast
 
imagine going from NYC to Tokyo in 1 hr?? thats insanely fast
Well, it's not the fastest craft, it's the fastest non-rocket. It can be smaller and lighter than a rocket, and carry a much greater payload.

I don't think there are any plans for sustained flight at maximum speed, but only a very short burst at hypersonic speeds (seconds). The plan is to use it to carry payload and crew to the space stations. Also, the byproduct of the burned hydrogen is water. No pollution. That water, like on the Space Shuttles, is brought to the space station for use.
 
Past and present space stations

(dates refer to periods when stations were inhabited by crews)

* Salyut space stations (USSR, 1971–1986)
o Salyut 1 (1971, 1 crew and 1 failed docking)
o DOS-2 (1972, launch failure)
o Salyut 2/Almaz (1973, failed shortly after launch)
o Cosmos 557 (1973, re-entered eleven days after launch)
o Salyut 3/Almaz (1974, 1 crew and 1 failed docking)
o Salyut 4 (1975, 2 crews and 1 planned crew failed to achieve orbit)
o Salyut 5/Almaz (1976–1977, 2 crews and 1 failed docking)
o Salyut 6 (1977–1981, 16 crews (5 long duration, 11 short duration and 1 failed docking)
o Salyut 7 (1982–1986, 10 crews (6 long duration, 4 short duration and 1 failed docking)

* Skylab (USA, 1973–1974, 3 crews)

* Mir (USSR/Russia, 1986–2000, 28 long duration crews)

* International Space Station (ISS) (United States, European Space Agency, Japan, Russia, and Canada 2000-ongoing, 22 long duration crews to date)


Following the controlled deorbiting of Mir in 2001, the International Space Station is the only one of these currently in orbit; it has been continuously occupied since October 30, 2000.
Future developments

* The People's Republic of China is expected to launch its first space station named Tiangong 1 in the first half of 2011. This would make China the third country to launch a space station. China will be launching two more space labs called Tiangong 2 and Tiangong 3 before 2016. It will then launch a 30-ton space station by 2022. Project 921-2 is the working name given by the People's Republic of China for plans to create a manned space station.

* Currently, Bigelow Aerospace is developing commercial inflatable habitat modules, derived from the earlier NASA Transhab concept, intended to be used for space station construction and for a space prize they are funding and operating, America's Space Prize. Genesis I and Genesis II are ?-scale unmanned prototype modules orbited to test the feasibility of inflatable structures and other systems in space. Future modules include the Galaxy, Sundancer and BA 330, each being progressively larger and more complicated, with the BA 330 intended as the full-scale manned production model for Bigelow's expandable space habitation module program.

* In April 2008, the Russian space agency has proposed the construction of an orbital construction yard for spacecraft too heavy to launch from Earth directly. It would not begin construction or be finished until after the decommissioning of the International Space Station.[4] This plan was described to ISS partners by Anatoly Perminov June 17, 2009.[5]

* Galactic Suite is a space hotel planned to be operational by 2012.

* Excalibur Almaz plans to refit Soviet Almaz space stations for commercial purposes.[6]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_station
 
Russian space agency has proposed the construction of an orbital construction yard for spacecraft too heavy to launch from Earth directly

I support this idea.

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Warning: Lost spoilers.

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Following the controlled deorbiting of Mir in 2001, the International Space Station is the only one of these currently in orbit; it has been continuously occupied since October 30, 2000.

What secrets do you know??
 
What secrets do you know??

heh, nah man. It's just this hypersonic craft is still in experimental stages. So, we are talking 20 years before it's put into service, if it seems viable. I didn't mean to make it sound like there was more than one - I was speaking potentially. (but to be honest, I didn't know that the Russian space station was decommissioned).

Anyhow, in 20 years, if the hypersonic craft is put into mission operations... well, there should be more than one space station by then, but I'm not sure what China's plans are with their stations. (for example, if they will be in use internationally).

Check out the 'Future developments' part of this post for more information:
http://www.halflife2.net/forums/showpost.php?p=3156290&postcount=7129
 
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