Yes, they are loaded for... maybe 2 years now? At least since they left the factory for the trip to Florida.Now I suppose I could google this, but I thought it might be better to ask an actual person, I'm curious, are the SRBs (for lack of a better word) 'loaded' during all this? I've actually kind of wondered about this since I was younger. The movie 'Space Camp' and all that. Or do they need to come back off again to get 'loaded'?
Well if it makes you feel any better, there's hundreds of solid-propellant ICBMs deployed out there for years on standby with actual bombs on top of them - they don't mind sitting loaded for a while.
it’s good that European Ariane rockets and American Delta rockets fly on flowersWhich does not only go boom, but is highly a corrosive solution that can easily leak out, seep into aquifer and cause a local ecologic nightmare.
All Delta IVs only use liquid hydrogen/liquid oxygen. The only Delta stage to use hypergols was the Delta II second stage (called the Delta K) which used Aerozine 50 (a special blend of hydrazine and UDMH) and Dinitrogen tetroxide. Delta III and later replaced the Delta K second stage with a newly developed LH2/LOX stage using the tried and true RL-10 engine (world's first rocket engine to use LH2 as the fuel). Tit’s good that European Ariane rockets and American Delta rockets fly on flowers
it’s good that European Ariane rockets and American Delta rockets fly on flowers
I think the Commercial Cargo/Crew concept is a sound one, and SpaceX has been delivering good access to LEO with a safe, relatively economical rocket. Their flight tempo is impressive. Maybe even Boeing will get Starliner operational.*If the program (and NASA) had some minimal popular support the production line of those engines would be healthy and could be easily replaced. Its not the SLS that sends RS-25 engines to trash, its USA that sent 30 years of space program to trash because a couple of billionaires bought the whole thing for their DC Comics fantasies.
To be fair with the Russians in the 1950s-1990s, they simply had no choice but to launch over land, as their southernmost coastal area (Okhotsk) is still too far north. Also, all Baikonur launches are deliberately planned to always launch northeast so that the rocket stages would fly over most uninhabited areas of their own territory in Siberia rather than crash on China or IndiaTitan II-IV and Ariane 1-4 used hypergolics, but all those are long retired (and were not fired over land).
Since 2019, the National Security Space Launch (NSSL) program.Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV)
Wouldn't the eastern coast / Vladivostok area make a good launching area? I mean, they were the ones initially putting stuff in orbit, it was up to them to decide the latitude.To be fair with the Russians in the 1950s-1990s, they simply had no choice but to launch over land, as their southernmost coastal area (Okhotsk) is still too far north. Also, all Baikonur launches are deliberately planned to always launch northeast so that the rocket stages would fly over most uninhabited areas of their own territory in Siberia rather than crash on China or India
Baikonur was first revealed and pictured by an CIA U-2 all the way back in August of 1957 actually, and they weren't really aware of where it could exactly be aside from it probably being accessible via railway - so "all" the pilot had to do after taking off from Lahore is head to Tashkent and then follow the rail line from there.(aside from occasional images taken by Corona spy satellites at the time)
what does it mean to hide?There's a pretty good research paper worth reading that goes into all the details of its discovery and Soviet (futile) attempts to cover up the exact location after Gagarin's flight.
what does it mean to hide?
another thing is so spit on the opinion of the CIA that you don’t even shoot down the U-2
For extra perspective, look up the story about commercial TV and the 373, 441 and 576-line standards in the US around 1936-1940. The conflict between industry and regulators for approval of a single standard stalled regular broadcasts in America. It was entirely possible to build a multistandard receiver - in fact, older sets had a "vertical hold" control - but acknowledging that would benefit no one. It was all about "winner takes it all", so the systems were considered incompatible.Meanwhile, I'm actually wondering if NASA/the US govt/deep state isn't actually trying to screw Elon over with the environmental inquiry and all that. Most people at NASA seem to be old school state-sponsored spaceflight kind of people. I guess SpaceX putting a Starship on the moon, even uncrewed, wouldn't make them look too competent....