They DID IT!!

originally posted by: Bluntone22
a reply to: tanstaafl
When People have lost arguments they start name calling.

True - but since I didn't call any names... ?

And here's a nice article on thorium.
It says very clearly that thorium is years away from having its issues solved and then it would be decades to construct the reactors.

www.power-eng.com...

You do realize that one was built and operated for 5+ years back in the 50's, right?

And here is one of many articles - this one from almost 10 years ago - that debunks the debunkers... you need to do more homework.

Thorium is the answer.

a reply to: tanstaafl

I believe you used the term ignorance.
Some may consider that name calling.

And yes I know about that reactor because I have done much research on nuclear energy over the years including thorium.

They still have not Overcome many of the technical issues for a thorium reactor like the corrosion problem with the coolant.


cleantechnica.com...

www.extremetech.com...



My earlier statement said that thorium will not happen any time in the near future.
I stand by that statement.

Even if scientists find answers to all the nagging questions there is still the problem of overcoming the radiation boogeyman within the general population.
Then there is the decade or more of designing and building a power plant.
Even the most enthusiastic estimate would be at least 25 years before a plant would be operational.
And we are not talking about only one.
How many do you think it will take to replace all of our electricity demands?

Thorium may be the answer eventually but it’s going to be a while yet.

originally posted by: Flyingclaydisk
a reply to: Bluntone22

Bureaucratic mess, yes, but I'm not sure I'd go as far as saying NASA's Space Shuttle program was a "failed program". They did launch 135 successful missions.

I agree the space shuttle program was harmful to NASA for the most part, costing a small fortune per launch. In hindsight, it seems like the Saturn family would have provided much greater payloads at an overall lower cost per pound and perhaps would not have suffered catastrophic failures like the shuttle.

But the shuttle did have some remarkable achievements, e.g., it delivered more than 85 percent of the ISS’s mass, including those enormous photovoltaic panels and the trusses that connect the modules along its longitudinal axis. It delivered 12 of the 16 pressurized ISS modules. The shuttles’ Canadarms (well done, Canada!) and later, the Canadarm2, mounted on the truss system, revolutionized the assembly of large space structures.

Another shuttle feat that no other space vehicle could have accomplished was the mission that corrected the Hubble Space Telescope’s defective main mirror and upgraded the HST’s capabilities. This mission — launched 3.5 years after Hubble was launched — resurrected a multi-billion dollar device and made possible the spectacular imagery and discoveries by Hubble over the last 26 years. There were five space shuttle servicing missions to Hubble over the years, so the shuttle should rightly get half the credit for the HST’s achievements.

originally posted by: Zaphod58
a reply to: ArMaP

They docking itself was autonomous. They did use manual control at one point for a test though.

Twice actually. Far-field manual test and near field test, before entering ISS Keep Out Sphere. Endeavour commander Doug Hurley said the controls were crisp and just as the simulation had predicted. Today they did safehaven ops in Dragon. It'll be interesting to see if they take her out for a spin before they return back to Earth.

Hurley and Behnken might get to do EVAs also.

originally posted by: Flyingclaydisk
a reply to: Bigburgh

Well, 'Bob & Doug' is the way everyone has been referring to them on the idiot box, hence my usage of the phrase.

I think someone thinks it's cute, but I don't care for it.

You know..."Bob & Doug, just a couple of hosers from the Great White North, eh?" As in, "Bob & Doug McKenzie"...and not a couple of NASA astronauts who just piloted the first manned commercial space mission to the International Space Station.

I'd be wanting to rebrand that if I was Space X.

Well, they're known as "the dads" at SpaceX...