StarDestroyer.Net BBS

As said elsewhere, my dads family is from around here. This is just... wut

Yeah. The decision not to have Orion or something like it goes to Nixon, and frankly Nixon wasn't a conservative in the modern sense of the word (see rapproachement with China, see universal health care plan, et cetera) Nixon picked the Shuttle mainly because it promised large numbers of launches p...

That's great for general overall history. Any specific suggestions for - space exploration the BBC series 'Space Race'. It's a four part dramatised history of everything from the flying of the V-2 to the Moon Landing. Not entirely accurate, for instance it treats Glushko as Korolev's arch-nemesis, ...

I would say that the potential for Asian economies like China and India becoming much, much bigger than the US means good things for unmanned and manned space exploration alike. This. I'd be exceedingly happy whether the US, India or China reach the moon next. I don't particularly care where they'r...

Well let's be honest. There is really not much NASA could do within reasonable funding to top Apollo. And doing something incredible by definition requires them to. Well... And I only choose to bring this up again because I've been doing loads of research recently into the history of spaceflight......

7th December 1958, the first lunar flyby mission was conducted by the GDR.

Link to the thread where this story continues.
(I just liked the picture)

That's the Germans. The threat of strategic bombing diverted 88's into defending cities and industrial areas instead of them being shipped to the front lines where they could be used as anti-tank guns. Oh, the Germans did it on a vastly larger scale. But arguably, even having AA gun defenses anywhe...

During WW2, Americans feared air raids, so AA guns desperately needed as tank killers on the front lines where diverted to protect American cities, despite the fact that NO HOSTILE NATIONS HAD THE ABILITY TO HIT ANYTHING BUT COSTAL CITIES IN AMERICA. That's the Germans. The threat of strategic bomb...

Thanks for the corrections, but what I was referring to is the idea that you don't need a large army if you have eanough nukes. The idea fell through after the Soviets devaloped their own nukes. *FTL Civ uses FTL sensors to spot inbound RKV* *FTL ship jumps out to just in front of it* *Ship dumps s...

Massive Retalation (a Truman doctoring that called to nuke the ever living f__ck out of the Soviets if they moved into the rest of Europe) Ignoring the rest of whatever the hell this is: 1) Reta lia tion. 2) Eisenhower, not Truman 3) You realise MR, like MAD, is a deterrence based doctrine, wherein...

Well, I never heard anything about Lots Of Money(TM). I did hear about him having to resign for whatever reason, just that his lawyer said not to until things were resolved for image reasons. Re: lots of money, the numbers being thrown around are six figs of donations (circa $400,000) and similar f...

When the title said Orion I was hoping it would be something cool. Turns out it's only another chemical rocket. :( Sweetheart, the US doesn't even have a crewed flight vehicle at the moment. In those terms, this is fucking awesome, whether it's launched on a chemical rocket or a thermonuclear engin...

Soo... possible preliminary result is co-pilot error in unlocking the manual feather control early, leading to early feather extension, leading to aircraft exceeding flight parameters.
I think?

The Saturn IB used the SIVB stage, instead of the SIV stage. Ah, but the IB used the 200 series while the V used the 500 series. They had minor, but important differences, such as the 200 series being unable to re-ignite for TLI. :P (The differences here are actually important. The 500 series was p...

or Moffat is now trying out having a transgendered villain. I really, really hope that either Missy basically doesn't reference the swap, or they treat it as something normal for Time Lords/Ladies. I really don't want that man to have a crack at a trans villain. As if we didn't have enough shitty s...

Beowulf wrote:The SIVB stage of the Saturn V was tested in prior rockets. Namely, the Saturn I

The SIV on the Saturn I had 6 RL10 engines with 90,000lbs of thrust, while the SIVB on the Saturn V had a single J2 engine producing 225,000lbs of thrust. It was essentially a different rocket with a similar lineage.

That last phrase is more significant than it seems at first glance. All previous manned rockets had been tested stage by stage, unmanned, before the whole thing was tested, still unmanned. The C-5, later the Saturn V, was tested in an all-up fashion simply because it would have cost so much to do n...

Simon_Jester wrote:So, essentially, you have recreated the historical Decisive Battle doctrine/strategy of the IJN?

Well it worked for them last time, didn't it.

...

*cough*

Unless the game ignores Japan's supply issues during the 1940s Mass producing the Yamato-class is unwise as that class nearly bankruptured the actual japanise economy back during its production and even once it was done it was such a fuel hog has Japan didn't have the fuel to really run them proper...

darthkommandant wrote:Ok I think ill use japan but not ally with Germany and see what happens? I also want to mass produce the Yamato class.

Japan is cool.
I'll leave my opinions on building lots of battleships for another day...

Ive got an idea RPM VWP with soviet union? Keep in mins ive never played them but it should be hilariously hard for me. The Soviets, if you can manage the effects of the purge adequately (or just never use it) can have a huge world bestriding army by 1939. Basically, I'm not the best person to ask....

To be honest, it's kind of hilarious when you let the German's run as AI. I'm writing out an AAR on the HOI forum as an expansionist Turkey (It's mid-1941, I've taken Bulgaria and just finished a hellishly long conquest of Greece). The fall of France came in April 1941, with Italy taking almost the ...

Sigh....one of my former coursemates is using this to harp on about how the Russians are useless, that for every success they have 32.something failures (but won't provide evidence for) and that the Russians lost two crews in the last two years due to rocket malfunctions. For reference, he's an ex-...

A good point, these engines aren't exactly shiny new, bleeding-edge technology. The Russians did come up with some very good designs, though, and this is one of them; I can't find reliability numbers for the engine itself, but so far the refurbishment deal's gone quite well (until a couple of hours...

My guess is that one of the engines malfunctioned, throttled up or something, and then exploded, damaging the other engines and leading to unfocused burning that caused the rocket to fall right back down again. It only has two motors. If one blew, it is very likely to have taken the other one compl...