Obama Planning to Scrap Shuttle Replacement, Says NASA

[StrongTurd]

Well have you seen the latest telecoms and other satellites? besides the folded wings/solar panels its about the size of a 17' - 19' crt monitor.

Geez! Who told you that?! Geostationary communications satellites are getting bigger and bigger with every new generation. They typically weigh upwards of 4 tons and are a couple of orders of magnitudes bigger than a 19" CRT! In fact, they are as big as a bus. That's the reason why smaller launch vehicles like the Delta II no longer cut it as commercial launch vehicles and have been succeeded by far more powerful vehicles like the Atlas V, Delta IV, Proton etc.

 

[StrongTurd]

Good point, everything is getting smaller.

The old unrepairable ones fall out of orbit and burn up in the atmosphere. Sometimes they become target drones for American missiles.

Not true. There's no practical way of de-orbiting geostationary satellites and they will not decay out of orbit for millions of years. It is only satellites in LEO that gradually decay out of orbit through interaction with the upper traces of the earth's atmosphere.

GEO satellites are normally moved into a higher orbit at the end of their service life so that their position in GEO can be taken over by new satellites. Stuff does not drop out of GEO, however, and will probably outlive mankind.

 

[krycor]

Geez! Who told you that?! Geostationary communications satellites are getting bigger and bigger with every new generation. They typically weigh upwards of 4 tons and are a couple of orders of magnitudes bigger than a 19" CRT! In fact, they are as big as a bus. That's the reason why smaller launch vehicles like the Delta II no longer cut it as commercial launch vehicles and have been succeeded by far more powerful vehicles like the Atlas V, Delta IV, Proton etc.

There is a trend to go for smaller low orbit ones which offer far better latency + performance. i dunno maybe we talking about different service ones?

 

[krycor]

Not true. There's no practical way of de-orbiting geostationary satellites and they will not decay out of orbit for millions of years. It is only satellites in LEO that gradually decay out of orbit through interaction with the upper traces of the earth's atmosphere.

GEO satellites are normally moved into a higher orbit at the end of their service life so that their position in GEO can be taken over by new satellites. Stuff does not drop out of GEO, however, and will probably outlive mankind.

i wonder how much junk is really up there.. plus nowadays when u can see a loner star in the early evening, watch it carefully and u might just see it moving..

 

[reech]

So much for Mars and Moon bases in our lifetime! Tx Bush for killing the economy and our dreams ..damit!!

There's little point to manned space exploration- it's very expensive an inefficient - it can pretty much all be automated.

 

[StrongTurd]

There is a trend to go for smaller low orbit ones which offer far better latency + performance. i dunno maybe we talking about different service ones?

The only communications satellites that are placed in LEO are the "cell phone" and maritime types like Inmarsat and Iridium. There are very good reasons why "proper" communications satellites are placed in GEO. I'm not going to go into most of them but the most obvious ones are that they offer an infinitely bigger footprint and also far higher bandwidth.

 

[Sackboy]

Not true. There's no practical way of de-orbiting geostationary satellites and they will not decay out of orbit for millions of years. It is only satellites in LEO that gradually decay out of orbit through interaction with the upper traces of the earth's atmosphere.

GEO satellites are normally moved into a higher orbit at the end of their service life so that their position in GEO can be taken over by new satellites. Stuff does not drop out of GEO, however, and will probably outlive mankind.

Mmmm, I was under the impression that all satellites eventually succumb to the pull of gravity and spend considerable volumes of fuel to maintain orbit. It is supposedly also the primary reason for them to fail (apart from electro-technical). But I could be wrong.

 

[StrongTurd]

Mmmm, I was under the impression that all satellites eventually succumb to the pull of gravity and spend considerable volumes of fuel to maintain orbit. It is supposedly also the primary reason for them to fail (apart from electro-technical). But I could be wrong.

Alas, you are wrong. Only satellites in LEO require periodic re-boosting in order to prevent orbital decay. The ISS and Mir are a good examples of this. The higher you go, however, the longer it takes for a satellite to decay naturally.

The higher the altitude, the longer the orbital debris will typically remain in Earth orbit. Debris left in orbits below 600 km normally fall back to Earth within several years. At altitudes of 800 km, the time for orbital decay is often measured in decades. Above 1,000 km, orbital debris will normally continue circling the Earth for a century or more.

Source.

So you can imagine that at GEO a satellite will stay up pretty much indefinitely.

 

[daveza]

Which satellite would be doing this -

http://mybroadband.co.za/vb/showthread.php?t=151587

 

[Fudzy]

*bump*

Mixed messages in the media ... again. Seems like Obama is pushing for a space race against China -

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=aGMy_XFWN_VY&refer=home

http://www.fanboy.com/2009/01/obama...-to-the-moon-great-news-for-nasa-fanboys.html

 

[nivek]

thats good news

 

[Slaine73]

I really hope this is not the case. If it is it will be a very big setback

 

[Bismuth]

I think cutting back on the shuttle program will be a big mistake. Look how quickly we got to the moon, based on that we should have be occupying half of the solar system by now.

I have always thought that the majority of space exploration will be done by private companies, and if the US government and others cutback on this, it will inevitably happen. It is in our nature to explore, look at the sailors of old, if it wasn't for them, we would still be sitting in Europe, with virtually a whole planet lying undiscovered. The same goes for space.

B