NASA engineers

[DrZoidberg]

But...

...you're opposing American's "waving their flag"...

...by waving the Soviet Union's flag.

I called their country a corrupt shit hole of a country. So much for flag waving. There´s precious little for the Soviet Union to be proud of. I just think they deserve credit for the few things they actually got right.

I don't care about flags. I do care about facts. And the fact is that the US space program was by no means inferior to that of the Soviets. The Soviets made many great advances, yes. So did the Americans. And yes, the Americans had many great failures. So too did the Soviets. And us Europeans and the Japanese have had some amazing successes (and failures) too, in more recent times.

Good that we agree. I never claimed the USSR didn´t have plenty of failures. They were just better than the Americans when it comes to space.

 

[Jokodo]

Although to be fair, this was because the Americans had cornered the market in nazi rocket scientists.

What put a man on the Moon? Good old American know-how, that's what. As supplied by good old Americans, like Doctor Werner von Braun.

Flag-waving by Americans or Russians on this issue is foolish. It is rendered even more foolish by the fact that if any flags are to be waved, they should have a swastika on them. And I really don't think we want to see that.

"I aim for the stars" - von Braun.

"But sometimes he hits London" - Churchill.

No--we didn't get all the Nazi engineers. Both sides space programs were jump-started by the Nazis.

It's just the Russians have always been very poor at pushing technology, just about everything is stolen. There was nobody to steal a moon rocket from.

As others have explained to you by now, this is factually wrong.

I'd also like to stress that you seem to have no idea of the amount of destruction WW2 brought on the Soviet Union.

The Soviet Union lost, military and civilian losses combined, around 14% (conservative estimate, and not including famine deaths in 1945-7 resulting from the loss of infrastructure) of its population in the war (compare that to 0.3% for the US)*. At the height of German power, around 20% of its territory (but with probably closer to 50% of its industrial infrastructure) was occupied by Nazi forces, and when those had to retreat, they were employing a policy of scorched earth, i.e. deliberately destroying the infrastructure they left behind. Lost infrastructure on US soil, for comparison: Pearl Harbor, end of list.

Add to that the fact that the US was the economically most advanced country of the world even before the war, with the USSR much behind (and not just because of Soviet mismanagement - the same state of affairs had held in 1913 already; if anything, the margin had narrowed by 1939, so, evil as Stalinism is, as a method of industrialising a nation from scratch it kind of works).

I'd say, given these initial conditions, even if the Soviets had clearly lost the space race (which is by no means as clear as you'd like to have us believe), what they did achieve is still very impressive. Imagine an alternate history US which had lost 19 Million people (14% of its 1940 population) and where the entire Northeast right up to Chicago's eastern suburbs had suffered from occupation with most of it's infrastructure destroyed - do you think it would have been as quick to put a man on the moon?

Give some credit to the one-legged man who came second in the sprint!

*Even if those losses can be partly attributed to poor tactical decisions and mismanagement, that doesn't change the argument to come.

 

[dystopian]

I never claimed the USSR didn´t have plenty of failures. They were just better than the Americans when it comes to space.

You made claims about the Soviet spaceprogram that are factually untrue; and can only really claim they were 'better than the americans at space' because of it. Is it too much to ask you to admit you were wrong about the factually incorrect claims you made?

 

[Loren Pechtel]

The US was far more successful than the USSR in obtaining German rocket experts after the war; The earliest phase of Operation Overcast (later known as Operation Paperclip), for example, concentrated on the evacuation of rocket scientists from the Soviet Zone after the German surrender, but before the July withdrawal of British and US troops from the zone.

The Soviets got more of the hardware, and the Americans got more of the manpower; The movement of large quantities of rockets, rocket parts, machine tools and factories was difficult, while moving people was easy - few Germans wanted to surrender to the Russians rather than the Americans or British, given the option. And the Americans made damn sure that as many rocket experts as possible were given the option.

We got more but they got enough to turn it into a space program.

The Russians couldn't build a moon rocket without stealing plans from the American moon rocket program, it's true. But the Americans got their plans drawn by (ex) Nazis. American rocket technology in the 1960s was developed primarily by Germans. The Russians stole plans; the Americans stole planners.

The Nazis didn't have a moon rocket to steal. That was our own development.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

No. Russia didn't send a man to the moon because they couldn't. They got rockets into orbit because they could
piggy-back on the Nazis but there was nobody to steal from for a moon rocket.

But americans had nazies to steal moon rocket from.

What moon rocket are you referring to? The world had never seen the likes of the Saturn boosters.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

If I remember correctly russian moon rocket was built just fine, It's just "unexpected" problems with vibrations in large number of engines or something.
Loren is being ridiculous in attributing SU successes to germans and forgetting about who was the head US space program.

Except that that's an expected problem as you add more engines.

Russia couldn't build a big enough engine and compensated by trying to build a rocket with 30 engines. Of course there were big problems with vibrations in the fuel system! AFIAK nobody has successfully operated a rocket with more than 9 engines on it that are fed from the same system. (The Falcon Heavy configuration will have more engines but they are effectively independent systems--there will be three separate fuel tanks albeit with cross-connects.)

- - - Updated - - -

No--we didn't get all the Nazi engineers. Both sides space programs were jump-started by the Nazis.

It's just the Russians have always been very poor at pushing technology, just about everything is stolen. There was nobody to steal a moon rocket from.

As wrong as Zoidberg was, you're almost just as wrong. They didn't need to steal a moon rocket; they were perfectly capable of doing it on their own. The N1 (their moon rocket) still has the most powerful first stage of any rocket ever built, well exceeding that of the Saturn V. It wasn't that they had to steal the rocket designs, the problem was that it was underfunded, suffered early technical setbacks, and the N1's lead designer died during its development, and this last thing proved to be its undoing as it was a severely politicized project with other soviet prominents pushing for different design and research directions who now had no opposition.

The N1 is a seriously flawed design. The more engines you add the more vibrations you get in the fuel system.

The soviets certainly copied designs from time to time, but the N1 isn't among them. Furthermore, they often improved upon these designs. The Buran for instance was significantly technically superior to the Space Shuttle. It could land under weather conditions the space shuttle could not. It had a highly capable autopilot system while the space shuttle did not. The space shuttle system could only take a max of 30 tonnes into space. The buran system could take as much as a 100 tonnes thanks to the energia's (its launch rocket) design. The energia also had enough thrust and fuel to go all the way to the moon, or even mars. The energia was also reusable, unlike the central core of the shuttle launch system. It also used purely liquid propellant, which was much safer than what the shuttle system was working with. So while they copied the basic form of the shuttle, they greatly improved upon everything else.

Of course--they got to learn from our failures.

 

[Jokodo]

Except that that's an expected problem as you add more engines.

Russia couldn't build a big enough engine and compensated by trying to build a rocket with 30 engines. Of course there were big problems with vibrations in the fuel system! AFIAK nobody has successfully operated a rocket with more than 9 engines on it that are fed from the same system. (The Falcon Heavy configuration will have more engines but they are effectively independent systems--there will be three separate fuel tanks albeit with cross-connects.)

- - - Updated - - -

No--we didn't get all the Nazi engineers. Both sides space programs were jump-started by the Nazis.

It's just the Russians have always been very poor at pushing technology, just about everything is stolen. There was nobody to steal a moon rocket from.

As wrong as Zoidberg was, you're almost just as wrong. They didn't need to steal a moon rocket; they were perfectly capable of doing it on their own. The N1 (their moon rocket) still has the most powerful first stage of any rocket ever built, well exceeding that of the Saturn V. It wasn't that they had to steal the rocket designs, the problem was that it was underfunded, suffered early technical setbacks, and the N1's lead designer died during its development, and this last thing proved to be its undoing as it was a severely politicized project with other soviet prominents pushing for different design and research directions who now had no opposition.

The N1 is a seriously flawed design. The more engines you add the more vibrations you get in the fuel system.

The soviets certainly copied designs from time to time, but the N1 isn't among them. Furthermore, they often improved upon these designs. The Buran for instance was significantly technically superior to the Space Shuttle. It could land under weather conditions the space shuttle could not. It had a highly capable autopilot system while the space shuttle did not. The space shuttle system could only take a max of 30 tonnes into space. The buran system could take as much as a 100 tonnes thanks to the energia's (its launch rocket) design. The energia also had enough thrust and fuel to go all the way to the moon, or even mars. The energia was also reusable, unlike the central core of the shuttle launch system. It also used purely liquid propellant, which was much safer than what the shuttle system was working with. So while they copied the basic form of the shuttle, they greatly improved upon everything else.

Of course--they got to learn from our failures.

Even if all of that were 100% correct - would you expect a US that had lost 19 million people in WW2 and with most of its infrastructure in the entire Northeast destroyed to do as well as the US in our timeline did?

This is a yes or no question.

I say no, but feel free to make yourself look ridiculous.

 

[bilby]

We got more but they got enough to turn it into a space program.

The Russians couldn't build a moon rocket without stealing plans from the American moon rocket program, it's true. But the Americans got their plans drawn by (ex) Nazis. American rocket technology in the 1960s was developed primarily by Germans. The Russians stole plans; the Americans stole planners.

The Nazis didn't have a moon rocket to steal. That was our own development.

Only if you identify as a Nazi.

 

[bilby]

But americans had nazies to steal moon rocket from.

What moon rocket are you referring to? The world had never seen the likes of the Saturn boosters.

Until the Saturn V was designed, under the direction of  Wernher von Braun and  Arthur Rudolph. Both good old all-American boys, from the all-American Third Reich.

Arthur Louis Hugo Rudolph (November 9, 1906 – January 1, 1996 Hamburg) was a rocket engineer who played a key role in the development of the V-2 rocket and a former high-level Nazi given sanctuary by the US government following World War II. He was brought to the United States by the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), subsequently becoming a pioneer of the United States space program. He worked for the US Army and NASA where he managed the development of several important systems including the Pershing missile and the Saturn V Moon rocket. In 1984 he was investigated for possible war crimes, and he agreed to leave the United States and renounce his US citizenship in return for not being prosecuted in the United States.

(My bold)

Wernher Magnus Maximilian, Freiherr von Braun (March 23, 1912 – June 16, 1977) was a German and later American aerospace engineer and space architect, but made his greatest contributions as an aerospace program manager. He was one of the leading figures in the development of rocket technology in Germany and the United States and is considered one of the "Fathers of Rocket Science". He was also a member of the Nazi Party and the SS.

(My bold)

 

[barbos]

But americans had nazies to steal moon rocket from.

What moon rocket are you referring to? The world had never seen the likes of the Saturn boosters.

And it was built by a nazi

 

[barbos]

Except that that's an expected problem as you add more engines.

Where have you been? you should have told them.
And while you are so smart go and tell NASA engineers that EMdrive will not work.

Russia couldn't build a big enough engine in time and with amount of money they had (nobody could)

Fixed for you.

and compensated by trying to build a rocket with 30 engines. Of course there were big problems with vibrations in the fuel system!

These stupid russians, if only they had you and these NASA engineers who are testing EMdrive.

AFIAK nobody has successfully operated a rocket with more than 9 engines on it that are fed from the same system.

Right, and as far as I know Nobody has successfully operated EMdrive.

(The Falcon Heavy configuration will have more engines but they are effectively independent systems--there will be three separate fuel tanks albeit with cross-connects.)

Are you familiar with concept of time? You do realize that Musk did not exist back then?

 

[DrZoidberg]

Btw, the Nazis didn´t invent shit. At the time of the Nazi rise Germany had become the scientific epicentre of the world. This was a development that had been going on since the fall of Napoleon, when the various German princess and archdukes had nabbed them. And they stayed.

Most scientific breakthroughs occur in "scientific clusters". These are universities or groups of universities where the finest minds within certain fields are based and and can freely and easily exchange ideas. Scientific clusters act to attract scientists to them. Once these have arisen it´s an effect that feeds itself. Scientifically minded people travel all over the world to take part. It needs something truly monumental to fuck it up.

The Nazi regime was deeply anti-intellectual and anti-science. Sure, they funded plenty of research. But they also told the scientists what to say and do. Which I´m sure all of the actually clever scientists had problems with. Let´s not forget that the race theories that the Nazi party were based on started to get discredited in the 1920´s. By the 30´íes all serious research was over. After that it was all idiotic pseudo-science. So none of their scientific break-throughs (like the rockets) were due to them being Nazi. It all happened in spite of the best Nazi efforts to dumb the nation down.

Around WW2 all the German talent moved to American universities, creating new scientific clusters there. And they´ve been shining oh, so bright ever since.

I don´t like labelling these scientific clusters in national terms. They´re truly international phenomena. This was true even back in he days of Napoleon.

The cool thing about the Soviet Union is that they created scientific clusters from nothing. Internationally, Russia, up until the fall of the Tsarist regime was retarded and Luddite. When Lenin took over there was nothing and the rest of the world actively made efforts to sabotage any progress.

 

[Saint_of_Me]

NASA employs some of the best and brightest minds on the planet. Always has.

Sure, aerospace engineers, mathematicians, cosmologists, and physicists sometimes have their quirks. Genius often does. But to refer to them as retarded is a Straw Man.

And just plain wrong. And unfair.

I would propose somebody here provide a link to a science quiz. Or a physics or Cosmology quiz. And we can all do it and post our results and see what's what. Ten bucks and my left nut say the dude who called the NASA guys retards does not score near the top of the class.

I'm in.

I have the genes, baby. My Dad was an aerospace engineer. Not for NASA, but....


Oh....here is something the OP might wanna take a gander at......


http://science.howstuffworks.com/ten-nasa-achievements.htm

 

[barbos]

NASA employs some of the best and brightest minds on the planet. Always has.

Sure, aerospace engineers, mathematicians, cosmologists, and physicists sometimes have their quirks. Genius often does. But to refer to them as retarded is a Straw Man.

And just plain wrong. And unfair.

I would propose somebody here provide a link to a science quiz. Or a physics or Cosmology quiz. And we can all do it and post our results and see what's what. Ten bucks and my left nut say the dude who called the NASA guys retards does not score near the top of the class.

I'm in.

I have the genes, baby. My Dad was an aerospace engineer. Not for NASA, but....


Oh....here is something the OP might wanna take a gander at......


http://science.howstuffworks.com/ten-nasa-achievements.htm

NASA guys have already failed the quiz. This the whole damn thread is about that fact.
Also, NASA may employ some of the best and brightest but it employs some of the dumbest and dimmest too.

 

[KeepTalking]

The OP should be interested to know that regardless of his derision, evidence is piling up that the EM Drive does, in fact, work:

http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2015/04/evaluating-nasas-futuristic-em-drive/

A group at NASA’s Johnson Space Center has successfully tested an electromagnetic (EM) propulsion drive in a vacuum – a major breakthrough for a multi-year international effort comprising several competing research teams.

 

[barbos]

The OP should be interested to know that regardless of his derision, evidence is piling up that the EM Drive does, in fact, work:

http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2015/04/evaluating-nasas-futuristic-em-drive/

A group at NASA’s Johnson Space Center has successfully tested an electromagnetic (EM) propulsion drive in a vacuum – a major breakthrough for a multi-year international effort comprising several competing research teams.

As I said derision is well deserved

 

[barbos]

It's been 6 years.

 

[Swammerdami]

I "believe" in the Law of Conservation of Momentum. I also believe that there is much of modern physics I do NOT understand; this applies even to the simplest physical system: absolute vacuum!

So how does the EM drive work? Photons may be "massless" but they have momentum! Are EM waves created to provide the needed reverse momentum? Or is it something else? Sorry, this was probably addressed in this long thread, but I'm not wading through it.

The OP should be interested to know that regardless of his derision, evidence is piling up that the EM Drive does, in fact, work:

http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2015/04/evaluating-nasas-futuristic-em-drive/

A group at NASA’s Johnson Space Center has successfully tested an electromagnetic (EM) propulsion drive in a vacuum – a major breakthrough for a multi-year international effort comprising several competing research teams.

As I said derision is well deserved

Explain? Thread title suggests you think the idea is "retarded." For starters, should we ask for a show of hands among Infidels with a PhD in Physics? I assume you have one, barbos. Others?

It's been 6 years.

And what does that mean? Elon Musk has had six years to visit Pedophile's Asteroid with an EM Drive, but has failed to do so. That means the idea is a fraud?

 

[barbos]

I was just asking for any development. Looks like we have had none in these 6 years.

 

[Bearded One]

NASA has always allocated a small part of their budget to oddball projects. Just in case...