New Mars

Well thought out. I was surprised at your reference to Buran 1.02 (Ptichka) so I Googled its status, which confirmed what you said. Whilst I can't imagine mating it--after a hypthetical refurbishment and transport by An-225 to Canaveral--to the NASA launch hardware, for all sorts of reasons, a renewed Buran/Energia launch program still doesn't seem to be totally inconceivable after all! So, good thinking--and thanks for loads of material for future posts to kick around while we await the next (at long last) ISS-construction-oriented NASA Space Shuttle launch.

"We need to test life support equipment in space and ISS is the perfect place to do it."

No. Life support systems can be tested here on Earth just fine, but if zero-gravity testing is deemed a nessesity, then put the first prototype Mars ship in Earth orbit with a CEV docking collar. We'll need to test the Mars ship with its full three-year duration anyway.

"Furthermore the centrifuge module can test human response to Mars gravity."

No. People won't fit in the ISS centrifuge.

"I want to see it not only completed, I want Node 3 and the US habitation module."

Why? The ISS doesn't go anywhere, just keeps us trapped here in circles forever.

"...so install it. We can then see which works better in space"

Install it on the prototype Mars ship, not the ISS. If its to be used on the Moon, then you can test it on Earth with our gravity just fine.

"Energia can lift..."

...Nothing. Because Energia doesn't exist anymore outside of a huge (foreign) donation to the Russians. The US would never do it, and the ESA would be hesitant to spend that kind of money outside of Europe.

~There is no money to resurect Energia
~It would take some years to restore Energia to operation, ISS would be built no faster
~Energia would require a heavy tug/cradle to carry the payloads to the ISS, and probably a robot arm to unpack modules to other arms, reducing its payload to three modules per flight

"Ptichka is the last surviving Russian space shuttle"

Oh come on, Russian space shuttle? They flew Bruan - once, unmanned - back in the 80s' and its computer was uselessly primative. Ptichka is a museum piece, its asinine to even talk about "resurecting" something as complicated as a space shuttle after so long.

"...that will be the largest expense to restore Energia"

Says you:

~Restoring RD-0120 production
~Restoring fuel tank production
~Digging Energia avionics out of a museum
~Designing and building the payload cradle/tug/faring
~Restoring the launch facilities, including the long disused liquid hydrogen handling facilities
~Restoring the launch pad itself, rusted over the years probably
~Training new launch crews for the ones you can't replace
~Modify Zenit-II/IIISL factory for Energia LRBs
~Then you have to restore the VAB

...Rent is the least of the worries. This is a terrible idea, and it will never fly politically and the engineering challenges are so steep that they just aren't worth it.

Nonsense! Google confirms only what the Russians boast.

Totally inconceivable? At what point does something so unlikely, so improbable crosses the threshold into effective impossibility? Obviously, your threshold is set solidly outside the realm of reason, very likely biased by Russia-worship too.

...We won't have to wait long. Atlantis is going up at near the end of August.

Buran sustained severe damage to its airframe during reentry, ( it was literally bent out of shape,) so it was in effect un-reusable after landing, a little known fact.

This means, even if the Russians dit the neigh on impossible to try to resurrect the system, they'd still have a lot of testing to do before their remaining shuttle would be truly spaceworthy.

With only one shuttle, mothballed for, what, 20-ish years, and probably in a less than optimal condition, that'd be extremely expensive. Might as well say: impossible.

What many Americans don't know or choose to ignore is that Buran was maintained by the Russian military in flight ready status, ready to fly on 3 days notice, until it was handed over to Kazakhstan on January 1, 2000. It wasn't shut down in 1988 as some people claim. I already posted my email to KBKhA; they retained plans, jigs, etc., do need a new CNC milling machine but are willing to swallow the cost of retooling on the condition they get a solid order for new engines. Strap-on boosters are the first stage of Zenit, the only difference is the gimbal has one degree of freedom instead of two. The external tank was built at the same factory that makes R-7 rockets, including the Soyuz launch vehicle. Russians design all military equipment so it can still function when it isn't pretty. All military aircraft have sturdy landing gear that can land on runways that Americans would consider abandoned or otherwise unusable. That means the launch pad is still usable. One Mars Society member posted a message on this board that she visited Baikonur and the Energia launch pad is in the same shape is the Shuttle launch pad at Vandenberg. The way Russians build things, that means it's fully functional. I have pictures of the rail lines from a tour group, and a relative is an engineer who used to inspect rail lines; they need weeds cut down but the rails and ties are perfect.

I spoke to an employee of Energia Ltd., the American subsidiary of RSC Energia, in December 2000. He said NASA had contacted them "a few years ago" about the possibility of using Energia for a manned mission to the Moon. He said they did a study and determined it would cost between 60 and 100 million US dollars to restore infrastructure. I also found a NASA web page that lists international launch vehicles, the price for Energia with EUS is listed as $120 million per launch in 1994 dollars. Form that I surmise "a few years ago" was 1994. That gives us a precise figure to restore infrastructure, and the Russian military maintained everything to no infrastructure degradation until January 1, 2000. Kazakhstan was kicking around the idea of launching Buran so don't expect any degradation before the roof collapse of building #112. It's in better shape than you think.

I will give you credit for one point; you would have to design the payload cradle/fairing. Not the tug, I already said we can just use a Progress service module with Progress rendezvous radar. Ensure one of the modules has a docking port, keep everything strapped together so the whole bundle docks with the station. It will require some software work for Progress to manoeuvre the larger payload.

I know, GCNReveneger you have always tried to claim everything American is good, everything Russian is bad. You also try to claim anything that's more than 5 minutes old is obsolete, worn out, or otherwise gone. If you want any capital project to succeed you'll have to get over that. Something as expensive as a space program is supposed to leave equipment this can be used long-term, without replacement. American commercial industry tries to prevent that with all things so they can continue to sell the same equipment over again. Cars are a prime example, they can be built to last a century but auto manufacturers deliberately design them to fail. It's called built-in obsolescence. For example, using a nylon bussing instead of a bearing with stainless steel ball bearings. It's a deliberate business strategy to produce ongoing sales. I found many Americans fell for it without even questioning the scam. You can't continue the scam with space hardware, it's too expensive.

Two pictures of Ptichka taken at Baikonur in July 2005. It's being actively worked on by Molniya, the company that built the Burya program orbiters.

"Nonsense! Google confirms only what the Russians boast. "

I use Googled in the dctionary sense now accepted as a verb. The Google company of course didn't confirm any Russian claims. I'll look into the ultimate source to confirm the truth and get back at you.

"Totally inconceivable? At what point does something so unlikely, so improbable crosses the threshold into effective impossibility? Obviously, your threshold is set solidly outside the realm of reason, very likely biased by Russia-worship too."

Your phrase "effectively impossibility" would've been better, but I didn't think of it. If it was totally impossible then it'd be purely historical, but not totally conceivably still lets us kick the idea around--which is what you did. Good on you! My threshold isn't set anywhere. I try to speculate in the sense of brain-storming. Surely you're not opposed to a little brain-storming now and then? Biased by Russia-worship? Where in the world did you get that idea from my innocent little post?

"We won't have to wait long. Atlantis is going up at near the end of August."

Your evident eagerness to see the next Space Shuttle launch, to continue the assembly of the ISS, matches mine.

Come on guys! It's July 31, the Mars Society conference starts this Thursday. We don't have time for a protracted debate. If ISS fails expect funding for VSE to be slashed as well. Success breeds success, failure breeds failure. NASA hasn't had a success with its manned space program since Shuttle and Hubble, and those are wearing out. It isn't like they've sat in a warehouse, they've been in active use for decades. But where's the success? All manned spaceflight projects since Shuttle has followed a pattern: come up with a good idea, waste time and money arguing before any progress begins, pause all progress with protracted delays after every tiny hitch, waste more time and money arguing whether the project should continue, finally find the budget has "somehow" ballooned to several times its original price and use that as an excuse to cancel the project. Note "somehow", look at "wasted time and money". The ISS is yet another example of this, but its budget is so big that it will affect Congress like no other project. Failure of ISS will kill funding for any manned mission to Mars; VSE will become a Moon only project and will follow the same pattern to cancellation.

So we have a choice: squabble over whether ISS should have been started in the first place and kill all manned space flight, or finish with a success and move onward. As I said, no serious work on SDV or The Stick (now called Ares 5 and Ares 1) will even begin until Shuttle is decommissioned. NASA doesn't have money for both. Shuttle won't be decommissioned until ISS construction is finished. So ISS is the pre-requisite to any manned space exploration.

Tell me guys, how many people are going to the Mars Society conference this year? Will you participate in "The Great 2006 Mars Blitz"? You could ask congressmen yourself whether failure of ISS will kill VSE, but that's dangerous; simply asking the question could put the idea in their mind. It's better to push for Mars and give them a clear vision how to accomplish that and do so affordably.

I'm a computer programmer, engineer, and businessman. I don't care whether the supplier is in this country or that. I'll buy from whichever company can provide the best quality product at the best price. Whether the company is in Russia, France, Germany, UK, or America doesn't matter. The cold war has been over for a very long time, so drop the propaganda!

dicktice, don't think I'm attacking you. I've had arguments with GCNRevenger since he first appeared on this board. His intransigence has long since pissed me off. He appears to be bent on destroying all space exploration because his wonderful GCNR engine lost funding. Sure that engine had benefits, but it was only one engine. Human space exploration can be done with other engines, it's long since time to take a constructive approach. GCNRevenger is not constructive.

You're continuing to argue simply leads to a definite conclusion: you have abandoned manned space exploration.

Says you. I don't believe it, not after all those years since it actually flew, never even being really spaceworthy in the first place, especially after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the lack of a mission for a military spaceplane. You have no proof, only a claim that they are "actively working" on one Shuttle supposedly in 2005. It doesn't make sense, no rocket to launch it on, no launch pad to launch it with, and no mission for it to fly. Why would the cash-strapped Russians waste money on it today? I also find your choice of terminology very interesting and emblematic; that if we don't "believe" you then we are "ignoring reality" or something, particularly when you make claims... difficult to believe. This theme is prevelent throughout your posts.
Yes, and the Russians said that their ISS modules would be "free," several hundred million dollars of "free." It does no such thing. Come back when the people that would actually spend the money estimate how much it ought to cost even very roughly.
Five minutes? No, actually Bruan's last flight was almost precisely 1,000,000 minutes ago. Bruan flew only once unmanned, its computer too primative to do things like ISS rendezvous and perhaps wrecking the structure like Rxke says, and now you are all set to trust it? Space shuttles are complex, Bruan and its sister ships cannot possibly be far more durable or easily refurbished as the US fleet and I doubt we could easily restore them after twenty years. Even the support and technical base just wouldn't be there. There is nothing special about the Russians that exempts them from this, its a matter of engineering.
Now, what were you saying about propoganda? Cars that could last a century? You have no idea what you are talking about, the kind of mechanical riggors that vehicles withstand. And sometimes building a dozen nylon bearings is cheaper than one steel one. You are hung up on this due to radical environmental fundimentalist idealogy about "expendability is immoral" or something if memory serves.

So come on everybody! Lets just jump on Robert's bandwaggon and sign on his dotted line without thinking about it!

You kind of waited until the last second, didn't you Robert?
Says you. The failure of Shuttle has brought new life to NASA, and not a giant budget cut. If the ISS never lives up to its billing as this mega space research hub, I don't think there will be much outcry.
You make it sound like lucid cost/bennefit discussion when good money is being thrown after bad is as bad as NASA quibbling that wrecks projects before the fact; they are not. Again, you also claim that "if the ISS doesn't suceed then NASA is doomed," which I don't think it would be.
To distill things down a bit, your plan would not get the ISS done any faster than Shuttle would, and your plan would probably fail while Shuttle will probably suceed. If you are so gung-ho about the ISS, the very last thing you should want is for Shuttle to stop flying.
Ah! The true reason for your posts... Yes! Affordable by sending big boat loads of money overseas to other countries, Congressmen will love to hear that.

The attitude of "America good, anything non-American bad" is incredibly annoying. It also works against the purpose for which NASA was created. Remember the whole space race existed to form alliances, so why piss off other countries or exclude them from participation in space projects? It doesn't make sense.

If you want to know where I got the "3 days notice", start reading Encyclopedia Astronautica by Mark Wade. His information is from declassified Russian documents, and everything else he can get his hands on. Also read the website by Molniya, the manufacturer of the Buran orbiter. They have a lot of documents about Buran development. That's also where I got the 2005 pictures of Ptichka. Nothing like getting it directly from the horse's mouth. They didn't say what was done to it or how much work was done, but several Russian websites repeat that Ptichka was 98% complete in 1993, is fully complete now and they all repeat the "rumour" that life support has been added.

Buran did have an mission. It was maintained by the Russian military ready to fly on 3 days notice as long as the US military maintained Shuttle launch facilities at Vandenberg. They stepped down their alert from "3 days notice" once Vandenberg was mothballed. Since Vandenberg wasn't dismantled, only mothballed, they mothballed Buran too. The Russians feared the American Shuttle would be used to snatch a Russian satellite, or space station module, or deploy a combat satellite in polar orbit over Russia, or some other aggressive military mission. Buran was maintained to counter military missions of the Shuttle.

So you think Russian hardware is primitive. That claim has been made more times than I can count. Remember Buran was developed after Soyuz and Progress. If they can dock, why do you think Buran can't? It's primary mission was to supply the Mir space station. Do you really think its guidance system is less sophisticated than Progress?

The car analogy is simply a very clear demonstration of principle. I know one auto-mechanic who is very critical of a few car makers for using nylon bushings for stabilizer arms when previous joints use stainless steel ball bearings. The cost of the part doesn't matter, labour cost to replace it costs more than 100 bushings. When you buy something expensive it's supposed to be permanent, not self-destruct after a short time. As long as everything falls apart you'll never get ahead and always remain poor. It's about economics, not some "radical environmental fundamentalist ideology". I'm tired of spending the largest portion of my take-home pay on car loan payments, repairs, maintenance (oil & filter changes), insurance, and fuel; only to have the vehicle start to fall apart just before it's paid off. My last cell phone broke, the microphone stopped working so no one could hear me, but the manufacturer refused to repair it. They said it's discontinued, as if that's an answer. I don't care if they sell new ones, they have to repair what they sold. It turns out they considered it obsolete and discontinued by the time it first reached retail stores. Now that's a problem. (Ps. Don't buy Audiovox.) At several hundred dollars per phone they have to last many years, not thrown away every year or two. It's about money management; anything expensive must be permanent, for your entire life.

As for space hardware, the government deals with billions instead of thousands, but the principle is the same. Once something that expensive is built it must remain working for decades. If it can't then it's a bad investment. Congress will not approve spending unless it can remain working. As for Russian hardware, they just haven't fallen into the propaganda of believing things "go away". America used to build durable goods, Russia just hasn't given up.

Apparently not a mechanical engineer, cars that could last a century indeed... They would weigh 19,000lbs and take two hours to go from 0-60mph with 32 gallons to the mile too I imagine.
You may not, but people a bit more important do... Congress!. Money going out of government and back into American industry is one thing, money going out to foreign countries and not coming back is another. I wouldn't like it either, and so would many Americans. Nothing propoganda-istic about that.
Haha! Oh my... if not for the little fact that the GCNR engine never had real funding to begin with. No no, I'm just "bent on destruction" because I discredit Robert with his wild space schemes and make believe about Russian engineering or American politics.

I have no illusion about the GCNR engine's near term viability, infact I think we ought to put it on the shelf until much later after we have at least a small Mars base before considering development.
= Agree with me
Oh for crying out loud, dicktice might have a point about me pulling the Russia worship card on him without enough reason, but me being against manned spaceflight? Haha, thats the most ludicrous thing you've said yet on this thread.

What I am against is this litany of wild ideas you keep coming up with Robert, often based on little or nothing, and then trying to push them and get us to sign on to your little scheme. When people like you try to gain credibility, it accomplishes nothing more than to discredit all of us as crackpots, shysters, and senseless dreamers. You are the worst sort of AltSpace'er.

No, I've been talking about this for years and send it on the Mars Homestead list a couple weeks ago. I'm surprised you consider this new.

My plan reduces Shuttle flights to 5 instead of 28, and flies European, American, and Russian launch vehicles at the same time permitting the whole thing to be finished much quicker. At 4 launches per year the Shuttle will take 7 more years to complete ISS. Or do you think restoring Energia to flight will take as long as developing it from scratch?

Again, so annoying! The International Space Station is just that, international. Are you so incapable of cooperating with your partners that you can't understand simple cost calculations? If 8 launches of ATV/Ariane 5 cost less than 5 launches of MPLM/Shuttle then it's more economical to do that. In this age of multinational companies most of the work is done overseas anyway, so why are you obsessed with nominal American firms?

Look. The purpose for the space race and the Apollo program was to develop international alliances and trade. This obsession of excluding all things space from other countries defeats the point. If that's going to continue to be your goal, then the options are to either ignore you or stop all space exploration all together. The International Space Station is the greatest icon for international cooperation. America has proven it can't operate the Shuttle reliably, and ISS is way behind schedule. It's time to utilize all the partners of ISS to complete the project. Yes, that means everyone except American and Canada contribute to Energia, and Canada could make a contribution to Ptichka, but American would contribute only to the Arianespace hardware to replace Shuttle flights.

You're not constructive.

You keep calling for either abandoning everything and following your single line with nuclear thermal spacecraft, or continuing the current practices without change. Current practices won't get us anywhere; we've seen that. It's been how long since Apollo was cancelled? 2006 - 1972 = 34 years. During that time the only manned space achievements we have to show is a Shuttle that people don't trust, and a space telescope that others want to de-orbit. We went from Mercury astronauts wearing a US Navy pilot pressure suit while sitting on an ICBM to men walking on the Moon in 8 years. What has been achieved in the last 34 years is pitiful at best. JPL has made some significant achievements, but manned space flight is a cash cow for contractors while achieving nothing. It's time to cut costs while at the same time produce results; I don't see any way other than cutting out current contractors entirely.

Um, what? Nooo, I don't think so. It was to fight a war of idealogy against our (US and Canada) enemy, the Soviets.
Sure it does, because we keep winding up paying for our "partner" Russia to do their part, and international amalgumation of different hardware in a single system has thus far been arguably a disaster.
Especially when that "horse" would just love a big pile of money to put the "finishing touches" on the Russian orbiter. Nonsense, the Russians are well known for forcing deadlines on vehicles that are by no means ready in order to counter American capabilities. Case in point early Soviet nuclear submarines, which were often launched half-finished, just to beat the USN. They might have gotten the shuttle to the pad, but I very much doubt it would worked, especially after all those years. I don't think NASA could fly a Shuttle after the long storage and degredation the Russian counterpart did at all, much less quickly. Bruan may have been maintained as a paper deterrent to Shuttle, if the Soviet military believed this to be the case or not.
I suppose the fact that Shuttle is the most complex machine ever made by man, ever, is reason enough to forgive you for your ignorance. Shuttle, and its Russian counterpart, are not simply the vehicle in the hanger but is an entire program, and large complex programs don't keep well for long periods. Certainly not twenty years with a vehicle tested only one time.
Would you please stop whining about your life and stay on topic? I do believe that was what initiated the "little spat" last time.
Spoken like a true senseless dreamer in desperate need to be kept as far away from space decisions as possible.
Its really not, if the thing that money is for is incredibly difficult or complicated, and is a wonder it works at all (like space shuttles). The cost of a project and its longevity have nothing to do with eachother, your argument entirely hinges on context. Your "how long something should" last is an absolute without any bearing or sense.

Says you. Stopping bad plans (and planners) is constructive.
Abandoning? No, I don't think I've called for that in a long long time. And unless someone comes up with something better, superhigh temperature nuclear thermal propulsion of some sort seems like the clear choice... when we get around to needing it some day. I especially like to champion nuclear technology to counteract environmentalist anti-science dogma about it.
Why yes, because I think that the VSE can work and establish humanity both on the Moon and on Mars perminantly, so I support it. "Current practices" probably have the best combination of financial plausability and political support available.
And Shuttle's day will soon be over, as soon as is politically practical.
Well yes, since its not worth fixing nor would be reliably prolonged if we did try.
For double NASA's budget today. NASA is planning on 12-14 years or so, the first third of which Shuttle will still be in operation. And back to the Moon with much bigger payloads, safer vehicles, plus with a possible path to Mars hardware. Sounds like NASA will do pretty well by me.
No argument there.
This is asinine! Even talking like that dooms you to irrelivence in the eyes of anybody that matters, and talking like that in our names tarnishes us too. And you chide me for wanting to get rid of the ISS now but say things like this?

Edit: While we're talking about friends, I have an aquaintence that actually did work for NASA for a time. He believes that four out of five people who work on big NASA projects are contractors. So we should just go and fire 80% of the workforce?

And what exact facility was destroyed or other damage caused? The only thing the race did was convince countries to ally with America rather than the Soviets. It was about alliances.

How long has Russia been waiting for America to launch it's modules? Russia keeps flying American astronauts and supplying them with a Progress. It goes both ways, you aren't in any position to point fingers.

I suggested Russia pay for Ptichka and fly the SPP that they designed and already built and paid for. The only "help" would be Canada providing a CanadArm.

And Apollo 8 was designed as an unmanned flyby of the Moon, Apollo 9 was to be the manned flyby. But Russia just completed an unmanned flyby with a Soyuz launched by N1. America had to do something to gain a space first, Apollo 8 was launched when it wasn't ready. NASA was just lucky nothing catastrophic went wrong. You could argue the Soviets were lucky the N1 didn't blow up, considering it's flight record; but NASA was equally lucky with Apollo 8. Those in glass houses...

Buran (orbiter 1.01) was designed to be flown unmanned, on autopilot only. It flew once and worked perfectly. I talked to a salesman from Orbital Science who claimed there was hot gas infiltration under the Buran's heat shield tiles, but he couldn't provide any source to confirm that. I checked Molniya's website, they have a lot of technical documents on the Buran orbiter. There was less hot gas infiltration under Buran's tiles than under the American Shuttle's. After that I doubt any criticism of Buran.

I've heard that claim too, but don't believe it either. An aircraft carrier with all it's systems is more complex than the Shuttle. For one thing, add all the aircraft on the carrier.
It is on topic. You accused me of being an environmentalist, but it's really about economics. And this demonstrates the principle for space technology.

Perhaps you would like to ask a congressman for multiple billions of dollars and tell him/her that it'll be thrown away with nothing to show for it.

I thought consumer goods made a good example since it's something most people can relate to, but you obviously don't get it. Let me use another example, the mining industry. They can spend billions of dollars on trucks so big a grown man standing beside one only comes up to the wheel axle. The money they spend on trucks could not be justified for just one load of ore; they run several trips per day for many years. They just keep going and going and going. The only way their cost can be justified is if they do keep going. They may require replacement tires, or a wash-down, but when their not in use they're stored in a garage where they don't get dirty and tires aren't worn or eaten by rodents. The mining industry can't afford to let sitting equipment decay, it must remain in top shape at all times and ready to go as soon as crew arrive for the next shift. If a mine is shut down the trucks are stored and guards posted to ensure no one vandalizes them or rodents eat the tires. When a mine is reactivated, the equipment may get an inspection, tire pressure topped up and oil changed, but that's all. They can't afford to replace everything. And yes, mines do shut down and come back. Metal prices fluctuate so it isn't economical to continue to operate the mine, but when prices come back the profit margin is so thin they can't afford to replace everything. When crews arrive they can't afford a long period of fiddling with equipment, they have to start processing ore immediately.

I have friends who work for NASA contractors too. One does work for one of the big 2, the others work for other companies. There are plenty of medium size aerospace companies willing to take over from the big 2. The government has tried for decades to control costs, some initiatives by congress, others by NASA; all failed. Cutting out the big 2 would be a dramatic statement to the remaining companies.

But if you don't want to do that, then there's the plan to complete ISS quickly. It doesn't say anything about which contractor does what. Michael Griffin has talked about reducing the number of Shuttle flights to complete ISS; fine this plan reduces it to a number smaller than he came up with. ISS gives us a test bed for long duration life support, while getting past it's construction permits starting on VSE. Or we can argue and drag ISS out indefinately, never even starting VSE.

Columbia wasn't intentional, the Russians lying about how much money they needed to build the first ISS modules was. The Russians have also used the Soyuz as a political weapon over Iran, and are also charging us their "partner" for seats. Oh no, don't even think about trying to paint this as equivilent.
I doubt they can afford it, hence the need for American dollars. Anyway, the present proprieters of Ptichka most likely embelishes its readiness to try and get money for it. Even if the Russians could afford it, they wouldn't pay, since it would be such a risk. Why else did they talk about using a Progress-derived tug with Proton or Zenit? Why not their own "almost ready" space shuttle?
Extremely lucky, and perhaps foolish. In either event NASA had to yeild results, and publicly, while only a half-hearted paper deterrent to Shuttle in the form of Bruan in a hanger was nessesarry. The two situations are not alike.

Edit[b]: To expound on this a little more, even that the Apollo-VIII Saturn-V did work, mothballing the program for 20 years and then suddenly restarting it for a mad dash to finish the ISS would probably not yeild a reliable launch system.

Quote:

It flew once and worked perfectly.

Says the Russians, and only once is not what I would call a reliable operating reccord.

Quote:

I checked Molniya's website... There was less hot gas infiltration under Buran's tiles than under the American Shuttle's. After that I doubt any criticism of Buran.

Says them, they have the most to gain by lying. And you trust them implicitly? Russia worship nonsense, particularly since you will doubt [b]any criticism.
An aircraft carrier is a big thing, but besides its power plant it is not terribly complicated. It is just a carefully shaped metal box, the development of which was simple by any comparison. It just has to be water tight on the bottom part, no hypersonic shockwave dynamics, no metal-liquifying temperatures, no million-pound thrust rocket engines. The reactors were probably copied from submarines too... Gosh, I don't have to do anything, you debunk your own credibility in things mechanical for me.
You whining for the better part of a paragraph about your personal cell phone isn't , and you should stop. I am quite sure the average reader is capable of figuring out what "planned obsolesence" means on their own without you filling the board with your annoying personal sob stories.
Mining equipment is so unlike space programs that you obviously aren't willing or perhaps able to wrap your head around the enormity of the enterprise nor the fantastic amount of engineering required. Its not just the vehicle nor the pad, but the technical experience, the tools, and making up for their disuse before a hyper-complex thing like a space shuttle can be reliably used. Speaking of readers, I do think that you are insulting their intelegence with stuff like this.