CVN-78 Gerald R. Ford | Aircraft Carrier - 1:300 Scale
by DarthDesigner
MOC-192566 • 5975 parts • Creator > Creator Expert

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NASA shall evaluate the “viability of transferring the ISS to a safe orbital harbor” after retirement. //

The most recent NASA authorization act, passed in 2022, extended the US government’s support for the ISS program until 2030. The amendment tacked onto this year’s bill would not change the timeline for ending operations on the ISS, but it asks NASA to reconsider its decision about what to do with the complex after retirement.

The amendment would direct NASA to “carry out an engineering analysis to evaluate the technical, operational, and logistical viability of transferring the ISS to a safe orbital harbor and storing the ISS in such harbor after the end of the operational low-Earth orbit lifetime of the ISS to preserve the ISS for potential reuse and satisfy the objectives of NASA.” //

In 2024, NASA awarded SpaceX a nearly $1 billion contract to develop a souped-up version of its Dragon spacecraft, which would be equipped with additional thrusters and propellant tanks to provide the impulse required to steer the space station toward a targeted reentry. The deorbit maneuvers will slow the station’s velocity enough for Earth’s gravity to pull it back into the atmosphere. //

Artist’s illustration of SpaceX’s deorbit vehicle, based on the design of the company’s Dragon spacecraft. The modified spacecraft will have 46 Draco thrusters—30 for the deorbit maneuvers and 16 for attitude control. Credit: SpaceX //

The deorbit vehicle needs to slow the station’s speed by about 127 mph (57 meters per second), a tiny fraction of the spacecraft’s orbital velocity of more than 17,000 mph (7.7 kilometers per second). But the station mass is around 450 tons (400 metric tons), equivalent to two freight train locomotives, and measures about the length of a football field. Changing its speed by just 127 mph will consume about 10 tons (9 metric tons) of propellant, according to a NASA analysis released in 2024.

The analysis document shows that NASA considered alternatives to discarding the space station through reentry. One option NASA studied involved moving the station into a higher orbit. At its current altitude, roughly 260 miles (420 kilometers) above the Earth, the ISS would take one to two years to reenter the atmosphere due to aerodynamic drag if reboosts weren’t performed. NASA does not want the space station to make an uncontrolled reentry because of the risk of fatalities, injuries, and property damage from debris reaching the ground.

Boosting the space station’s orbit to somewhere between 400 and 420 miles (640 to 680 kilometers) would require a little more than twice the propellant (18.9 to 22.3 metric tons) needed for deorbit maneuvers, according to NASA’s analysis. At that altitude, without any additional boosts, NASA says the space station would likely remain in orbit for 100 years before succumbing to atmospheric drag and burning up. Going higher still, the space station could be placed in a 1,200-mile-high (2,000-kilometer) orbit, stable for more than 10,000 years, with about 146 tons (133 metric tons) of propellant.

There are two problems with sending the ISS to higher altitudes. One is that it would require the development of new propulsive and tanker vehicles that do not currently exist, according to NASA. //

BobDole11 Ars Centurion
4y
290
I think everyone would love to see the ISS saved for posterity. I would imagine the grand kids of today's generation, when space flight may perhaps be common, visiting and touring a monument ISS and learning how primitive it was (compared to a +50'ish years future) and the bravery of the souls that ventured forth for the expansion of humanity's knowledge, science, exploration, cooperation, and greatness.

I've had those feelings and thoughts myself when viewing Apollo era hardware long ago. Standing by a Saturn 5 dwarfing my 8yr old stature filled me with inspiration to learn about spaceflight, science, and engineering.

But - the ramifications of a collision (or collisions) with space junk yielding 450 tons of more space junk, yielding further collisions and more and smaller junk, and on and on is just too great. The debris at a higher orbit takes too long to deorbit. The thought of our orbitals becoming impassable for centuries is terrifying. //

Veritas super omens Ars Legatus Legionis
13y
26,080
Subscriptor++
What would it take? Based on the history of the SLS I would predict it would take an order of magnitude more money than whatever NASA says and 20 to 30 years longer. There are many laudable goals for space missions, this isn't one of them!. //

fl4Ksh Ars Tribunus Militum
8y
1,518
Subscriptor
NASA is paying SpaceX $2.9B to develop a Starship lunar lander. That work has been ongoing since late 2021 and is scheduled to launch in late 2028.

That lunar lander design could be a pattern for a Starship LEO space station, which would have 1000 cubic meters of pressurized volume (ISS has 913), would support a crew of 10 (ISS supports 7), would be deployed to LEO in a single Starship launch (ISS required 12 years [1999 to 2011] and 35 launches), and would cost ~$10B (ISS cost $150B to build and deploy to LEO and $3B to $4B per year to operate, in today's money). Like the ISS, that Starship LEO space station would use cargo Dragon and crew Dragon spacecraft for resupply of consumables and for crew rotation.

That Starship LEO space station could be built in 36 months and launched in 2030.

Secretary Marco Rubio @SecRubio
·
On February 5, 2026, the New START Treaty expired. Negotiated at a different time to meet a different challenge, New START no longer serves its purpose. Our desire to reduce global nuclear threats is genuine, but we will not accept terms that harm the United States or ignore Show more
7:01 AM · Feb 6, 2026 //

This treaty, in today's current environment, has the sole purpose of limiting the U.S. nuclear arsenal. It controls the number of ballistic missile submarines, strategic bombers, and silo-based ICBMs we have. We can't test new nuclear weapons designs or validate the quality of our existing stockpile. Most importantly, it ignores the existence of China. It really makes no sense for us to make a treaty with what amounts to a failed state simply to boost Putin's ego, when our real threat, China, is free to build nuclear weapons and delivery systems and test them at will.

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Ordered not to discuss the battle with anyone, Williams remained silent for decades. Only after the U.S. government contacted him years later to let him know that the mission had been declassified did he finally tell someone about it for the first time: His wife.

Williams was later awarded the Silver Star for his bravery, which was upgraded to the Navy Cross in 2023.

Speaking to Task & Purpose for a story in June, Williams said he was honored by efforts to have his award upgraded to the Medal of Honor. When asked how he was able to shoot down four Soviet MiGs during the 1952 dogfight, he replied, “I have a God that did it for me.”

The news that Williams would receive the Medal of Honor came shortly after the parents of a soldier killed while shielding a Polish officer from a suicide bomber in Afghanistan would also be recognized with the award.

Staff Sgt. Michael Ollis, who was killed on Aug. 28, 2013, will be awarded the Medal of Honor posthumously, a White House official confirmed.

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for many years, American Airlines had actually spurned the Boeing 737, choosing instead to build its entire hub-and-spoke operation around the McDonnell Douglas MD-80. For the better part of three decades, their glistening, polished metal bodies with the distinctive T-tails were the predominant aircraft at the airline's hubs across the country. But why did American choose the MD-80 over the 737, and what caused it to eventually return to Boeing? //

American's flight operations director, David Clark, commented on the MD-80 upon its retirement.

"It is very old school, there aren't any modern computer screens affixed to the controls. The steering columns are connected to a cable that goes directly to the flight controls. You can feel it give and pull throughout each flight, and it is a totally thrilling experience that pilots trained on newer aircraft may never experience."

The test flight was planned by Douglas test pilot William Magruder and was set to take off from Edwards Air Force Base (AFB). As flight test engineer Richard Edwards, told to Air & Space Magazine, the idea was to “get it out there, show the airplane can survive this and not fall apart.” The DC-8, which at the time was competing with the Boeing 707, had been used by commercial carriers for about three years. Even though the DC-8 wasn’t designed to go supersonic, the bragging rights of being the first to do so were worth making the attempt.

In order to reach Mach 1, the jet had to be in a dive. According to Mentalfloss.com, this meant taking it up to 52,000 feet, which was also a record for altitude.

As Edwards tells Air & Space Magazine: “We took it up to 10 miles up…and put it in a half-a-G pushover. Bill maintained about 50 pounds of push. He didn’t trim it for the dive so that it would want to pull out by itself. In the dive, at about 45,000 feet, it went to Mach 1.01 for maybe 16 seconds, then he recovered. But the recovery was a little scary.”

The stabilizer in fact was overloaded and the plane stalled when Magruder tried to pull it back.

“What he did, because he was smart, is something that no other pilot would do,” explains Edwards. “He pushed over into the dive more, which relieved the load on the stabilizer. He was able to run the [stabilizer] motor…and he recovered at about 35,000 feet.” The crew successfully turned a mass-produced airliner into the world’s supersonic commuter jet. (Right by their side the entire time? Chuck Yeager, the first person to ever go supersonic in 1947. He escorted the DC-8 during its test in an F-104.)

“That’s an unofficial supersonic record, payload record, and of course an altitude record for a commercial transport,” Edwards points out.

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President Trump awarded two very belated Medals of Honor to two highly deserving Americans on Wednesday.

The first went to Army Staff Sergeant Michael Ollis, unfortuantely this was a posthumous award. //

The second story is much more uplifting.

Elmer Royce Williams was born April 4, 1925, in Wilmot, South Dakota. He enlisted in the U.S. Navy shortly after Pearl Harbor as an aviation cadet and completed flight training in August 1945. Williams chose a career as a career officer and eventually flew the Navy's first jet carrier fighter, the Grumman F9F Panther. //

In his efforts, Williams expended all of his ammunition and shot down four, very likely five, of the seven Soviet MiG–15s, setting the American aviator record for MiGs shot in a single sortie and the only naval dogfight over water in the Korean War. //

Williams was told the MiGs were not flown by North Koreans, or Chinese, but by Soviet Naval Aviation pilots flying out of Vladivostok. He was also told never to speak of the incident to anyone—his squadron mates or even his wife.

Slow Launch System

“You know, you’re right, the flight rate—three years is a long time.”

jack1983 Smack-Fu Master, in training
12y
93

The Lurker Beneath said:
Do it on a windy day?
There are risks with too high wind speeds as well. High airflow causes static buildup and turbulence. Hydrogen requires very little ignition energy (well below 1mJ at stoichiometric conditions). So even a gust of wind can set off a combustible mixture.

Cryogenic hydrogen is an absolute nightmare to work with.

paulfdietz Ars Scholae Palatinae
7y
1,168
Using hydrogen as the fuel in the first stage was never a good idea. The density is just terrible, making the first stage much larger. Because the first stage is disposed of so quickly, Isp is less important; what's more important is "density impulse" (density x Isp), and LoX/LH2 is inferior to LOX/hydrocarbon by that metric.

Low density also makes the engines more expensive, as more pumping power is needed for a given thrust. //

paulfdietz Ars Scholae Palatinae
7y
1,168

pokrface said:
Right, but the "first stage" of SLS (and STS) is properly the SRBs.
It's more like the first "half stage". What matters for the argument is the velocity at which a stage is done. Even with the SRBs there, that's not that high (although higher than say the Falcon 9, which ends the stage 1 burn at an unusually low velocity so it can be recovered.)

The SRBs do allow the thrust of those LH2 engines to be somewhat lower, since they don't have to lift the fully fueled stack off the pad themselves. By the time the SRBs drop some propellant is gone. This ameliorates to some extent the relatively poor thrust/weight ratio of the engines (73.1 vs 184 for the Merlin 1D.)

Salomon Jadassohn
Concerto pour piano et orchestre no 1 en ut mineur

1. Introduction quasi recitativo (Allegro appassionato) - Andante -
2. Adagio sostenuto -
3. Ballade (Allegro patetico) - Molto più mosso

Jason Cohen 🇺🇸 @JasonJournoDC
·
🚨NEW: CNN's Harry Enten: "A photo ID to vote is not controversial in this country. It is not controversial by party — and it is not controversial by race. The vast majority of Americans agree with @NICKIMINAJ."

@DailyCaller

Nicki Minaj @NICKIMINAJ
What sensible forward thinking cutting edge leading nation is having a DEBATE on whether or not there should be VOTER ID?!?!!!! Like?!?!? They’re actually fighting NOT to have ppl present ID while voting for your leaders!!!!! Do you get it?!?!!!! Do you get it now?!?!!!
9:57 AM · Feb 3, 2026

Enten said support for voter ID has been "north of 75 percent" for years. Indeed, in 2025, it was 83 percent. I don't think you have 83 percent agreement on almost anything, so that's phenomenal support.

Democrats also largely support it, he explained, polling at 71 percent. Republicans are at 95 percent.

Even if you break it down by race, the majority still support it, with white people at 85 percent, Latinos at 82 percent, and black people at 76 percent.

So the only people who don't seem to agree with voter ID are Democrat politicians. //

anon-297t
2 hours ago
There's a very specific way to couch this argument. Every vote counted from an ineligible voter disenfranchises an eligible voter. The balance of harms is not on, 'can we find one eligible voter who, for some reason, can't obtain an ID,' but instead, which option disenfranchises fewer people? Does a lack of voter ID allow more ineligible voters to cast a ballot than eligible voters that a voter ID requirement would prevent? There are data-backed arguments that that is the case.

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Early Saturday morning the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department SWAT team, assisted by agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, executed a search warrant at a home in northeast Las Vegas owned by Jia Bei Zhu, the CCP-linked Chinese citizen who ran an illegal biolab in Reedley, California. After finding multiple refrigerators and freezers containing vials, bottles, and jugs of unknown liquid substances, and laboratory equipment in the garage of the home, FBI scientists and a specialized investigation team collected over 1,000 samples from the garage; that evidence has been transported to the National Bio-forensic Analysis Center in Maryland for examination.

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