Author Topic: Athena and Minotaur  (Read 28943 times)

Offline aero313

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Re: Athena and Minotaur
« Reply #20 on: 08/30/2007 01:07 am »
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wingod - 28/8/2007  2:20 PM

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hektor - 1/3/2007  11:46 PM

I think I remember there was still a fully integrated Athena flight model left at LM. Anybody can confirm ?

Confirm.  Blastoff was going to use it for their commercial mission and then defaulted on the payments.


That particular set of Athena II hardware was procured by LockMart for launch of the SBIRS-Low test spacecraft.  The SBIRS-Low test flight was contracted such that the satellite was supposed to be delivered on orbit, making the satellite provider responsible for procuring the launch service.  When the program was terminated, LockMart kept the Athena hardware in the termination settlement.

Fast forward to 2000, when Blastoff was looking for a launch service.  LockMart sold them that same set of Athena hardware.  The dot-com bubble exploded, Idealab pulled the plug on Blastoff, and LockMart AGAIN went through a contract termination settlement where they retained the hardware.  Nice work if you can get it...

The Castor 120s are in storage at ATK and must be very near the end of their design life.  I'm not sure where the Orbus 21 is kept.

Offline CFE

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Re: Athena and Minotaur
« Reply #21 on: 09/02/2007 04:33 am »
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pad rat - 8/3/2007  11:07 AM

"Some"?!!! Falcon 9 is an EELV-class booster with over 30% more capacity than a 7920H to a reference LEO! That's why we were disappointed to hear about the Falcon 5 being shelved. It did a good job of hitting the Delta II sweet spot and competed with the K-1 for a lot of Delta II-class missions.

My sentiments exactly.  It would seem that F9 superceded F5 (first F5 evolved to a wider tankage that could be stretched for F9, then it was dropped entirely.)  I assume that SpaceX could develop F5 if somebody wanted to pony up the dough, but the development costs wouldn't be worth it.  Elon wants to make his money off COTS & Bigelow, and F9 is the way he's going to do it.

Then again, Elon is very wise to say "The way to make a small fortune in the launch business is to start with a large fortune."  Hopefully he will prove himself wrong by the time he's ready to cash out at SpaceX.
"Black Zones" never stopped NASA from flying the shuttle.

Offline antonioe

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Re: Athena and Minotaur
« Reply #22 on: 09/02/2007 01:31 pm »
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CFE - 1/9/2007  11:33 PMElon is very wise to say "The way to make a small fortune in the launch business is to start with a large fortune."  Hopefully he will prove himself wrong by the time he's ready to cash out at SpaceX.
Actually, I heard DWT say that in the spring of 1986, but he said he was quoting somebody else (I believe Phil Culbertson, a NASA executive in those years).  On what date did you hear Mr. Musk say that?

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Minotaur, f**k yeah!
Could you be a bit more specific?
ARS LONGA, VITA BREVIS...

Offline aero313

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Re: Athena and Minotaur
« Reply #23 on: 09/02/2007 04:10 pm »
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antonioe - 2/9/2007  9:31 AM

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CFE - 1/9/2007  11:33 PMElon is very wise to say "The way to make a small fortune in the launch business is to start with a large fortune."  Hopefully he will prove himself wrong by the time he's ready to cash out at SpaceX.
Actually, I heard DWT say that in the spring of 1986, but he said he was quoting somebody else (I believe Phil Culbertson, a NASA executive in those years).  On what date did you hear Mr. Musk say that?

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Minotaur, f**k yeah!
Could you be a bit more specific?

Sorry, but the "make a small fortune by starting with a large fortune" joke has been around for centuries and has been applied to everything from auto racing to horse breeding to the stock market to you name it.  Neither Elon nor DWT were particularly clever in using it.

Offline CFE

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Re: Athena and Minotaur
« Reply #24 on: 09/02/2007 04:18 pm »
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antonioe - 2/9/2007  7:31 AM

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Minotaur, f**k yeah!
Could you be a bit more specific?

Minotaur I gets me very excited.  It's been a very reliable launcher, and has over 40 years of Minuteman heritage behind it.
"Black Zones" never stopped NASA from flying the shuttle.

Offline antonioe

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Re: Athena and Minotaur
« Reply #25 on: 09/02/2007 04:23 pm »
H mmm... I'm sorry to say this, but I interpreted your signature line 180 degrees out of phase...
ARS LONGA, VITA BREVIS...

Offline CFE

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Re: Athena and Minotaur
« Reply #26 on: 09/02/2007 04:33 pm »
Have you ever seen "Team America"?
"Black Zones" never stopped NASA from flying the shuttle.

Offline antonioe

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Re: Athena and Minotaur
« Reply #27 on: 09/02/2007 10:33 pm »
I've just branded myself as a geek with no sense of pop culture.. please, oh, please don't let my children know... my life will be miserable...
ARS LONGA, VITA BREVIS...

Offline antonioe

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Re: Athena and Minotaur
« Reply #28 on: 09/02/2007 10:34 pm »
On the other hand, I know the script to "Dr. Strangelove" by heart...
ARS LONGA, VITA BREVIS...

Offline pippin

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Re: Athena and Minotaur
« Reply #29 on: 09/02/2007 10:42 pm »
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antonioe - 3/9/2007  12:34 AM

On the other hand, I know the script to "Dr. Strangelove" by heart...

More important ;-)

Offline antonioe

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Re: Athena and Minotaur
« Reply #30 on: 09/03/2007 10:39 pm »

I also have a set of 1980-vintage tapes of THHGTTG and a 1985 edition of the original script.  I transcribed the tapes into mp3's and have them on a single CD which I sometimes play in my car's player driving to the office...

ARS LONGA, VITA BREVIS...

Offline meiza

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Re: Athena and Minotaur
« Reply #31 on: 09/03/2007 11:06 pm »
"Gentlemen, you can't fight in here, this is the war room!"
Definitely.

Offline kevin-rf

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Re: Athena and Minotaur
« Reply #32 on: 09/04/2007 01:29 pm »
antonioe, is that you riding a pegasus on your icon?

Why can I see you actually doing that?
If you're happy and you know it,
It's your med's!

Offline pippin

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Re: Athena and Minotaur
« Reply #33 on: 09/04/2007 03:25 pm »
Dr. Strangelove again?

Offline antonioe

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Re: Athena and Minotaur
« Reply #34 on: 09/04/2007 07:49 pm »

(*TRIPLE SIGH*) I may regret this bitterly, but OK, here it goes:

hmmm.. having some trouble uploading the image... is this the Supreme Being (Bill Gates) telling me I should *NOT* do this?

ARS LONGA, VITA BREVIS...

Offline kevin-rf

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Re: Athena and Minotaur
« Reply #35 on: 09/04/2007 07:50 pm »

One of the most best scenes in the whole movie... antonioe riding a pegasus into orbit as the whole world below goes to pieces in a large set of mushroom clouds.
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It's your med's!

Offline antonioe

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Re: Athena and Minotaur
« Reply #36 on: 09/04/2007 07:53 pm »
You forgot "so long, and thanks for all the fish"
ARS LONGA, VITA BREVIS...

Offline meiza

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Re: Athena and Minotaur
« Reply #37 on: 09/04/2007 08:08 pm »
You can see the image if you click the image in the avatar to the left and select "view image" or something like that. :)

Offline JWag

RE: Athena and Minotaur
« Reply #38 on: 09/04/2007 10:05 pm »
[img=http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/profile/get-photo.asp?memberid=2965&type=profile&rnd=236]

Offline antonioe

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RE: Athena and Minotaur
« Reply #39 on: 09/04/2007 11:46 pm »

OK, OK - since the cat is out of the bag... That is indeed the F1 flight vehicle - this picture was taken April 2, the afternoon before the evening when we applied the decals (remember: we were going to fly on April 4, but then it started raining and we did not want to perform the first flight with precip so we delayed to the next day). Because of the B-52, Dr. Strangelove WAS Orbital's "official movie", so when DWT showed up with a ten-gallon hat, my first reaction was "Oh, No!", but he said "Oh, Yes!".

The reason I'm holding the hat with my left hand (as opposed to Slim Pickings' right) is that I have a wristat on my right hand, with the cable draped behind me to a connection on the left side of the AIT (Assembly and Integration Trailer).  Also hard to see is the purple antistatic mat that my butt is sitting on.  More visible is the fact that I have my flight boots carefully turned away from the rocket's skin (after all, I'm sitting on 17MT of Ammonium Perchlorate and HTPB!!!)


Since that picture shows somebody with many pounds less and a lot more (and different color) hair, I can always claim that wasn't me.

ARS LONGA, VITA BREVIS...

Tags: athena Minotaur 
 

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