On Earth, as it is in Heaven .... two bits of good news

[unixronin]

On Earth .... the Christian Science Monitor reports that a group of five Islamic judges in Yemen are successfully "reforming" militant Islamic terrorists by showing them that terrorism is not justified by the Quran and, in fact, violates many of its dictates.

For example, he quotes: "Whoever kills a soul, unless for a soul, or for corruption done in the land - it is as if he had slain all mankind entirely.  And, whoever saves one, it is as if he had saved mankind entirely."  He uses the passage to bolster his argument against bombing Western targets in Yemen - attacks he says defy the Koran.  And, he says, the Koran says under no circumstances should women and children be killed.

Meanwhile, that heavenly part:  ESA successfully launched the Ariane ECA heavy-lift booster just after 2100GMT on Saturday.  With a payload of ten tons, the ECA can put multiple satellites into orbit in a single launch.  Saturday's launch carried three satellites totalling over seven tons weight, though only two were placed into orbit (the third was ballast and booster telemetry, and was not intended to be orbited).

Comments

[robbat2.livejournal.com]

I'm not disputing that fact, just noting that I would prefer lots of smaller, cheaper rockets than one giant one.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

Then again, you can't launch giant payloads on small boosters, and the more separate launches you have to make, the higher the risk of a failed launch.

Ultimately, I suspect the overall loss rate is about the same with a few large launches or a lot of small ones. However, I'd suspect the cost of getting ten tons into orbit is less if you do it in a single ten-ton load than if you do it as five separate two-ton payloads.

There's also the issue that you only have to wait for one good launch window.