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#11
June 29th 04, 10:34 AM
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Subject: BPL - UPLC -Repeat the lie three times and claim it for truth
From: PAMNO (N2EY) Date: 6/28/2004 7:47 PM Central Standard Time Message-id: In article , (Steve Robeson K4CAP) writes: Tomorrow, a lunar orbiter discovers what appears to be deposits of "X". We need "X" really bad, and we know if we don't have a quonset hut sitting on it, it's fair game. The moon has been under such observation for almost 40 years. Nothing of that sort of value has been found. And tommorow an orbiter scanning FOR "X" shows up, Jim... Maybe that 1/1000 chance that we see something from "just the right angle" happens... OK...four years. That's a completely different game. You just doubled the available time. And it's still four yeas less than the "usual" development time for aviation projects (The F22's been in the works for a decade already and is just now about readu to start manufacture). Again...IF we wanted to get it now "now", I think we could do it. The Ariane would have to put the tanks into an orbit that the shuttle could reach easily. And a docking system that would make fuel and oxidizer connections would have to be developed to make the hookup. That's a new technology right there. Why? What do we not already know about fuel line connections that we don't already know? What other magic is there to getting a fuel from one tank into another? The Russians were doing it for over a decade with MIR. The Saturn V was designed to be a one-booster-lifts all flight. Yep. Because after looking at all the alternatives, that was the best way to go. That was the best way to go THEN. Yep. But you need at least one new technology, and at least two carefully-timed launches. Can be done but it's harder and more costly. We know exactly where the moon's going to be for the next 2000 years. We can, with a handheld science calculator, do almost the same thing for earth launches. It IS "rocket science", but one that's been thoroughly developed and proven. It's a wheel that doesn't require re-invention. The political ramifications of a military (USAF) lunar mission would be a big problem. How many civilians have walked on the moon, Jim? And what makes you think that NASA may not have already penciled this mission out? Nobody says they haven't. But that's a long way from doing it. You HAVE told me of reasons why you think it won't work one certain way, Jim, but you've NOT shown me or caused me to believe it CAN'T be done under ANY circumstances. You're changing the boundary conditions, Steve. And you ignore basic physics. I am not ignoring any physics, Jim. Right - after decades of continuous development and upgrades, the range has been increased. And by eliminating features and making seats smaller, more people have been crammed aboard. Yes, seats can be made smaller... But the aircraft is 40% larger today than it was in 1969. Better engines are one big reason. Those engines weren't a result of the space or military programs. They were the result of companies like GE working to sell civilian aircraft engines. If they could show enough fuel saving with a new design, the airlines would buy the new engines. Hmmmmmmm.... "...compnies like GE..." Now..I WONDER who it was that made (or were major contractors on) the engines that presently put the shuttle in orbit, as well as about every other rocket or aeronautical project since the 30's...?!?! Ya think they learned anything in the process...?!?! I certainly do. And that's only from actually building the things...The engineering could be done now in CAD with a minimum of expense. Not true. CADD helps but you still need to build the thing. Eventually, but not like we used to. The F-22 and the Boeing 777 were both aircraft that were CAD'd right into a first flying prototype. You're forgetting the physics again. No. I'm not. I know it takes a lot of fuel to get on-orbit. I know it takes even more to get that magical 17,500+MPH to break orbit. And I know it costs money to get them there. As for your repeated reminders about "physics", Jim, I'll point out that ALL of the deep space flights were NOT launched on Saturn 5's...They went up on Atlas-Centaurs, Arrianes, ot Titan-3C's. No, I don't have "the numbers"...But I know we (yes, Lennie...The "Royal We") can do it if we wanted to. Only if the resources are allocated. Which means $$ out of everyone's pockets. We can't park "re-supply" ships along the way or in lunar orbit? Do you know what a Lagrange point is? Sure I do. Then you should know that you can't "park" ships along the way to the moon. No, but you CAN park them in Earth orbit or you can park them in lunar orbit. The only practical point would be lunar orbit. Now, how would you get a supply container there? The same way we got RANGER, "Lunar Orbiter", Apollo and who knows how manyn other lunar exploration packages there. Big one-use rockets. Atlas was a "big one-use rocket"...?!?! CM/LM rendevous was done after TLI and after LM ascension in lunar orbit. Both waaaaaaay outside Earth orbit! Sure. But the initial move wasn't really a rendezvous - it was just the CSM separating, turning around, docking and pulling the LM out. The only really tricky rendezvous was when the LM came back up from the lunar surface to meet the CSM. How tricky, Jim? In one case (TLI) only one of the craft was under manned control. In the case of CSM/LM rendevous, there were two craft under manned control. Starting with Gemini-Agena up trough Shuttle-ISS, don't you think we've gotten the technique pretty well down pat...??? Add "zero g fuel tank connection system" How did the Russians "refuel" MIR for oover a decade? Swap out propane tanks at the convienience store? Apollo took only about 8 years. With slide rules. And an enormous price tag. Becasue we'd never done it before. Now it's software you can download in a couple minutes. So what would be your assessment on a reasonable timeline? That depends on the funding. Sheeeeesh. Basic physics. The energy required to send the whole shuttle to lunar orbit and back again is simply too great. "Too great"...?!?! Or too expensive...?!?! Too great. Earlier in this same exchange you said too expensive, Jim. Well there's the rub. Again, "how much money" as opposed to the logistics of getting it done. I included the logistics. The logisitics is the money! Anybody who was in their 30s when Apollo was active is now retirement age. Or dead. What? NASA didn't keep any archives? These guys "learned" all that stuff then kept it to themselves? I am in Huntsville at least once a month. "Aerospace" is the "big business", but all those other countless places are needed to support the PEOPLE in "aerospace". (The 99% who get stuff done, and the 1% [ie:Lennie] who go along for the ride and milk it for what they can...But they ALL make money and spend money) Only because the money is imported from elsewhere. Uh huh. And why is that money "imported" fro "elsewhere", Jim? You're the one complaining about getting ripped off every April 15. How much of *your* money... Of "MY" money, we just spent over $100B invading another country that was of dubious danger to us (certainly less than the old USSR was at one time), and will continue to spend billions on for another decade. Now...If that $100B were allocated to a new lunar colony project...?!?! 1) We describe the problem to be solved. Example: Energy independence. We define what it means and what has to change. 2) We gather pertinent data. Look at how much is being imported, where it comes from, how it is used, and how it could be reduced or replaced. 3) We set up adequately funded and properly run programs to make it happen. Won't happen overnight but it can be done. Sure it can be done. It COULD have been done 30+ years ago but "we" were too cheap to open our wallets then to avoid the costs today. Well...today is here, and now it's going to be a quantum more expensive to do the things we need to do, but STILL haven't done. Again...it's the wallet problem...not the space problem that keeps us from these things. Then create the impetus. How about tax credits for installing energy-saving hardware? We had that under Carter - and Reagan tossed it away. But wait, Jim! Weren't you the same one decrying that certain persons get tax breaks that you and I don't get...?!?! Aren't those "tax credits" that encourage the Forbes 500 folks to USE those billions to keep industry going...?!?! What we HAD under Carter were stifling inflation. Science and industry MOVED under Reagan. Not a boast on my part...archived historical facts. That's the root reason we decry the space program..."Let's spend the money on Earth!" But we're not doing it. Then if we're not spending the money now with no more than we're doing in space, how could this make it any worse? The move forward in industry and technology would be perpetuating in and of itself... Well...I never DID see where Mickey D's was on orbit yet, so where ELSE is the money being spent...?!?! What's needed is to spend the money fixing Earth's problems. I've heard that same argument used to finish off Apollo. We KO'd Apollo, yet schools are (in your estimation) no better off. Why is that? If you want, we can trash all of that, go back to pencil, paper and slide rules, and "Movietone" newsreels for "audio visuals" at school...?!?! Many schools are at about that level today because the commitment is not there to fund them adequately. Heck, some schools don't have enough books! And NASA is manhandling those school board members to the ground and stealing the money from them? Why can't the USA have the best educational systems in the world? The best surface transportation systems? The best energy systems? Energy independence? Money. Exactly. It gets spent on giving congresscritters joyrides and in replacing destroyed orbiters. We'll spend more money trying to defeat gay marriage than what replacing Columbia and Challenger would cost. Besides...we HAVEN'T replaced them...Challenger splashed 18 years ago now. Where's IT'S replacement...?!?!? We could have done all of those things 30 or more years ago (or at least been positioned to be there by now...) but everything was "fine" then, so why spend the money...?!?! Everything wasn't fine then. I agree. That's why I put it in " " brackets. It WAS a problem then. It's a worse one now. Things are NOT so fine now, but not yet to disaster proportions, but that light at the end of the tunnel is NOT salvation! It's the on-coming train! What *are* you talking about? Drought. Declining oil reserves. Internal security of our own borders. Here's a quick one...Desalination. Plants were designed in the 60's for SoCal that would have used solar heating to help desalt seawater for LA, SFO and SDG. Sounds like a good idea. Now the news on several internet sites is that the LA reserves are down by 5 to 7 million acre-feet of water. Were the plants built? Nope. They "cost" too much. I wonder what they'd cost today to build? I wonder what the cost of the decaying cities will be when those cities can no longer sustain thier populations, and the people go elsewhere to live? We will force the building of NEW infrastructure wherever these people wind up, and the old cities will have to be refurbished somehow. Ultimately I think they will have to still build the plants that should ahve started in the 70's, and it will cost even more then. Sure it will....Some idiot did it to TBN (not that they didn't NEED jamming.....) and the guy responsible was collared in a day. How did they find him? Was he in the USA? Did he do it continually? As I understand it he was found using the satellite itself to narrow him down. He was then found by the "usual" terran techniques. No, he didn't do it continually. And I bet with some simple programming we can defeat jamming of our commercial satellites... Not against RF overload. That would take a system capable of putting a massive amount of RF across an extremely wide range of frequencies for a significant amount of time, Jim. Like from 400MHZ to over 5GHZ. THAT would be expensive, and would NOT be the kind of technology you could load into a Ryder truck. When's the last time a CNG tanker or railroad tank car in the USA exploded and killed people? How many of them do you think are in use in the continental USA in the course of a year? Oh...NOW you add the modifier "and killed people"... ! ! ! Yes. That's what the shuttle did when it blew up. Level the playing field. Ahhhhhhhh....I see...... Well, I still see the Manned Space Program as beiong over forty years old, and only 17 Americans have died in direct space flight operations or preparations. The boosters for the Shuttle exploded once, we fixed that problem. Then another problem surfaced. Is it really fixed? This time it was FOD to the leading edges of the wings. Not the same...certainly not "over and over". Dead is dead. Two orbiters and their crews a total loss. Yes. Dead is dead. They were tragedies, and we learned from them. I do not consider thier sacrifices as a "total loss". They DO have a Lunar plan in place, according to TIME, Scientific American and several other folks commenting on the issue. So did the Russians. They never got there. They never got there because they quit. They spent thier money elsewhere. It wasn't that they couldn't. If they land ONE man on the Moon in the next decade, that will be one more than WE have done in the last forty years ! ! ! So? The moon isn't ours. The Gulf of Siddra isn't "ours" either yet we patrol it with a Carrier Battle Group regularly. The differene with the Moon is that anyone who can get there can make use of what ever resources they find there. If it isn't us, it will be someone else. I would rather it BE us. I'd rather not! You suggested the Ariane earlier. Lacking a US alternative, I'd spend our monies with ESA before I'd send any more of it to the Pacific Rim..especially a PacRim controlled by the Red Chinese. Why is it OK to buy consumer goods from China but not rockets? Because I am not worried about the Red Chinese using the technology used to make rubber duckies and t-shirts to overwhem us. I'm about HOW we can do things. Me too. I'm an engineer. Then instead of tellingus what "can't" be done because of a lack of funding, tell us what CAN be done WITH adequate funding...And money spent SMARTLY, not just thrown into the pot and done with as you will..... Other people dream of doing great things. Engineers do them. Engieneers do them when adequately funded! DaVinci dreamed of a great many things that have only been made practical in the last 100 years...Because we spent the money on research to develop the materials to let the enginees make it happen! If you believe that "all that money" is going to no good use and that it's not a benefit in your daily life today, well then there's just no use doing it. I've not said that. What I have said is that the space and military programs are not the best way to solve our problems here on earth. Those problems need to be addressed directly. You want a better mousetrap, study mouse behavior and trap design. That's not how I've read it. Read it again without couching it in "liberal/conservative" or "democrat/republican" terms. I see the benefits of our space and technology programs every day. And as both an American and as a human with a bit more than average sense of adventure, I'd like to see us reach out beyond our own celestial home and take advantage of the opportunities "out there". So would I. But at the same time, I realize how big space is, and how empty. And the basic physics of the problems inherent in space travel. Unfortunatley GETTING there will be neither cheap or without risk, but I for one think the benefits will ultimately be enormous. How much of *your* money are you willing to spend? Because that's what will fund it. Better funding American space programs than leasing others! You're still avoiding that simple question.... I am not "avoiding" anything Jim. I point blank said earlier that I didn't have all the answers. I just know that we are NOT doing ANYthing to move the program forward today. The recent deployments only bear that out. They prove the technology is no damn good. It's a spectrum polluter. It's just plain stupid. They proved that THIS method is a spectrum polluter. Can there NEVER be a development that might work? 73 Steve, K4YZ |
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