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#19
July 3rd 04, 02:14 AM
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Steve Robeson K4CAP wrote:
Subject: BPL - UPLC -Repeat the lie three times and claim it for truth From: PAMNO (N2EY) Date: 7/1/2004 6:32 PM Central Standard Time Message-id: In article , Mike Coslo writes: N2EY wrote: Ahh, but can you say the same for Tang flavored Teflon? There was anembarrassing moment when a '60s era astronaut swore he'd never drink the stuff ever again because of its GI tract effects on him. Trouble was he forgot he was on VOX... I couldn't blame him...I thought (think) the stuff sucks. Couldn't build more Saturns, as the tooling is gone, as well as the supply path. So we'd have to rebuild the tooling and supply systems in order to build the rockets. Which could take longer than it did the first time. I'd certainly hope that engineering skills and contruction methodology hadn't REGRESSED in the last four decades! =) Who's running this thing, anyway? Ex-Army radio clerks ? The problem isn't regression, the problem is that there are parts on the engine that simply aren't made any more. One small example is that when I was on tour down at the cape, we could look inside one of the monsters. I don't even know if lacing cable is made any more. That's just one thing, There are a lot of other parts that just aren't made any more. So while we could in principle make the things again, and the engineering drawings exist, it just ain't that simple. More the pity. The Saturn's were beautiful, muscular brutes, all the more impressive that they were made around 40 years ago. We haven't matched them yet. Quick Q. THe fuel and oxidizer combo on the Saturns was a bit different from the typical. What was it? As enormous as Saturn Vs were, they were just adequate for the job. That's a good thing. If you get even one pound more of thrust MORE than what you "need", then that's ALL you Well, that leaves the field wide open. Some would have us believe that we would be better to spend the money feeding the world's poor. Of course, then you end up with a lot of fat poor people that will continue eating your food until you run out, then you can starve along with 'em! 8^) Or the money could be spent teaching the world's poor how not to be poor. The old "give a man a fish" thing. That ain't a happening thng. Let us take the world's population and divide it into the gross global product. You are correct, Steve, it isn't going to happen. You know what I was so "impressed" with while overseas doing the things Lennie says I didn't do...?!?! There were American "missionaries" trying to impose thier religion and moral values on people supposedly too poor to eat or even buy a Bible...(you see thier kids on "Feed The Children" commercials... BUT...They always seemed to have money to buy AK47's and ammunition. Go figure... Praise the ammunition and pass the Lord? 8^) Today there is no such need or competition. Just wait 5 years. More like 20 The last years of the Soviet system were examples of what happens to a society wherein competion and individual initiative are stripped from people. The Russians found out the hard way. The Chinese learned, but they also learned how to keep people repressed and doing what they want them to do. Allowing people to accumulate wealth while suppressing their political freedoms is an interesting trick. BTW, China has just surpassed the US as an investment target. While we still have people that rail on about an Ex president. Point is, get the priorities straight, folks. That is the take away I get from the SpaceShipOne effort. By comparison, the Rutan effort is almost easy. I would not say "easy". And the SS1 effort has decades of experience and data behind it. X-15 did not. Exactly. And "composites"...And computing power 1000 fold greater than what Apollo had... So if they can do it for less money, and private money at that, why should we spend billions of tax dollars on it? "SpaceShip" 1 barely went suborbital. It will take a LOT more investment capital before we see any of Burt's stuff on orbit! Ahh, now we are getting close to what I think you are trying to say. As much as I enjoy the martian rovers, and as excited as I get about their discoveries, and in general, all the wonderful things that we get from the unmanned side of space exploration, if the basic purpose isn't to put people somewhere - I don't support it. Why not? The machines can do things humans cannot. The cost is less. The machines can stay for a long time and don;t have to come back. The machines can't fix them selves enroute or on-site. The machines are fascinating. But they are a big so-what in the big picture. I feel excited when the rovers do their thing and make discoveries, or when Cassini went into orbit as planned, and started sending back imagery. But So What? I am willing to bet that the Brit's "Beagle 2" mission burnt up on entering the Martian atmosphere. Maybe had it been a manned mission, the 1/10th of a degree attitude adjustment necessary to PREVENT it could have been made. AND, as we see from Hubble, they aren't taking care of the toys we are giving them now. Because the money isn't there. The Hubble deserves to live out it's full lifetime. At the end of it's useful life, it should be visited by a shuttle, packed up, and returned to earth to take an honored place in the Smithsonian Air and Space museum. Getting to see THAT would give me goosebumps and get me all excited. And what's more, it helps cement my support for all of this. The people at NASA should be concerned that ubergeeks like me don't support them at this time. It could also serve as a testbed for the effects of space on the hardware - all of it. How many meteorite holes, how much radiation damage, etc? Simulation is fine but imagine being able to study, in detail, something that spent years in space. How many other massive spaceborne telescopes have we had on orbit? These things also serve as testbeds. We tend to think of the space program as being "old" since were in our 3rd generation with it. It's not. It's still well within "infancy" I think we are so confused between our fantasy perception of space travel (ie: Star Trek et al, Babylon 5, etc) and the reality (barely crawling at this point) that we have these grossly overinflated ideas of how these systems OUGHT to "last" or "work". Once upon a time, we built the thing. It was important enough to take the risks and send it into space. Even though it was known that the optics were defective. But they were able to compensate for that. It got there - it had problems. We considered it important enough to go back into space and repair it. That was a technological triumph by the way. It turned that ugly duckling into a a beautiful swan of optical imaging. They *knew* the lense wasn't right. Why it was launched is a classic case of "not my job". That lesson is a valuable one. We felt it was important enough to send servicing missions to. Now "we" don't any more. At one time, we were going to retrieve it, but now it is too "dangerous" to even do a maintenance run on it. Answer: Robots. How does man learn to do these things in space if we send machines to try and do it? And how do we "teach" a machine to do something if we ourselves don't already know how it should be done? Robots my rosy red! I Wanna go there! The people that think all we should do is send robots into space really really miss the point. It ain't about the robots, or about the science. If it isn't people, it isn't interesting, and it won't get support. More important, most car accidents are caused or exacerbated by human error. People not wearing seat belts, driving too fast, driving while impaired, etc. By comparison, the shuttle failures were caused by equipment troubles that the crew could do nothing about. Oh? They were engineering errors if we patently accept the investigation's reports. The errors were due to a failure of the people making the decisons. Thiokol said "go" after being coerced by NASA people to let Challenger fly. Coerced by men...not robots. Boom. And check out what became of the engineer that didn't want the thing to fly, the what happened to the person that applied the pressure to launch. Proof that the squeaky wheel gets the ax! There had been issues raised over the foam on the external tank being able to come loose, but again cooler heads didn't get a chance to prevail. One "suggestion" that had been laid out years ago was that a "once-over" EVA be done to the Shuttle prior to re-entry in order to make sure no external damage was done. It was suggested that thios would place the crew at too much risk. The idea of a small "ROV" be built for the same purpose was made.. "Too much time and money". I'll bet a bunch of MIT kids could have designed the thing as a class project for less than a mil...Compare that against the loss we suffered. Actually, I don't think there is a way to solve those problems. The ones on earth? I disagree! Me too. I was once told that there are not really any "problems"...Just solutions awaiting implementation! So exactly how do we cure hunger, disease, poverty, and the fact that there is a significant number of people that don't think any of the above are a problem? I'm old enough to remember when the phrase "reaching for the moon" meant someone was trying to do that which could not be done. Yet it was done. Yep. I believe we will one day find outr how to go light speed or better. It's just a matter of time, money and effort. Agreed. There was a time when it was seriously argued that some men had to be enslaved, either literally or economically, because nobody would voluntarily do those jobs. That problem was solved. Yep..We just look the other way at the border once in a while! =) There was a time when it was seriously argued that women could not be allowed to vote because it would cause all kinds of problems. Turned out not to be a problem. That's a matter of opinion. Several political pundits have said that a lot of the "vote" that went to Bill Clinton did so because some segment of women voters thought he was more handsome than President Bush, and thought that his rhetoric on women's "issues" was "sweet". There was a time when it was considered impossible to teach most children to read and write because their work was 'needed' in the farms, mills and factories. Obviously it's still true. A very large part of our imports from India and Pakistan are made by kids. If we're not their, and it isn't humans there, maybe it's just time to sit down and watch the history channel. We might see a story about us there some day. What's all the rush? Space has been there for a lot longer than we have, and will be there long after we are gone. We can take our time and do it in a planned way, or rush headlong and wastefully, and accomplish little. Yes...it will still be there...but I for one am very disappointed that after four decades of manned space travel, we still haven't done a darned thing to REALLY start exploring "space"...! I'm in a rush, and that is enough for me. - Mike KB3EIA - |
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