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BTW Stevie were watch the news lately about NASA
did you chatch the Head of NASA condeming the shuttle and the ISS as
failures |
nobodys old friend wrote: did you chatch the Head of NASA condeming the shuttle and the ISS as failures Funny...no one else is saying that. Seems everyone else is STILL using the shuttle AND the Space Station...Which I had a chance to observe at 05:36CDT Wednesday morning...spectacular. (www.science.nasa.gov) And they intend to do so for many years to come. Keep trying to "score one", Mark. One day you'll actually do it. I HAVE read about numerous persons saying that the "mission" has outgrown the shuttle...That the Shuttle, esentially 1970's technology, should be updated...Just like the automakers bring out new model years. No one ever expected the Shuttle to the "end all" of the manned space program. It's just time to go on to bigger and better. Heck, Mark...The Shuttle's "younger" than YOU are, yet done far more in it's lifetime than you've done in yours. Steve, K4YZ |
K4YZ wrote:
nobodys old friend wrote: did you chatch the Head of NASA condeming the shuttle and the ISS as failures Funny...no one else is saying that. I'd like to see a quote of what was actually said. Of course those programs have had failures. Heck, Apollo had two spectacular failures, one of which cost the lives of three astronauts without ever leaving the ground. But no one with any sense would describe Apollo, the shuttle or the ISS as "failures" because they did not reach every goal set for them. Seems everyone else is STILL using the shuttle AND the Space Station...Which I had a chance to observe at 05:36CDT Wednesday morning...spectacular. (www.science.nasa.gov) And they intend to do so for many years to come. Not too many, though... Keep trying to "score one", Mark. One day you'll actually do it. You really think so? I HAVE read about numerous persons saying that the "mission" has outgrown the shuttle...That the Shuttle, esentially 1970's technology, should be updated... Agreed! Just like the automakers bring out new model years. More like the automakers rethink the basic design. Remember when most cars were body-on-frame, longitudinal-front-engine, rear-wheel-drive, with V8s and bias-ply tires? Now most of them are unibody, transverse-engine, front-wheel-drive, with V6s and inline 4s, and radial tires. No one ever expected the Shuttle to the "end all" of the manned space program. Yes, they did. The Shuttle was supposed to be a "space truck" that would totally replace and outdate the "spam in a can" one-shot capsule systems used for Mercury/Gemini/Apollo. But in fact the complexity of the shuttle system and other design features (like having the heatshield tiles exposed for the entire mission) have limited its success and performance. It's just time to go on to bigger and better. I'd say "smaller and smarter". Of course some of what is said is all about getting funding. Bush wants to go back to the moon, which NASA says will cost $100 billion. Probably double or triple that in real life. Funding such an effort will require convincing a lot of folks that it's worthwhile, and part of that is showing them that the shuttle's time is past and we need new systems. The shuttle is therefore portrayed as "last year's model" Of course one has to ask why we need to spend $100 billion to get a few folks to the moon, when we couldn't even evacuate two cities effectively here on earth. 73 de Jim, N2EY |
K4YZ wrote:
wrote: K4YZ wrote: Of course those programs have had failures. Heck, Apollo had two spectacular failures, one of which cost the lives of three astronauts without ever leaving the ground. But no one with any sense would describe Apollo, the shuttle or the ISS as "failures" because they did not reach every goal set for them. I am sure that some aspect of "A" mission failed, ergo Mark thinks he can write it off as an "I Win"...If that's what float's his boat, let him be happy. Seems everyone else is STILL using the shuttle AND the Space Station...Which I had a chance to observe at 05:36CDT Wednesday morning...spectacular. (www.science.nasa.gov) And they intend to do so for many years to come. Not too many, though... ISS is sceheduled to stay manned through 2020-somenthing... But not the shuttle. In fact it's grounded - again. I HAVE read about numerous persons saying that the "mission" has outgrown the shuttle...That the Shuttle, esentially 1970's technology, should be updated... Agreed! MY biggest disappointment is that we are as close to Mars as we've been in centuries, but we don't have a manned mission there yet. ??? Not sure what you mean, Steve. Going to Mars is at least 100 times more difficult than going to the moon. Mars never gets closer than 30 million miles - more than 100 times farther away than the moon. A Mars mission would be years long rather than a week or two. Martian gravity and atmosphere make the problems even worse. If it costs $100-200 billion or more to go to the moon, what would Mars cost? Just like the automakers bring out new model years. More like the automakers rethink the basic design. Remember when most cars were body-on-frame, longitudinal-front-engine, rear-wheel-drive, with V8s and bias-ply tires? Now most of them are unibody, transverse-engine, front-wheel-drive, with V6s and inline 4s, and radial tires. And 20 years from now they'll look back at THOSE cars and laugh... "THOSE" cars have been pretty much standard for 20 years now... Yet they still burn gasoline and other petroleum based fuels. The fleet mileage standards are not improving. The USA imports much more energy (almost all of it in the form of oil and natural gas) than in the 1970s. Why isn't there a massive program to solve our energy problems? The White House has been in the hands of a former oilman for more than half a decade now. You'd think there's be some understanding of what needs to be done for the future, but where's the leadership? Forward...always forward... The question is: which way is "forward"? Should we all drive SUVs? No one ever expected the Shuttle to the "end all" of the manned space program. Yes, they did. Oh? Yes. They were going to fly the Shuttle and then call it quits after that? No. They said that the future of space flight was in reusable craft rather than one-use rockets. Turns out the reusables have not solved the problems. The Shuttle was supposed to be a "space truck" that would totally replace and outdate the "spam in a can" one-shot capsule systems used for Mercury/Gemini/Apollo. But in fact the complexity of the shuttle system and other design features (like having the heatshield tiles exposed for the entire mission) have limited its success and performance. That doesn't support an "opposition" to what I said... Yes, it does. The "old" one-shot rockets are almost certainly the key to the "way forward"... It's just time to go on to bigger and better. I'd say "smaller and smarter". Of course some of what is said is all about getting funding. Bush wants to go back to the moon, which NASA says will cost $100 billion. Probably double or triple that in real life. Funding such an effort will require convincing a lot of folks that it's worthwhile, and part of that is showing them that the shuttle's time is past and we need new systems. The shuttle is therefore portrayed as "last year's model" Of course one has to ask why we need to spend $100 billion to get a few folks to the moon, when we couldn't even evacuate two cities effectively here on earth. Several issues there, Jim. First of all, much of the radio and TV media had been talking about the storm swinging wide and not causing "that much" damage. Not the TV and radio I saw! That was misleading and I am sure "reassured" the local populace that this was rideable. Yet the NWS said the opposite. Secondly, the topography is such that moving mass numbers of folks OUT of NO in a hurry is a gridlock nightmare in and of itself. All the more reason to get out early. And what about Houston? Why was that evacuation such a fiasco? You can't blame it on the Dems... Third, the residents themselves have to swallow some culpability for CHOOSING to live on a below-sea level chunk of real estate in a region known for hurricaines and high sea states. Agreed - and so can the various levels of govt. for allowing and encouraging them to live there and build more. The govt. builds the levees and issues the building permits. If we become so presumptuous as to assume the government can bail us out of each and every conceiveable disaster, there will be precious little money left for anything else. I say the best thing to do now is to *not* rebuild the parts of NO that are below sea level. Salvage what can be saved, and move away. Will Our President exhibit leadership and say that's what should be done? Or will he make exorbitant promises, pouring much more money into rebuilding than it would take to relocate? Back to NASA...The technologies in my chosen profession alone that have benefitted from the Space Program are phenominal. I think if we pulled the rug out from under it any time soon, the "trickle down" effect in lost of impetus in technology development would be rapid and deep felt. Can you guarantee that those advances would not have happened if the money had been spent on research in the fields directly affected? IOW, why not simply go after a problem directly? 73 de Jim, N2EY |
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K4YZ wrote: nobodys old friend wrote: did you chatch the Head of NASA condeming the shuttle and the ISS as failures Funny...no one else is saying that. BUZZ wrong again wildy reported on Foxnews that the head of NASA said that shuttle and ISS are failure cut Steve, K4YZ |
Dave Heil wrote:
wrote: K4YZ wrote: wrote: K4YZ wrote: "THOSE" cars have been pretty much standard for 20 years now... Yet they still burn gasoline and other petroleum based fuels. The fleet mileage standards are not improving. The USA imports much more energy (almost all of it in the form of oil and natural gas) than in the 1970s. My mileage standards are doing fine. I'm on my third Dodge Neon. In how many years? The 2 liter engine delivers about 33 mpg on the highway. I'm tall but I have 4 or 5 inches of space between the top of my head and the roof of the car. For 17 years I drove a VW Rabbit Diesel. Over 40 mpg in the worst kind of city driving, well over 50 mpg on the highway. Met all the pollution requirements too. With technology from the late 1970s. Yes, the U.S.A. imports more oil than it produces. It looks as if we *do* have an energy policy and part of it seems to be, "Let's use theirs before we use ours". Yup - also "we'll pay whatever it costs" and "we'll support all kinds of not-so-nice regimes, even fight wars, as long as they keep the oil flowing" Most of all: "We don't have any sort of plan to become energy-independent or even less dependent in the long term" Why isn't there a massive program to solve our energy problems? The White House has been in the hands of a former oilman for more than half a decade now. You'd think there's be some understanding of what needs to be done for the future, but where's the leadership? Well, we aren't going to be driving electrics because of limited range. Lots of people could use an inexpensive electric car for local use. But there's no serious program to develop one. GM had some electric Saturns for a while, and their owners loved 'em, but they ended the program early. The hybrids are quite expensive. New technology usually is - at first. The hydrogen-powered car won't be viable until we can produce hydrogen cheaply. Don't hold yer breath... What kind of leadership would you like to see? How about: 1) Tax credits for energy efficient investments, such as high MPG cars, high efficiency heating and cooling units, high efficiency appliances, etc. We used to have them... 2) A long term program to *seriously* develop energy efficient systems like electric cars, wind and solar energy, new energy sources like thermal depolymerization (TDP), etc. 3) Community planning that makes us less dependent on cars. Transit systems that work. Design for sustainable technology rather than for show. 4) An emphasis on conservation and efficiency rather than conspicuous consumption. I say the best thing to do now is to *not* rebuild the parts of NO that are below sea level. Salvage what can be saved, and move away. Will Our President exhibit leadership and say that's what should be done? Or will he make exorbitant promises, pouring much more money into rebuilding than it would take to relocate? Do you really think that the POTUS has the clout to declare that NOLA won't be rebuilt? He seems to have the clout to say it will be. Why not the opposite? *WHY* should we all pay to rebuild a city below sea level in a hurricane zone? 73 de Jim, N2EY |
wrote:
K4YZ wrote: nobodys old friend wrote: did you chatch the Head of NASA condeming the shuttle and the ISS as failures Funny...no one else is saying that. I'd like to see a quote of what was actually said. Me too. I did a web search, and didn't find anything. Mark, can you give us a source? Of course those programs have had failures. Heck, Apollo had two spectacular failures, one of which cost the lives of three astronauts without ever leaving the ground. But no one with any sense would describe Apollo, the shuttle or the ISS as "failures" because they did not reach every goal set for them. The shuttle is our attempt to do a job with 1970's (and some earlier) technology. As such, it was a huge task that we were barely able to produce to do some of the goals that were set. The good news is that we were able to get it off the ground and into space. The bad news (and I don't really consider it that) is that it is an expensive and finicky bitch. Would we produce it that way today? Not even. Time moved on, technology advanced, and I have no doubt that that a machine produced with 2000's technology would be much safer, less expensive to produce and maintain, and much more capable. But to call it a failure is absolutely wrong, and misses the whole point. We DID make several machines that DID ride to orbit, DID perform their missions, DID return to earth, and DID outfit for many return trips to space. It is interesting that the failures in the system that led to the loss of two of the orbiters were due to peripheral systems that failed largely to human error. Some failure. Seems everyone else is STILL using the shuttle AND the Space Station...Which I had a chance to observe at 05:36CDT Wednesday morning...spectacular. (www.science.nasa.gov) And they intend to do so for many years to come. Not too many, though... Keep trying to "score one", Mark. One day you'll actually do it. You really think so? I HAVE read about numerous persons saying that the "mission" has outgrown the shuttle...That the Shuttle, esentially 1970's technology, should be updated... Agreed! Just like the automakers bring out new model years. More like the automakers rethink the basic design. Remember when most cars were body-on-frame, longitudinal-front-engine, rear-wheel-drive, with V8s and bias-ply tires? Now most of them are unibody, transverse-engine, front-wheel-drive, with V6s and inline 4s, and radial tires. No one ever expected the Shuttle to the "end all" of the manned space program. Yes, they did. The Shuttle was supposed to be a "space truck" that would totally replace and outdate the "spam in a can" one-shot capsule systems used for Mercury/Gemini/Apollo. But in fact the complexity of the shuttle system and other design features (like having the heatshield tiles exposed for the entire mission) have limited its success and performance. I thing there is some confusion here, Jim. I doubt that the shuttle was designed to be the last "space truck" we ever designed! It's just time to go on to bigger and better. I'd say "smaller and smarter". I dunno. I think that we might be at the point of vehicle specialization now. I can envision a heavy lift vehicle that is just that- a minimalist vehicle that provides basic life support and maneuvering, then returns to earth after delivering its cargo. It could be a reusable vehicle. Wouldn't be quite like the shuttle in that it wouldn't have that expensive main engine on it. Of course some of what is said is all about getting funding. Bush wants to go back to the moon, which NASA says will cost $100 billion. Probably double or triple that in real life. Funding such an effort will require convincing a lot of folks that it's worthwhile, and part of that is showing them that the shuttle's time is past and we need new systems. The shuttle is therefore portrayed as "last year's model" If people are *not* going to be in space, I support a NASA budget of $0.00 dollars. I support great sums of money going to them if people are going to go to space. And there are plenty of people that feel the same as I do. All the scientists who make the claims about how space science is so much cheaper and safer just don't get it. Their work is cool and all, but they are the tail of the dog.... Of course one has to ask why we need to spend $100 billion to get a few folks to the moon, when we couldn't even evacuate two cities effectively here on earth. I wouldn't, because the two things aren't related. Reminds me of the old "We can put a man on the moon, so why can't we cure the common cold" questions that used to make the rounds. The failures of the latest hurricane disaster responses are the logical end game of placing people in charge more because of their political connections, and less because of their competency. - Mike KB3EIA - |
Dave Heil wrote:
wrote: K4YZ wrote: wrote: K4YZ wrote: "THOSE" cars have been pretty much standard for 20 years now... Yet they still burn gasoline and other petroleum based fuels. The fleet mileage standards are not improving. The USA imports much more energy (almost all of it in the form of oil and natural gas) than in the 1970s. My mileage standards are doing fine. I'm on my third Dodge Neon. The 2 liter engine delivers about 33 mpg on the highway. I'm tall but I have 4 or 5 inches of space between the top of my head and the roof of the car. Yes, the U.S.A. imports more oil than it produces. It looks as if we *do* have an energy policy and part of it seems to be, "Let's use theirs before we use ours". Well, if that is our game plan, we better have enough reserves to fight most of the world off. Otherwise it is dangerous brinkmanship. Why isn't there a massive program to solve our energy problems? The White House has been in the hands of a former oilman for more than half a decade now. You'd think there's be some understanding of what needs to be done for the future, but where's the leadership? Well, we aren't going to be driving electrics because of limited range. The hybrids are quite expensive. The hydrogen-powered car won't be viable until we can produce hydrogen cheaply. I really doubt that H is going to ever be a valid fuel. What kind of leadership would you like to see? I would like to see some leadership realizing that driving single digit fuel millage SUV's is an unpatriotic act, that building under insulated McMansions that take immense amounts of energy to heat is an unpatriotic act. The way we are with oil and gas in recent times reminds me of the legendary lighting of cigars with 100 dollar bills. In yo' face consumption... I think that one critical lesson that should be gleaned from these two hurricanes this summer is that we are incredibly vulnerable in a few important areas. under the right circumstances, losing that much oil and gas production could be a near fatal blow. I say the best thing to do now is to *not* rebuild the parts of NO that are below sea level. Salvage what can be saved, and move away. Will Our President exhibit leadership and say that's what should be done? Or will he make exorbitant promises, pouring much more money into rebuilding than it would take to relocate? Do you really think that the POTUS has the clout to declare that NOLA won't be rebuilt? Nope. New Orleans will be rebuilt, and will be rebuilt again, and perhaps a third or forth time, until it slips beneath the waves for good. - Mike KB3EIA - |
Mike Coslo wrote:
Dave Heil wrote: wrote: K4YZ wrote: wrote: K4YZ wrote: "THOSE" cars have been pretty much standard for 20 years now... Yet they still burn gasoline and other petroleum based fuels. The fleet mileage standards are not improving. The USA imports much more energy (almost all of it in the form of oil and natural gas) than in the 1970s. My mileage standards are doing fine. I'm on my third Dodge Neon. The 2 liter engine delivers about 33 mpg on the highway. I'm tall but I have 4 or 5 inches of space between the top of my head and the roof of the car. Yes, the U.S.A. imports more oil than it produces. It looks as if we *do* have an energy policy and part of it seems to be, "Let's use theirs before we use ours". Well, if that is our game plan, we better have enough reserves to fight most of the world off. Otherwise it is dangerous brinkmanship. The countries which produce oil are interested in selling it. We're interested in buying it. I don't see any danger in that at all. Why isn't there a massive program to solve our energy problems? The White House has been in the hands of a former oilman for more than half a decade now. You'd think there's be some understanding of what needs to be done for the future, but where's the leadership? Well, we aren't going to be driving electrics because of limited range. The hybrids are quite expensive. The hydrogen-powered car won't be viable until we can produce hydrogen cheaply. I really doubt that H is going to ever be a valid fuel. I used to think that but I heard a recent radio story which might change my mind. The South Africans are developing a "pellet bed" small nuclear reactor. Tennis ball-sized spheres of graphite and ceramic are packed with yellow cake. Core temps can never get hot enough for meltdown but are high enough to produce hydrogen and to desalinate sea water. What kind of leadership would you like to see? I would like to see some leadership realizing that driving single digit fuel millage SUV's is an unpatriotic act, that building under insulated McMansions that take immense amounts of energy to heat is an unpatriotic act. Naaaah. Those who drive the SUVs are being bitten in the wallet. I know a number of pickup truck owners hereabouts, who are buying small cars. Nobody is building underinsulated anything these days. My pal W8RHM built his dream home three years ago. It is large and it has geothermal heating. The heating system was supposed to pay for itself within ten years or so. With the energy hikes of the past few years, it'll be paid off much sooner. 'RHM is now paying winter heating bills of 45-65 bucks. Those who have big, old homes will sell 'em to someone who can afford to heat them. The way we are with oil and gas in recent times reminds me of the legendary lighting of cigars with 100 dollar bills. In yo' face consumption... You may feel free to paint me with that brush. My lease agreement with Columbia Gas provides me with 300,000 cubic feet of gas yearly. I'm barely using more than half. I'm heating a glassed-in side porch and a workshop in the barn. As soon as I get around to it, I'm adding a greenhouse lean to on the back of the barn. I've a gas conversion kit for a gasoline generator. In short, I'm going to very conspicuously use right up to that 300,000 cubic feet and I'm not going to feel any guilt over it at all. I think that one critical lesson that should be gleaned from these two hurricanes this summer is that we are incredibly vulnerable in a few important areas. under the right circumstances, losing that much oil and gas production could be a near fatal blow. That's right. We need to drill in more places. ANWAR should be hurricane proof. Nobody wants to discuss one of the real solutions to sufficient energy: more nuke reactors. I say the best thing to do now is to *not* rebuild the parts of NO that are below sea level. Salvage what can be saved, and move away. Will Our President exhibit leadership and say that's what should be done? Or will he make exorbitant promises, pouring much more money into rebuilding than it would take to relocate? Do you really think that the POTUS has the clout to declare that NOLA won't be rebuilt? Nope. New Orleans will be rebuilt, and will be rebuilt again, and perhaps a third or forth time, until it slips beneath the waves for good. Yep and people are free to build where they choose. Without the freedom to make choices, America wouldn't be America. I won't be rushing to buy a home in New Orleans but most of those folks wouldn't live on a hilltop in rural West Virginia. That suits their needs...and mine. Dave K8MN |
nobodys old friend wrote: K4YZ wrote: nobodys old friend wrote: did you chatch the Head of NASA condeming the shuttle and the ISS as failures Funny...no one else is saying that. BUZZ wrong again wildy reported on Foxnews that the head of NASA said that shuttle and ISS are failure cut "cut" = KB9RQZ censorship Once again you demonstrate your lack of English comprehension skills, Mark. You (allegedly) cited ONE person. I said "Funny...no one else is saying that." Try again. Steve, K4YZ |
Dave Heil wrote:
Mike Coslo wrote: Dave Heil wrote: wrote: K4YZ wrote: wrote: K4YZ wrote: "THOSE" cars have been pretty much standard for 20 years now... Yet they still burn gasoline and other petroleum based fuels. The fleet mileage standards are not improving. The USA imports much more energy (almost all of it in the form of oil and natural gas) than in the 1970s. My mileage standards are doing fine. I'm on my third Dodge Neon. The 2 liter engine delivers about 33 mpg on the highway. I'm tall but I have 4 or 5 inches of space between the top of my head and the roof of the car. Yes, the U.S.A. imports more oil than it produces. It looks as if we *do* have an energy policy and part of it seems to be, "Let's use theirs before we use ours". Well, if that is our game plan, we better have enough reserves to fight most of the world off. Otherwise it is dangerous brinkmanship. The countries which produce oil are interested in selling it. We're interested in buying it. I don't see any danger in that at all. The danger is what happens if they decide not to sell it. Or jack up the price. Or require all sorts of conditions. Most of all, there's what they do with the money. Buying anyhting from anyone empowers that person to do things, some of which you may not like. Why isn't there a massive program to solve our energy problems? The White House has been in the hands of a former oilman for more than half a decade now. You'd think there's be some understanding of what needs to be done for the future, but where's the leadership? Well, we aren't going to be driving electrics because of limited range. The hybrids are quite expensive. The hydrogen-powered car won't be viable until we can produce hydrogen cheaply. I really doubt that H is going to ever be a valid fuel. I used to think that but I heard a recent radio story which might change my mind. The South Africans are developing a "pellet bed" small nuclear reactor. Tennis ball-sized spheres of graphite and ceramic are packed with yellow cake. Core temps can never get hot enough for meltdown but are high enough to produce hydrogen and to desalinate sea water. At what cost per btu of hydrogen produced? What kind of leadership would you like to see? I would like to see some leadership realizing that driving single digit fuel millage SUV's is an unpatriotic act, that building under insulated McMansions that take immense amounts of energy to heat is an unpatriotic act. Naaaah. Those who drive the SUVs are being bitten in the wallet. I know a number of pickup truck owners hereabouts, who are buying small cars. Nobody is building underinsulated anything these days. The problem is that we have an enormous existing stock of cars, trucks and houses, and it won't turn over so fast. We've been this way before, too. You'd think we'd have learned. My pal W8RHM built his dream home three years ago. It is large and it has geothermal heating. The heating system was supposed to pay for itself within ten years or so. With the energy hikes of the past few years, it'll be paid off much sooner. 'RHM is now paying winter heating bills of 45-65 bucks. Most of which is electricity to run the pumps. Those who have big, old homes will sell 'em to someone who can afford to heat them. If they can. The way we are with oil and gas in recent times reminds me of the legendary lighting of cigars with 100 dollar bills. In yo' face consumption... You may feel free to paint me with that brush. My lease agreement with Columbia Gas provides me with 300,000 cubic feet of gas yearly. I'm barely using more than half. Not everyone can live atop a gas well. I'm heating a glassed-in side porch and a workshop in the barn. As soon as I get around to it, I'm adding a greenhouse lean to on the back of the barn. I've a gas conversion kit for a gasoline generator. In short, I'm going to very conspicuously use right up to that 300,000 cubic feet and I'm not going to feel any guilt over it at all. I think that one critical lesson that should be gleaned from these two hurricanes this summer is that we are incredibly vulnerable in a few important areas. under the right circumstances, losing that much oil and gas production could be a near fatal blow. That's right. We need to drill in more places. ANWAR should be hurricane proof. But not blizzard-proof. Nor drunken-oil-tanker-captain-proof. Nor can it provide near enough oil to solve the problem. Nobody wants to discuss one of the real solutions to sufficient energy: more nuke reactors. Are they a real solution? How much does it cost to extract the fuel to run them? How much to build and operate them? How much to decomission after they are worn out? How much to deal with the waste? A lot of those costs have been hidden from the utility customer. I say the best thing to do now is to *not* rebuild the parts of NO that are below sea level. Salvage what can be saved, and move away. Will Our President exhibit leadership and say that's what should be done? Or will he make exorbitant promises, pouring much more money into rebuilding than it would take to relocate? Do you really think that the POTUS has the clout to declare that NOLA won't be rebuilt? Nope. New Orleans will be rebuilt, and will be rebuilt again, and perhaps a third or forth time, until it slips beneath the waves for good. Yep and people are free to build where they choose. Not really. Without the freedom to make choices, America wouldn't be America. I won't be rushing to buy a home in New Orleans but most of those folks wouldn't live on a hilltop in rural West Virginia. That suits their needs...and mine. The problem isn't the choice. It's the fact that we are expected to fund and support other people's bad choices. The factor that is forgotten here is that almost all construction requires permits, insurance and financing. Government gives the permits, and has an influence on the insurance and financing. How many people will choose to rebuild in NO if the govt says that the whole thing is a bad idea and they're not going to fix the levees, nor provide new flood insurance for below-sea-level construction? Suppose I were to build a house whose roof could not stand the snow loads encountered here in EPA in a bad winter. And suppose a bad winter came along and the roof collapsed. Should I expect the govt. to pay to rebuild my roof? Worse - should I expect that they would allow me to build it the same way again? Of course the above isn't likely to happen because I'd never get a permit nor pass inspection to put up such an inadequate structure. But the principle is the same as building below sea level in a flood zone. One thing's for su We'll not see leadership on this issue from the current administration. 73 de Jim, N2EY |
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Dave Heil wrote:
Mike Coslo wrote: Dave Heil wrote: wrote: K4YZ wrote: wrote: K4YZ wrote: "THOSE" cars have been pretty much standard for 20 years now... Yet they still burn gasoline and other petroleum based fuels. The fleet mileage standards are not improving. The USA imports much more energy (almost all of it in the form of oil and natural gas) than in the 1970s. My mileage standards are doing fine. I'm on my third Dodge Neon. The 2 liter engine delivers about 33 mpg on the highway. I'm tall but I have 4 or 5 inches of space between the top of my head and the roof of the car. Yes, the U.S.A. imports more oil than it produces. It looks as if we *do* have an energy policy and part of it seems to be, "Let's use theirs before we use ours". Well, if that is our game plan, we better have enough reserves to fight most of the world off. Otherwise it is dangerous brinkmanship. The countries which produce oil are interested in selling it. We're interested in buying it. I don't see any danger in that at all. There is another market these days which would be more than happy to buy the oil we purchase. We aren't the only game in town any more. Why isn't there a massive program to solve our energy problems? The White House has been in the hands of a former oilman for more than half a decade now. You'd think there's be some understanding of what needs to be done for the future, but where's the leadership? Well, we aren't going to be driving electrics because of limited range. The hybrids are quite expensive. The hydrogen-powered car won't be viable until we can produce hydrogen cheaply. I really doubt that H is going to ever be a valid fuel. I used to think that but I heard a recent radio story which might change my mind. The South Africans are developing a "pellet bed" small nuclear reactor. Tennis ball-sized spheres of graphite and ceramic are packed with yellow cake. Core temps can never get hot enough for meltdown but are high enough to produce hydrogen and to desalinate sea water. What kind of leadership would you like to see? I would like to see some leadership realizing that driving single digit fuel millage SUV's is an unpatriotic act, that building under insulated McMansions that take immense amounts of energy to heat is an unpatriotic act. Naaaah. Those who drive the SUVs are being bitten in the wallet. Sure. But they are also using up a critical strategic resource, contributing to the imbalance of trade, and other things like that. Some patriots. I know a number of pickup truck owners hereabouts, who are buying small cars. Nobody is building underinsulated anything these days. Hmm, I suggest you come up to my area after a snowstorm. On most of the McMansions, the snow is gone a few hours after the storm. The same snow on my roof would be there for a week or so. There is a wierd thing going on in my area, and I guess others as well. Conserving activities are seen as a liberal thing, and seems to be a litmus test. I knew a woman on campus that refused to recycle because "it just encourages the liberals". So we get the same thing with automobiles and house insulation. But we definitely have a lot of big houses that appear to have no insulation (or very little) in the house. My pal W8RHM built his dream home three years ago. It is large and it has geothermal heating. The heating system was supposed to pay for itself within ten years or so. With the energy hikes of the past few years, it'll be paid off much sooner. 'RHM is now paying winter heating bills of 45-65 bucks. Those who have big, old homes will sell 'em to someone who can afford to heat them. As long as there are people who can afford to heat 'em. My prediction is that they will become white elephants. The way we are with oil and gas in recent times reminds me of the legendary lighting of cigars with 100 dollar bills. In yo' face consumption... You may feel free to paint me with that brush. Fiesty, Dave? I apologize if you think I was painting you as anything. I doubt most Neon drivers are profligate energy wasters. My lease agreement with Columbia Gas provides me with 300,000 cubic feet of gas yearly. I'm barely using more than half. I'm heating a glassed-in side porch and a workshop in the barn. As soon as I get around to it, I'm adding a greenhouse lean to on the back of the barn. I've a gas conversion kit for a gasoline generator. In short, I'm going to very conspicuously use right up to that 300,000 cubic feet and I'm not going to feel any guilt over it at all. I think that one critical lesson that should be gleaned from these two hurricanes this summer is that we are incredibly vulnerable in a few important areas. under the right circumstances, losing that much oil and gas production could be a near fatal blow. That's right. We need to drill in more places. ANWAR should be hurricane proof. Nobody wants to discuss one of the real solutions to sufficient energy: more nuke reactors. The way I see it, in the not too distant future, we will make a choice: 1. Rely on Nuclear power and build a lot more plants. 2. Go back to the middle ages. It's just about that simple. While people can conserve energy, I doubt that they can conserve enough. The US has around 300 million people right now. We will be at 400 million around 35 years from now. Can all of us cut back 25 percent in energy usage? And that would be to just tread water. Not to mention finding fossil fuels that will allow us to continue our present "burn rate". Pun intended. I support the alternative energy production modes. But we have to be realistic. They are a localized phenomenon, and won't likely be a major solution I say the best thing to do now is to *not* rebuild the parts of NO that are below sea level. Salvage what can be saved, and move away. Will Our President exhibit leadership and say that's what should be done? Or will he make exorbitant promises, pouring much more money into rebuilding than it would take to relocate? Do you really think that the POTUS has the clout to declare that NOLA won't be rebuilt? Nope. New Orleans will be rebuilt, and will be rebuilt again, and perhaps a third or forth time, until it slips beneath the waves for good. Yep and people are free to build where they choose. Without the freedom to make choices, America wouldn't be America. I won't be rushing to buy a home in New Orleans but most of those folks wouldn't live on a hilltop in rural West Virginia. That suits their needs...and mine. I have no problem in principle with a person building their house on the lava dome of Mt St Helens if they are so inclined. However, I do have a problem if he wants me to buy his insurance or build him a new house when the present one burns up because of it's location. Same goes for building that wonderful vacation retreat on a barrier island or 50 feet from the ocean. That land is transient, and IMO so is any human structure built on it Do you support paying for these peoples stupidity? (The stupidity is in my opinion - but a pretty good case can be made for it being stupid) - Mike KB3EIA - |
K4YZ wrote:
wrote: K4YZ wrote: MY biggest disappointment is that we are as close to Mars as we've been in centuries, but we don't have a manned mission there yet. ??? Not sure what you mean, Steve. I MEAN that my biggest disappointment is that we are as close to Mars as we've been in centuries, but we don't have a manned mission there yet. How was that confusing? The distance from Earth to Mars varies from when the two planets are right next to each other in their orbits (about 35 million miles) to when they are opposite each other, with the Sun in between (well over 210 million miles). The minimum distance varies with each orbit - is that what you meant? Going to Mars is at least 100 times more difficult than going to the moon. Mars never gets closer than 30 million miles - more than 100 times farther away than the moon. A Mars mission would be years long rather than a week or two. Martian gravity and atmosphere make the problems even worse. Yep...But... It's been over 30 years since we've walked on the moon. We got there in a bit over 9 years from President Kennedy's challenge to do so. Yep. Think about *why* the USA was able to do it. And if it took 9 years to get to the moon, and Mars is 100 times harder, that works out to 900 years! We've squandered those intervening years on LEO manned missions. I'd hardly say they were "squandered". Other things took precedence. Astronomers and scientists knew then when Mars would be in an Earth-Mars-Earth (In this thread if I refer to EME, this is what I mean...Not EME as in "moonbounce")-transit favorable trajectory. And they know all the problems. One of them is that with any known practical rocket technology, a mission to Mars will take *years*. With no hope of rescue from Earth if anything serious goes wrong. There have been hundreds of plans put forth using AVAILABLE technology and resources to get there...All we had to do was pick one and get started. The plans are only basic outlines. They require lots of development to become reality. Just ONE plan that seemed practical enough (or at least made the most sense) to me was one to send the necessary resources for life support in a series of UN-manned "pre-missions" while the manned vessel was prepared in Earth orbit. Of course. The first missions would be one-way supply ships that would orbit Mars for years, waiting for people to show up. They could go at very slow speeds to maximize the usable payload. Resources would be pre-positioned both on Mars and along the way. Pre-positioning "along the way" isn't practical. The only really practical place to put a supply cache is in Martian orbit. Not one man had to spend a day in orbit until the "package" was in place. More like "packages", so that the mission would not depend on any single component. Now consider how much payload would have to be sent ahead. We're talking *tons* of supplies and equipment, all of which would have to be still usable after *years* in space. Sure it can be done, but it's not easy, fast or inexpensive. If it costs $100-200 billion or more to go to the moon, what would Mars cost? Who cares? Those of us who have to pay the bills! The PRESENT Space program has already generated TRILLIONS of dollars in new technology and incentives since July, 1969.. Like what? And can you guarantee that the money would not have been better spent on direct problem solving? Imagine where we COULD have been...?!?! Do you remember the 1970s? I do. All through the 1950s and 1960s, "aerospace" was the big deal. Incredible resources were poured into the space programs and "defense". We were told our future would be like that shown on "The Jetsons". But when the supply of cheap oil disappeared in the early 1970s, we found ourselves unable to produce a decent "economy" car. "Aerospace" didn't help the folks in the gas lines. Meanwhile the Japanese and Europeans already had lots of good economy cars. It's taken the US auto industry decades to catch up. Now we're set to repeat that history. Maybe we would have had our CURRENT level of technology 15 or 20 years ago? How? And current level of which technology? Just think...If we'd pared only $10B from each YEAR'S defense budget since 1970, we'd have "only" spent $360B now, which is about 1 1/2 years military budget over THIRTY-SIX years...And wudda had an American flag and American footprints on TWO astronomical bodies by now. Imagine if that money had gone into energy independence instead. If we're going to have a tit-for-tat about the bottom-line practicality of going, Jim, I'm not up for it. I am. That's what engineering is all about - dealing with *real* problems. It's easy to blue-sky what coulda-woulda-shoulda been done. It's a lot tougher to actually do the things. If you don't want to take a long serious look at just how difficult and expensive a manned Mars trip would be, please don't lecture us about what should have been done. Anyone can "successfully" argue that it's going to "cost" time, money and resources to go. Even lives. But EVERY expedition of exploration in man's time has cost money up front and lives along the way. Of course. And some times it was worth it. Other times it wasn't. The REAL bottom line is that we could have done this a LONG time ago if we'd only said "Let's Do It." But "we" didn't, because "we" didn't think it was worth the costs. And I think "we" made the right decision. Back to NASA...The technologies in my chosen profession alone that have benefitted from the Space Program are phenominal. I think if we pulled the rug out from under it any time soon, the "trickle down" effect in lost of impetus in technology development would be rapid and deep felt. Can you guarantee that those advances would not have happened if the money had been spent on research in the fields directly affected? IOW, why not simply go after a problem directly? In industrialized society's history, major technological advancements have MOSTLY followed (1) war, (2) captialist investment for profit (3) government subsidy to do research in that field (usually the impetus of, again, war). There are certainly exceptions to the rule, radio being one of them. "Radio" was not developed by governmental subsidy, nor was it the product of an 18th century "Motorola" but was the "product" of private inventors. BINGO! The same was mostly true of computers. Oh yes, the first real computer, ENIAC, was built for the Army to compute artillery aiming tables. But it was built on the work of earlier machines like the Atasinoff-Berry Computer. And only one ENIAC was ever built. Its successors came from private industry, for commercial purposes. No, I can't guarantee that those advances would not have occured...but WHEN would they have occured? Nobody knows. Certainly NOT in the time frame that they have. Why not? The fact is that we've avoided making serious longterm plans to solve some basic technological problems in the USA. That avoidance has cost us dearly, and will cost us more, until we tackle the problems head-on rather than expecting some silver bullet to do it for us. 73 de Jim, N2EY |
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wrote: K4YZ wrote: wrote: K4YZ wrote: MY biggest disappointment is that we are as close to Mars as we've been in centuries, but we don't have a manned mission there yet. ??? Not sure what you mean, Steve. I MEAN that my biggest disappointment is that we are as close to Mars as we've been in centuries, but we don't have a manned mission there yet. How was that confusing? The distance from Earth to Mars varies from when the two planets are right next to each other in their orbits (about 35 million miles) to when they are opposite each other, with the Sun in between (well over 210 million miles). The minimum distance varies with each orbit - is that what you meant? No... (This IS Jim Miccolis, right...?!?!) I MEAN that my biggest disappointment is that we don't have a manned mission on Mars yet. Yes, I know it would be dangerous. Yes, I know it would be expensive. Yes, I know there are thousands of technological hurdles to overcome. "T'aint nuttin' new" Going to Mars is at least 100 times more difficult than going to the moon. Mars never gets closer than 30 million miles - more than 100 times farther away than the moon. A Mars mission would be years long rather than a week or two. Martian gravity and atmosphere make the problems even worse. Yep...But... It's been over 30 years since we've walked on the moon. We got there in a bit over 9 years from President Kennedy's challenge to do so. Yep. Think about *why* the USA was able to do it. I know why, Jim...Money and govenmental subsidies witha bit of technological application. And if it took 9 years to get to the moon, and Mars is 100 times harder, that works out to 900 years! You're being facetious. We've squandered those intervening years on LEO manned missions. I'd hardly say they were "squandered". Other things took precedence. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh....TIVO and HBO. Astronomers and scientists knew then when Mars would be in an Earth-Mars-Earth (In this thread if I refer to EME, this is what I mean...Not EME as in "moonbounce")-transit favorable trajectory. And they know all the problems. One of them is that with any known practical rocket technology, a mission to Mars will take *years*. With no hope of rescue from Earth if anything serious goes wrong. I discussed that below. Also...there was no hope of rescue when Cloumbus shoved off...So again, what's new? There have been hundreds of plans put forth using AVAILABLE technology and resources to get there...All we had to do was pick one and get started. The plans are only basic outlines. They require lots of development to become reality. Uh huh. And what did I say? Pick one and get busy. Just ONE plan that seemed practical enough (or at least made the most sense) to me was one to send the necessary resources for life support in a series of UN-manned "pre-missions" while the manned vessel was prepared in Earth orbit. Of course. The first missions would be one-way supply ships that would orbit Mars for years, waiting for people to show up. They could go at very slow speeds to maximize the usable payload. Resources would be pre-positioned both on Mars and along the way. Pre-positioning "along the way" isn't practical. The only really practical place to put a supply cache is in Martian orbit. Placing a satellite into a known, predictable orbit isn't practical? Since when? Not one man had to spend a day in orbit until the "package" was in place. More like "packages", so that the mission would not depend on any single component. In military parlance, when the entire mission is ready to go, THAT is "the package". Sorry to confuse you even more. Now consider how much payload would have to be sent ahead. We're talking *tons* of supplies and equipment, all of which would have to be still usable after *years* in space. Sure it can be done, but it's not easy, fast or inexpensive. There's not one word from me saying it is. However water doesn't decay into anything else, and we have pretty reliable technologies when it comes to preserving our foodstuffs. An we've already proven we can work in space to "fix stuff". If it costs $100-200 billion or more to go to the moon, what would Mars cost? Who cares? Those of us who have to pay the bills! I've already shown where those "investments" come home. The PRESENT Space program has already generated TRILLIONS of dollars in new technology and incentives since July, 1969.. Like what? Start off with the PC, iPod, new textiles, and communications technologies. And can you guarantee that the money would not have been better spent on direct problem solving? Can you show me where direct problem solving is doing as well? Everyone is hoo-yah'ing over the Rutan/X-Prize flights and ballyhooing the emerging commercial space market, but while admirable, they are ony re-inventing the wheel. Imagine where we COULD have been...?!?! Do you remember the 1970s? I do. Uh huh...And I didn't have a PC or iPod then. All through the 1950s and 1960s, "aerospace" was the big deal. Incredible resources were poured into the space programs and "defense". We were told our future would be like that shown on "The Jetsons". But when the supply of cheap oil disappeared in the early 1970s, we found ourselves unable to produce a decent "economy" car. "Aerospace" didn't help the folks in the gas lines. Was it supposed to? Where are the claims? Who said that? Meanwhile the Japanese and Europeans already had lots of good economy cars. It's taken the US auto industry decades to catch up. Japanese and Europeans were used to living on streets narrow enough to tll what the guy next door had for breakfast without parting the shades. Americans were use to having "the wide open spaces" and cheap gas. So...where was the incentive to make itty-bitty gas sippers? That wasn't what the American market wanted. Even now more and more SUV's are rolling off the lines...even Honda and Suzuki have gotten on the band wagon. Now we're set to repeat that history. Probably. And Americans STILL can't be told to start spending money on trains and subways. Maybe we would have had our CURRENT level of technology 15 or 20 years ago? How? And current level of which technology? Now you're treating me like an idiot, Jim. Just think...If we'd pared only $10B from each YEAR'S defense budget since 1970, we'd have "only" spent $360B now, which is about 1 1/2 years military budget over THIRTY-SIX years...And wudda had an American flag and American footprints on TWO astronomical bodies by now. Imagine if that money had gone into energy independence instead. But wait! You've previously suggested such is the realm of the commercial entities. So why aren't THEY doing it? If we're going to have a tit-for-tat about the bottom-line practicality of going, Jim, I'm not up for it. I am. That's what engineering is all about - dealing with *real* problems. Obviously not in this case (travel to Mars). It's easy to blue-sky what coulda-woulda-shoulda been done. It's a lot tougher to actually do the things. No kidding? Seems to me that a certain, since deceased, President of the United States said we were going to to the moon not because it was easy, but because it WAS hard. If you don't want to take a long serious look at just how difficult and expensive a manned Mars trip would be, please don't lecture us about what should have been done. Jim, you're wanting to explain away why we languished for 36 years on what would have been the feat of TWO millenium...OK...But the FACTS are we did absolutely NOTHING to facilitate this mission. Nothing. Anyone can "successfully" argue that it's going to "cost" time, money and resources to go. Even lives. But EVERY expedition of exploration in man's time has cost money up front and lives along the way. Of course. And some times it was worth it. Other times it wasn't. So...Which ones were worth it, and on the UNsuccessful ones, do you think the participants thought that thier lives were worth it? The REAL bottom line is that we could have done this a LONG time ago if we'd only said "Let's Do It." But "we" didn't, because "we" didn't think it was worth the costs. "We" didn't do it becasue we had just come out of Viet Nam and already landed 12 men on the moon...thier attention span was short and ready to move on. So...If we're to accept your apparent suggestion that short-sightedness is an excuse for not pursuing research and exploration, let's just go ahead and kill the ENTIRE space program, Jim...I mean, afterall, MOST folks shrug thier shoulders and dismiss it as science fiction...UNTIL you start pointing out the in-their-face examples of what seemingly non-porductive research does to better thier daily lives. And I think "we" made the right decision. I don't. I thinnk that it's humiliating to have had it at our discretion to do this thing and have not done it. It's like Jonas Salk looking through his microscope, then saying, whelp, that was fun... Back to NASA...The technologies in my chosen profession alone that have benefitted from the Space Program are phenominal. I think if we pulled the rug out from under it any time soon, the "trickle down" effect in lost of impetus in technology development would be rapid and deep felt. Can you guarantee that those advances would not have happened if the money had been spent on research in the fields directly affected? IOW, why not simply go after a problem directly? In industrialized society's history, major technological advancements have MOSTLY followed (1) war, (2) captialist investment for profit (3) government subsidy to do research in that field (usually the impetus of, again, war). There are certainly exceptions to the rule, radio being one of them. "Radio" was not developed by governmental subsidy, nor was it the product of an 18th century "Motorola" but was the "product" of private inventors. BINGO! Thank-you for agreeing with me. The same was mostly true of computers. Oh yes, the first real computer, ENIAC, was built for the Army to compute artillery aiming tables. But it was built on the work of earlier machines like the Atasinoff-Berry Computer. And only one ENIAC was ever built. Its successors came from private industry, for commercial purposes. Uh huh...and had the government NOT poured millions of dollars into this, providing untold collateral research opportunities, how much longer until commercial systems filled in the holes? As a matter of fact, considering the times, if you take away the military and space programs, what WAS the incentive for such computing systems? No, I can't guarantee that those advances would not have occured...but WHEN would they have occured? Nobody knows. Certainly NOT in the time frame that they have. Why not? Because they haven't yet, and even Associate degree sociology programs show the direct link between the advancement of technology and warfare. There was a parallel rise during the "space race". The fact is that we've avoided making serious longterm plans to solve some basic technological problems in the USA. That avoidance has cost us dearly, and will cost us more, until we tackle the problems head-on rather than expecting some silver bullet to do it for us. I agree...Mass transit...universal healthcare...housing and feeding the poor. Now imagine spending the monies I suggested on a new "space race", this time one shared with other nations...Not all of that money goes into "research"...There are salaries to be paid, goods to be bought and sold, and new means of transportation and communications to be installed. Collateral good instead of collateral damage. THAT would be amazing. 73 Steve, K4YZ |
Mike Coslo wrote:
wrote: K4YZ wrote: wrote: K4YZ wrote: Going to Mars is at least 100 times more difficult than going to the moon. Mars never gets closer than 30 million miles - more than 100 times farther away than the moon. A Mars mission would be years long rather than a week or two. Martian gravity and atmosphere make the problems even worse. Yep...But... It's been over 30 years since we've walked on the moon. We got there in a bit over 9 years from President Kennedy's challenge to do so. Yep. Think about *why* the USA was able to do it. And if it took 9 years to get to the moon, and Mars is 100 times harder, that works out to 900 years! We've squandered those intervening years on LEO manned missions. I'd hardly say they were "squandered". Other things took precedence. Astronomers and scientists knew then when Mars would be in an Earth-Mars-Earth (In this thread if I refer to EME, this is what I mean...Not EME as in "moonbounce")-transit favorable trajectory. And they know all the problems. One of them is that with any known practical rocket technology, a mission to Mars will take *years*. With no hope of rescue from Earth if anything serious goes wrong. There have been hundreds of plans put forth using AVAILABLE technology and resources to get there...All we had to do was pick one and get started. The plans are only basic outlines. They require lots of development to become reality. Just ONE plan that seemed practical enough (or at least made the most sense) to me was one to send the necessary resources for life support in a series of UN-manned "pre-missions" while the manned vessel was prepared in Earth orbit. Of course. The first missions would be one-way supply ships that would orbit Mars for years, waiting for people to show up. They could go at very slow speeds to maximize the usable payload. Resources would be pre-positioned both on Mars and along the way. Pre-positioning "along the way" isn't practical. The only really practical place to put a supply cache is in Martian orbit. Not one man had to spend a day in orbit until the "package" was in place. More like "packages", so that the mission would not depend on any single component. Now consider how much payload would have to be sent ahead. We're talking *tons* of supplies and equipment, all of which would have to be still usable after *years* in space. Sure it can be done, but it's not easy, fast or inexpensive. If it costs $100-200 billion or more to go to the moon, what would Mars cost? Who cares? Those of us who have to pay the bills! The PRESENT Space program has already generated TRILLIONS of dollars in new technology and incentives since July, 1969.. Like what? And can you guarantee that the money would not have been better spent on direct problem solving? Imagine where we COULD have been...?!?! Do you remember the 1970s? I do. All through the 1950s and 1960s, "aerospace" was the big deal. Incredible resources were poured into the space programs and "defense". We were told our future would be like that shown on "The Jetsons". But when the supply of cheap oil disappeared in the early 1970s, we found ourselves unable to produce a decent "economy" car. "Aerospace" didn't help the folks in the gas lines. Meanwhile the Japanese and Europeans already had lots of good economy cars. It's taken the US auto industry decades to catch up. Now we're set to repeat that history. Maybe we would have had our CURRENT level of technology 15 or 20 years ago? How? And current level of which technology? Just think...If we'd pared only $10B from each YEAR'S defense budget since 1970, we'd have "only" spent $360B now, which is about 1 1/2 years military budget over THIRTY-SIX years...And wudda had an American flag and American footprints on TWO astronomical bodies by now. Imagine if that money had gone into energy independence instead. If we're going to have a tit-for-tat about the bottom-line practicality of going, Jim, I'm not up for it. I am. That's what engineering is all about - dealing with *real* problems. It's easy to blue-sky what coulda-woulda-shoulda been done. It's a lot tougher to actually do the things. If you don't want to take a long serious look at just how difficult and expensive a manned Mars trip would be, please don't lecture us about what should have been done. Anyone can "successfully" argue that it's going to "cost" time, money and resources to go. Even lives. But EVERY expedition of exploration in man's time has cost money up front and lives along the way. Of course. And some times it was worth it. Other times it wasn't. The REAL bottom line is that we could have done this a LONG time ago if we'd only said "Let's Do It." But "we" didn't, because "we" didn't think it was worth the costs. "We" are busy selling our hats to each other at the moment. "We" don't have a national will to do great things any more. "We" had the national will to fight a couple of wars in the Persian Gulf. Plus Afghanistan, Bosnia, etc. Whether those qualify as "great things" is another issue. They sure were expensive things, though. And I think "we" made the right decision. Lessay we concentrate all our resources into feeding the poor, fixing all the social inequalities, and making the world a better place for our children and our childrens children. Wrong goals. The goal is not to "feed the poor" but to make it possible for "the poor" to feed themselves. Big difference. Same about the other stuff. After all that. I would wager my life that there will still be poor, there will still be starving people, there will still be inequality, and the world will not be any better a place than it is today. Sounds pretty fatalistic to me. I say things can be made a lot better, if the will is there to do it. Take the whole energy issue. Suppose there *were* a serious, longterm, well-funded national program to improve our energy situation. Attack on all fronts - conservation, recycling, new sources, greater efficiency, etc. Do you really think such a program couldn't help improve the lives of almost all Americans? Back to NASA...The technologies in my chosen profession alone that have benefitted from the Space Program are phenominal. I think if we pulled the rug out from under it any time soon, the "trickle down" effect in lost of impetus in technology development would be rapid and deep felt. Can you guarantee that those advances would not have happened if the money had been spent on research in the fields directly affected? IOW, why not simply go after a problem directly? In industrialized society's history, major technological advancements have MOSTLY followed (1) war, (2) captialist investment for profit (3) government subsidy to do research in that field (usually the impetus of, again, war). There are certainly exceptions to the rule, radio being one of them. "Radio" was not developed by governmental subsidy, nor was it the product of an 18th century "Motorola" but was the "product" of private inventors. BINGO! The same was mostly true of computers. Oh yes, the first real computer, ENIAC, was built for the Army to compute artillery aiming tables. But it was built on the work of earlier machines like the Atasinoff-Berry Computer. And only one ENIAC was ever built. Its successors came from private industry, for commercial purposes. No, I can't guarantee that those advances would not have occured...but WHEN would they have occured? Nobody knows. Right - who knows. Nobody. Technological advance isn't always predictable. One interesting historic game is to look at what was predicted for the future back 10, 20, 30 years. It's hilarious how many predictions never came true, and how many things that are common today were not foreseen. As much as I believe that the Space program was a peaceful spur to technology, in the end, I don't care. I like adventure, I like science, and I like exploring. People *will" go into space, people *will* go to Mars. Will it be us, or will we be known as the Portuguese of space exploration? IOW, you're in it for the Buck Rogers factor. Recall that the "great nations of Europe in the 16th century" all went exploring for *commercial* and *political* reasons. For the bucks, not Buck Rogers. Certainly NOT in the time frame that they have. Why not? The fact is that we've avoided making serious longterm plans to solve some basic technological problems in the USA. That avoidance has cost us dearly, and will cost us more, until we tackle the problems head-on rather than expecting some silver bullet to do it for us. Paying big bucks for the Buck Rogers factor, while ignoring the serious earth-bound issues like energy supply, trade deficit and vulnerability to weather disruption isn't smart. It's exactly like the guy who buys season tickets and a new bigscreen plasma TV/home theatre to watch the games using a credit card. While he ignores his rundown, collapsing house, sick children and insecure job situation. Wanna buy a hat??? Exactly. 73 de Jim, N2EY |
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Michael Coslo wrote:
Dave Heil wrote: Mike Coslo wrote: Dave Heil wrote: wrote: K4YZ wrote: wrote: K4YZ wrote: "THOSE" cars have been pretty much standard for 20 years now... Yet they still burn gasoline and other petroleum based fuels. The fleet mileage standards are not improving. The USA imports much more energy (almost all of it in the form of oil and natural gas) than in the 1970s. My mileage standards are doing fine. I'm on my third Dodge Neon. The 2 liter engine delivers about 33 mpg on the highway. I'm tall but I have 4 or 5 inches of space between the top of my head and the roof of the car. Yes, the U.S.A. imports more oil than it produces. It looks as if we *do* have an energy policy and part of it seems to be, "Let's use theirs before we use ours". Well, if that is our game plan, we better have enough reserves to fight most of the world off. Otherwise it is dangerous brinkmanship. The countries which produce oil are interested in selling it. We're interested in buying it. I don't see any danger in that at all. There is another market these days which would be more than happy to buy the oil we purchase. We aren't the only game in town any more. We've never been the only game in town. Demand sets the price. I would like to see some leadership realizing that driving single digit fuel millage SUV's is an unpatriotic act, that building under insulated McMansions that take immense amounts of energy to heat is an unpatriotic act. Naaaah. Those who drive the SUVs are being bitten in the wallet. Sure. But they are also using up a critical strategic resource, contributing to the imbalance of trade, and other things like that. Some patriots. They're paying for the critical strategic resource. Before you write about others contributing to the imbalance of trade sell off all of your electronic gadgets which are made abroad. Will you have trouble posting with no computer? You do use only American-made ham gear, right? I know a number of pickup truck owners hereabouts, who are buying small cars. Nobody is building underinsulated anything these days. Hmm, I suggest you come up to my area after a snowstorm. On most of the McMansions, the snow is gone a few hours after the storm. The same snow on my roof would be there for a week or so. America is all about having the freedom to choose. Wisdom isn't necessaary for those choices, economics is. If I can afford to buy and heat a large, energy hog of a home, that choice is open to me. There is a wierd thing going on in my area, and I guess others as well. Conserving activities are seen as a liberal thing, and seems to be a litmus test. I knew a woman on campus that refused to recycle because "it just encourages the liberals". So we get the same thing with automobiles and house insulation. But we definitely have a lot of big houses that appear to have no insulation (or very little) in the house. I've never thought of conservation as being just a liberal thing, though you do appear to be of a liberal bent. Conservation and recycling won't appeal to a lot of people until economics necessitates it. It doesn't bother me that some folks have houses which are under-insulated any more than it bothers me that some folks drive bigger, more expensive cars. My pal W8RHM built his dream home three years ago. It is large and it has geothermal heating. The heating system was supposed to pay for itself within ten years or so. With the energy hikes of the past few years, it'll be paid off much sooner. 'RHM is now paying winter heating bills of 45-65 bucks. Those who have big, old homes will sell 'em to someone who can afford to heat them. As long as there are people who can afford to heat 'em. My prediction is that they will become white elephants. They may and they may not. Someone with a lot of cash may love 'em. I'd like to be able to afford one myself. Then again, if I had that much loot, I'd likely have enough to better insulate them. The way we are with oil and gas in recent times reminds me of the legendary lighting of cigars with 100 dollar bills. In yo' face consumption... You may feel free to paint me with that brush. Fiesty, Dave? I apologize if you think I was painting you as anything. I doubt most Neon drivers are profligate energy wasters. Feisty? No, I think you may have misinterpreted my words. I meant that I could easily be painted with that brush. I accept the label. I'm one of those. I'm guilty of "in your face" consumption of natural gas. My lease agreement with Columbia Gas provides me with 300,000 cubic feet of gas yearly. I'm barely using more than half. I'm heating a glassed-in side porch and a workshop in the barn. As soon as I get around to it, I'm adding a greenhouse lean to on the back of the barn. I've a gas conversion kit for a gasoline generator. In short, I'm going to very conspicuously use right up to that 300,000 cubic feet and I'm not going to feel any guilt over it at all. I think that one critical lesson that should be gleaned from these two hurricanes this summer is that we are incredibly vulnerable in a few important areas. under the right circumstances, losing that much oil and gas production could be a near fatal blow. That's right. We need to drill in more places. ANWAR should be hurricane proof. Nobody wants to discuss one of the real solutions to sufficient energy: more nuke reactors. The way I see it, in the not too distant future, we will make a choice: 1. Rely on Nuclear power and build a lot more plants. 2. Go back to the middle ages. Precisely. It's just about that simple. While people can conserve energy, I doubt that they can conserve enough. If you're talking about electrical energy, any of it which is produced but not consumed, is wasted energy. I can turn off my appliances and lights, but if no one else uses the electricity I'm not using, it is wasted. The US has around 300 million people right now. We will be at 400 million around 35 years from now. Can all of us cut back 25 percent in energy usage? I think I've already done that with electrical energy. I have efficient appliances and almost all of the light in my home is by fluorescent bulbs. I've installed a programmable thermostat for the a/c. And that would be to just tread water. Not to mention finding fossil fuels that will allow us to continue our present "burn rate". Pun intended. Your state and mine have quite a supply of coal and natural gas, along with pretty good supplies of petroleum. I support the alternative energy production modes. But we have to be realistic. They are a localized phenomenon, and won't likely be a major solution If a guy with a wind turbine or solar panels makes the effort, I'm for him. We can't all do it. Do you really think that the POTUS has the clout to declare that NOLA won't be rebuilt? Nope. New Orleans will be rebuilt, and will be rebuilt again, and perhaps a third or forth time, until it slips beneath the waves for good. Yep and people are free to build where they choose. Without the freedom to make choices, America wouldn't be America. I won't be rushing to buy a home in New Orleans but most of those folks wouldn't live on a hilltop in rural West Virginia. That suits their needs...and mine. I have no problem in principle with a person building their house on the lava dome of Mt St Helens if they are so inclined. I agree. However, I do have a problem if he wants me to buy his insurance or build him a new house when the present one burns up because of it's location. Again, I agree. Same goes for building that wonderful vacation retreat on a barrier island or 50 feet from the ocean. That land is transient, and IMO so is any human structure built on it All human life and all human structures are transient, no matter where they are built. Do you support paying for these peoples stupidity? (The stupidity is in my opinion - but a pretty good case can be made for it being stupid) No, I don't support my paying for it or your paying for it or government paying for it. I support the freedom to choose. That freedom comes with responsibility. Dave K8MN |
Dave Heil wrote:
If you're talking about electrical energy, any of it which is produced but not consumed, is wasted energy. I can turn off my appliances and lights, but if no one else uses the electricity I'm not using, it is wasted. Dave, Electricity supply doesn't work like that. The production adjusts itself to the load. If the load decreases, so does production. There is no waste from reduced loading. In fact, if the load goes down enough, utilities shut down their least-efficient plants. 73 de Jim, N2EY |
"Michael Coslo" wrote I would like to see some leadership realizing that driving single digit fuel millage SUV's is an unpatriotic act, that building under insulated McMansions that take immense amounts of energy to heat is an unpatriotic act. Naaaah. Those who drive the SUVs are being bitten in the wallet. Sure. But they are also using up a critical strategic resource, contributing to the imbalance of trade, and other things like that. Some patriots. Patriotic? Unpatriotic? Don't look now, but economics pretty much went global about 50 years ago. "Patriotism" has didly-squat to do with it. 73, de Hans, Patriot |
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KØHB wrote:
"Michael Coslo" wrote I would like to see some leadership realizing that driving single digit fuel millage SUV's is an unpatriotic act, that building under insulated McMansions that take immense amounts of energy to heat is an unpatriotic act. Naaaah. Those who drive the SUVs are being bitten in the wallet. Sure. But they are also using up a critical strategic resource, contributing to the imbalance of trade, and other things like that. Some patriots. Patriotic? Unpatriotic? Don't look now, but economics pretty much went global about 50 years ago. "Patriotism" has didly-squat to do with it. I think of that often as I contemplate my "made in Tennessee" rig. It is filled with components from China, Japan, Korea, Maylaysia, Taiwan and the Philippines. Congrats on Minnesota's capturing the Little Brown Jug for the first time in nineteen years. That was a long drought. Dave K8MN |
Dave Heil wrote:
wrote: Dave Heil wrote: If you're talking about electrical energy, any of it which is produced but not consumed, is wasted energy. I can turn off my appliances and lights, but if no one else uses the electricity I'm not using, it is wasted. Dave, Electricity supply doesn't work like that. The production adjusts itself to the load. If the load decreases, so does production. There is no waste from reduced loading. In fact, if the load goes down enough, utilities shut down their least- efficient plants. I accept your statements as fact, as far as they go. They go pretty far. However, if electricity is generated and not consumed, it is wasted. Where does it go? The utility doesn't put huge dummy loads on line. If I have a 25 KVA generator running and only use 12 KVA, the available balance is gone forever. But it's not wasted. Admittedly, the generator will use less fuel under the smaller load. Because it's not making 25 kVa. If you're Neon has a 100 HP engine, but you're cruising down the highway at a steady speed and only using, say, 10 HP, is the other 90 HP "wasted"? 73 de Jim, N2EY |
"Dave Heil" wrote Congrats on Minnesota's capturing the Little Brown Jug for the first time in nineteen years. That was a long drought. Those guys give me fits! Win their first four games with 40-50 points per game, get embarrased at Happy Valley last weekend, then grind out a nice unexpected win against Michigan. The next two weeks against strong Divisional rivals (Wisconsin, Ohio State) will tell the tale. 73, de Hans, K0HB |
wrote: Dave Heil wrote: wrote: Dave Heil wrote: If you're talking about electrical energy, any of it which is produced but not consumed, is wasted energy. I can turn off my appliances and lights, but if no one else uses the electricity I'm not using, it is wasted. Dave, Electricity supply doesn't work like that. The production adjusts itself to the load. If the load decreases, so does production. There is no waste from reduced loading. In fact, if the load goes down enough, utilities shut down their least- efficient plants. I accept your statements as fact, as far as they go. They go pretty far. N2EY is the public utilities commission? However, if electricity is generated and not consumed, it is wasted. Where does it go? The utility doesn't put huge dummy loads on line. This is getting inneresting. Smug Dave goes against Rev. Jim. If I have a 25 KVA generator running and only use 12 KVA, the available balance is gone forever. But it's not wasted. The 25KVA generator will deliver 12KVA. At a reduced fuel consumption rate. It will produce 25KVA with advertised fuel consumption. You will have trouble getting it to produce 30KVA at any consumption rate. I guess you'se guys have never really dealt with real tactical communications before. One a self-admitted Vietnam veteran, another who somehow managed to serve in "other" ways. The Second Infantry Division would be proud of both of you. Hi! Admittedly, the generator will use less fuel under the smaller load. Because it's not making 25 kVa. Ooh, Ahh! Congrats to the admirer of amateur radio comms during WWII. Hi! If you're Neon has a 100 HP engine, but you're cruising down the highway at a steady speed and only using, say, 10 HP, is the other 90 HP "wasted"? 73 de Jim, N2EY Yes. If you intend to be going as fast as the "Neon" is able to go. |
K4YZ wrote:
wrote: K4YZ wrote: wrote: K4YZ wrote: I MEAN that my biggest disappointment is that we don't have a manned mission on Mars yet. I'm disappointed, too. When I was a kid I saw the Kubrick classic "2001" in the movie theater. Back then they thought we'd have permanent bases (plural) on the Moon by 2001. Also commercial orbiting space stations (hotel accomodations by Howard Johnson?) and the first manned trip to *Jupiter*. Plus true artificial intelligence. Yes, I know it would be dangerous. Yes, I know it would be expensive. Yes, I know there are thousands of technological hurdles to overcome. "T'aint nuttin' new" The difference is the magnitude of those problems to be overcome. Going to Mars is at least 100 times more difficult than going to the moon. Mars never gets closer than 30 million miles - more than 100 times farther away than the moon. A Mars mission would be years long rather than a week or two. Martian gravity and atmosphere make the problems even worse. Yep...But... It's been over 30 years since we've walked on the moon. We got there in a bit over 9 years from President Kennedy's challenge to do so. Yep. Think about *why* the USA was able to do it. I know why, Jim...Money and govenmental subsidies witha bit of technological application. More than "a bit". The big thing was that NASA essentially had a blank check to get to the moon. The numbers don't sound that high today until you realize they were 1960s dollars that were worth 5 to 10 2005 dollars. And if it took 9 years to get to the moon, and Mars is 100 times harder, that works out to 900 years! You're being facetious. Only partly. It takes months just to get to Mars. We've squandered those intervening years on LEO manned missions. I'd hardly say they were "squandered". Other things took precedence. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh....TIVO and HBO. Wars. Economic troubles. Energy crises. Major industries in big trouble. Foreign competition. Astronomers and scientists knew then when Mars would be in an Earth-Mars-Earth (In this thread if I refer to EME, this is what I mean...Not EME as in "moonbounce")-transit favorable trajectory. And they know all the problems. One of them is that with any known practical rocket technology, a mission to Mars will take *years*. With no hope of rescue from Earth if anything serious goes wrong. I discussed that below. Also...there was no hope of rescue when Cloumbus shoved off...So again, what's new? Columbus took three ships for that very reason. And he lost one. The other two rescued the crew of the third. There have been hundreds of plans put forth using AVAILABLE technology and resources to get there...All we had to do was pick one and get started. The plans are only basic outlines. They require lots of development to become reality. Uh huh. And what did I say? Pick one and get busy. And pay for it how? Just ONE plan that seemed practical enough (or at least made the most sense) to me was one to send the necessary resources for life support in a series of UN-manned "pre-missions" while the manned vessel was prepared in Earth orbit. Of course. The first missions would be one-way supply ships that would orbit Mars for years, waiting for people to show up. They could go at very slow speeds to maximize the usable payload. Resources would be pre-positioned both on Mars and along the way. Pre-positioning "along the way" isn't practical. The only really practical place to put a supply cache is in Martian orbit. Placing a satellite into a known, predictable orbit isn't practical? Since when? Steve, your ignorance of orbital mechanics is showing. You can't preposition a supply ship "on the way" to Mars and at the same time have it match the manned ship in speed and direction. Yet the two ships need to have near-identical speed and direction to hook up. Now consider how much payload would have to be sent ahead. We're talking *tons* of supplies and equipment, all of which would have to be still usable after *years* in space. Sure it can be done, but it's not easy, fast or inexpensive. There's not one word from me saying it is. However water doesn't decay into anything else, and we have pretty reliable technologies when it comes to preserving our foodstuffs. An we've already proven we can work in space to "fix stuff". Let's talk about water for an example.... If a leak develops, the water will boil away into the vacuum of space. If the temperature control isn't right, the water will freeze, expand and burst the tank that holds it unless the tank is designed for freezing. If the water is allowed to freeze, a lot of energy will be needed to melt it when it's needed. All those problems can be overcome, of course. But when you're talking about sending tons of supplies at costs of well over $25,000 per pound, it gets expensive quick. If it costs $100-200 billion or more to go to the moon, what would Mars cost? Who cares? Those of us who have to pay the bills! I've already shown where those "investments" come home. No, you haven't. Most of the technology needed for space doesn't translate to earthbound uses well. btw, Tang and Teflon existed before Project Mercury. The PRESENT Space program has already generated TRILLIONS of dollars in new technology and incentives since July, 1969.. Like what? Start off with the PC, iPod, new textiles, and communications technologies. The PC did not come from the space program. It came from Xerox's Palo Alto Research Center, circa 1971. The iPod, neat as it is, hardly justifies the existence of NASA. The textiles and communications technologies were extensions of existing methods. The geosynchronous communications satellite was proposed in the late 1940s. Frequency hopping spread spectrum was coinvented by movie star Hedy Lamarr. Much of the deep-space communications technology was originally developed for radio astronomy or radar. The best technologies to come from the space program are the abilities to look at the earth from space, to see weather and other conditions. Satellites are how come the Soviets couldn't keep Chernobyl a secret. But those are unmanned. And can you guarantee that the money would not have been better spent on direct problem solving? Can you show me where direct problem solving is doing as well? Oh yes! The British just announced a vaccine against cervical cancer. No space program involvement. Advances in PC technology, and the internet, have almost all been made by commercial companies feeding the earthbound market. The greatest revolution in communications technology in the past decade or two is fiber optics. Nothing to do with space, everything to do with Dow Corning. Everyone is hoo-yah'ing over the Rutan/X-Prize flights and ballyhooing the emerging commercial space market, but while admirable, they are ony re-inventing the wheel. At a tiny fraction of the price. Imagine where we COULD have been...?!?! Do you remember the 1970s? I do. Uh huh...And I didn't have a PC or iPod then. Yet we got along without them. And they didn't come from NASA. All through the 1950s and 1960s, "aerospace" was the big deal. Incredible resources were poured into the space programs and "defense". We were told our future would be like that shown on "The Jetsons". But when the supply of cheap oil disappeared in the early 1970s, we found ourselves unable to produce a decent "economy" car. "Aerospace" didn't help the folks in the gas lines. Was it supposed to? Isn't it obvious that we should have been focusing on that problem sooner? Where are the claims? Who said that? Meanwhile the Japanese and Europeans already had lots of good economy cars. It's taken the US auto industry decades to catch up. Japanese and Europeans were used to living on streets narrow enough to tll what the guy next door had for breakfast without parting the shades. Many American cities are no less crowded. The Europeans have a long history of making big as well as small cars. Americans were use to having "the wide open spaces" and cheap gas. Both of which turned out to be myths. So...where was the incentive to make itty-bitty gas sippers? That wasn't what the American market wanted. The American car industry focused on the sizzle rather than the steak. They invested heavily in styling and big engines and practically ignored safety, pollution and fuel efficiency. Long before the fuel crises of the early 1970s, VW had made big inroads into the US market with small efficient reliable cars. So there *was* a market - Detroit just ignored it. Even now more and more SUV's are rolling off the lines...even Honda and Suzuki have gotten on the band wagon. Most SUVs never leave the pavement. Most are all about style and image, not transportation. Why? Now we're set to repeat that history. Probably. And Americans STILL can't be told to start spending money on trains and subways. Sure they can. All it takes is leadership and longterm vision. Maybe we would have had our CURRENT level of technology 15 or 20 years ago? How? And current level of which technology? Now you're treating me like an idiot, Jim. How? We're surrounded by technologies ranging from ancient to brand new. Just think...If we'd pared only $10B from each YEAR'S defense budget since 1970, we'd have "only" spent $360B now, which is about 1 1/2 years military budget over THIRTY-SIX years...And wudda had an American flag and American footprints on TWO astronomical bodies by now. Imagine if that money had gone into energy independence instead. But wait! You've previously suggested such is the realm of the commercial entities. I'm saying they should be helped out by government. By such things as tax credits and support for research. Imagine if there were a NASA-like program set up to develop a commuter car for the 21st century. Would have to exceed all current safety and pollution requirements, seat at least two adults 6' 4"/250 pounds or less, cost less than $20,000 MSRP and get better than 100 MPG. How long do you think it would take to solve those problems? So why aren't THEY doing it? They are - slowly. Because they have to do it out of their own pocket. My old VW Rabbit Diesel got more than 40 mpg *city*. Using 1970s technology. Fun to drive, easy to work on, lasted me 17 years. The newer VW diesels are turbocharged and even better. If we're going to have a tit-for-tat about the bottom-line practicality of going, Jim, I'm not up for it. I am. That's what engineering is all about - dealing with *real* problems. Obviously not in this case (travel to Mars). Part of engineering is economics. And correctly identifying the real problems. It's easy to blue-sky what coulda-woulda-shoulda been done. It's a lot tougher to actually do the things. No kidding? Seems to me that a certain, since deceased, President of the United States said we were going to to the moon not because it was easy, but because it WAS hard. He was saving face politically. If you don't want to take a long serious look at just how difficult and expensive a manned Mars trip would be, please don't lecture us about what should have been done. Jim, you're wanting to explain away why we languished for 36 years on what would have been the feat of TWO millenium...OK...But the FACTS are we did absolutely NOTHING to facilitate this mission. Sure we did. The main reason given for the Shuttle was that it was supposed to *reduce* the cost of getting payloads to orbit. I recall clearly the "space truck" sales pitch. The idea was that subassemblies could be put in the shuttle cargo bay, delivered to orbit, and assembled by the shuttle crew. Huge ships capable of long-duration missions to the moon and Mars would be built in orbit, tested and fueled, all by a fleet of Shuttles that could be quickly (few weeks at most) turned around on Earth. The ships assembled in orbit would be true spacecraft, not needing to deal with gravity or atmospheres. A grand idea, and it looked practical 30 years ago. But things didn't work out that way. Nothing. No, plenty was done. Do you recall Viking and Voyager and all the others? They were needed to gather data. Mars is a tougher environment than the Moon in some ways. Anyone can "successfully" argue that it's going to "cost" time, money and resources to go. Even lives. But EVERY expedition of exploration in man's time has cost money up front and lives along the way. Of course. And some times it was worth it. Other times it wasn't. So...Which ones were worth it, and on the UNsuccessful ones, do you think the participants thought that thier lives were worth it? Remember when Challenger blew up on launch? NASA was under pressure from the White House to get that teacher into space. They probably would have had a successful mission if they'd waited a few days for warmer weather. But they yielded to management overriding engineering. The REAL bottom line is that we could have done this a LONG time ago if we'd only said "Let's Do It." But "we" didn't, because "we" didn't think it was worth the costs. "We" didn't do it becasue we had just come out of Viet Nam and already landed 12 men on the moon...thier attention span was short and ready to move on. The big reason was the Rooskies. They'd beaten the US into space with Sputnik and Gagarin's flight. Look in the history books - all the early space firsts were by the USSR. First artificial satellite - first animal in space - first man in space - first woman in space - first space walk - first mission to the moon - first pictures of the far side of the moon - first multiple simultaneous manned missions - the list goes on and on. JFK knew that he needed something that was far enough off, yet doable, to have a truly American first. Von Braun and his Germans had been designing big rockets for years - on paper. The moon was the obvious choice. And it was a crash program. Once JFK was gone, it became a sort of monument to his memory, as if we couldn't let him down. btw, did you know that the Russians sent an unmanned mission to the Moon that took rock samples and returned with them? So...If we're to accept your apparent suggestion that short-sightedness is an excuse for not pursuing research and exploration, let's just go ahead and kill the ENTIRE space program, Jim...I mean, afterall, MOST folks shrug thier shoulders and dismiss it as science fiction...UNTIL you start pointing out the in-their-face examples of what seemingly non-porductive research does to better thier daily lives. I say that we need a sensible space program *and* sensible policies and programs here on earth. Long term, well-thought-out and well-run programs to do what needs to be done. And I think "we" made the right decision. I don't. I thinnk that it's humiliating to have had it at our discretion to do this thing and have not done it. If you can pay for it with discretionary funds, great! It's like Jonas Salk looking through his microscope, then saying, whelp, that was fun... His vaccine came before the space program... Back to NASA...The technologies in my chosen profession alone that have benefitted from the Space Program are phenominal. I think if we pulled the rug out from under it any time soon, the "trickle down" effect in lost of impetus in technology development would be rapid and deep felt. Can you guarantee that those advances would not have happened if the money had been spent on research in the fields directly affected? IOW, why not simply go after a problem directly? In industrialized society's history, major technological advancements have MOSTLY followed (1) war, (2) captialist investment for profit (3) government subsidy to do research in that field (usually the impetus of, again, war). There are certainly exceptions to the rule, radio being one of them. "Radio" was not developed by governmental subsidy, nor was it the product of an 18th century "Motorola" but was the "product" of private inventors. BINGO! Thank-you for agreeing with me. The same was mostly true of computers. Oh yes, the first real computer, ENIAC, was built for the Army to compute artillery aiming tables. But it was built on the work of earlier machines like the Atasinoff-Berry Computer. And only one ENIAC was ever built. Its successors came from private industry, for commercial purposes. Uh huh...and had the government NOT poured millions of dollars into this, providing untold collateral research opportunities, how much longer until commercial systems filled in the holes? A few years at most. ENIAC wasn't the only early computer, just the first. Bell Labs was working along similar lines with relay computers. btw, the transistor was developed by Bell Labs. Without ENIAC, the first electronic digital computers may have been made by Bell - and transistorized. As a matter of fact, considering the times, if you take away the military and space programs, what WAS the incentive for such computing systems? Plenty: 1) The telephone system. (The transistor was actually meant to be a switch, not an amplifier, to route telephone calls better than a relay) 2) Large companies handling lots of data, like insurance companies and the stock exchange. 3) Industrial manufacturing control and inventory management. 4) Industrial research and simulation. Lots more. btw, ENIAC wasn't all that big a project, dollar-wise. IIRC it cost about as much as a couple of B-29s or maybe a small destroyer. No, I can't guarantee that those advances would not have occured...but WHEN would they have occured? Nobody knows. Certainly NOT in the time frame that they have. Why not? Because they haven't yet, and even Associate degree sociology programs show the direct link between the advancement of technology and warfare. So we have to kill each other to advance technology? There was a parallel rise during the "space race". Only because there was lots of investment, and a clear direction. That's the key factor. We don't need wars or a space program to advance technology. Just a reasonable amount of resources dedicated and a clear direction. The fact is that we've avoided making serious longterm plans to solve some basic technological problems in the USA. That avoidance has cost us dearly, and will cost us more, until we tackle the problems head-on rather than expecting some silver bullet to do it for us. I agree...Mass transit...universal healthcare... Agreed! housing and feeding the poor. NO! Make it possible for "the poor" to take care of themselves. Now imagine spending the monies I suggested on a new "space race", this time one shared with other nations...Not all of that money goes into "research"...There are salaries to be paid, goods to be bought and sold, and new means of transportation and communications to be installed. It's been done already. It's called ESA. Collateral good instead of collateral damage. THAT would be amazing. Sure - but it would take a long-term vision and leadership. Willingness to compromise. And it wouldn't solve most earthbound problems. 73 de Jim, N2EY |
wrote: K4YZ wrote: wrote: K4YZ wrote: MY biggest disappointment is that we are as close to Mars as we've been in centuries, but we don't have a manned mission there yet. ??? Not sure what you mean, Steve. I MEAN that my biggest disappointment is that we are as close to Mars as we've been in centuries, but we don't have a manned mission there yet. How was that confusing? The distance from Earth to Mars varies from when the two planets are right next to each other in their orbits (about 35 million miles) to when they are opposite each other, with the Sun in between (well over 210 million miles). Oh, hell, just go through the Sun. It's just gas. ;^) The minimum distance varies with each orbit - is that what you meant? Aren't you the guy that really, really botched the interplanetary distances at some recent point in the past? Going to Mars is at least 100 times more difficult than going to the moon. Mars never gets closer than 30 million miles - more than 100 times farther away than the moon. A Mars mission would be years long rather than a week or two. Martian gravity and atmosphere make the problems even worse. Yep...But... It's been over 30 years since we've walked on the moon. We got there in a bit over 9 years from President Kennedy's challenge to do so. Yep. Think about *why* the USA was able to do it. Camera tricks? And if it took 9 years to get to the moon, and Mars is 100 times harder, that works out to 900 years! Harder? Thought you hams were into "harder!" Hi!!! Data compression techniques... We've squandered those intervening years on LEO manned missions. I'd hardly say they were "squandered". Other things took precedence. Welfare? Astronomers and scientists knew then when Mars would be in an Earth-Mars-Earth (In this thread if I refer to EME, this is what I mean...Not EME as in "moonbounce")-transit favorable trajectory. And they know all the problems. One of them is that with any known practical rocket technology, a mission to Mars will take *years*. With no hope of rescue from Earth if anything serious goes wrong. Columbus? Magellan? Where was their safety line? There have been hundreds of plans put forth using AVAILABLE technology and resources to get there...All we had to do was pick one and get started. The plans are only basic outlines. They require lots of development to become reality. Instead we fund welfare. Just ONE plan that seemed practical enough (or at least made the most sense) to me was one to send the necessary resources for life support in a series of UN-manned "pre-missions" while the manned vessel was prepared in Earth orbit. Of course. The first missions would be one-way supply ships that would orbit Mars for years, waiting for people to show up. They could go at very slow speeds to maximize the usable payload. Rev. Jim has a vision... Resources would be pre-positioned both on Mars and along the way. Pre-positioning "along the way" isn't practical. The only really practical place to put a supply cache is in Martian orbit. NEO is a logical place to preposition fuel. Juss like we load up bombers with lottsa payload and juss enuff fuel to get airborne, then we refuel them in-flight. Duh! Not one man had to spend a day in orbit until the "package" was in place. More like "packages", so that the mission would not depend on any single component. "Single point of failure..." Now consider how much payload would have to be sent ahead. We're talking *tons* of supplies and equipment, all of which would have to be still usable after *years* in space. Sure it can be done, but it's not easy, fast or inexpensive. Given the temps in space... Years in space don't mean much in terms of biological degradation. If it costs $100-200 billion or more to go to the moon, what would Mars cost? Who cares? Those of us who have to pay the bills! Come April 15th, kindly tell us your share of Iraq, Katrina, and Rita. The PRESENT Space program has already generated TRILLIONS of dollars in new technology and incentives since July, 1969.. Like what? Oooh! Rev. Jim doubts the NASA rhetoric. All the while purchasing ARRL shares. And can you guarantee that the money would not have been better spent on direct problem solving? Like the 10WPM barrier? Hi! Imagine where we COULD have been...?!?! Do you remember the 1970s? I do. Yep. That's when you were eligible to serve in the armed forces, but didn't. All through the 1950s and 1960s, "aerospace" was the big deal. Incredible resources were poured into the space programs and "defense". Defense bad. Avoid military. Meeting aliens on their own turf good. We were told our future would be like that shown on "The Jetsons". I loved that little stainless steel dog, Orbit. But when the supply of cheap oil disappeared in the early 1970s, Dipschitt. It didn't disappear! Our Sec State decided that if the middle east wanted the latest american weapon systems (after Israel whipped their asses in '67), they had to raise the price of oil... we found ourselves unable to produce a decent "economy" car. "Aerospace" didn't help the folks in the gas lines. Jet engines use carbureators? or fuel injectors? Meanwhile the Japanese and Europeans already had lots of good economy cars. It's taken the US auto industry decades to catch up. Their governments use punitive taxes to limit oil use. Much like Algore planned. Now we're set to repeat that history. Hams in WWII? Maybe we would have had our CURRENT level of technology 15 or 20 years ago? How? And current level of which technology? Morse technology? Just think...If we'd pared only $10B from each YEAR'S defense budget since 1970, we'd have "only" spent $360B now, which is about 1 1/2 years military budget over THIRTY-SIX years...And wudda had an American flag and American footprints on TWO astronomical bodies by now. Imagine if that money had gone into energy independence instead. Instead it goes to maintain the Morse Code Test, and other forms of welfare. If we're going to have a tit-for-tat about the bottom-line practicality of going, Jim, I'm not up for it. I am. That's what engineering is all about - dealing with *real* problems. Real problems??? Hi, hi, hi! Your credibility was lost long, long, ago. You choose to live in the past, worshipping the WWII "amateurs" who were shut down by government decree. It's easy to blue-sky what coulda-woulda-shoulda been done. It's easy to blue-sky the need for Morse Code communications... BUT YOU"VE DONE IT!!! YOU'VE ADVOCATED THE NEED FOR YOUR FEDERAL GOVERNMENT TO MAKE PEOPLE LEARN THE MORSE CODE WHEN THEY COULD HAVE BEEN WORKING ON FAR, FAR MORE IMPORTANT PROBLEMS. HI, HI!!! COULDA-WOULDA-SHOULDA BEEN WORKING ON REAL STUFF. At least now you've got someone to talk to on morse code. And that's what's really important. It's a lot tougher to actually do the things. What??? Just try harder is what you've told the Morse Codists In-Training... If you don't want to take a long serious look at just how difficult and expensive a manned Mars trip would be, please don't lecture us about what should have been done. Just as long as you have Morse-Codists to talk to you... Anyone can "successfully" argue that it's going to "cost" time, money and resources to go. Even lives. But EVERY expedition of exploration in man's time has cost money up front and lives along the way. Of course. And some times it was worth it. Other times it wasn't. Like learning your favorite mode. The REAL bottom line is that we could have done this a LONG time ago if we'd only said "Let's Do It." But "we" didn't, because "we" didn't think it was worth the costs. Noshidtt? And I think "we" made the right decision. I know I did when I abandoned the 13 wpm holy grail. Back to NASA...The technologies in my chosen profession alone that have benefitted from the Space Program are phenominal. I think if we pulled the rug out from under it any time soon, the "trickle down" effect in lost of impetus in technology development would be rapid and deep felt. Can you guarantee that those advances would not have happened if the money had been spent on research in the fields directly affected? IOW, why not simply go after a problem directly? In industrialized society's history, major technological advancements have MOSTLY followed (1) war, (2) captialist investment for profit (3) government subsidy to do research in that field (usually the impetus of, again, war). There are certainly exceptions to the rule, radio being one of them. "Radio" was not developed by governmental subsidy, nor was it the product of an 18th century "Motorola" but was the "product" of private inventors. BINGO! Wrongo! The same was mostly true of computers. Oh yes, the first real computer, ENIAC, was built for the Army to compute artillery aiming tables. And since you weren't in the Army and Len was... It's easy to dismiss the connection between the U.S. Army and the Government!!! Hi, hi, hi! But it was built on the work of earlier machines like the Atasinoff-Berry Computer. And only one ENIAC was ever built. Its successors came from private industry, for commercial purposes. Prolly a gov't contract. No, I can't guarantee that those advances would not have occured...but WHEN would they have occured? Nobody knows. Jim sure don't. Certainly NOT in the time frame that they have. Why not? Peace lovin Jim things Greenpeace would have developed everything on-time. The fact is that we've avoided making serious longterm plans to solve some basic technological problems in the USA. #1. _?_ #2. _?_ #3. _?_ I'd like to see you fill in the blanks. That avoidance has cost us dearly, and will cost us more, Do tell. You pretend to know much. until we tackle the problems head-on rather than expecting some silver bullet to do it for us. 73 de Jim, N2EY Silver bullets like the government enslaving citizens to learn your favorite mode so that you'll have someone to talk to? Hi! Or did you have something more noble in mind? |
K4YZ wrote:
Americans were use to having "the wide open spaces" and cheap gas. Well, we do still have some "wide open spaces". So...where was the incentive to make itty-bitty gas sippers? That wasn't what the American market wanted. Even now more and more SUV's are rolling off the lines...even Honda and Suzuki have gotten on the band wagon. And SUV sales are in the dumpster. Truck and SUV Sales Plunge as Gas Prices Rise GM, Ford Hit Hardest in September By Sholnn Freeman Washington Post Staff Writer Tuesday, October 4, 2005; Page D01 General Motors Corp. reported a sales drop of 24 percent compared with the same month a year ago. Ford Motor Co.'s sales declined 20 percent. Tuesday, October 4, 2005 SUV sales tank in Sept. Double-digit losses sock Ford, GM as truck demand falls, employee discounts for all cool off. By Brett Clanton and Bryce G. Hoffman / The Detroit News GM and Ford posted September U.S. sales declines of 24 percent and 20 percent, respectively, as consumers lost interest in employee-pricing promotions and passed over big SUVs and trucks. Light truck sales skidded an alarming 30 percent at GM and 28 percent at Ford last month. |
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KØHB wrote:
"Dave Heil" wrote Congrats on Minnesota's capturing the Little Brown Jug for the first time in nineteen years. That was a long drought. Those guys give me fits! Win their first four games with 40-50 points per game, get embarrased at Happy Valley last weekend, then grind out a nice unexpected win against Michigan. The next two weeks against strong Divisional rivals (Wisconsin, Ohio State) will tell the tale. Wisconsin and Ohio State certainly got softened up a bit this weekend. Penn State looked pretty good. West Virginia didn't exactly look stellar in beating up little old Rutgers. Dave K8MN |
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Dave Heil wrote: wrote: Dave Heil wrote: wrote: Dave Heil wrote: If you're talking about electrical energy, any of it which is produced but not consumed, is wasted energy. I can turn off my appliances and lights, but if no one else uses the electricity I'm not using, it is wasted. Dave, Electricity supply doesn't work like that. The production adjusts itself to the load. If the load decreases, so does production. There is no waste from reduced loading. In fact, if the load goes down enough, utilities shut down their least- efficient plants. I accept your statements as fact, as far as they go. They go pretty far. However, if electricity is generated and not consumed, it is wasted. Where does it go? The utility doesn't put huge dummy loads on line. Actually, it does. No, they don't. They are in the form of transformers and wiring. Those losses are not dummy loads, they're inefficiencies. They are not connected to use up power others don't use. From what I've read, a little over 8% of generated power is wasted regardless of the load. 8% of 100 kVA is 8 kVa. 8% of 50 kVA is 4 kVA. As the load goes down, so does the waste. Of course the situation is somewhat more complex, because even with no load there is some loss, the loss is temperature dependent, etc. That allows no leeway for leakage. It includes "leakage". Copper loss, dielectric loss, skin effect, corona, etc. That's just the waste built into the system. The conversion from mechanical to electrical power is just a little over 41% efficient. That number is actually from the heat in the fuel to the final customer. It includes boiler losses, turbine losses, alternator losses, transmission and distribution losses, and all the electricity used to run the plant and auxiliary loads. It's actually very good compared to, say, a car. Generally, power is shifted to other parts of the grid if unneeded in one area, so that it is used where there is demand. Not really. If the load goes down, less is generated. If locally generated power was not connected to a grid, what would happen to electricity generated, but not used? It's not generated in the first place. If my home generator is run at full load, I might get eight hours of run time. If it is run at 50% load, I might get only ten hours of run time from the same tank of fuel. Doesn't this indicate that there is additional waste? What you're seeing is the inefficiency of the *engine* at light load. A perfect genset that burns X gallons per hour at full load would burn 0.5X gallons at half load, 0.25X gallons at quarter load and nothing at all at no load. But real engines aren't that good, so you might find that a real genset that burns X gallons per hour at full load burns 0.65X gallons at half load, 0.4X gallons at quarter load and 0.2X gallons at no load. The extra gas goes to run the engine itself - unbolt the alternator and the engine will still burn about 0.2X gallons per hour just to spin the shaft. Just like your car uses gas at idle. It's the engine, not the electrical system. This is where hybrids get their efficiency improvements. The engine in a hybrid is almost never idling. It's either driving the car, charging the battery or shut down. I don't know enough about controlling the total reactive component to address it. I do. Utilities always aim for unity power factor. They have auxiliary capacitors that are switched in to compensate. Some big customers can control their power factor and compensate the system as well. Ever hear of a synchronous condenser? 73 de Jim, N2EY |
KØHB wrote:
"Michael Coslo" wrote I would like to see some leadership realizing that driving single digit fuel millage SUV's is an unpatriotic act, that building under insulated McMansions that take immense amounts of energy to heat is an unpatriotic act. Naaaah. Those who drive the SUVs are being bitten in the wallet. Sure. But they are also using up a critical strategic resource, contributing to the imbalance of trade, and other things like that. Some patriots. Patriotic? Unpatriotic? Don't look now, but economics pretty much went global about 50 years ago. "Patriotism" has didly-squat to do with it. I'm not talking about overall economics, Hans. I'm talking about the US importing a large percentage of its oil needs. If you had to choose between fuel for some Escalade luvvin momma, and the fuel for say our military to train with, who would ya choose? Look at the big picture. While it is always nice to have both the jet and the soccer mom accommodated, since many of the people we import oil from are not the closest allies, the day will come when we have to choose. - Mike KB3EIA - |
Dave Heil wrote:
wrote: Dave Heil wrote: If you're talking about electrical energy, any of it which is produced but not consumed, is wasted energy. I can turn off my appliances and lights, but if no one else uses the electricity I'm not using, it is wasted. Dave, Electricity supply doesn't work like that. The production adjusts itself to the load. If the load decreases, so does production. There is no waste from reduced loading. In fact, if the load goes down enough, utilities shut down their least-efficient plants. I accept your statements as fact, as far as they go. However, if electricity is generated and not consumed, it is wasted. If I have a 25 KVA generator running and only use 12 KVA, the available balance is gone forever. Admittedly, the generator will use less fuel under the smaller load. Jim is correct, especially because of the scale of the power generation. The emergency gas generator is pretty much uncontrolled, save for gas savings/expenditures due to load. The Power grid has a lot of controls on it regarding generation. That is one of the reasons that utilities are not all that wild about people who "co-generate". It makes their job a bit more complex keeping track of it all. - Mike KB3EIA - |
KØHB wrote:
"Dave Heil" wrote Congrats on Minnesota's capturing the Little Brown Jug for the first time in nineteen years. That was a long drought. Those guys give me fits! Win their first four games with 40-50 points per game, get embarrased at Happy Valley last weekend, then grind out a nice unexpected win against Michigan. The next two weeks against strong Divisional rivals (Wisconsin, Ohio State) will tell the tale. It appears that the Nits were not a fluke, though. - Mike - |
"Mike Coslo" wrote I'm not talking about overall economics, Hans. I'm talking about the US importing a large percentage of its oil needs. We import a large percentage of a lot of stuff, both raw material and finished goods. Coffee. Rubber. Titanium. Tin. Wolfram. Textiles. Clothing. And, yes, even oil. We also export to other countries a large percentage of their needs. Food (wheat/soy/corn/meat/dairy products). Lumber. Technology. Education. Medicine. If you had to choose between fuel for some Escalade luvvin momma, and the fuel for say our military to train with, who would ya choose? I could ask a corresponding patronizing question about any of the other goods I mentioned. The point is that individuals here don't make that choice about oil any more than a citizen of Japan makes that choice about lumber when they want to build a new home. If the cost of oil goes too high, then Escalades will fall from favor and be replaced by and Vegas and Pintos. If the price of lumber gets too high, Japanese homes will be built from compressed rice straw or some other material. Has nothing to do with patriotism. Has to do with simple economics. Look at the big picture. I do. 73, de Hans, K0HB |
Mike Coslo wrote: wrote: But "we" didn't, because "we" didn't think it was worth the costs. "We" are busy selling our hats to each other at the moment. "We" don't have a national will to do great things any more. And I think "we" made the right decision. Lessay we concentrate all our resources into feeding the poor, fixing all the social inequalities, and making the world a better place for our children and our childrens children. After all that. I would wager my life that there will still be poor, there will still be starving people, there will still be inequality, and the world will not be any better a place than it is today. A-yup. Brian ought to be able to at least partially attest to this...I am sure Somalia bears some resemblence... While on one of those missions that he and Lennie said I wasn't on, we were briefed on the poverty of the local community, certain cultural do's and don'ts and the likelyhood of who/where the "bad guys" would be. During the "these are really poor folks" part of the lecture, we were told about how the average (certain Central American country) citizen only earned less than the equivilent of USD $1000/yr. And indeed, when we got there, there were some of those same kids you see at 3AM, doe-eyed and playing in squalid poverty. We were only in this community 6 days, and I was initially prone to dispensing my MREs to the kids...Until I realized that almost everyone had an AK-47, M-16, or FN-FAL rifle...And each bragged of how much it cost him to get it... They will live in putrid, debilitating poverty, but manage to find the cash for guns and ammunition. That's where my liberal streak ended. I am always amazed at the CNN, MSN, and other news shows that have "on the scene" reporters in countless third-world countries that are pontificating about poverty while the men in the streets are carrying assault rifles like my wife carries her purse. 73 Steve, K4YZ |
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