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You don't want the job of GPS jammer in a war. If it emits it can be targeted quickly and die.
GPS jammers are not an absolute, think of weapons like the JDAM , as being GPS assisted.

The INS onboard will still do a good job of getting the weapon to the target. A fly time of 50 seconds from 35,000ft for the weapon means that there is very little INS correction needed. Especially if the INS location pumped into the weapon before release received refinement from the onboard radar on the jet ( B-1 and B-2 technique). GPS helps the JDAM but it isn't going to force the INS outside of a certain limit in case of spoofing. Being 3 or 8 meters from a 2000lb class weapon, still means you are dead.

One of the GPS jammers destroyed in OIF was taken out by the very weapon it was made to spoof: A JDAM. The method of encrypted military GPS signals and verification process is of course classified. The idea of hoping some GPS jammers will provide protection is not recommended.

Other target aids are becoming popular and don't depend as much on GPS assistance: The digital map/target recognition infared nose found on the Israeli "SPICE", and the very good upcoming French AASM ( modular kit for dumb iron ) means that a target can still end up dead in adverse weather without GPS assist.

I would hope that it would take on more the flavor of the old time passenger cruise lines of the late 19th & early 20th Centuries. Still, once space travel starts to really emerge, it is going to be a very capital intensive business. Almost all of the capital that Wall Street & other exchanges can dig up is going to help fuel this next economic expansion.

I predict that over the next 15-25 years you will see Wall Street (especially once the X-Prize has been won) get into space in a major way. You will see the whole dot Bomb thing happen all over again, unfortunately, with fly-by-night companies that do little but promise the Moon (this time in a more litteral fashion). Some companies are going to emerge and become very successful, but many others are going to take a whole lot of money from people and throw it down the drain.

If the X-Prize team list is an indication with over 26 different teams listed, once it has been proven to be a practical business you will see many others jump into the business. Companies like Boeing, Airbus, and Thiokol (all companies you seemed to miss) are more than likely going to come in and join the party as well. They all have some sort of rocketry/avaition experience, deep pockets, and an aire of respectability when they start producing spacecraft.

In this regard it would be more like the P.C. industry, where it started in a bunch of garages and small industrial parks, where several millionaires arose from relatively modest beginnings. In this case we have a few "modest" millionaires who are perhaps going to turn this into billions.

John Kerry's ilk

Why do you single out Kerry? Considering George W Bush's viewpoints on terrorism, civil liberties, and missile defense- do you think he'll be any more likely to allow private individuals to build huge long-range guided rockets inside the USA?

He'll assign an ABL to zap you on the boost phase!

I like your statements, but I think mis-understand the point of a hydrogen economy. In programming terms, it provides an abstraction layer so that a variety of backends can be used to provide energy input. Or, as I frequently hear as a criticism of hydrogen: "Hydrogen isn't an energy source, it's an energy carrier, dumbass."

We use oil for two purposes: 1) It's an energy carrier pre-loaded with a great deal of stored energy thanks to heat, pressure, and time, and 2) it's an awesome supply of chemicals we've come to rely on. Hydrogen replaces the first role, and, as you say, the energy has to come from somewhere. It can come from a whole lot of somewheres.

Hydrogen isn't really important to the hydrogen economy. It's just chemically convenient. The point of the hydrogen economy is to derive energy from non-depletable sources to supply electrical needs, and to store excess energy as hydrogen, like a battery, or otherwise export hydrogen as an energy medium. We could export oil instead of hydrogen, but that's more of a pain in the ass to produce, and less efficient to use.

Candidate energy generation techologies include:

• Solar Power Towers (thermal energy collection and steam generation): Commercially pioneered by Boeing. Easy to follow technical description of a small scale 10MW retrofitted prototype. Boeing's full-scale designs are 15-100+ MW per installation. They provide power throughout the night, and through inclimate weather.
• Tidal Generators
• Geothermal Energy

As a suppliment, photovoltaic cells can be used to generate electricity or even extract hydrogen through electrolysis with excess energy during peak hours. As many know, photovoltaics are relatively economically neutral--they don't produce more energy than they cost to produce over 10 years. Of course, photovolatic panels last as long as they aren't destroyed, and after five years continue to produce 60-80% of their initial voltage output until they are destroyed, which can easily be much much much longer than ten years.

Still a different concept, but I do know what you are talking about. Boeing is working on a vehicle (the X50A CRW canard rotor/wing) which is almost identical in design ;)

Press release
pictures

Still a different concept, but I do know what you are talking about. Boeing is working on a vehicle (the X50A CRW canard rotor/wing) which is almost identical in design ;)

Press release
pictures

But I thought 747's weren't particularly strong.

They were strong enough to carry the shuttles around on its back. According to the specs, the 747-400ER has a maximum takoff weight of 910,000 lbs. A fully-loaded 18-wheeler dirt truck averages around 80,000 lbs, to put that into perspective. I don't see how it gets off the ground. 11 trucks are heavy.

I vote for unusable latency. According to the boeing FAQ the service is provided over satellite internet. Which means unusable latancy for VoIP.

I look forward to crapflooding from international airspace.

To begin with, it won't be from international airspace. You will be bound by the law of the respective carrier and the in-flight Internet Service Provider, that will most likely be the CBB - Connexion By Boeing. Obviously, every nerd worth this proud name, must at least consider the idea of hosting a "screw DMCA!" warez server on his laptop traveling across the Atlantic, but actually connecting to the Net via CBB is just like connecting from Seattle, even if your signal goes to this beautiful city through a fairly sophisticated satellite network. So when you are posting from a German plane through a Seattle-based provider, you can't claim freedom from DMCA/Euro-DMCA. But you can crapflood from the sky since quite a long time - Lufthansa already offers in-flight broadband. The only thing that is new this time is the Wi-Fi. Actually, I don't think it's a good idea - Wi-Fi consumes more power than cable ethernet connection, and if you don't fly business/first, you try to save every zilch of energy on your laptop.

[quote] This is the first real laser weapon.[/quote]

It's not like doesn't have the money. Fining him 800k is like fining me 5$.

The fine is not based on how much you make, or how much you are worth (such as setting bail amounts) ... but rather how much money you fraudulently made (or how much loss you avoided).

Typically, the fine is up to three times the profit you made (or loss you avoided).

Here's an interesting page (PDF) on the subject. Review section 3.

A standard 747 holds 300 people...

Not so. A standard 747-400 (most recent model) holds 416 people in a three-class configuration. Charter 747s with all-economy seating can hold 500 or more.

All seats on Concorde are first class.

No, they were Concorde class; a step above first class.

Most supersonic aircraft require afterburners in order to go faster then sound, and afterburners are incredibly voracious consumers of fuel. I think that one of the other very important innovations is the "Supercruise" ability, seen on aircraft like the F-22 Raptor. This allows the aircraft to maintain supersonic speed for extended periods of time in a low power setting, and this in turn is just as vital for cheap, commercially viable flights. I hope that advances in sonic boom suppression will also work well with the necessary designs for supercruising, and that we may all be able to take advantage of such flights within the next 2-3 decades. If both aren't taken into account, and designers come up with plans that make for an either-or choice, it could mean supersonic planes will still be relegated to the relatively wealthy.

Second, the ABL is not used for homeland defense, but for theatre defense:

http://www.boeing.com/defense-space/military/abl/o verview.html

The reason the 747 even has that bubble, is because the 747 was orginally going to be a cargo-only plane and the nose-cone on freighter versions of 747's flip up so you can slide big cargo straight onboard.

My understanding is that the "Laser" (insert Dr. Evil reference) is big enough that there wouldn't be much room for people. The hatch for the beam is on top just behind the bubble. This is a great angle to hit inbound ICBM comming from above the aircraft, but a lousy angle to catch SAM rockets from below it.

The reason the 747 even has that bubble, is because the 747 was orginally going to be a cargo-only plane and the nose-cone on freighter versions of 747's flip up so you can slide big cargo straight onboard.

My understanding is that the "Laser" (insert Dr. Evil reference) is big enough that there wouldn't be much room for people. The hatch for the beam is on top just behind the bubble. This is a great angle to hit inbound ICBM comming from above the aircraft, but a lousy angle to catch SAM rockets from below it.

The reason the 747 even has that bubble, is because the 747 was orginally going to be a cargo-only plane and the nose-cone on freighter versions of 747's flip up so you can slide big cargo straight onboard.

My understanding is that the "Laser" (insert Dr. Evil reference) is big enough that there wouldn't be much room for people. The hatch for the beam is on top just behind the bubble. This is a great angle to hit inbound ICBM comming from above the aircraft, but a lousy angle to catch SAM rockets from below it.

• "Hi. Yeah. Erm, what the hell are 'boxen', 'VAXen', 'OSen' and 'Virii'?"
  "These are mystical non-words, which have been conjured up by stupid wankers wanting to appear hip, cool and intellectual. Nothing to see here. Please move along."

• "Why is everyone so against Microsoft? And what is up with that dollar sign?"
  "Welcome to Slashdot. Much in the same way that one dog sniffs another's ass to evaluate that individual, so is this practice of marking your grounds of viewpoint. Think of it as a Linux user bending over and farting - It is all about making their views heard.

• "Who is Junis?"
  "The most legendary troll ever to grace the pages of Slashdot. Not only was a Slashdot editor duped into posting a complete article on the opression of Kabul's geeks, but it also spawned a veritable banquet of new trolling material (such as optimum temperatures for storing Commodore hardware buried under chicken huts and the abundance of DivX Baywatch episodes)"

• "What is 'YHBT. YHL. HAND.'? I see it everywhere!"
  "This is commonly seen in comments sections after a pathetic Slashboteer or paranoid YRO fanatic has been suckered into replying to a finely crafted piece of literary genius."

• "Why the hell would someone want to re-program some obscure electronic device that is no longer produced?"
  "Many cock-smoking Slashdot users like to claim that it is 'because they can'. In fact, it boils down to 'because I've got nothing else better to do'. These are normally the same people who think that their university attendance made them technical gods and everyone else is worthless."

• "I recently saw an article on programming, and lots of people posted code snippets. Problem is, most of it was wrong. Why is that?"
  "A high percentage of Slashdot users are still in university, and think that after day 1 of 'Introduction to C' that they are ready to code embedded systems for Boeing or Raytheon . They spend endless hours posting about how they've hacked device x, when in fact all they've done is downloaded the SDK, bragged about 16-bit bus register cron-job front side bus accumulators and watched 'Anti-Trust' for the 797th time."

Most people don't understand the statistics involved when it comes to expected norms of commercial airplane safety. There are almost 10,000,000 commerical airplane flights a year so if unlimited cell phone crashed only 1 in 10,000,000 flights, one plane every year would be lost. Even if it's 1 in a 100,000,000, that's one plane every ten years. I just don't think it's a worth plane crash with potentially hundreds of passengers dead just so people can talk for cheap on their cell phones.

Look here for statistical information on airplane safety

And besides, airplanes are one of few respites in the modern world from constant cell phone ringing. If phones were found to be safe on planes, every flight would become a cacophony of really irrating ring tones. Forget ever being able to sleep on a plane again.

We've actually seen this before - it's true that guided reflectors are the way to go for solar power generation, but you don't want to aim them at a water column if you need electricity after dark. Instead, use the light to head up molten salt, which can hold lots of thermal energy for a fair amount of time, then pipe the salt past water pipes to make the steam to run your turbines. Yes, it seems more indirect but you can keep to power flowing up to 100% of the time without relying on batteries. Keeping the energy in thermal form and transferring it from one medium to another is more efficient than converting it from thermal to kinetic to electrical to chemical (when you store it in a battery), then back to electrical. Here's the extensive (though a couple years old) Boeing Solar Power Tower page, and here's an update on applications of the tech from people planning the nuke dump in New Mexico.

A simpler kind of solar tower is a chimney made of lightweight drawing air through a sprawling greenhouse. The floor of the greenhouse absorbs heat all day and reradiates it at night to drive turbines continuously. Australia may soon have a gargantuan solar chimney built for them by a company called Enviromission.

CPLDs and FPGAs have more in common than they have differences in many points of view. Cost is the big one. Power consumption and complexity are two others. Other than that, they are both programmable logic devices...

HOW do Defense/Military Contractors get MONEY in all of this? Please tell. Were not shipping weapons, the only thing that we could use that they produce would be some high grade parts and rocket engines.

While the whole thing is still pie in the sky, IF the funding is approved I would guess that a the likes of General Electric, Boeing and Honeywell would get a nice fat slice.

This is just a guess on my part, so feel free to correct me if it doesn't pan out like this ;-)

Both the newest Boeing Delta and Lock-Mart Atlas use license-built Russian engines with nary a design change.

Partially correct. While the Lockheed Martin Atlas 3 and Atlas 5 use the Russian RD-180 engine, the Boeing Delta 4 uses the RS-68 engine in its first stage, designed and built by Boeing's Rocketdyne subsidiary. Both vehicles use variants of the RL10 upper stage engine from Pratt & Whitney, another US company.

The main difference from the STS being that the shuttle has its main engine on the spacecraft, while Buran was lifted entirely by Energia rocket and attached liquid rocket boosters (i.e. spacecraft did not do any lifting of its own).

Now, as far as I know, nobody else including NASA has anything like this. While Energia design could be relatively easily used for lifting cargo other than Buran, I'm not sure the Shuttle main engine could be that easily ported or even comparable in power.

Energiya RD-0120: vacuum thrust 200,000 kgf (roughly 440,000 lbf)

Rocketdyne SSME: vacuum thrust 512,950 lbf

The major difference between Energiya/Buran and Shuttle is the choice of configuration; an Energiya can carry anything within certain size/mass/CG constraints because the cargo is just cargo, while Shuttle can only fly with the Orbiter because the hydrogen engines are attached to it. This does not mean that it would be overly difficult to bolt a bunch of SSME's onto a different airframe so that we could fly 100 tons of cargo instead of 20 tons of cargo inside 80 tons of obsolete spaceplane; on the contrary, putting a new vehicle together would probably be cheaper than keeping the Shuttle program going until 2008.

Could we use Shuttle components to put together a rocket that would launch 660 tons? If we scale from the 3-engine, 100-ton Shuttle we'd need to cluster 20 SSMEs for such a thing. I don't think this is within the realm of practicality, but 200 tons looks fairly reasonable from my relatively in-expert point of view. (Goodness knows what you'd do for the boosters to get the thing off the ground; clustering so many solid rockets would have a very high probability of failure.)

While I don't know if there's a "story" to the similarities between the two aircraft, there were not too many ways to build a supersonic swing-wing bomber in the 70's - 80's.

One might speculate that the TU-160 was inspired by the B1-A (which had its first flight in 1974, the year before the TU-160 started development), and that the B1-B was inspired by the flight of the TU-160 (the B1-B project started in 1981, the same year the TU-160 first flew). Of course the US and the USSR often looked at each others programs for "inspiration" ;)

Here's a couple of links to the TU-160 from the manufacturer and from some Internet site. The B1-B from the manufacturer and from wikipedia.

The official site of RS-84 does not mention it but it seems to be true. I saw the announcement in usenet .

Several extra billion dollars a year makes for a happy Boing and Lockheed, the real winners.

Damn straight, several extra billion dollars a year would make me a very happy Boing.

Oh, did you mean Boeing?

• When breaking out of the Earth's gravity well, you are indeed only breaking out of the Earth's gravity well. Not the Earth's and the Moon's.
• The moon's gravity is 1/6th that of the Earth's. From a kinetic energy standpoint (so we can compare apples to apples) it's 22 times harder to escape the Earth's pull than it is to escape the moon's pull. That doesn't mean it will require 22 times more fuel, since that would depend on the rocket design.
• The Shuttle's total mass is 85% fuel. (That one you got right.) The boosters use a solid fuel and the main engines are burning liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen at a 6:1 O/F ratio. That means at liftoff, the shuttle is carrying about 1.4 million lbs (650,000 kg) of oxygen, a substance which is readily available in the atmosphere the shuttle is flying through. Rocket liftoff from Earth is highly inefficient, but that's a topic for another post.

Are you on fuckin crack? Check your sources if you have any. I saw the darn thing make several test flights on the discovery channel for christ sake!!

Here's a couple of operational ones.

You don't even need to be a National Defense drone with security clearence to see it.

WTF? Please explain. ( If you meant in service, please fix your misguiding statement. )

Bad weather has prevented U.S. military officials from reaching a site near Zawar Kili, Afghanistan, where a Feb. 4 strike by a CIA Predator unmanned aerial vehicle reportedly killed several Al Qaeda leaders, Pentagon spokeswoman Torie Clarke told reporters here today.

You have a serious "I know everything" attitude problem. Whereas I've admitted to cases where I've been in the wrong you still refuse to do any such thing. About what I'd expect on /. but still disappointing.

There are several examples of airborne ESM systems. You still refuse to understand the technology or admit that it's in everyday use. Why is it so hard to understand? It's only a minor step above a fucking radar detector for crying out loud. Are radar detectors Star Trek technology too? Maybe the next time I get pulled over I'll just phaser the bastard when he asks what that little black box on my dash is.

I knew it. A gameboi. Learned everything he knows about military tactics from the God's eye view of a computerbased battlesim. Not bored with the game yet means you haven't figured out the algorithm.

Actually I haven't touched it in months -- I'm too busy with the real World. Sorry to debunk your image of me as a 17 year old geek in my parents basement. I actually served in the US Coast Guard to put myself through college. Two friends of mine and ex-roommates are graduates of USAFA. Another friend of mine is in her fourth year at Annapolis. Does this make me an all knowing expert on military tactics and technology? Hardly -- but then where does your knowledge come from? CNN? Naw probably Fox News based on your "I know everything and you are automatically wrong" attitude.

As for my Top Gun comments, you'll have to get an adult to read them and break it down into tiny little easily digestible bits for you.

As far as I can tell (no outside assistance required) your Top Gun statements boiled into two parts: A) One of the few things they got right was the maneuvering of the fighters to get a missile lock. While it's true that any fighter needs to maneuver somewhat to gain a firing position Top Gun took it completely over the top. If you are pointing at your bandit and illuminate him with fire control radar you have a missile lock -- you don't have wait five seconds for the green reticule to magically turn red. With IR missiles (the type they would have been using in a dogfight btw -- not Sparrows) you wouldn't even hear a radar lock -- it's a growl.

Your other Top Gun comment was about promiscuous flight instructors that sleep with hot looking pilots like Tom Cruise. Had you actually been busy reading my replies you would have noted my humor at this -- trying to keep the debate civil. Unfortunately you were too busy thinking you should show off and make me look like an idiot to notice this.

Does it give you a good feeling to spew your know-it-all attitude on an Internet forum? I agreed to disagree you -- you came back with a wise ass comment (that's wrong btw, but I won't try disputing it because you won't believe me anyway) about Radar and implied that I was a child who spent too much time playing warsims. If you had bothered to research the technology behind ESM you would have found airborne versions -- apparently I need to finger-feed you and point you in the right direction. Likewise if you had bothered to research Harpoon before bashing it you would have discovered that it's actually used by several real Naval forces the World over (Australia uses it) for training purposes. It is hands-down the most realistic war-sim that you can get outside of actually joining the service. It started out as a paper-rules game before being written for the first PC platform in 1989. It has almost 20 years of support and development from ex-Naval officers backing

Russians have been designing larger and possibly reuseable Soyuz-type spacecrafts for long time. The original mission was ferrying military cosmonauts to Almaz and Polya military space stations. A later design was Zarya resusable space craft to be launched with Zenit booster. Project was cancelled on financial grounds back in 1989, but the technology has been further developed in connection with ISS and Sea Launch projects.

In other words, for what bidders are offering right now for this aircraft, you could get a brand spanking new Hornet from Boeing, and have nearly $40 million in change. That's a lot of jet fuel, and a lot of flying time (not taking into account maintenance costs).

As for me, if I had that sort of money, and wanted to buy an aircraft, I'd probably be looking at one of Boeing's commercial jets. $100 million would just about buy me a 767. I'd prefer a 747 -- it has greater range -- but a 767-200ER could just about get me from Sydney to Los Angeles. Hellaciously expensive to run, of course, but if you're able to afford one of these babies, you should be able to afford the fuel and maintenance...

This is all very true. However, there should be ways to create ethanol in large quantities without fossil fuels. With large enough tanks for the molten salts which store the heat, you could potentially run 24/7.

With a solar tower, you could provide the heat necessary for creating the slurry which gets fermented, for sterilization, as well as the electricity necessary for grinding, pumping, etc.

Caveat: In the midwest you might be able to provide some solar goodness in the summer, but you're pretty well screwed in the winter -- which is counter to the planting/harvest cycle, of course.

The link to the Boeing Solar Power Tower explains more of what you are looking for, but here's a quick bullet list:

1. It doesn't use solar panels, it uses concentrated solar heat at roughly 70% efficiency
2. It stores the heat in a reservoir of molten salt so it can continue to generate electricity under cloudy conditions and at night.
3. The basic infrastructure is exactly the same as a coal or gas fired plant. The cost today of a coal or gas plant is about $1/watt. The pilots of the power towers are running about $1.5/watt and are easily reduced to $1/watt under greater economies of scale.
4. The energy doesn't have to be distributed solely as electricity. Much of it could be converted to hyrdrogen and shipped or piped around the country.
5. Boeing is looking to sell these as peak-hour booster add-ons to existing gas, oil and coal plants. This will help buffer them against peak demand both in terms of energy demand and spot price so it helps them save money.
6. Of course it also helps to bridge the "valley of tears" between our current oil based economy and whatever we decide to replace it with.

Either oil is a finite resource or it's not. If it is, and we claim to know what are global reserves are, then knowing our current burn and growth rates combined with well understood economic models of what happens once you pass the half way point, we have a very good idea of what is going to happen in the next ten to twenty years.

Also, let's not forget:
To pump the water for our highly industrialized agriculture your nee quite a bit of energy
You need petrochemicals to create the fertiliers
You need lots and lots of diesel for the massive combines.

It's not a question of running out completely or getting down to 1/3 of reserves left. It's a question of getting to 1/2 of reserves left (where we are today) and what effect that has on the price (as you are fond of pointing out).

Many economists of the '80s and '90s (and still today) argue that for the United States to have a robust economy the price of a barrel of oil must stay at or below US$25. Well, how long has it been at $28, $30, $35? How long has this recession been going on? This is a cake-walk compared to what's coming.

Remember the thing spoken and agreed to in the privacy of the boardroom isn't a conspiracy, it's simply good business. ;-)

And as everyone knows, a coverup is not necessary, the credulity, ignorance and attention span of the American populace is enough.

One of the greatest things George W. Bush has done for us as a country and society is to have removed much of that credulity. Now all we have to do is solve the ignorance and attention problems.

"But I know if we don't find more product (oil) we're going to have a problem. "
George W. Bush

regards,
jsms iii

You're ad hominem attacks are a sign of weakness, you should restrain yourself.

Now I'll attempt to address your questions and remove some of your ignorance.

If you had clicked on the link to the Boeing Solar Power Tower and read for even a couple of minutes it would have answered most of your questions.

1. It doesn't use solar panels, it uses concentrated solar heat at roughly 70% efficiency
2. It stores the heat in a reservoir of molten salt so it can continue to generate electricity under cloudy conditions and at night.
3. The basic infrastructure is exactly the same as a coal or gas fired plant. The cost today of a coal or gas plant is about $1/watt. The pilots of the power towers are running about $1.5/watt and are easily reduced to $1/watt under greater economies of scale.

Yes, I have taken business courses, and electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, and software engineering.

Let me explain it to you a little more slowly. If you're only discovering 1 of something while comsuming 4 of something that would be a clear indication that you're rapidly heading towards a resource crunch wouldn't it? I've done my research on this, have you?

Either oil is a finite resource or it's not. If it is, and we claim to know what are global reserves are, then knowing our current burn and growth rates combined with well understood economic models of what happens once you pass the half way point, we have a very good idea of what is going to happen in the next ten to twenty years.

Also, let's not forget:
To pump the water for our highly industrialized agriculture your need quite a bit of energy
You need petrochemicals to create the fertilizers
You need lots and lots of diesel for the massive combines, other equipment and transportation to market

It's not a question of running out completely or getting down to 1/3 of reserves left. It's a question of getting to 1/2 of reserves left (where we are today) and what effect that has on the price (as you are fond of pointing out).

Many economists of the '80s and '90s (and still today) argue that for the United States to have a robust economy the price of a barrel of oil must stay at or below US$25. Well, how long has it been at $28, $30, $35? How long has this recession been going on? This is a cake-walk compared to what's coming.

I don't know what black helicopters have to do with this discussion.

Shh. We don't like to use the word conspiracy, we prefer to call it business-as-usual.

No cover up is necessary, the credulity and ignorance of the populace is enough.

I apologize but the rest of your so called arguments don't warrant any comment.

regards,
jsms iii

For every four barrels of oil we burn, we're only finding one new one.
Again, for each new barrel of oil discovered, we're burning four from the old known fields.

We _are_ running out of oil. And we're running out of it much faster than anybody cares to inform you.

How much did you spend on heat this winter? On AC last summer? On $2/gal gas for your Camry and SUV? It's time we had Open Source Energy, don't you think?

The captured solar energy of a 150 mile by 150 mile square area of Nevada desert would provide the United States with all its energy needs: consumer, residential, transportation, commercial and industrial; oil, gas, coal, electric, etc. combined. Yes. It's a fact.

And we don't need any new technology to do it either. A simple coal, gas or oil fired plant can be retrofitted with a different heat source.

There is no energy crisis. Never has been, never will be.

First Law of Thermodynamics: Energy is neither created, nor destroyed.

First law of business: Make the consumer believe the product is scarce, then package and sell it in a format that can be controlled (ie. barrels of oil can be controlled, solar roofs can't).

Do you know how many of these we could have built for the over $100 billion spent on securing middle east oil? 10? 100? No, _1000_. Yup! Ouch.

Your friendly neighborhood,
JSMS III

For every four barrels of oil we burn, we're only finding one new one.
Again, for each new barrel of oil discovered, we're burning four from the old known fields.

We _are_ running out of oil. And we're running out of it much faster than anybody cares to inform you.

How much did you spend on heat this winter? On AC last summer? On $2/gal gas for your Camry and SUV? It's time we had Open Source Energy, don't you think?

The captured solar energy of a 150 mile by 150 mile square area of Nevada desert would provide the United States with all its energy needs: consumer, residential, transportation, commercial and industrial; oil, gas, coal, electric, etc. combined. Yes. It's a fact.

And we don't need any new technology to do it either. A simple coal, gas or oil fired plant can be retrofitted with a different heat source.

There is no energy crisis. Never has been, never will be.

First Law of Thermodynamics: Energy is neither created, nor destroyed.

First law of business: Make the consumer believe the product is scarce, then package and sell it in a format that can be controlled (ie. barrels of oil can be controlled, solar roofs can't).

Do you know how many of these we could have built for the over $100 billion spent on securing middle east oil? 10? 100? No, _1000_. Yup! Ouch.

Your friendly neighborhood,
JSMS III

There is no energy crisis. Never has been, never will be.

First Law of Thermodynamics: Energy is neither created, nor destroyed.

First law of business: Make the consumer believe the product is scarce, then package and sell it in a format that can be controlled (ie. barrels of oil can be controlled, solar roofs can't).

The captured solar energy of a 150 mile by 150 mile square area of Nevada desert would provide the United States with all its energy needs: consumer, residential, transportation, commercial and industrial; oil, gas, coal, electric, etc. combined. Yes. It's a fact.

And we don't need any new technology to do it either. A simple coal, gas or oil fired plant can be retrofitted with a different heat source.

Do you know how many of these we could have built for the over $100 billion spent on securing middle east oil? 10? 100? No, _1000_. Yup! Ouch.

But we _are_ running out of oil. And we're running out of it much faster than anybody cares to inform you.

How much did you spend on heat this winter? On hot water? On AC last summer? On $2/gal gas for your Camry and SUV? It's time we had Open Source Energy, don't you think?

Your friendly neighborhood,
JSMS III

p.s.
For every four barrels of oil we burn, we're only finding one new one.
Again, for every four barrels of oil we burn, we find only one new one.
And again, for each new barrel of oil discovered, we're burning four from the old fields.

Who was the greatest exporter of oil to the United States last year (2003)?
Saudi Arabia? No. Venezuela? Nope. Iraq? uh-uh.
Who was it you ask? Canada! How 'bout that, eh?
Now ask yourself, why? How's that? What the heck is going on?

There is no energy crisis. Never has been, never will be.

First Law of Thermodynamics: Energy is neither created, nor destroyed.

First law of business: Make the consumer believe the product is scarce, then package and sell it in a format that can be controlled (ie. barrels of oil can be controlled, solar roofs can't).

The captured solar energy of a 150 mile by 150 mile square area of Nevada desert would provide the United States with all its energy needs: consumer, residential, transportation, commercial and industrial; oil, gas, coal, electric, etc. combined. Yes. It's a fact.

And we don't need any new technology to do it either. A simple coal, gas or oil fired plant can be retrofitted with a different heat source.

Do you know how many of these we could have built for the over $100 billion spent on securing middle east oil? 10? 100? No, _1000_. Yup! Ouch.

But we _are_ running out of oil. And we're running out of it much faster than anybody cares to inform you.

How much did you spend on heat this winter? On hot water? On AC last summer? On $2/gal gas for your Camry and SUV? It's time we had Open Source Energy, don't you think?

Your friendly neighborhood,
JSMS III

p.s.
For every four barrels of oil we burn, we're only finding one new one.
Again, for every four barrels of oil we burn, we find only one new one.
And again, for each new barrel of oil discovered, we're burning four from the old fields.

Who was the greatest exporter of oil to the United States last year (2003)?
Saudi Arabia? No. Venezuela? Nope. Iraq? uh-uh.
Who was it you ask? Canada! How 'bout that, eh?
Now ask yourself, why? How's that? What the heck is going on?

There is no energy crisis. Never has been, never will be.

First Law of Thermodynamics: Energy is neither created, nor destroyed.

First law of business: Make the consumer believe the product is scarce, then package and sell it in a format that can be controlled (ie. barrels of oil can be controlled, solar roofs can't).

The captured solar energy of a 150 mile by 150 mile square area of Nevada desert would provide the United States with all its energy needs: consumer, residential, transportation, commercial and industrial; oil, gas, coal, electric, etc. combined. Yes. It's a fact.

And we don't need any new technology to do it either. A simple coal, gas or oil fired plant can be retrofitted with a different heat source.

Do you know how many of these we could have built for the over $100 billion spent on securing middle east oil? 10? 100? No, _1000_. Yup! Ouch.

But we _are_ running out of oil. And we're running out of it much faster than anybody cares to inform you.

How much did you spend on heat this winter? On hot water? On AC last summer? On $2/gal gas for your Camry and SUV? It's time we had Open Source Energy, don't you think?

Your friendly neighborhood,
JSMS III

p.s.
For every four barrels of oil we burn, we're only finding one.
For every four barrels of oil we burn we're finding only one.
For every barrel of oil we find, we burn foour.

Who was the greatest exporter of oil to the United States last year? Saudi Arabia? No. Venezuela? Nope. Iraq? uh-uh. Canada! How 'bout that, eh?
Now ask yourself, why? How's that?

p.p.s.
The Seawolf class nuclear submarine produces 50MWatts and doesn't need to be refueled for the life of the vessel. Hmm.

p.p.p.s.
There is no spoon.
There is no energy crisis. :-)

Let them try and hide the nuclear submarines. Let them explain them away. You know... the Navy can make a submarine that's self-contained and self-sustainable for a minimum 6 month mission at sea with a crew of hundreds, but the Air Force can't make a space ship that does the same for two weeks? Shame on them!

Or can they?

Oh, but for the Dynasoar!

There is no energy crisis. Never has been, never will be.

First Law of Thermodynamics: Energy is neither created, nor destroyed.

First law of business: Make the consumer believe the product is scarce, then package and sell it in a format that can be controlled (ie. barrels of oil can be controlled, solar roofs can't).

The captured solar energy of a 150 mile by 150 mile square area of Nevada desert would provide the United States with all its energy needs: consumer, residential, transportation, commercial and industrial; oil, gas, coal, electric, etc. combined. Yes. It's a fact.

And we don't need any new technology to do it either. A simple coal, gas or oil fired plant can be retrofitted with a different heat source.

Do you know how many of these we could have built for the over $100 billion spent on securing middle east oil? 10? 100? No, _1000_. Yup! Ouch.

But we _are_ running out of oil. And we're running out of it much faster than anybody cares to inform you.

How much did you spend on heat this winter? On hot water? On AC last summer? On $2/gal gas for your Camry and SUV? It's time we had Open Source Energy, don't you think?

Your friendly neighborhood,
JSMS III

p.s.
For every four barrels of oil we burn, we're only finding one.
For every four barrels of oil we burn we're finding only one.
For every barrel of oil we find, we burn foour.

Who was the greatest exporter of oil to the United States last year? Saudi Arabia? No. Venezuela? Nope. Iraq? uh-uh. Canada! How 'bout that, eh?
Now ask yourself, why? How's that?

p.p.s.
The Seawolf class nuclear submarine produces 50MWatts and doesn't need to be refueled for the life of the vessel. Hmm.

p.p.p.s.
There is no spoon.
There is no energy crisis. :-)

Let them try and hide the nuclear submarines. Let them explain them away. You know... the Navy can make a submarine that's self-contained and self-sustainable for a minimum 6 month mission at sea with a crew of hundreds, but the Air Force can't make a space ship that does the same for two weeks? Shame on them!

Or can they?

Oh, but for the Dynasoar!

I apologize for not being able to answer your question. I live in the US, you see. I am not familiar with the concept of government incentives and payments in exchange for favors from the corporate sector. Not only that - I live in a state which will give 2+ billion US, free training to their workers, freeway expansion around their facilities, and a free cargo dock to our favorite corporate entity in exchange for 1,200 jobs. But since our state government knows best, it must be done because it has a tremendous ROI.

I believe the poster was referring to Boeing SeaLaunch which does indeed involve putting a rocket on a boat (well, a mobile oil platform) and moving it a few thousand miles. (OK, several hundred.)

None of the components you listed in your message do us much good for a manned Mars exploration program. Take the Shuttle engines you list as one component. Only they aren't. They're needed in the (remaining) Shuttles. We'd have to build more of them to make a Mars mission possible before the end of the next decade - many, many more of them.

Let's see, 1 launch window every 2 years, 2 vehicles per launch window, 4 engines per vehicle = 4 engines per year. Manufacture of High Pressure Fuel Turbopumps: "Production rate > 1 unit / month since first flight in July 2001 (STS-104)[1]. At the rate of 1 unit per month, you could have enough engines to fly a Shuttle every month and replace engines every 5 flights, send 4 vehicles to Mars every launch window instead of 2, and have about 3 brand-spanking new engines left over.

It would take several launches just to get the gadgets to Mars to make liquid water and oxygen and hydrogen and everything else for the astronauts to use once they finally arrived.

It would take one launch, carrying about 50 tons on a trans-Mars orbit.[2] The Shuttle orbiter weighs about 100 tons fully loaded; its engines are around 10 tons, leaving 90 tons for vehicle, payload and trans-Mars injection fuel. The required delta-V to get from LEO to TMI is roughly 4.3 km/sec. [3] Vacuum-specific impulse of an SSME is 452 seconds [4], or exhaust velocity of 4430 m/sec; the required TMI mass-ratio is 2.64 by the rocket equation. If you retained one SSME (modified to be restartable in flight) for the trans-Mars injection, you would need to start with ~53 tons * 2.64, or roughly 140 tons. This appears to be well within the capacity of a vehicle using 4 SSMEs and 3 SRBs to put into LEO.

Then there are the cargo / habitat landers, which also cannot fail.

Yes they can. You send them first, perhaps several of them, one launch window before you send people. If they don't land and work correctly, you hold the manned mission off for another launch window. If you send 3 and only 1 of them lands and works, you have one usable landing site; if 2 or 3 of them land and work, you have your choice of options. You can use the unused landers later, or for supply depots for long surveys.

In-situ propellant production may have been demonstrated in the lab here on earth, but we don't know yet if it would even work on Mars. Right now we're having trouble getting simple robot rovers to function correctly, at $400 million a pop.

You have some serious misconceptions about price tags here. The cost is almost entirely for research, development and engineering; manufacturing is a drop in the bucket. You could probably crank out rovers for a few million apiece now that we have the design.

A small chemical plant is much, much simpler than a rover. The biggest issue might be filtering dust to keep it out of the machinery, and you would have a lot of trouble claiming that we don't have any applicable experience with filters.

What you're proposing is that we drop a small chemical factory on Mars, along with an automated tractor and bulldozer to haul it icy rock for processing.

No, that's your proposal. I'm proposing Zubrin's scheme of carrying LH2 to the site and processing it into methane and LOX via the reactions

CO2 + 4 H2 -> CH4 + 2 H2O + heat

H2O + energy -> 2H2 + O2

Note that the methane-production reaction is e

Have you ever heard of the International Space Station? That's a manned satellite.

You've got some good points and you're on the right track, but you're making the mistake so many of us make. You have to understand just how much money, power and corruption the establishment is willing to throw at us in the form of propaganda, disinformation, changing laws, bending the constitution, etc.

Hydrogen being more dangerous than a tank of gasoline or a pressurized tank of propane is propaganda.
Solar cells being inefficient and expensive is a combination of industrial control and propaganda. Who just bought the three big solar cell companies? BP, Shell, Exxon-Mobil. Why? To give us all a better, cheaper, cleaner life? No. To control it. And keep the status quo with oil. Also STmicroelectronics just announced a new polymer solar cell for $0.20/watt.

It's going to be very interesting to watch how they shut that one down. Also, this plant costs exactly the same as a coal or oil plant.

Everybody who wants to understand the power, history and politics of oil must read The Prize.

The main thing we all have to understand is that it's not just about your CAR.
A hundred years ago 80+% of us worked in agriculture and less than 20% lived and worked in cities. Today the opposite is true. The only way that 15% of the population can feed us is through use of massive machinary and massive quantities of fuel. The fertilizers are made from petroleum (petra(rock)-oleum(oil):), the plastics, the smelters for steel and iron, your Goretex snowboarding suit, etc.

Look at the computer in front of you. Try and imagine building it without oil. Hmm.

Anybody who thinks we're not going to enter a new dark-ages when the oil supply starts shrinking dramatically isn't thinking about it hard enough.

A few years ago a document was leaked that was allegedly from the Peoples Republic of China's central intelligence. It claimed that the United States would be mostly washed up by 2012. And that would be the true dawn of China's power. There' something to be said about that with regards to securing resources and power.
China is _still_ largely fed by rural peasants using ancient farming techniques -- not massive industrial power. China also has alternative and renewable energy sources they can deploy at a moments notice. One example: evacuated tube solar collectors, you can google it, China is the number one manufacturer. Never heard of it, right?

Anyway, if you dig the way I've been digging lately what you find is... astonishing.

cheers

We had supersonic cruise missles in the 50's and decided to build ballistic missles instead. Navaho missle Cruise missles today fly nap of the earth. Doing that at Mach 3 just leaves a big crater somewhere. Two technologies make cruise missles effective. One is GPS guidance with or without laser guidance on the final approach. The second was cheap turbojet engines. The costs per missle is ~$600k. Cheap at Pentagon prices. The alternative is sending in a $3m pilot in a $40m Strike Eagle.

The main use for such technology is a high-speed intercontinental bomber or reconnaissance platform. Not space launch. So far no other engine beats rockets for cost/efficiency when doing space launches.

And on a side note, yes a 747 can carry 400 passengers. But how many of them are able to use this theoretical nightstick? There's children, senior citizens, etc. onboard. If the aforementioned determined individuals were to train themselves properly, it could be accomplished. Worse odds have been diminished on the battegrounds of World War I and II.