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Spaceport Development Picks Up Steam In Texas
RocketAcademy writes "The Lone Star State is moving to become a leader in spaceport development.
The Houston Airport System is officially moving ahead with plans to turn Ellington Airport, near NASA's Johnson Space Center, into an FAA-licensed commercial spaceport. The airport system has completed a feasibility study for turning the field into a spaceport for suborbital spacecraft such as Virgin Galactic's SpaceShip Two and XCOR's Lynx. In the longer term, spacecraft could link Houston to Singapore in as little as three hours, according to airport system director Mario Diaz.
Meanwhile, state Representative Rene Oliveira (D-Brownsville) introduced a bill that would allow county commissioners to close a local beach for launches from the proposed SpaceX launch site in Cameron County. The bill is part of a flood of spaceport-related legislation that has been introduced recently in the Texas legislature."
(Line for the 10-mile-high club forms to the rear of the craft.)
"and thank-you for riding Virgin Galactic. We hope you'll come again."
Sent from my ENIAC
Science, shame they don't teach that in Texas schools.
Because the EM Drive is today's cold fusion. Call me when they have a working prototype zooming through the solar system.
To offset political mods, replace Flamebait with Insightful.
The only problem is...nobody wants to come back.
The whole plan relies on people being lifted up by the Rapture.
Texans, please choose your Malaysian prostitutes.
Private space ports! How glorious! Just like in the 1970s with OTRAG! Oh wow!
Since it's for the few and does not cater to the many, it's just cronyism done in the traditional Texas way.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
It only accelerates the speed of cattle rustling of businesses to Texas(sans workers unfortunately) while making sure it is too expensive for regular people to use it.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
Cold fusion exists. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_transmutation - there's even articles citing NASA Langley types talking about how they think its a reasonable research but they don't for whatever politics or funding issues.
The difference between this and cold fusion though is that this is cheap to experiment on. Copper and microwave frequency transmitters are not that expensive. 4.5 ghz at what power I don't know exactly though. But it doesn't look like a lot and from white papers I read on their website, their own and the Chinese ones it seems like it should be reproducible.
We may not understand the math for this, but I am surprised some people out there haven't dumped a few thousand dollars into the tech to make it more efficient and powerful.
There's been some argument that because you can't patent something you can't explain in a scientific way means no large industry will pursue the tech without math they can legally use to protect their investment.
That doesn't mean me linking it here seeing if other people might be interested in it is dumb. Yeah I'm doing free advertising for what I think is the next best thing. It's a serious technology though. It's just immature and we don't have a way to make CAD spit out plans for us automatically. Its going to require trial and error.
I'm seriously tempted to try and reproduce it on a small scale.
Cold fusion technically exists but doesn't release any useful amount of energy. So stating the fact cold fusion exists doesn't discredit the OP. This drive is a scam and violates laws of physics. Go make one and tell me how awesome it is.
Equating cold fusion to an emdrive and a scam makes stating cold fusion as existing relevant. Most people put it off out of hand. I put it here for people to do further research. There's plenty of debate as to whether cold fusion is feasible as a power generating technology. Its not out of the race yet. I believe the same thing about emdrive.
If your refering to: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EmDrive
It doesn't violate the conservation of momentum because it is speculated to be an OPEN SYSTEM.
I am putting more faith in the 2008 Chinese peer review then random wiki about it and it also makes sense the way its described on the emdrive website.
It's plausible that you can get thrust from this machine. Regardless of the physics involved.
The number of launches to space is very low. I believe the FAA put around 50 major rocket launches, in the entire world last year. All the world's rocket launches could be handled form a single space port. ESA's French Guiana spaceport is probably the best one. The United States already has infrastructure at Cape Canaveral. I believe there is a glut of rocket models and spaceports in the United States, and world wide. Texas should stay out of the space launch business because of that.
Also see the wiki talk page for more debate about the articles in question.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:EmDrive
"Can someone edit the analysis page, it was blatently written by someone who hasn't read either the New Scientist article or the more recent Eureka article. It doesn't violate either the conservation of momentum or energy, as it uses energy!
Every article on it specifically states that when the equipment accelerates it loses thrust. If anyone would like to check, this happens with every form of propultion and just because it doesn't spew matter out of it doesn't make it reactionless."
We dont want your unwashed masses, if we did we get them cheaper just over the border (or home depot). We do want all your businesses to relocate here sans employees (we will provide). Gun makers should move here too as the rest of you really dont want or need them but they are part of our heritage. I bet we could swing a deal and send say Houston to Detroit and you give us Ford.
"Remember, politicians and diapers should be changed often and for the same reason."
Why not develop this technology so everyone can use their microwaves and a copper cone to have a spaceport in their driveway?
Yes indeed .. why not? That's one of those quintessential questions. It's like the question "Why aren't we all driving around in cars powered by Tesla's black box" or "Why are we still burning fossil fuels when the problem of abundant energy was solved nearly a hundred years ago" or "Why are we all working 40 hour weeks when there's enough automation to work 12 hour weeks" or "Why are we clinging to a dying monetary system that serves no purpose" or "Why do people starve to death on a daily basis when there's no need for it" or "What's causing the current global environmental changes" or "Why does religion have such an improperly powerful position in society" or "Why do people raising valid question get modded as trolls".
Take the red pill.
...that other states keep driving business out with higher taxes, more bureaucratic red tape, burdensome regulations, and corrupt closed shop union cronyism.
This is why California keeps driving businesses to Texas.
Also, Texas now ranks higher than California in standardized test scores, both in aggregate, and in each demographic ethnic group.
For a more in-depth discussion of these points (with numerous statistics to back it up), see Chuck DeVore's The Texas Model: Prosperity in the Lone Star State and Lessons for America.
Lawrence Person (lawrencepersonh@gmailh.com (remove all "h"s to mail)
http://www.lawrenceperson.com/
First they make a Linux port, and now a Texas space agency acquires them! Awesome! This should make for an excellent version of space invaders!
How does one steal a business? Am I stealing your wife if I tell her that I won't beat her as much as you do and she comes to me?
New Mexico already was screwed by Virgin Galactic on this. The state built Spaceport America for Virgin. Then Virgin demanded a better deal, and got it. Once in a while Armadillo Aerospace launches some test rocket from there. The terminal building is used for bus tours.
Where are they gonna put that one?
Please do not reply to my insightful posts with your idiotic ramblings.
virgin Galatic and all these other new space
what corp is getting ready to take over heavy lifiting needs?
spacex,
lol just saying, all other corps look nice on paper, when you deliver sometthing let me know, 8)
Ah, arrogant pride. That's surely going to persuade. After all, you just want the freedom to dictate conversation, and since your words are so much better than anybody else's, you truly deserve that power.
Thanks for convincing me not to drink the Texas Tea.
Maybe you should learn some humility.
After all, you just want the freedom to dictate conversation, and since your words are so much better than anybody else's, you truly deserve that power.
Thank you for being so reasonable. Many of you carbetbagging yankees simply don't understand how precious my opinions are, but I respect you for being one of the few to admit it.
Thanks for convincing me not to drink the Texas Tea.
So long as you don't stop eating Texas beef stew or Texas pizza.
Maybe you should learn some humility.
You're right. I forgive you.
Because if you want the money to flow back to the "masses" you better find something interesting for those "rich bastards" to spend it on, rather than having it stagnate in some bank account. Money is most effective when it is in use, lubricating the economy engine.
How beneficent of you, why truly your forgiveness is worth slightly less than a used roll of toilet paper.
A roll of used toilet paper? Who the hell took that much used toilet paper and reassembled it into a roll. Something only a yankee would think up, no doubt.
This drive is a scam and violates laws of physics.
the laws of physics don't "govern" anything... they are merely generalized observations
i'm not saying that they aren't useful; they can predict behavior under the limited conditions for which the laws were based
you're just one of those sheeple who think because you read something in a physics book then it must be true
there are probably more sheeple that think jesus walked on water and was the son of god because they read it in a book
keep drinking the religious kool aid... fool
10 miles is only 52,800 feet, which isn't terribly high. Heck, a lot of airliners these days are pushing that regularly. 100 mile high, now...
do you think chuck norris should learn some humility too?
*punches you*
you forgot: shooting their guns till Old Age
Recycled, used... is there so much of a difference, ultimately?
The photon emission of that device can't possibly produce enough momentum to create the observed thrust. The device has not been tested in a vacuum chamber, and no, a hermetically sealed box full of air doesn't mean it wouldn't move (you can swim around in a closed box full of water, for example).
You might also ask why it's got such off-kilter marketing. It's a bad thruster, but implied it would be great at levitating something that didn't accelerate? Why is that not the headline element - reactionlessly applying a force to something with just energy (i.e. pretty much an antigravity device).
Its not reaction-less. Energy goes in and thrust comes out. Its an open system. I've seen the argument that the microwave energy is moving close to the speed of light so it creates two frames of reference. I don't fully understand this. This invokes Einsteins special relativity.
The simpler explanation I can see is like voyager having a thermal differential and getting radiation pressure to speed it up. This normally would not work, but since the microwaves travel near light speed it does in an enclosure because the two different sized ends act like different frames.
Anyway this is just a theory as to why it works.
Ever seen the mythbusters episode were they electrically ionize the air around wires to levitate a wire ring? People use to think that was fake to until it was figured out.
I can't say the Emdrive is a known technology. But its worth investigating rather then just quoting some textbook physics and saying "impossible".
"Round the bowl, down the hole, go Tide go."
XD
Designed, built and operated by the New Mexico Spaceport Authority (NMSA), Spaceport America is nearing completion of the first phase of construction, which includes basic operational infrastructure such as an airfield, launch pads, terminal / hangar facility, emergency response capabilities, utilities and roadways
Umm, there's already a spaceport under construction and really close to Texas.
PS: I don't reply to ACs.
Seriously, why on earth does anyone need to travel to another part of the world any faster than a private jet can already do???
Because sometimes really expensive shit needs to be done right now. Putting it off for a half a day or more can cost a lot of money. Maybe your boss needs to sign off in person on a big deal. Maybe you need a one of a kind part delivered to keep a critical system up.
Whether there's enough of that sort of need to support a suborbital travel industry at this time is a big, unanswered question.
We may not understand the math for this, but I am surprised some people out there haven't dumped a few thousand dollars into the tech to make it more efficient and powerful.
The math for the EM drive doesn't work because it violates conservation of momentum. There's no lack of understanding here.
It doesn't violate the conservation of momentum because it is speculated to be an OPEN SYSTEM.
With no mechanism for coupling the EM drive to the rest of the universe. Hence, why it breaks conservation of momentum.
i'm not saying that they aren't useful; they can predict behavior under the limited conditions for which the laws were based
Those "limited conditions" happen to be all of reality. We have yet to observe any sort of phenomena that violates the basic conservation laws. If the EM Drive was a true violation of conservation of momentum, then we would have seen the effect elsewhere first. It's not the first combination of EM and general relativity, for example. Particle colliders would probably see the effect as well.
A "_____"port is a transportation and commercial node - but there's no transport or commerce of note taking places at these "space"ports... just glorified amusement park rides. They're being built (with tax dollars) for no purpose other than allowing airport mangers and commissions and various state officials to brag about having a "space"port.
Steam has only just been finished on Linux, and now it will be used for Spaceport Development? This is great news, I hope that this new Spaceport will be very interesting! Furthermore, it appears that development is happening only in Texas, which I assume can only be a good thing! Does Valve have a special Spaceport-only development team deployed in Texas?
Congratulations to Valve for their continued success!
While tax policy might provide an easy out if one of the states involved is California, replace it with a state not so far off the chart. The governments of these business-sycophantic states cannot create new businesses on their own but rely on other states to create and grow them. The mentality in these states is that if you do not own a business, you must be denied freedom.
When a state government actively pursues businesses, they not only remove jobs from a state (usually with as much stealth as possible as to not alarm the public and block it then and there), they fail to generate the promised jobs in the new state, and most importantly fail to promote to workers that the new state is worth moving to for the long term (aside from few exceptions). This applies to any state that puts its living-in-the-flesh constitutents in a lower priority than those created of legal fictions.
Individuals at fault? Not really.
Governments to blame? Definitely.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
He's already had to do so. Though he wasn't half as senile crazy as Clint Eastwood.
Better be a pretty small part.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
Somebody can't seem to grasp that a used roll of toilet paper is...bare.
I guess your ability to follow a metaphor is lower than I thought.
Texas has the 2nd largest population in the country (behind only California).
Texas has the 2nd largest economy (again, behind California, and only slightly), larger than most independent countries.
Texas is one of the few states that contributes more to the federal wallet than it recieves.
Texas has a top notch education system that utilizes wealth redistribution (thats what it is even if not called that) ensures the poorest school districts still get adequate funding.
On top of that it has many state run aid programs to put kids into college.
Veterans who are Texas residents get a free ride through college.
Texas has some of the healthiest residents int he nation, and one of the best healthcare netowrks
Also, more hospitals per capita than any other state, and state programs to people who cant affords it.
You can keep saying they're backward, but Texas is actually one of the most progressive states in teh nation, particularly for a "conservative" state (except its not really conservative; 45/55 split on votes, not very one sided).
but what is clear, is that you're simply an ignorant moron who has never actually been there, and knows absolutely zero about the state.
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
Used roll of toilet paper =/= Roll of used toilet paper.
I think somebody has been staring into the sun too long.
That's fine, I will not argue that. I will argue though that fire, the wheel, and a lot of chemistry was done without science as pseudoscience. Just because we don't fully understand something doesn't mean it cannot be harnessed and used and experimented on.
To dismiss something because it doesn't fit our understanding and call it a scam is short sited. And frustrating to people who are curious.
Anyway I thought I would be a smart ass and bring it up here. To see if I got any more informative replies, then it's impossible. Not that it's impossible is an invalid reply, but it was more or less already known as an answer ;p
I'm not even sure we can bring in the conservation of momentum as an issue because of how it is claimed to work. I linked the page because anyone who's really interested in physics can go have a read of the pdfs and articles and decide if thats really the case. The wiki article calling it a scam and bringing up the conservation of momentum is biased and based on false information, thats why I linked the talk page.
I understand that my lack of making a sound argument for all this without citations means I will mostly be ignored or flamed. And that is OK.
Thanks for your time =)
Not to defend this drive or even enter into discussion on it, but...
If the EM Drive was a true violation of conservation of momentum, then we would have seen the effect elsewhere first
This statement is disingenuous. You could make it about every discovery.
Good to see that bigotry is alive and well on slashdot.
To dismiss something because it doesn't fit our understanding and call it a scam is short sited. And frustrating to people who are curious.
What "something"? There's no evidence or theoretical backing for the claim that the EM drive does anything. It's worth noting here that no one has seen a violation of conservation of momentum. Every such case where someone claims they have observed such turns to be observation error or fraud.
I'm not even sure we can bring in the conservation of momentum as an issue because of how it is claimed to work.
There's no mechanism by which momentum can be transferred from the system to the outside world, but the EM drive needs that in order to work.
Better be a pretty small part.
Sounds like any such suborbital transportation system would be moving several tons of payload at a time. It wouldn't have to be that small.
What's clear is that you're an apologist for Texas, providing a few bold claims about Texas, while papering over the negative sides.
Notice no mention of anything like how Texas had to cover its budget deficits with Federal stimulus money. No mention of how Texas's Rick Perry went to California trying to poach businesses from the Golden State. No mention of how poor school districts in Texas are actually performing. No mention of the actual health of Texans (Texas is the 12th most Obese state in the nation and its sheer population means it has a lot of fat people) , or the problems with emergency rooms in Texas.
You remind me of the Wingnuts to be discussed here:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/04/01/1075007/-Wingnut-stereotyped-California-versus-wingnut-stereotyped-Texas
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/08/15/1007146/-Blue-California-s-Economy-vs-Red-Texas-Not-What-the-Conventional-Wisdom-Suggests
Take out the oil business, an accident of geography, and Texas won't look so good at all.
Can we load all of Texas onto a rocket and send it to mars? One way?
Have gnu, will travel.
If the EM Drive was a true violation of conservation of momentum, then we would have seen the effect elsewhere first
This statement is disingenuous. You could make it about every discovery.
And you would typically be in error to do so. Particle colliders would be where a violation of the conservation of momentum would be seen first.
Suborbital also includes the recreational flights up and then back down to the same launch location.
That Texas is going so hard for this business is interesting because New Mexico built a whole space port near White Sands just for Virgin Galactic and other enterprises - then the state legislature pretty much bungled it. VG has been talking about ducking out of their contract since NM hasn't met their obligations.
With Texas going whole hog, it looks like "oops" for New Mexico...
It is reactionless. It does not use reaction mass (i.e. momentum) to produce thrust. This is a problem, because it violates conservation of momentum.
That is what a reactionless drive is - for example, technically a car is a kind of reactionless drive, in the sense that it does not expel reaction mass to produce forward momentum. But a car conserves momentum because it pushes on the ground behind it.
Textbook physics is textbook physics for a reason and extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. The people pushing the Emdrive have more then enough resources to produce this evidence, but have consistently failed to do so. The explanation for the Emdrive is not supported by current physics as is claimed. It is also not supported by anything you've said.
Part of science is carefully considering our hypotheses so we don't waste resources. In a number of cases, the Emdrive has now been built (since it's just a microwave waveguide) but no experiment which does suitable controls for it has ever been produced.
While I'm not of the crowd who believes the Emdrive's pushes are trying to scam anyone, they're not doing good science at the moment and I've not heard a suitable justification as to why we've never seen reduced pressure or no pressure results for operating the apparatus if they've been able to put one in a hermetically sealed box. I suspect, it's because you see exactly what you'd expect when you do - thrust decreases as you drop the pressure because the waveguide runs out of air to heat up.
"What "something"? There's no evidence or theoretical backing for the claim that the EM drive does anything. It's worth noting here that no one has seen a violation of conservation of momentum. Every such case where someone claims they have observed such turns to be observation error or fraud."
There is evidence, there's a video and a peer reviewed white paper translated to english.
"There's no mechanism by which momentum can be transferred from the system to the outside world, but the EM drive needs that in order to work."
What if it works differently then you suppose it could?
This is the best response and I to wonder this same thing.
I can't say that the drive is a scam flat out based on textbook physics though and thats mostly what I have been attempting to respond to.
One where:
Valero Energy Corporation
Dell Computer Corporation
Sysco
Enterprise Products
Plains All American Pipeline
Tesoro
etc.
were never founded in Texas.
And the rest of your post? [[Citation Needed]]
Lawrence Person (lawrencepersonh@gmailh.com (remove all "h"s to mail)
http://www.lawrenceperson.com/
There is evidence, there's a video and a peer reviewed white paper translated to english.
Evidence distinguishes between different hypotheses. These would exist whether they are right, wrong, or fraudulent.
"There's no mechanism by which momentum can be transferred from the system to the outside world, but the EM drive needs that in order to work."
What if it works differently then you suppose it could?
Well, it can't work the way I "suppose" (which really is the way the EM drive creators suppose, I might add). So some degree of actually working would be an improvement.
It's not too much to ask for such a claim that first, someone actually comes up with a working model that makes sense as well as a solid experimental demonstration. For example, that was done with Mach Lorentz Thrusters (MLT).
The balance of my point still stands. Those kind of states rely on deceptively acquired businesses(proven through the actions of the Economic "Development" Board) while providing no substantial promotion for workers to move to a state with worse working conditions.
The proof is in the types of jobs offered, the general hostility towards questioning business as well as the general Southern hostility to worker representation outside of employer-formed groups such as contractors and staffing agencies.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
I'm not sure I can identify the sarcasm, if any, in your post.
But would you care to elaborate on how, and I quote, "the problem of abundant energy was solved nearly a hundred years ago"?
Those "limited conditions" happen to be all of reality
you must be the smartest person on earth if you can qualify that
either that or you're a religious sheep and you really have no idea what goes on inside a black hole or the other side of the universe or whether string theory is correct or whether assumed conditions will remain the same forever or that there couldn't ever possibly be any exceptions
there must be some good shit in that kool aid