I'd say that an arms race with China has been building for about 20 years. Just like the arms race with Russia from 1945-1989. China is on an expansion kick right now.
"The South China Sea region is the world's second busiest international sea lane. More than half of the world's supertanker traffic passes through the region's waters. In addition, the South China Sea region contains oil and gas resources strategically located near large energy-consuming countries"
China has laid claim to the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea, even though the Philippines, Vietnam, and Taiwan claim the islands in toto, and Malaysia has laid claim to parts of the continental shelf.
China seeks to take back Taiwan by force, and took the Paracel islands from Vietnam by force in 1976. Not only would Chinese assaults on Taiwan ruin semiconductor and other computer manufacture for years, it would force the United States to act, this isn't something that's come up since W. Bush became President, Clinton sent 2 carrier battle groups to Taiwan in 1995.
This is based on the Washington Naval Arms treaties of the 1920s and 1930s.
At the Washington Naval treaties, nations (USA, UK, France, Italy, Japan, Germany) were limited to a fixed ratio of warships in various classes of tonnage.
What resulted from the treaties were navies figuring out how to skirt the letter of the treaty. In the case of the United States and Japan, we turned crusiers and battleship hulls into aircraft carriers. In the case of France and the UK, they built alot of submarines. Germany built "Crusiers" that were actually battleships (Graf Spee, Bismarck, Tirpitz) and submarines.
In the end, the navies that followed the letter of the treaty the closest, were forced to come up with new doctrines and became much more powerful than the other nations navies. Those nations were the United States and Japan. Even though the US had a 5 ratio and Japan had a 3 ratio, through the first 6-12 months of the war, there was parity.
Arms Control, like Gun Control doesn't usually work.
Re:Might As Well Go EVA, There Ain't No Test Tubes
on
ISS Airlock Installed
·
· Score: 3
The X-38 hasn't been scrapped. It just had another very sucessful test flight.
http://www.cnn.com/2001/TECH/space/07/10/X38.tes t. flight/index.html
"It was an outstanding flight, probably the best one we had," said Alan Brown, spokesperson for NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center. "It went off without a hitch."
Unlike the space shuttle, the X-38 flies without wings. Instead, it uses the largest parachute ever constructed, with a span of 143 feet and a total surface area of 7,500 square feet.
Until the X-38 is in place on the space station, Russia will provide a Soyuz space capsule to act as a crew-return vehicle for astronauts."
It's not made in Turkey or Egypt. In fact, it's not made anywhere anymore since the line was shutdown and is now going to be retooled for the LAV-III AFV.
Remanufactured M-1s and M-1A1s are sold to Turkey and Egypt.
"After extensive troubleshooting, the most significant problem, one that intermittently affected operation of the arm's shoulder pitch joint, was traced to a glitch in a diagnostic circuit. Software patches were uplinked to mask out any such false signals and other contingency procedures were developed to handle virtually any arm problem that might develop."
As it was, it did work and NASA said as much.
""Those Canadians really know how to build great hardware, I'll tell you," Helms said of the Canadarm2 space crane."
There were some questions about the arm, so this one was special and it is new that it actually worked. The mission that is up there now was delayed because the arm was having issues.
"During tests by space station crew members, Russian commander Yury Usachev and U.S. astronauts Jim Voss and Susan Helms, a backup electronics box near the arm's elbow failed to work properly. Efforts to fix the problem with software patches uploaded by ground controllers have failed."
I recall reading in Yeager's bio about trouble they had with the windscreen of the X-1 fogging, then icing over. Nothing would work to keep it fog free. Then some old maintance guy decided to try...hair conditioner...I think it was. And that kept the wind screen fog and thus ice free.
Later on when the USAF moved it's test command out there and things got...professional, someone came up with a glass treatment that cost 14 dollars an ounce, in 1956 dollars...and it didn't work to the pilot's satisfaction, so the boys on the flight line kept using the cheap but effective...whatever it was. I think it was conditioner or shampoo. My copy of the book is upstairs and I am too lazy to find it.
Anyway...don't think that because it's a simple or juryrigged solution...that makes the people stupid or incompetant...it shows that you don't need to always reinvent the wheel.
The arguement about the motherboards is valid, I wish that Apple made thier boards conform to the ATX size. However, I don't wish for a PeeCee case when Apple's Outrigger. K2 and El-Capitan cases are SO much easier to work with than the vast majority of cases for PCs.
However all the Mac towers have Firewire and USB, and yes most ATX boards now have USB, most do not have Firewire, nor do they have gigabit Ethernet.
As for the AGP, I again agree and don't. Apple gives you the choice of GeForce2, GeForce3, ATi Radeon, or Rage 128 Pro. That's a broad choice now that the video card market is contracting.
I think that Pixar's animation is as good or better than what I've seen from FF in commercials and previews, but Pixar isn't trying for reality or photorealist...Toy Story and Bug's Life were done stylisticly different because that was the feeling they were going for.
Actually, Japan is among the top 5 military spenders world wide. And has an extremely modern Air Force and Navy.
The Japanese fly Mitsubishi/Boeing built F-4s and F-15s. And they are working on a new advanced F-16 class fighter, as well as buying 767 based AWACS aircraft from Boeing/Ratheyon.
The Japanese Navy has a number of Aegis class DDGs, similar in all respects to the US DDGs of the Burke class. The Japanese Army uses a very nice tank called the Type 74.
Japan is a strong ally of the US in Asia and is vital to US warfighting plans for Korea or other hotspots around the South China Sea.
Because for the most part, the GUI in Windows hasn't changed much since 1995, nor has the interface in Office. And while I've not seen or used Windows XP or Office XP, I'd not expect a school to start using it in a staff position until 6-18 months after it comes out.
The switch to Linux with KDE or Gnome would be much mor difficult, with training staff on a new office suite, a new e-mail client and in many cases a new web browser.
If you take the time and listen to the whining of the Mac users that can't shift from Classic to OS X, image the screams from school staff members if they were forced to switch from Windows to KDE or Gnome.
We had one user that *needed* an OS that would have "protected memory" for a database that liked to take all the ram and CPU cycles on her Win98 box. So we switched her to NT4 (I know...but it was the only thing this database software ran on) and within a week...because she "didn't like the way it worked" we had to spend 6 hours redoing her computer back to the crash-tastic world of Windows98.
Staff members in public schools whine sometimes...and some of them have the power to whine for whatever they want, that and the fact of training staff members for a new OS that is different from what they are used to is an problem that will have to be over-come before Linux can be put on all Intel based school desktop computers.
Until Linux runs Reader Rabbit and all those other annoying K-3 applications with the annoying beeps and tones...Linux will not have a place in the classroom.
Now I know there are schools using it, but we need to dumb it down some for the K-12s where the technology staff is overworked and underpaid. In my public school job, there were 3 of us to support 1600 computers across 8 locations.
Having worked in technology in a Public School District, and now in a Private School. It's not that easy to shift your OS even if it's free in a School District.
Why?
Training at the Administrative level. Most district's admin staff and school administration don't get any time off like teachers do. It would be *very* hard to train them. It's hard enough to get them used to Windows 9x or NT. The shift to KDE or Gnome would be very difficult to pull off and not lose alot of productivity.
Then at the State level, there are files that have both platform and program requirements. The people at the State Education department arn't going to accept files not done on Windows.
Microsoft pushed administration into a corner by cutting deals with the State, and now they know they have the power to dictate terms.
My work just got a new iBook in doing the dual boot OS 9/OS X thing. It's a fast little laptop. Much faster to configure for our NT network than even the IBM A21 Thinkpads running Win2000 was.
No, I've not tried Linux on the iBook yet...but OS X was nice on it.
MP3 players like Panic's Audion can already play Obb Vorbis tracks in OS 9 or OS X.
I'd argue that the detonation of an atomic weapon that removes the centralized Command structure of a Soviet-doctrine army, coupled with the fact that the SCUDs did not have chemical or bio weapons fitted during the war, a single strke with an Enhanced Radiation weapon would have saved lives in the South West Asia theatre of operations.
But due to politcal and religous reasons it wasn't an option unless Iraq had initiated chemical warfare against Israel, US, French or British forces.
MAD only works if both sides know that they will totally be eliminated, in a tactical situation like the Gulf War, there was no MAD.
The First World War involved the use of weapons of mass distruction and it did not turn into a Pandora's Box.
I'm sorry. But the idea that dropping the bombs wasn't right because the Japanese would have rolled over and surrendered without invastion or bombing is "Revisionist Propaganda".
And while we are far, far off topic from NASA using nuclear power for rockets...I'm going to respond.
Based on the experiances of Iwo Jima and Okinawa, the Allies (United States, UK, Commonwealth, Royal Dutch forces) knew that the two phase invasion of Japan would cause hundreds of thousands of Allied and perhaps a million Japanese casualties. With a combined American air bombardment and naval blockade, Japan had been defeated by the summer of 1945, if not earlier. But even in defeat the Japanese Army intended to fight in defense of the homeland. The Japanese Army was stockpilling weapons, aircraft and ships to oppose the fall invasion of the South. The Allies had about 1.4 million troops in the Pacific to oppose 5-6 million Imperial Japanese Army forces in the Japanese home islands.
US Army estimates for the invasion of Kynushu that of 767,000 allied troops...268,000 would be killed or wounded. Olympic, the invasion of Kynushu was going to be in the Fall of '45 with operation Coronet, the invasion of Honshu in March of '46. The conventional bombing of Japan had not weakened Japan's will to wage war.
"We must be prepared to accept heavy casualties whenever we invade Japan. Our previous success against ill-fed and poorly supplied units, cut down by our overpowering naval and air action, should not be used as the sole basis of estimating the type of resistance we will meet in the Japanese homeland where the enemy lines of communication will be short and the enemy supplies more adequate."
Although the damage inflicted by the Kamikaze planes at Okinawa was superficial, they managed to kill 12,300 American servicemen and wound 36,400. For the defense of Kyushu the Japanese were to employ upwards of 10,000 kamikaze planes.
I stand by my claim that the use of nuclear weapons in *SOME* situtations will cause less military and civilian casualties that conventional weapons used in the same theatre or operation.
Although in some instances it's better for all involved to use an atomic weapon than to use conventional weapons. Like the Invasion of the Japanese Home Islands...more lives would have been lost on both sides than were lost by the atomic bombing.
I'd wager that a small tactical nuke from a Minuteman III or Trident C4 on the command and control center south of Bagdad in Jan of 1991 would have been a much smaller loss of life than Operation Desert Storm. And it would have achived the same ends. Elimination of the Iraqi command and control system, and surrender of the Iraqi Army in the field.
Yes...most "modern" atomic weapons are larger than the bombs used in the Second World War. The B-57 and B-61 bombs in US service can have thier yield changed to fit thier role, the yield can be dialed down to a point lower than Fat Man or Little Boy. Modern Atomic weapons are "cleaner" than those used in the Second World War, and in the case of the Enhanced Radiation bomb, much cleaner and less destructive to local infrasturcture.
War is bad, no doubts about that. But the goal of war fighters is to achive an end with the smallest loss of life. In *some* cases an atomic weapon could be better than conventional weapons.
The US RTGs are pretty stout, (Radioisotope Thermal Generators), if I remeber right, the Apollo 13 LM that went down in the Pacific went down in a very deep trench.
Here's a link from NASA about the RTGs on Galileo
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/galileo/messenger/oldmes s/ RTGs.html
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/galileo/messenger/oldmes s/ RTGs1.html
As for all the Pu from these...it says on NASA here that "Plutonium-238 decays primarily by emitting alpha particles." I know that Pu is very poisonous...but if it's just casting alpha particles...the radiation danger from it isn't that bad...is it? It's been 12 years since HS physics...correct me if I am wrong.
Where are the Thalidomide kids from the Japanese bombings?
There arn't any.
http://rex.nci.nih.gov/NCI_Pub_Interface/rateris k/ risks90.html
"Much of our information about the effects of radiation comes from studies of atomic bomb survivors in Japan, among whom have been found increased rates of leukemia and cancers of the breast, thyroid, lung, stomach, and other organs (NAS, 1990). Female survivors who received a single dose of radiation from the blast were found to be at the same risk for breast cancer as women with tuberculosis who had repeated fluoroscopy exposures over a 3- to 5-year period. This suggests that in the case of breast cancer--but not necessarily other cancers--repeated small doses over the years may be as hazardous as a single, large dose. The risk, however, seemed to be inversely correlated to the age at exposure to the blast, with no apparent increased risk in women over the age of 40."
"While exposure to low levels of radiation before birth is associated with the development of cancer during childhood, especially leukemia (Bithell and Stewart, 1975), not all researchers are convinced that prenatal irradiation is the cause of childhood cancer. Individuals exposed prenatally during the atomic bomb blasts in Japan do not have higher cancer rates. The current practice is to use ultrasound, rather than X-rays, during pregnancy whenever possible."
http://www.junkscience.com/foxnews/fn020201.htm
"Scientists agree that exposures to sufficiently high levels of radiation increase cancer risk -- slightly. Among the more than 86,000 survivors of the atomic bomb blasts, "only" about 420 "extra" cancers occurred between 1950-1990. "
I think that Oil gives you Los Angeles, but Anti-Nuclear propoganda gives you bad information.
A similar plan bounced around in the US Air Force in the 1950s for both a manned and unmanned nuclear bomber.
The bomber in the 50s, had the reactor core dropped into the exhaust of the jet engines. It looks alot like the picture from the article.
There was a B-36H test bed that had a reactor in it as well.
http://www.brook.edu/FP/projects/nucwcost/anp.ht m
The B-36H didn't use the reactor for power but to test the effects of a reactor on an airframe. Flying alongside the NB-36H on every one of its flights was a C-97 transport carrying a platoon of armed Marines ready to parachute down and surround the test aircraft in case it crashed.
"One idea for an operational nuclear-powered aircraft involved detachable reactor modules that could be replaced as needed. In this artist's conception, the pilots were in the section forming part of the tail, which could be detached in cases of emergency."
Theres more on the percived atomic powered bomber programs of the US and USSR over on the Federation of American Scientists website. Not much but some.
There was a big writeup on it in the Air and Space magazine in the early 90s...I have the issue somewhere.
Angola was the center of a nasty civil war that not only involved South Africa, but an entire Cuban Army Regiment for years. US and Soviet "Advisors" were also there for the festivities.
Parts of Timor, the island in Indonesia where the UN went into last year, speak Portuguese.
The South China Sea and Africa will continue to be hot spots of international importance....and they speak Portuguese there.
Slashdot Mirror
If he isn't an American citizen, then the Bill of Rights doesn't apply to him.
I'd say that an arms race with China has been building for about 20 years. Just like the arms race with Russia from 1945-1989. China is on an expansion kick right now.
h tm
http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/ops/war/spratly.
"The South China Sea region is the world's second busiest international sea lane. More than half of the world's supertanker traffic passes through the region's waters. In addition, the South China Sea region contains oil and gas resources strategically located near large energy-consuming countries"
China has laid claim to the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea, even though the Philippines, Vietnam, and Taiwan claim the islands in toto, and Malaysia has laid claim to parts of the continental shelf.
China seeks to take back Taiwan by force, and took the Paracel islands from Vietnam by force in 1976. Not only would Chinese assaults on Taiwan ruin semiconductor and other computer manufacture for years, it would force the United States to act, this isn't something that's come up since W. Bush became President, Clinton sent 2 carrier battle groups to Taiwan in 1995.
I'd argue that arms reductions don't work.
This is based on the Washington Naval Arms treaties of the 1920s and 1930s.
At the Washington Naval treaties, nations (USA, UK, France, Italy, Japan, Germany) were limited to a fixed ratio of warships in various classes of tonnage.
What resulted from the treaties were navies figuring out how to skirt the letter of the treaty. In the case of the United States and Japan, we turned crusiers and battleship hulls into aircraft carriers. In the case of France and the UK, they built alot of submarines. Germany built "Crusiers" that were actually battleships (Graf Spee, Bismarck, Tirpitz) and submarines.
In the end, the navies that followed the letter of the treaty the closest, were forced to come up with new doctrines and became much more powerful than the other nations navies. Those nations were the United States and Japan. Even though the US had a 5 ratio and Japan had a 3 ratio, through the first 6-12 months of the war, there was parity.
Arms Control, like Gun Control doesn't usually work.
The X-38 hasn't been scrapped. It just had another very sucessful test flight.
s t. flight/index.html
http://www.cnn.com/2001/TECH/space/07/10/X38.te
"It was an outstanding flight, probably the best one we had," said Alan Brown, spokesperson for NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center. "It went off without a hitch."
Unlike the space shuttle, the X-38 flies without wings. Instead, it uses the largest parachute ever constructed, with a span of 143 feet and a total surface area of 7,500 square feet.
Until the X-38 is in place on the space station, Russia will provide a Soyuz space capsule to act as a crew-return vehicle for astronauts."
It's not made in Turkey or Egypt. In fact, it's not made anywhere anymore since the line was shutdown and is now going to be retooled for the LAV-III AFV.
Remanufactured M-1s and M-1A1s are sold to Turkey and Egypt.
Because it didn't work and had to have software patches.
1 07 15fd4/
e .d elayed.02/index.html
http://www.spaceflightnow.com/station/stage7a/0
"After extensive troubleshooting, the most significant problem, one that intermittently affected operation of the arm's shoulder pitch joint, was traced to a glitch in a diagnostic circuit. Software patches were uplinked to mask out any such false signals and other contingency procedures were developed to handle virtually any arm problem that might develop."
As it was, it did work and NASA said as much.
""Those Canadians really know how to build great hardware, I'll tell you," Helms said of the Canadarm2 space crane."
There were some questions about the arm, so this one was special and it is new that it actually worked. The mission that is up there now was delayed because the arm was having issues.
http://www.cnn.com/2001/TECH/space/05/30/shuttl
"During tests by space station crew members, Russian commander Yury Usachev and U.S. astronauts Jim Voss and Susan Helms, a backup electronics box near the arm's elbow failed to work properly. Efforts to fix the problem with software patches uploaded by ground controllers have failed."
Actually.
I've been thinking that would be a good solution.
I bet that HY-80 or 100 steel would be good against space debris.
I recall reading in Yeager's bio about trouble they had with the windscreen of the X-1 fogging, then icing over. Nothing would work to keep it fog free. Then some old maintance guy decided to try...hair conditioner...I think it was. And that kept the wind screen fog and thus ice free.
Later on when the USAF moved it's test command out there and things got...professional, someone came up with a glass treatment that cost 14 dollars an ounce, in 1956 dollars...and it didn't work to the pilot's satisfaction, so the boys on the flight line kept using the cheap but effective...whatever it was. I think it was conditioner or shampoo. My copy of the book is upstairs and I am too lazy to find it.
Anyway...don't think that because it's a simple or juryrigged solution...that makes the people stupid or incompetant...it shows that you don't need to always reinvent the wheel.
Back in the old days, when batteries would leak if left in something too long, we would use Coca-Cola to clean the corroded battery out of the device.
It's not all Russian built.
Alot of it comes from Boeing. Later on there will be Japanese modules and ESA built modules. The big robot arm that doesn't work right is from Canada.
In fact, it's delayed because of the Russian modules.
It's not a Mir 2.
I agree and I don't.
The arguement about the motherboards is valid, I wish that Apple made thier boards conform to the ATX size. However, I don't wish for a PeeCee case when Apple's Outrigger. K2 and El-Capitan cases are SO much easier to work with than the vast majority of cases for PCs.
However all the Mac towers have Firewire and USB, and yes most ATX boards now have USB, most do not have Firewire, nor do they have gigabit Ethernet.
As for the AGP, I again agree and don't. Apple gives you the choice of GeForce2, GeForce3, ATi Radeon, or Rage 128 Pro. That's a broad choice now that the video card market is contracting.
I think that Pixar's animation is as good or better than what I've seen from FF in commercials and previews, but Pixar isn't trying for reality or photorealist...Toy Story and Bug's Life were done stylisticly different because that was the feeling they were going for.
Japan doesn't have a military? That's new.
Actually, Japan is among the top 5 military spenders world wide. And has an extremely modern Air Force and Navy.
The Japanese fly Mitsubishi/Boeing built F-4s and F-15s. And they are working on a new advanced F-16 class fighter, as well as buying 767 based AWACS aircraft from Boeing/Ratheyon.
The Japanese Navy has a number of Aegis class DDGs, similar in all respects to the US DDGs of the Burke class. The Japanese Army uses a very nice tank called the Type 74.
Japan is a strong ally of the US in Asia and is vital to US warfighting plans for Korea or other hotspots around the South China Sea.
Because for the most part, the GUI in Windows hasn't changed much since 1995, nor has the interface in Office. And while I've not seen or used Windows XP or Office XP, I'd not expect a school to start using it in a staff position until 6-18 months after it comes out.
The switch to Linux with KDE or Gnome would be much mor difficult, with training staff on a new office suite, a new e-mail client and in many cases a new web browser.
If you take the time and listen to the whining of the Mac users that can't shift from Classic to OS X, image the screams from school staff members if they were forced to switch from Windows to KDE or Gnome.
We had one user that *needed* an OS that would have "protected memory" for a database that liked to take all the ram and CPU cycles on her Win98 box. So we switched her to NT4 (I know...but it was the only thing this database software ran on) and within a week...because she "didn't like the way it worked" we had to spend 6 hours redoing her computer back to the crash-tastic world of Windows98.
Staff members in public schools whine sometimes...and some of them have the power to whine for whatever they want, that and the fact of training staff members for a new OS that is different from what they are used to is an problem that will have to be over-come before Linux can be put on all Intel based school desktop computers.
Yep.
Until Linux runs Reader Rabbit and all those other annoying K-3 applications with the annoying beeps and tones...Linux will not have a place in the classroom.
Now I know there are schools using it, but we need to dumb it down some for the K-12s where the technology staff is overworked and underpaid. In my public school job, there were 3 of us to support 1600 computers across 8 locations.
Having worked in technology in a Public School District, and now in a Private School. It's not that easy to shift your OS even if it's free in a School District.
Why?
Training at the Administrative level. Most district's admin staff and school administration don't get any time off like teachers do. It would be *very* hard to train them. It's hard enough to get them used to Windows 9x or NT. The shift to KDE or Gnome would be very difficult to pull off and not lose alot of productivity.
Then at the State level, there are files that have both platform and program requirements. The people at the State Education department arn't going to accept files not done on Windows.
Microsoft pushed administration into a corner by cutting deals with the State, and now they know they have the power to dictate terms.
My work just got a new iBook in doing the dual boot OS 9/OS X thing. It's a fast little laptop. Much faster to configure for our NT network than even the IBM A21 Thinkpads running Win2000 was.
No, I've not tried Linux on the iBook yet...but OS X was nice on it.
MP3 players like Panic's Audion can already play Obb Vorbis tracks in OS 9 or OS X.
I'd argue that the detonation of an atomic weapon that removes the centralized Command structure of a Soviet-doctrine army, coupled with the fact that the SCUDs did not have chemical or bio weapons fitted during the war, a single strke with an Enhanced Radiation weapon would have saved lives in the South West Asia theatre of operations.
But due to politcal and religous reasons it wasn't an option unless Iraq had initiated chemical warfare against Israel, US, French or British forces.
MAD only works if both sides know that they will totally be eliminated, in a tactical situation like the Gulf War, there was no MAD.
The First World War involved the use of weapons of mass distruction and it did not turn into a Pandora's Box.
I'm sorry. But the idea that dropping the bombs wasn't right because the Japanese would have rolled over and surrendered without invastion or bombing is "Revisionist Propaganda".
And while we are far, far off topic from NASA using nuclear power for rockets...I'm going to respond.
Based on the experiances of Iwo Jima and Okinawa, the Allies (United States, UK, Commonwealth, Royal Dutch forces) knew that the two phase invasion of Japan would cause hundreds of thousands of Allied and perhaps a million Japanese casualties. With a combined American air bombardment and naval blockade, Japan had been defeated by the summer of 1945, if not earlier. But even in defeat the Japanese Army intended to fight in defense of the homeland. The Japanese Army was stockpilling weapons, aircraft and ships to oppose the fall invasion of the South. The Allies had about 1.4 million troops in the Pacific to oppose 5-6 million Imperial Japanese Army forces in the Japanese home islands.
US Army estimates for the invasion of Kynushu that of 767,000 allied troops...268,000 would be killed or wounded. Olympic, the invasion of Kynushu was going to be in the Fall of '45 with operation Coronet, the invasion of Honshu in March of '46. The conventional bombing of Japan had not weakened Japan's will to wage war.
http://www.warships1.com/US_olympic.htm
http://www.fas.org/irp/eprint/arens/
"We must be prepared to accept heavy casualties whenever we invade Japan. Our previous success against ill-fed and poorly supplied units, cut down by our overpowering naval and air action, should not be used as the sole basis of estimating the type of resistance we will meet in the Japanese homeland where the enemy lines of communication will be short and the enemy supplies more adequate."
Although the damage inflicted by the Kamikaze planes at Okinawa was superficial, they managed to kill 12,300 American servicemen and wound 36,400. For the defense of Kyushu the Japanese were to employ upwards of 10,000 kamikaze planes.
I stand by my claim that the use of nuclear weapons in *SOME* situtations will cause less military and civilian casualties that conventional weapons used in the same theatre or operation.
I didn't say it was OK.
Although in some instances it's better for all involved to use an atomic weapon than to use conventional weapons. Like the Invasion of the Japanese Home Islands...more lives would have been lost on both sides than were lost by the atomic bombing.
I'd wager that a small tactical nuke from a Minuteman III or Trident C4 on the command and control center south of Bagdad in Jan of 1991 would have been a much smaller loss of life than Operation Desert Storm. And it would have achived the same ends. Elimination of the Iraqi command and control system, and surrender of the Iraqi Army in the field.
Yes...most "modern" atomic weapons are larger than the bombs used in the Second World War. The B-57 and B-61 bombs in US service can have thier yield changed to fit thier role, the yield can be dialed down to a point lower than Fat Man or Little Boy. Modern Atomic weapons are "cleaner" than those used in the Second World War, and in the case of the Enhanced Radiation bomb, much cleaner and less destructive to local infrasturcture.
War is bad, no doubts about that. But the goal of war fighters is to achive an end with the smallest loss of life. In *some* cases an atomic weapon could be better than conventional weapons.
Good post.
s s/ RTGs.html
s s/ RTGs1.html
The US RTGs are pretty stout, (Radioisotope Thermal Generators), if I remeber right, the Apollo 13 LM that went down in the Pacific went down in a very deep trench.
Here's a link from NASA about the RTGs on Galileo
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/galileo/messenger/oldme
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/galileo/messenger/oldme
As for all the Pu from these...it says on NASA here that "Plutonium-238 decays primarily by emitting alpha particles." I know that Pu is very poisonous...but if it's just casting alpha particles...the radiation danger from it isn't that bad...is it? It's been 12 years since HS physics...correct me if I am wrong.
Where are the Thalidomide kids from the Japanese bombings?
s k/ risks90.html
There arn't any.
http://rex.nci.nih.gov/NCI_Pub_Interface/rateri
"Much of our information about the effects of radiation comes from studies of atomic bomb survivors in Japan, among whom have been found increased rates of leukemia and cancers of the breast, thyroid, lung, stomach, and other organs (NAS, 1990). Female survivors who received a single dose of radiation from the blast were found to be at the same risk for breast cancer as women with tuberculosis who had repeated fluoroscopy exposures over a 3- to 5-year period. This suggests that in the case of breast cancer--but not necessarily other cancers--repeated small doses over the years may be as hazardous as a single, large dose. The risk, however, seemed to be inversely correlated to the age at exposure to the blast, with no apparent increased risk in women over the age of 40."
"While exposure to low levels of radiation before birth is associated with the development of cancer during childhood, especially leukemia (Bithell and Stewart, 1975), not all researchers are convinced that prenatal irradiation is the cause of childhood cancer. Individuals exposed prenatally during the atomic bomb blasts in Japan do not have higher cancer rates. The current practice is to use ultrasound, rather than X-rays, during pregnancy whenever possible."
http://www.junkscience.com/foxnews/fn020201.htm
"Scientists agree that exposures to sufficiently high levels of radiation increase cancer risk -- slightly. Among the more than 86,000 survivors of the atomic bomb blasts, "only" about 420 "extra" cancers occurred between 1950-1990. "
I think that Oil gives you Los Angeles, but Anti-Nuclear propoganda gives you bad information.
A similar plan bounced around in the US Air Force in the 1950s for both a manned and unmanned nuclear bomber.
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The bomber in the 50s, had the reactor core dropped into the exhaust of the jet engines. It looks alot like the picture from the article.
There was a B-36H test bed that had a reactor in it as well.
http://www.brook.edu/FP/projects/nucwcost/anp.h
The B-36H didn't use the reactor for power but to test the effects of a reactor on an airframe. Flying alongside the NB-36H on every one of its flights was a C-97 transport carrying a platoon of armed Marines ready to parachute down and surround the test aircraft in case it crashed.
"One idea for an operational nuclear-powered aircraft involved detachable reactor modules that could be replaced as needed. In this artist's conception, the pilots were in the section forming part of the tail, which could be detached in cases of emergency."
Theres more on the percived atomic powered bomber programs of the US and USSR over on the Federation of American Scientists website. Not much but some.
There was a big writeup on it in the Air and Space magazine in the early 90s...I have the issue somewhere.
http://www.fas.org/nuke/space/c03anp.htm
Tanks are powered by gas turbines or large diesel motors...not much stealth there.
Stealth has it's place when you are scouting or under armored. When you are assaulting stealth takes a back seat.
I'd suspect that exoskeletons powered with chainsaw motors aren't going to be used for stealthy recon.
That said, when these things (if ever) go into service, there will be a fuel cell or quiet ceramic motor to power them.
They have been in the past.
Angola was the center of a nasty civil war that not only involved South Africa, but an entire Cuban Army Regiment for years. US and Soviet "Advisors" were also there for the festivities.
Parts of Timor, the island in Indonesia where the UN went into last year, speak Portuguese.
The South China Sea and Africa will continue to be hot spots of international importance....and they speak Portuguese there.