When the dark matter/dark energy theories first started coming around, my first thought was, "That sounds like a fudge." The universe was not behaving the way theory predicts - the rotation rates of the galaxies did not go the way that gravity predicted. So, dark matter was proposed to create more mass where none could be seen, to restore balance to the universe. The add-ons continued, to the point where astrophysics now suggests that an overwhelming percentage of the physical universe is invisible and indetectable. Which sounded strange, but I let it pass having other things to occupy my mind, and three kids to boot.
I ran across the plasma cosmology through sf author James Hogan, and I read a little more, and it does explain some things that conventional theories do not, and often, it does so much more simply. In the case of the rotation of spiral arms, it suggests that electrical currents are affecting the rotation speed - without recourse to invisible matter. Electromagnetism is 40 or so orders of magnitude stronger than gravity, so, hey, that might make a difference, seeing as 99% of the visible universe is plasma. In the case of the sun, if these electrical currents are out there in the galaxy, then it suggests that we are in the middle of them too, and like the above post suggests, the solar wind does pretty much meet the definition of an electrical current.
The anonymous coward's tone is a little abrasive, but modding him down for espousing a non-mainstream viewpoint is not cool, imho. There's some interesting thinking going on. And won't we all be embarrassed if, a hundred years from now, the hip people look on our astrophysics with dark matter and dark energy as a more recent version of epicycles?
Actually, war in many ways is a purely psychological exercise- you are attempting to create a mental state - defeat - in the mind of the enemy commander. This can be achieved many ways. The best commanders often used manuever to confuse, befuddle and exhaust their opponent, and only when the time was ripe actually committing to battle.
Julius Caesar's campaign in Gaul, and Stonewall Jackson's Valley campaign are examples of this. Grant focused on killing enemy soldiers, and the Viet Cong used guerilla tactics to demoralise their opponent. (Of course, the one time they tried to fight on our terms, they were nearly eliminated in the Tet Offensive. From that point on, the war was fought mostly against the North Vietnamese.)
Whatever tactics are used, including destroying the enemy's toys (a factor in the Gulf War), the goal is to create that perception of defeat in the mind of the enemy.
Battles in space may consist of attacks on the opponent's assets, which, only if successful, lead to more conventional warfare on Earth. If the Iraqis had been able to blind our spy satellites, jam the GPS system, or intercept and block our communications; the Gulf war would have been a bit different. Luckily for us, they did not have that capability. If we had known that they could deny us our space assets, we might not have intervened. Similarly, if we the capacity to protect our space assets, and deny the use of space to our enemies, they will be much less likely to be aggressive.
Space is the ultimate High Ground, and if you can use it to your benefit, and deny it's use for the enemy, you have an strong advantage. Sooner or later, our military will realise this, because the Chinese certainly have.
The contrast between Galileo's success and the recent tragic failures of the Mars probes is striking, and informative. While NASA administrator Dan Goldin's "faster, cheaper, better" mantra played well for congress what it really meant was that deep space exploration was stretched even thinner than it had been. Galileo had an adequate budget, that allowed for actually checking out the spacecraft before launch. A budget big enough budget that enough quality ground control was available to make the recovery from the antenna fault possible
The recent Mars missions had a third the staff for three times the probes compared to the last series of Mars probes (the immensely popular pathfinder.) Is it any wonder that drastically understaffed and underfunded projects experienced failures? They didn't even have enough money to install equipment to transmit telemetry that would have allowed NASA to determine what caused the Polar lander's failure.
On a long duration mission millions of miles from home, redundancy is a critical issue. This takes at least a little bit of money. The only time that redundancy on individual probes can be discounted is when they are very simple and there are a lot of them. There have been proposals of this kind, largely ignored by NASA.
If you want successful space probes, give NASA the resources it needs to do the job. And don't throw billions away on the space shuttle. If we wanted a private space industry, it would take one thing: the announcement that the government was taking bids on a SSTO, in quantity, and that excess vehicles could be used by private industry.
You'd have to stand back to avoid being hit by an entire new industry. Like with aviation in the early part of this century, gov't can play a part by doing research and creating an initial need to be met by private industry. (Early military and mail service contracts.) Once its started- and the banks assured that the companies will make money- you're off and running. Airplanes were soon being produced for cargo and passengers, and now the airline industry is a multi-multi-billion/year industry.
When NASA was NACA, it did this well. Nasa should go back to its roots, do great research, but leave business to business.
Re:Structure in writing
on
Inversions
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· Score: 1
I have long been an admirer of Banks' work, and I thought Use of Weapons was fantastic. But I think that "Player of Games" is his best novel. Though it used no involved or formalised structure, being a straightforward narrative, the portrayal of the two cultures through the medium of the game of Azad was striking.
The main character, in learning this game, learns not only about the culture of his rivals, but in the process gets insight into his own. I will be interested to see how this new one compares.
I was repeating what, in retrospect, must have been an urban myth. You are certainly right that recreating the Saturn V exactly would be an enormous effort.
But we wouldn't necessarily have to start completely from scratch. The Shuttle system is modular, and could be adapted to a heavy lift configuration by replacing the orbiter with a cargo "pod"
If you don't have to worry about bringing the orbiter back, most of the weight (wings, landing gear, heat tiles, etc.) is waste. You could get as much as a hundred tons to low orbit that way. The orbiter weighs 175,000 lbs., and its largest payload was 48,000 lbs. You'd still need structure and the the three Shuttle main engines, but that still leaves a lot of payload capacity.
Can't open source without source
on
Full Moon
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· Score: 1
NASA can't open source the Saturn V, because they lost the plans. We couldn't build another one if we wanted to.
Slashdot Mirror
When the dark matter/dark energy theories first started coming around, my first thought was, "That sounds like a fudge." The universe was not behaving the way theory predicts - the rotation rates of the galaxies did not go the way that gravity predicted. So, dark matter was proposed to create more mass where none could be seen, to restore balance to the universe. The add-ons continued, to the point where astrophysics now suggests that an overwhelming percentage of the physical universe is invisible and indetectable. Which sounded strange, but I let it pass having other things to occupy my mind, and three kids to boot.
I ran across the plasma cosmology through sf author James Hogan, and I read a little more, and it does explain some things that conventional theories do not, and often, it does so much more simply. In the case of the rotation of spiral arms, it suggests that electrical currents are affecting the rotation speed - without recourse to invisible matter. Electromagnetism is 40 or so orders of magnitude stronger than gravity, so, hey, that might make a difference, seeing as 99% of the visible universe is plasma. In the case of the sun, if these electrical currents are out there in the galaxy, then it suggests that we are in the middle of them too, and like the above post suggests, the solar wind does pretty much meet the definition of an electrical current.
The anonymous coward's tone is a little abrasive, but modding him down for espousing a non-mainstream viewpoint is not cool, imho. There's some interesting thinking going on. And won't we all be embarrassed if, a hundred years from now, the hip people look on our astrophysics with dark matter and dark energy as a more recent version of epicycles?
Maybe Velikovsky was right...
Actually, war in many ways is a purely psychological exercise- you are attempting to create a mental state - defeat - in the mind of the enemy commander. This can be achieved many ways. The best commanders often used manuever to confuse, befuddle and exhaust their opponent, and only when the time was ripe actually committing to battle.
Julius Caesar's campaign in Gaul, and Stonewall Jackson's Valley campaign are examples of this. Grant focused on killing enemy soldiers, and the Viet Cong used guerilla tactics to demoralise their opponent. (Of course, the one time they tried to fight on our terms, they were nearly eliminated in the Tet Offensive. From that point on, the war was fought mostly against the North Vietnamese.)
Whatever tactics are used, including destroying the enemy's toys (a factor in the Gulf War), the goal is to create that perception of defeat in the mind of the enemy.
Battles in space may consist of attacks on the opponent's assets, which, only if successful, lead to more conventional warfare on Earth. If the Iraqis had been able to blind our spy satellites, jam the GPS system, or intercept and block our communications; the Gulf war would have been a bit different. Luckily for us, they did not have that capability. If we had known that they could deny us our space assets, we might not have intervened. Similarly, if we the capacity to protect our space assets, and deny the use of space to our enemies, they will be much less likely to be aggressive.
Space is the ultimate High Ground, and if you can use it to your benefit, and deny it's use for the enemy, you have an strong advantage. Sooner or later, our military will realise this, because the Chinese certainly have.
The contrast between Galileo's success and the recent tragic failures of the Mars probes is striking, and informative. While NASA administrator Dan Goldin's "faster, cheaper, better" mantra played well for congress what it really meant was that deep space exploration was stretched even thinner than it had been. Galileo had an adequate budget, that allowed for actually checking out the spacecraft before launch. A budget big enough budget that enough quality ground control was available to make the recovery from the antenna fault possible
The recent Mars missions had a third the staff for three times the probes compared to the last series of Mars probes (the immensely popular pathfinder.) Is it any wonder that drastically understaffed and underfunded projects experienced failures? They didn't even have enough money to install equipment to transmit telemetry that would have allowed NASA to determine what caused the Polar lander's failure.
On a long duration mission millions of miles from home, redundancy is a critical issue. This takes at least a little bit of money. The only time that redundancy on individual probes can be discounted is when they are very simple and there are a lot of them. There have been proposals of this kind, largely ignored by NASA.
If you want successful space probes, give NASA the resources it needs to do the job. And don't throw billions away on the space shuttle. If we wanted a private space industry, it would take one thing: the announcement that the government was taking bids on a SSTO, in quantity, and that excess vehicles could be used by private industry.
You'd have to stand back to avoid being hit by an entire new industry. Like with aviation in the early part of this century, gov't can play a part by doing research and creating an initial need to be met by private industry. (Early military and mail service contracts.) Once its started- and the banks assured that the companies will make money- you're off and running. Airplanes were soon being produced for cargo and passengers, and now the airline industry is a multi-multi-billion/year industry.
When NASA was NACA, it did this well. Nasa should go back to its roots, do great research, but leave business to business.
I have long been an admirer of Banks' work, and I thought Use of Weapons was fantastic. But I think that "Player of Games" is his best novel. Though it used no involved or formalised structure, being a straightforward narrative, the portrayal of the two cultures through the medium of the game of Azad was striking.
The main character, in learning this game, learns not only about the culture of his rivals, but in the process gets insight into his own. I will be interested to see how this new one compares.
I was repeating what, in retrospect, must have been an urban myth. You are certainly right that recreating the Saturn V exactly would be an enormous effort.
But we wouldn't necessarily have to start completely from scratch. The Shuttle system is modular, and could be adapted to a heavy lift configuration by replacing the orbiter with a cargo "pod"
If you don't have to worry about bringing the orbiter back, most of the weight (wings, landing gear, heat tiles, etc.) is waste. You could get as much as a hundred tons to low orbit that way. The orbiter weighs 175,000 lbs., and its largest payload was 48,000 lbs. You'd still need structure and the the three Shuttle main engines, but that still leaves a lot of payload capacity.
NASA can't open source the Saturn V, because they lost the plans. We couldn't build another one if we wanted to.