The AC before me put it perfectly but since you might not see his comment -- the Spanish stole the land from the Native Americans before that. So what is the rule -- the first European conquerors get permanent title to the land? And besides, by the time of the Mexican-American war a lot of the previously Mexican territory had already been lost when Texas won their war of independence and broke off from Mexico -- hey, if it was OK for Mexico to break off from Spain, then it was OK for Texas to break off from Mexico.
As much as I would like for the US to withdraw to its borders and let the other democracies defend their own borders in a big, bad world -- the last time we had a multipolar world we got World Wars I and II out of it. A big reason we got WW II is that the US did withdraw to its own borders after WW I and the multipolar world outside proceeded to screw it up on three continents at once.
That's the first thing I thought of too while reading the article. Usually some plan with such an obvious flaw doesn't make it past the press release editing at legitimate labs. Something odd is going on -- I'm waiting to see the reaction of the planetary science community, and either a "correction" issued or I stand by to be amazed at some facet of the physics of tenuous atmospheres which I did not know about.
Galileo didn't have a parachute, and didn't soft land anywhere -- it was intentionally burned up in a high speed plunge into Jupiter's atmosphere. Perhaps you are thinking about the Cassini/Huygens probe of Titan, Saturn's largest moon which does have a dense atmosphere. I have to agree with the OP -- there is something not right about a plan to use Europa's practically non-existent atmosphere for this.
I read them both and it is gratifying to see that every comment so far (there aren't many) attached to the two stories you listed (WashPo and Bloomberg) rips ULA and Sen Shelby new ones for their attacks on Space X. I guess ULA's astroturfing isn't quite up to speed yet.
The US Government doesn't run any lotteries or scratch offs -- those would be the respective State governments. Can't stick the feds with hypocracy in this one.
Ah, you're right. USAF didn't do squat for space exploration as we usually define it. Their boosters were great enablers though. I guess I jumped on your, "captured existing German rockets" statement which doesn't credit the enormous amount of rocket development done in the 40's and 50's independent of the Germans. I read a fascinating recent bio of von Braun, however, which concludes that the V-2 probably pushed rocket development ahead by10 years over the natural progress of technology in the mid-20th century. A lot of interacting factors led to the rapid development of the 40's, 50's, and 60's though.
The USAF did develop the Atlas ICBM (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SM-65_Atlas) in the late 50's which had little to do with the Germans. The Germans were over in Huntsville working for the Army where they developed the Redstone IRBM and its successors, which included the Saturn line of boosters. But in the meantime the USAF developed the Titan line of boosters independently of the German/NASA/Huntsville team. In the early space program the Huntsville team had the first visible successes with their derivative of the Redstone launching the first US satellite and the first US astronaut. However the first US manned orbital mission was launched aboard an Atlas and the two-man Gemini missions after that were launched aboard Titans, though all the manned programs were funded and managed through NASA. Of course it was Saturns which launched all the Apollo missions. The OP's contention that NASA messed up the space program is an ignorant crock, though. On the other hand, the USAF certainly screwed up the Space Shuttle with their requirements for the vehicle.
Check the history of lead in the environment and exposure of children to lead based paints, lead from leaded gasoline, etc. Here's one reference -- Lead in Drinking Water and Human Blood Lead Levels in the United States, http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/pdf/ot.... All that started to go down in the 70's. Reduction in environmental lead has been proposed as a reason crime rates have dropped since then.
The car going around the curve can be seen to be in a rotating reference frame from the point of view of an observer in the car with the center of rotation at the point inside the curve which the car is maintaining a constant distance from. And the car itself is rotating in inertial space by the fact that the direction it is pointing is changing going through the curve (unless it is understeering very badly).
Check the direction and magnitude of those force vectors there -- whether the car leans inward of outward in the curve the resultant force vector is the same -- the sum of the gravity and the centrifugal force at (about) right angles to the gravity; the direction of this resultant sum as felt in the car is somewhere between down and toward the outside of the curve. The difference is that if the car is leaning inward then your body is more aligned with the resultant and it feels more comfortable (just as in an aircraft turning in a perfectly coordinated turn). If the car is leaning outward, as all conventional cars do, you feel the resultant as more of a sideways force on your body which is more uncomfortable. In either case the magnitude of the resultant is the same. And for the other repliers who can't seem to get out of the inertial frame, centrifugal force is a perfectly fine concept in the moving reference frame of the car going around the curve. That's what an accelerometer would feel (measure) in the car -- an (apparent) force pointing outward perpendicular to the curved motion of the car.
The Russian and Chinese generals must have watched the same movies because both countries are developing and fielding their own new (5th generation) fighters. No one yet is fielding drones or defenses to match the 5th gen manned aircraft. Maybe the drone replacements will work, maybe they will have their own huge development problems.
You mean the Al Franken who graduated cum laude from Harvard with a degree in Government and who visited the troops in Kosovo and Iraq on some of his seven USO tours. Author of five published books. You can point to someone better qualified for the Senate -- perhaps some Wall Street titan or Fortune 500 CEO?
"The most powerful rocket engines are made by the Russians..." -- the Russian RD-180 is a powerful and advanced engine, the best in it's current class of kerosene burners, BUT this has nothing to do with the ISS. No one is using an RD-180 powered rocket for either manned or unmanned access to the ISS. The only current launch vehicle using the RD-180 is the US Atlas V (according to my quick Internet research) which is not going to the ISS. And the all-American Delta IV can launch as much or more payload than the Atlas V, though it costs somewhat more, so it appears that the RD-180 is in use only because it is cheaper than the alternatives for now. The US is currently considering moving Atlas V payloads to the Delta IV due to RD-180 supply disruptions (http://aviationweek.com/space/ula-explores-shifting-atlas-v-launches-delta-iv). I can't refute your argument about the merits of the Soyuz vehicle for the ISS,though, it is essential for the foreseeable future. But Russian rocket engines are a convenience, not a necessity. And speaking of large Russian boosters, their equivalent to the Atlas and Delta, the Proton, has not done so well lately, with two failures in the last year, most recently just this month (http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/16/world/europe/russia-rocket-accident/).
Here's the deal on 'scientific consensus' -- it's not always right, but it is the best guess at the time, supported by the majority of the evidence by smart people who know the subject. Anything else is more likely, not certainly, but more likely, to be wrong. You place your bets, you take your chances. If I need treatment for my cancer or degenerative disease, I'm going with the scientific consensus. If I'm designing a bridge or airplane that will carry passengers, I'm going with the scientific consensus. If I'm making a long term investment (in land in Florida as a random example), I'm going the scientific consensus. If I'm writing my own crackpot blog or political screed or investment scam newsletter, then maybe I don't go with the scientific consensus...
"The US only developed its space programme so quickly because it wanted better ICBMs". The other way around. The first space launch boosters, both US and Soviet, were almost all military ballistic missiles first. First US satellite was launched aboard an uprated and modified Redstone IRBM with upper stages stuck on. First US manned mission was launched aboard a Redstone IRBM. First US manned orbital mission was launched aboard an Atlas ICBM. First US two-man missions (Gemini) were launched aboard a Titan II ICBM. These were all OPERATIONAL military ballistic missiles by the time NASA got around to using them. The Saturn launch vehicles which NASA eventually developed and used for Apollo started with Saturn I as a military project, but when the military developed smaller H-bombs as warheads for their ICBMs they gave up gave up the Saturn family to NASA as no one could think of a military use for that much payload. The military did eventually want bigger launchers for their satellites but the Air Force developed their own heavy lift boosters, starting with the Titan III and then Titan IV which were cheaper than the Saturns. NASA never did much launcher development directly utilized by the military until the Space Shuttle came along as a joint project and the military abandoned that as soon as it became apparent how unsuited for the mission it was.
How many of those farmers are struggling "family farms" and how many are big agribusinesses or rich "gentleman farmers" reinvesting their millions? And while I'm at it, what about those ethanol mandates which are forcing the rest of us to buy their alcohol instead of food, and the subsidized water they all get out west? There was perhaps a time in the early 20th century where "rural electrification" and "universal phone service" may have made sense -- not any more. Sorry, the "noble farmer, man of the land" is a fiction of the 18th century. Now it's just another business. Farm land has had a nice run up in value lately so somebody wants it.
Given the enormous tax breaks given to "agricultural property" in Texas, I doubt there is any subsidizing at all going from rural to urban in this state. This is from 2005 (http://www.chron.com/news/article/Legislature-to-rethink-farmland-tax-breaks-1563193.php), but I don't think it has changed much since, "In suburban Austin, a 1,757-acre ranch owned by Michael Dell has what Travis County appraisers call a "well-managed deer herd" that reduces the ranch's market value of $74.8 million to an agriculture value of $290,000. "
Example, please. The examples I've seen in the press about "horrible" math presentations in CC have actually been presentations that actually try to teach non-trivial mathematical concepts like place value or the number line. The complaints I see seem to be that CC isn't teaching the 'easiest' way to get an answer to a numeric problem. i.e. CC uses a number line to solve an addition problem instead of the rote paper and pencil algorithm. As a degree holder in both mathematics and engineering I've formally studied math for its own sake and as a tool. Perhaps as a tool the only goal is the easiest way to get an answer, but real mathematics is not always about the easiest way to get an answer, but the most insightful. I'm open to arguments that we should teach the kids rote algorithms first and the most straightforward problem solving, since a lot of them only need the tool but that is applied arithmetic, not math.
The funny thing is -- is that Austin is reviled as the "Peoples Republic of Austin" by the "real Texans" and their representatives in the rest of the state. Austin was split into four US House districts by the state legislature to ensure that the metro area couldn't elect a representative to the US House that actually, you know, "represented" the opinions of the populace there. Austin and the rest of Texas have had a mutual aversion to each other for decades as Austin became more progressive in politics and culture. It remains a mystery to me how the city has prospered in that environment. And it is flat-out dishonest for the governor and the rest of the state representatives to both proclaim "Texas values" and claim Austin as a "Texas success story", which they do. How can this be sustainable?
I would say your skeptic friend is very astute (I am not a climate change skeptic). His point #6 is the salient one and probably immutable. So just as the climatologists can say with high probability that the climate will change as we pump CO2 into the air, the political scientists can say with high probability that the world governments (or anyone else) aren't going to do anything to slow it down significantly. Both may be inconvenient truths but inconvenience doesn't reduce the probability of being accurate descriptions of the future. So the smartest course at this time is to prepare for the climate to change and deal with those effects as they arrive. It's too bad that the profiteers from the current status can't be made to pay the costs to be incurred for this, but life isn't fair.
I've got my TI-36 Solar sitting on my desk here right now. I use it almost daily. The top cover of the vinyl case ripped off just last year. I have my late 70's vintage TI SR-50 working at home. I had to replace the original Ni-Cad batteries but it still works fine with that 10 digit red LED display. It isn't as rugged as the TI-36, though, the slide switches for On-Off and Deg-Rad are feeling soft.
"No state will ever give up land willingly" Two counterexamples: The USA found itself in possession of several previously Japanese territories after WWII, most notably Okinawa; it was returned to Japan in 1972, 27 years after the war ended. The USA found itself in possession of Cuba and the Philippines after the Spanish-American War; both were granted independence sometime afterward (Philippine independence took a long time and was interrupted by Japanese occupation of WWII).
Slashdot Mirror
The AC before me put it perfectly but since you might not see his comment -- the Spanish stole the land from the Native Americans before that. So what is the rule -- the first European conquerors get permanent title to the land? And besides, by the time of the Mexican-American war a lot of the previously Mexican territory had already been lost when Texas won their war of independence and broke off from Mexico -- hey, if it was OK for Mexico to break off from Spain, then it was OK for Texas to break off from Mexico.
Well, no one had to tell us boys that, "girls don't like bookish boys". Most figured it out pretty quickly on our own after about 6th grade.
As much as I would like for the US to withdraw to its borders and let the other democracies defend their own borders in a big, bad world -- the last time we had a multipolar world we got World Wars I and II out of it. A big reason we got WW II is that the US did withdraw to its own borders after WW I and the multipolar world outside proceeded to screw it up on three continents at once.
That's the first thing I thought of too while reading the article. Usually some plan with such an obvious flaw doesn't make it past the press release editing at legitimate labs. Something odd is going on -- I'm waiting to see the reaction of the planetary science community, and either a "correction" issued or I stand by to be amazed at some facet of the physics of tenuous atmospheres which I did not know about.
Galileo didn't have a parachute, and didn't soft land anywhere -- it was intentionally burned up in a high speed plunge into Jupiter's atmosphere. Perhaps you are thinking about the Cassini/Huygens probe of Titan, Saturn's largest moon which does have a dense atmosphere. I have to agree with the OP -- there is something not right about a plan to use Europa's practically non-existent atmosphere for this.
I read them both and it is gratifying to see that every comment so far (there aren't many) attached to the two stories you listed (WashPo and Bloomberg) rips ULA and Sen Shelby new ones for their attacks on Space X. I guess ULA's astroturfing isn't quite up to speed yet.
The US Government doesn't run any lotteries or scratch offs -- those would be the respective State governments. Can't stick the feds with hypocracy in this one.
Ah, you're right. USAF didn't do squat for space exploration as we usually define it. Their boosters were great enablers though. I guess I jumped on your, "captured existing German rockets" statement which doesn't credit the enormous amount of rocket development done in the 40's and 50's independent of the Germans. I read a fascinating recent bio of von Braun, however, which concludes that the V-2 probably pushed rocket development ahead by10 years over the natural progress of technology in the mid-20th century. A lot of interacting factors led to the rapid development of the 40's, 50's, and 60's though.
The USAF did develop the Atlas ICBM (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SM-65_Atlas) in the late 50's which had little to do with the Germans. The Germans were over in Huntsville working for the Army where they developed the Redstone IRBM and its successors, which included the Saturn line of boosters. But in the meantime the USAF developed the Titan line of boosters independently of the German/NASA/Huntsville team.
In the early space program the Huntsville team had the first visible successes with their derivative of the Redstone launching the first US satellite and the first US astronaut. However the first US manned orbital mission was launched aboard an Atlas and the two-man Gemini missions after that were launched aboard Titans, though all the manned programs were funded and managed through NASA. Of course it was Saturns which launched all the Apollo missions.
The OP's contention that NASA messed up the space program is an ignorant crock, though. On the other hand, the USAF certainly screwed up the Space Shuttle with their requirements for the vehicle.
Check the history of lead in the environment and exposure of children to lead based paints, lead from leaded gasoline, etc. Here's one reference -- Lead in Drinking Water and Human Blood Lead Levels in the United States, http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/pdf/ot.... All that started to go down in the 70's. Reduction in environmental lead has been proposed as a reason crime rates have dropped since then.
The car going around the curve can be seen to be in a rotating reference frame from the point of view of an observer in the car with the center of rotation at the point inside the curve which the car is maintaining a constant distance from. And the car itself is rotating in inertial space by the fact that the direction it is pointing is changing going through the curve (unless it is understeering very badly).
Check the direction and magnitude of those force vectors there -- whether the car leans inward of outward in the curve the resultant force vector is the same -- the sum of the gravity and the centrifugal force at (about) right angles to the gravity; the direction of this resultant sum as felt in the car is somewhere between down and toward the outside of the curve. The difference is that if the car is leaning inward then your body is more aligned with the resultant and it feels more comfortable (just as in an aircraft turning in a perfectly coordinated turn). If the car is leaning outward, as all conventional cars do, you feel the resultant as more of a sideways force on your body which is more uncomfortable. In either case the magnitude of the resultant is the same.
And for the other repliers who can't seem to get out of the inertial frame, centrifugal force is a perfectly fine concept in the moving reference frame of the car going around the curve. That's what an accelerometer would feel (measure) in the car -- an (apparent) force pointing outward perpendicular to the curved motion of the car.
The Russian and Chinese generals must have watched the same movies because both countries are developing and fielding their own new (5th generation) fighters. No one yet is fielding drones or defenses to match the 5th gen manned aircraft. Maybe the drone replacements will work, maybe they will have their own huge development problems.
You mean the Al Franken who graduated cum laude from Harvard with a degree in Government and who visited the troops in Kosovo and Iraq on some of his seven USO tours. Author of five published books. You can point to someone better qualified for the Senate -- perhaps some Wall Street titan or Fortune 500 CEO?
Maybe so, but that's almost exactly the same situation as when neutrinos were hypothesized to make the equations of some nuclear decays balance out.
"The most powerful rocket engines are made by the Russians..." -- the Russian RD-180 is a powerful and advanced engine, the best in it's current class of kerosene burners, BUT this has nothing to do with the ISS. No one is using an RD-180 powered rocket for either manned or unmanned access to the ISS. The only current launch vehicle using the RD-180 is the US Atlas V (according to my quick Internet research) which is not going to the ISS. And the all-American Delta IV can launch as much or more payload than the Atlas V, though it costs somewhat more, so it appears that the RD-180 is in use only because it is cheaper than the alternatives for now. The US is currently considering moving Atlas V payloads to the Delta IV due to RD-180 supply disruptions (http://aviationweek.com/space/ula-explores-shifting-atlas-v-launches-delta-iv).
I can't refute your argument about the merits of the Soyuz vehicle for the ISS,though, it is essential for the foreseeable future.
But Russian rocket engines are a convenience, not a necessity. And speaking of large Russian boosters, their equivalent to the Atlas and Delta, the Proton, has not done so well lately, with two failures in the last year, most recently just this month (http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/16/world/europe/russia-rocket-accident/).
Here's the deal on 'scientific consensus' -- it's not always right, but it is the best guess at the time, supported by the majority of the evidence by smart people who know the subject. Anything else is more likely, not certainly, but more likely, to be wrong. You place your bets, you take your chances. If I need treatment for my cancer or degenerative disease, I'm going with the scientific consensus. If I'm designing a bridge or airplane that will carry passengers, I'm going with the scientific consensus. If I'm making a long term investment (in land in Florida as a random example), I'm going the scientific consensus. If I'm writing my own crackpot blog or political screed or investment scam newsletter, then maybe I don't go with the scientific consensus ...
"The US only developed its space programme so quickly because it wanted better ICBMs". The other way around. The first space launch boosters, both US and Soviet, were almost all military ballistic missiles first. First US satellite was launched aboard an uprated and modified Redstone IRBM with upper stages stuck on. First US manned mission was launched aboard a Redstone IRBM. First US manned orbital mission was launched aboard an Atlas ICBM. First US two-man missions (Gemini) were launched aboard a Titan II ICBM. These were all OPERATIONAL military ballistic missiles by the time NASA got around to using them. The Saturn launch vehicles which NASA eventually developed and used for Apollo started with Saturn I as a military project, but when the military developed smaller H-bombs as warheads for their ICBMs they gave up gave up the Saturn family to NASA as no one could think of a military use for that much payload. The military did eventually want bigger launchers for their satellites but the Air Force developed their own heavy lift boosters, starting with the Titan III and then Titan IV which were cheaper than the Saturns. NASA never did much launcher development directly utilized by the military until the Space Shuttle came along as a joint project and the military abandoned that as soon as it became apparent how unsuited for the mission it was.
How many of those farmers are struggling "family farms" and how many are big agribusinesses or rich "gentleman farmers" reinvesting their millions? And while I'm at it, what about those ethanol mandates which are forcing the rest of us to buy their alcohol instead of food, and the subsidized water they all get out west? There was perhaps a time in the early 20th century where "rural electrification" and "universal phone service" may have made sense -- not any more. Sorry, the "noble farmer, man of the land" is a fiction of the 18th century. Now it's just another business. Farm land has had a nice run up in value lately so somebody wants it.
Given the enormous tax breaks given to "agricultural property" in Texas, I doubt there is any subsidizing at all going from rural to urban in this state. This is from 2005 (http://www.chron.com/news/article/Legislature-to-rethink-farmland-tax-breaks-1563193.php), but I don't think it has changed much since, "In suburban Austin, a 1,757-acre ranch owned by Michael Dell has what Travis County appraisers call a "well-managed deer herd" that reduces the ranch's market value of $74.8 million to an agriculture value of $290,000. "
Example, please. The examples I've seen in the press about "horrible" math presentations in CC have actually been presentations that actually try to teach non-trivial mathematical concepts like place value or the number line. The complaints I see seem to be that CC isn't teaching the 'easiest' way to get an answer to a numeric problem. i.e. CC uses a number line to solve an addition problem instead of the rote paper and pencil algorithm. As a degree holder in both mathematics and engineering I've formally studied math for its own sake and as a tool. Perhaps as a tool the only goal is the easiest way to get an answer, but real mathematics is not always about the easiest way to get an answer, but the most insightful. I'm open to arguments that we should teach the kids rote algorithms first and the most straightforward problem solving, since a lot of them only need the tool but that is applied arithmetic, not math.
The funny thing is -- is that Austin is reviled as the "Peoples Republic of Austin" by the "real Texans" and their representatives in the rest of the state. Austin was split into four US House districts by the state legislature to ensure that the metro area couldn't elect a representative to the US House that actually, you know, "represented" the opinions of the populace there. Austin and the rest of Texas have had a mutual aversion to each other for decades as Austin became more progressive in politics and culture. It remains a mystery to me how the city has prospered in that environment. And it is flat-out dishonest for the governor and the rest of the state representatives to both proclaim "Texas values" and claim Austin as a "Texas success story", which they do. How can this be sustainable?
I would say your skeptic friend is very astute (I am not a climate change skeptic). His point #6 is the salient one and probably immutable. So just as the climatologists can say with high probability that the climate will change as we pump CO2 into the air, the political scientists can say with high probability that the world governments (or anyone else) aren't going to do anything to slow it down significantly. Both may be inconvenient truths but inconvenience doesn't reduce the probability of being accurate descriptions of the future. So the smartest course at this time is to prepare for the climate to change and deal with those effects as they arrive. It's too bad that the profiteers from the current status can't be made to pay the costs to be incurred for this, but life isn't fair.
I've got my TI-36 Solar sitting on my desk here right now. I use it almost daily. The top cover of the vinyl case ripped off just last year.
I have my late 70's vintage TI SR-50 working at home. I had to replace the original Ni-Cad batteries but it still works fine with that 10 digit red LED display. It isn't as rugged as the TI-36, though, the slide switches for On-Off and Deg-Rad are feeling soft.
"No state will ever give up land willingly" Two counterexamples: The USA found itself in possession of several previously Japanese territories after WWII, most notably Okinawa; it was returned to Japan in 1972, 27 years after the war ended.
The USA found itself in possession of Cuba and the Philippines after the Spanish-American War; both were granted independence sometime afterward (Philippine independence took a long time and was interrupted by Japanese occupation of WWII).