This is one of the reasons I think that we should really look at recycling up there. Power and heat, can be had at a relativly cheap level. Waste can be recycled, if as nothing more than additional shielding.
Why spend money taking wings up there? Why waste weight to make something "reusable"? Either make it so that it's useful up there, leave it up there for the solar smelter, or if it's necessary for the trip down for the astronaughts. Albative shielding is relativly cheap and easy to replace. It's also cheaper than the shuttle. Why have heavy wings and reusable engines? If the engines are worth recovering, could we get by putting a parachute system to recover the engines (using a light booster for the last stage) and not even haul them the whole way?
I know, alot of questions, but I think that they need to be examined.
Could we use a heavy lift platform, like the Delta IV heavy instead?
I'd be the first to say that the prospect of breaking the contract by permanently grounding the shuttle fleet wouldn't be a concern. If the shuttle can't be made safe, then it's grounded. I would look for alternatives, but I still feel that the shuttle program is a white elephant.
Don't forget that we have plenty of experience here. This is how modern trains operate
Heck, I could see us going this way with tractor trailers first, then SUV's. Why? Well, they have alot of size reduction to do...
Point 1, well, yes, you'd loose alot of existing greese-monkey knowledge, but you're losing much of that anyways with hybrids. Answer is training and talking with the railroad guys.
Point 2, systems vary. Under constant load, direct mechanical connection is the most efficient, while the electric provides the quick start required by people.
But if you have an open pail of gasoline and you chuck a match towards it you're likely to ignite the gasoline vapors around it. You don't have this problem with diesel.
Note: Don't try this trick with a flare, it burns hotter.
Actually, no. The sulfur is naturally occuring. It's just that it costs money to remove it, and as the main usage of diesel is with large vehicles that can handle the sulfur, they don't want to spend the money to remove it.
The lubrication myth comes because the process that removes the sulfer also removes other compounds that do act as a lubricant. You just have to add something in to replace the natural lubricants.
Maybe you'd prefer the statement "As currently marketed, hybrid cars won't take off until the price drops."
I doubt a 20hp electric would make much of a difference in a 300 hp mustang. The IMA of the honda civic shows an 8 HP boost, for an 85 HP engine. The accord, as best as I can tell, gives 15HP, out of 240.
I think your probably mistaken. A hybrid costs feature for feature with a like model non-hybrid ~$1500 more. Check the Civic EX compared to Hybrid, feature for feature nearly identical with the only diffrence being the Hybrid motor design.
Note I said when. It was years ago that I checked. The prices have come alot closer, I will admit.
And why do you pick the Civic EX, the most expensive gasoline model? Looking at feature simularity (without going out and test driving, of course), the Civic LX, retailing at 15,760, seems to be a better match versus 19,800 for the Hybrid
That's a difference of $4040. Or over 2000 gallens of gas at $2. If you assume that you'd get 25mpg with the traditional engine, you'll have to pile up almost 140,000 miles to make up the difference. Hope you're keeping that car around for a while! Now the LX has an EPA estimate 0f 32/38. If you figure that you'd get the 32mpg, that ups the milage required to 180,000.
I do lots and lots of highway driving. Hybrids have some work to do...
*Note: Your math might differ depending on the various rebates, tax breaks, and such available at the time. Individual situations will vary.
You can think of the environment like an investment vehicle: The payback is in the order of magnitude of lifetimes and isn't strictly monetary in value.
I wasn't talking about myself. I was talking about the "average american". Add in that most people want a return on their investment in less than 30 years, more usually 10-15, and you can see why I made my statement.
And while the "average american" might not care much for the enviroment, safety is a definate concern.
Yes, I have allergies too. I'd love to see less pollution.
It's tough too, since necessarily better cars are more expensive cars.
Not necessarily true. It depends on how you define a "better car". You do have more options as your budget goes up, though.
Do you see where my statement that Hybrids won't take off with the middle class until it will save them money comes from? Until the sticker price comes close enough to that of the traditional option that a dealer can sit down with them an show them that they'll save money or break even with that option, it will be difficult to get the mainstream to adopt it.
I have to agree here. Most middle class people don't have the money to "throw away" thousands of dollars to be fuel efficient and save the enviroment a bit.
When they get the vehicles to the point that a family can do the math and figure that their investment will pay off in 3-5 years due to savings in gasoline, that is when hybrids will take off.
And I think that concludes my arguments, which completely stomped yours. At the basic level, I showed that many of your statements were factually incorrect, while you didn't show that any of mine were incorrect.
Not really. But oh well. Thank you for providing a link. And you proved my argument for me. Two different people, both using google, get different results. It would be the same in a library. My search, initially "parachute history" didn't turn up your site in the first 3 pages. But I stand corrected.
As for tort reform, you branched off into medical malpractice tort reform. I haven't even touched on that. Like I said, it's not a central issue of mine. Any modifications to tort needs much thinking on, that I admit to not having done. Also, there are all sorts of tort reform, from anti-SLAPP laws, good samaritan laws, to the limits on damages and such that you don't like. It just happens that I don't like limits either. Large rewards to have their place. After reading both sides, I just think that we need to shoot all the politicians and about half the remaining lawyers. It'd solve alot of problems.
And with my 4 cylinder car, in the same scenario, if I'd likely be doing 90 before I'm past. It's a 1.8 liter DOHC engine. There's one hill in town that I have some trouble with, but it's no 6.5% grade, it's almost 30%. I just have to shift into fourth.
If you think about it, the extra space and size of a SUV makes it particularly suitable for a hybrid design. I think that I heard about this idea a couple of years ago, so I don't know why one isn't out now. Maybe because the actual fuel savings aren't great enough to justify the extra cost.
Also, the SUV is for people who want more cargo capacity than a car, but don't want or need a van/truck. For a number of people it's the best option since the emission and fuel requirements killed the station wagon.
The problem with racing hybrid vehicles is that those vehicles depend on assumptions for city driving to make their milage gains.
For highway driving, my standard gasoline engine actually gets better mpg than many hybrids. And it cost roughly 50% what a hybrid would of cost. Even at today's prices, that's alot of gas you have to save.
When you're racing, you're not doing stop and go. You might be able to make it work with a twisty enough track requiring large amounts of braking and making it tight enough on fuel that it becomes a conservation game.
But at high sustained speeds, direct gasoline power is more efficient.
Different market. The Hummer appeals to the people who don't want to stop. So the slow acceleration doesn't matter as much.
Honestly, the Hummer is more of a propaganda issue and limo replacement for the stars. I've only ever seen three in civilian hands. It is a usefull vehicle for the military, park ranger, and other off pavement uses. Otherwise, the newer ones are little different from big SUV's.
It doesn't make much sense for on road usage, and most people with money who bought one for show ended up selling them due to the rough ride.
acceleration off the line I wonder what you mean by "off the line". The more powerfull gas engines are fully capable of spinning the tires for quite a distance down the road from a start. I don't think that a Hybrid is going to be able to beat a trans-am with a decent driver.
An electric car won't be able to accellerate any faster, as it's not the engine that's limiting acceleration, it's the tires.
Besides, Model-T's weren't speed machines, they were consumer machines that opened up the market to sectors who had never before been able to afford a car. A model-T modified for racing could reach 100 mph
Last time I checked, ethernet cable was expensive. Unless you want to get a roll of cat-5 cable, crimpers and socket ends. Then you have to crawl all over the place, run and secure cable.
Already have it. Don't own a wireless router. Most computers come with ethernet today, fewer come with wireless. As far as crawling around goes, it's only the work of a couple hours. Depends on location, of course.
Good point. I live in an apartment. Any ol cheap wireless router would work. It wouldn't even be too difficult to hack an ethernet cable to next door. My neighbor spends ~$30 a month for a lot of bandwidth they don't use. For a portion of that I can get a fair amount of bandwidth I will use.
Money was developed because there becomes too many items for barter to be efficient. That being said, trade barter is still efficient in many situations.
The leatherworker might not need anything from the potter at the moment. But the potter needs something from the leatherworker. With money, the potter can purchase what's needed, and the leatherworker heads over to, say the baker, and gets what he needs.
Ah. Linkage is nice. According to this site, What was done in 1919 was the invention of the non-ripcord or freefall personal parachute. Not a plane level chute. Before that, skeptics thought that freefall would render a man unconcious.
Too stupid to deal with? More like a different world view. Sure, I search google, it's my homepage. But just screaming "USE GOOGLE" doesn't help. Remember, my worldview is different, the keywords I select will be different. The sites I pull up will be too.
Next time you say something factually incorrect, I'm going to demonstrate. I'll hold you to the same standard.
That's exactly the reason. Also the reason that a new plane costs a huge amount of money. There's no reason why a small single engine plane in good condition should cost more than $100,000.
The engines in cars today are more advanced than what's in planes. The frames are often more advanced as well. Now, much of this is done for reliability, but you have to ask, how further along personal aviation might be if it wasn't for liability concerns and the FAA holding things back.
First: True, making a giant parachute to bring a whole plane down more or less intact is an evolution of old ideas. After all, the military has been dropping vehicles out of planes for years with big parachutes. But the idea of using a parachute to bring down a plane, and actually developing a rocket assisted parachute hooked to some sort of trigger, is new.
Second paragraph: Thank you for making my case. I said that the Republicans just love to take that really unusual case and make it sound like it's the norm. I actually had three cases in there. The one was just the most outragous that I'd heard of lately.
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This is one of the reasons I think that we should really look at recycling up there. Power and heat, can be had at a relativly cheap level. Waste can be recycled, if as nothing more than additional shielding.
Why spend money taking wings up there? Why waste weight to make something "reusable"? Either make it so that it's useful up there, leave it up there for the solar smelter, or if it's necessary for the trip down for the astronaughts. Albative shielding is relativly cheap and easy to replace. It's also cheaper than the shuttle. Why have heavy wings and reusable engines? If the engines are worth recovering, could we get by putting a parachute system to recover the engines (using a light booster for the last stage) and not even haul them the whole way?
I know, alot of questions, but I think that they need to be examined.
Could we use a heavy lift platform, like the Delta IV heavy instead?
I'd be the first to say that the prospect of breaking the contract by permanently grounding the shuttle fleet wouldn't be a concern. If the shuttle can't be made safe, then it's grounded. I would look for alternatives, but I still feel that the shuttle program is a white elephant.
Don't forget that we have plenty of experience here. This is how modern trains operate
Heck, I could see us going this way with tractor trailers first, then SUV's. Why? Well, they have alot of size reduction to do...
Point 1, well, yes, you'd loose alot of existing greese-monkey knowledge, but you're losing much of that anyways with hybrids. Answer is training and talking with the railroad guys.
Point 2, systems vary. Under constant load, direct mechanical connection is the most efficient, while the electric provides the quick start required by people.
But if you have an open pail of gasoline and you chuck a match towards it you're likely to ignite the gasoline vapors around it. You don't have this problem with diesel.
Note: Don't try this trick with a flare, it burns hotter.
Actually, no. The sulfur is naturally occuring. It's just that it costs money to remove it, and as the main usage of diesel is with large vehicles that can handle the sulfur, they don't want to spend the money to remove it.
And the lowering is occuring
The lubrication myth comes because the process that removes the sulfer also removes other compounds that do act as a lubricant. You just have to add something in to replace the natural lubricants.
I suggest you try setting up some Bat Houses
It might not be appropriate for your area, but why bother with machines when nature already has a solution?
about twice as much
Gasoline, automotive 45.8 MJ/Kg
Carbohydrates 17.2
Proteins 17.2
Fats 38.9
Maybe you'd prefer the statement "As currently marketed, hybrid cars won't take off until the price drops."
I doubt a 20hp electric would make much of a difference in a 300 hp mustang. The IMA of the honda civic shows an 8 HP boost, for an 85 HP engine. The accord, as best as I can tell, gives 15HP, out of 240.
It should be noted that they did change out the tires on the hybrid for the race.
I think your probably mistaken. A hybrid costs feature for feature with a like model non-hybrid ~$1500 more. Check the Civic EX compared to Hybrid, feature for feature nearly identical with the only diffrence being the Hybrid motor design.
Note I said when. It was years ago that I checked. The prices have come alot closer, I will admit.
And why do you pick the Civic EX, the most expensive gasoline model? Looking at feature simularity (without going out and test driving, of course), the Civic LX, retailing at 15,760, seems to be a better match versus 19,800 for the Hybrid
That's a difference of $4040. Or over 2000 gallens of gas at $2. If you assume that you'd get 25mpg with the traditional engine, you'll have to pile up almost 140,000 miles to make up the difference. Hope you're keeping that car around for a while! Now the LX has an EPA estimate 0f 32/38. If you figure that you'd get the 32mpg, that ups the milage required to 180,000.
I do lots and lots of highway driving. Hybrids have some work to do...
*Note: Your math might differ depending on the various rebates, tax breaks, and such available at the time. Individual situations will vary.
You can think of the environment like an investment vehicle: The payback is in the order of magnitude of lifetimes and isn't strictly monetary in value.
I wasn't talking about myself. I was talking about the "average american". Add in that most people want a return on their investment in less than 30 years, more usually 10-15, and you can see why I made my statement.
And while the "average american" might not care much for the enviroment, safety is a definate concern.
Yes, I have allergies too. I'd love to see less pollution.
It's tough too, since necessarily better cars are more expensive cars.
Not necessarily true. It depends on how you define a "better car". You do have more options as your budget goes up, though.
Do you see where my statement that Hybrids won't take off with the middle class until it will save them money comes from? Until the sticker price comes close enough to that of the traditional option that a dealer can sit down with them an show them that they'll save money or break even with that option, it will be difficult to get the mainstream to adopt it.
I have to agree here. Most middle class people don't have the money to "throw away" thousands of dollars to be fuel efficient and save the enviroment a bit.
When they get the vehicles to the point that a family can do the math and figure that their investment will pay off in 3-5 years due to savings in gasoline, that is when hybrids will take off.
And I think that concludes my arguments, which completely stomped yours. At the basic level, I showed that many of your statements were factually incorrect, while you didn't show that any of mine were incorrect.
Not really. But oh well. Thank you for providing a link. And you proved my argument for me. Two different people, both using google, get different results. It would be the same in a library.
My search, initially "parachute history" didn't turn up your site in the first 3 pages. But I stand corrected.
As for tort reform, you branched off into medical malpractice tort reform. I haven't even touched on that. Like I said, it's not a central issue of mine. Any modifications to tort needs much thinking on, that I admit to not having done. Also, there are all sorts of tort reform, from anti-SLAPP laws, good samaritan laws, to the limits on damages and such that you don't like. It just happens that I don't like limits either. Large rewards to have their place. After reading both sides, I just think that we need to shoot all the politicians and about half the remaining lawyers. It'd solve alot of problems.
And with my 4 cylinder car, in the same scenario, if I'd likely be doing 90 before I'm past. It's a 1.8 liter DOHC engine. There's one hill in town that I have some trouble with, but it's no 6.5% grade, it's almost 30%. I just have to shift into fourth.
If I had mod points, I'd give them to you.
If you think about it, the extra space and size of a SUV makes it particularly suitable for a hybrid design. I think that I heard about this idea a couple of years ago, so I don't know why one isn't out now. Maybe because the actual fuel savings aren't great enough to justify the extra cost.
Also, the SUV is for people who want more cargo capacity than a car, but don't want or need a van/truck. For a number of people it's the best option since the emission and fuel requirements killed the station wagon.
The problem with racing hybrid vehicles is that those vehicles depend on assumptions for city driving to make their milage gains.
For highway driving, my standard gasoline engine actually gets better mpg than many hybrids. And it cost roughly 50% what a hybrid would of cost. Even at today's prices, that's alot of gas you have to save.
When you're racing, you're not doing stop and go. You might be able to make it work with a twisty enough track requiring large amounts of braking and making it tight enough on fuel that it becomes a conservation game.
But at high sustained speeds, direct gasoline power is more efficient.
Different market. The Hummer appeals to the people who don't want to stop. So the slow acceleration doesn't matter as much.
Honestly, the Hummer is more of a propaganda issue and limo replacement for the stars. I've only ever seen three in civilian hands. It is a usefull vehicle for the military, park ranger, and other off pavement uses. Otherwise, the newer ones are little different from big SUV's.
It doesn't make much sense for on road usage, and most people with money who bought one for show ended up selling them due to the rough ride.
acceleration off the line
I wonder what you mean by "off the line". The more powerfull gas engines are fully capable of spinning the tires for quite a distance down the road from a start. I don't think that a Hybrid is going to be able to beat a trans-am with a decent driver.
An electric car won't be able to accellerate any faster, as it's not the engine that's limiting acceleration, it's the tires.
No, but a steam powered vehicle did hit 127.66 mph in 1906.
Besides, Model-T's weren't speed machines, they were consumer machines that opened up the market to sectors who had never before been able to afford a car. A model-T modified for racing could reach 100 mph
Last time I checked, ethernet cable was expensive. Unless you want to get a roll of cat-5 cable, crimpers and socket ends. Then you have to crawl all over the place, run and secure cable.
Already have it. Don't own a wireless router. Most computers come with ethernet today, fewer come with wireless. As far as crawling around goes, it's only the work of a couple hours. Depends on location, of course.
Good point. I live in an apartment. Any ol cheap wireless router would work. It wouldn't even be too difficult to hack an ethernet cable to next door. My neighbor spends ~$30 a month for a lot of bandwidth they don't use. For a portion of that I can get a fair amount of bandwidth I will use.
I get more bandwidth, they get cheaper internet.
Money was developed because there becomes too many items for barter to be efficient. That being said, trade barter is still efficient in many situations.
The leatherworker might not need anything from the potter at the moment. But the potter needs something from the leatherworker. With money, the potter can purchase what's needed, and the leatherworker heads over to, say the baker, and gets what he needs.
Ah. Linkage is nice. According to this site, What was done in 1919 was the invention of the non-ripcord or freefall personal parachute. Not a plane level chute. Before that, skeptics thought that freefall would render a man unconcious.
Too stupid to deal with? More like a different world view. Sure, I search google, it's my homepage. But just screaming "USE GOOGLE" doesn't help. Remember, my worldview is different, the keywords I select will be different. The sites I pull up will be too.
Next time you say something factually incorrect, I'm going to demonstrate.
I'll hold you to the same standard.
That's exactly the reason. Also the reason that a new plane costs a huge amount of money. There's no reason why a small single engine plane in good condition should cost more than $100,000.
The engines in cars today are more advanced than what's in planes. The frames are often more advanced as well. Now, much of this is done for reliability, but you have to ask, how further along personal aviation might be if it wasn't for liability concerns and the FAA holding things back.
First: True, making a giant parachute to bring a whole plane down more or less intact is an evolution of old ideas. After all, the military has been dropping vehicles out of planes for years with big parachutes. But the idea of using a parachute to bring down a plane, and actually developing a rocket assisted parachute hooked to some sort of trigger, is new.
Second paragraph: Thank you for making my case. I said that the Republicans just love to take that really unusual case and make it sound like it's the norm.
I actually had three cases in there. The one was just the most outragous that I'd heard of lately.