My position that libertarians are laughable to claim the title 'reason' exclusively for themselves? Its as based as much on data as it possible could be, seeing as its my opinion. Again, your cargo-cult imitation of rationality does not impress.
As for that crap you posted. Murder rates in the US a Soviet conspiracy? Please, that is conspiracy nut bullshit.
I was aware of mass cloning of AKs - but again, the same question comes up. If it is so easy to do this, why isn't every gang in London driving around with home made AKs? They would certainly like to.
You guys are like a cargo-cult. Libertarians know what science and reason sound like, and try to emulate it so people will think their whacko beliefs are somehow supported by science.
Claiming the title 'reason' for your ideological rantings demonstrates you are unwilling to debate. You've made your mind up, convinced yourselves (in this case, that contrary to all the evidence, mass gun ownership is great) and then declared everyone who dares point out the gaping flaws in your argument as irrational.
This begs the question then - why is there not more crime committed with crude, homemade firearms, especially in places like Europe where - based on what you said - it would be fairly trivial to arm yourself with such?
You don't hear home-made firearms being used in crimes much - I'm guessing because the discipline required to make something of high enough quality that it can stand firing a bullet is not normally found in the same individual as the kind of impulsiveness normally required to commit a violent crime.
The issue here is the possibility of obtaining firearms with no requirement for discipline, training, patience, or anything else that might lower a chances person of using that firearm in anger.
Considering what I just called Libertarians is a set of subjective descriptions, that isn't possible. However, its kind of hilarious for you to assume that Libertarians claims of standing for 'reason' should be considered the null hypothesis - this in itself is pathetically anti-reason.
A large % of Americans are impulsive, stupid, feel the world owes them and are inclined to get very angry when things don't work out for them. A likely identical proportion of Britons are like this too - the only difference is, my lot can't lay their hands on automatic weapons so easily. So yeah, I like gun control laws.
I have no problems with guns themselves - I was taught to shoot as a child - but every idiot walking around with them just seems to be a recipe for Badness.
Doing it with a machine shop requires time, skill, and more importantly a machine shop. The future that could threaten the effectiveness of gun control is one where desktop devices could produce enough parts of a gun that whatever is left over can be obtained legally in your jurisdiction - and the only entry requirement will be the desktop device itself and an internet connection.
As guns are far more strictly controlled over here, and as such you can't obtain the parts that you can't home make, this doesn't really apply to the UK or other countries that don't have everybody armed to the teeth.
...but its only a matter of time really. I actually like gun control laws, but I can't see any way they can be enforced, long term, in light of this kind of technology - without banning the technology outright, which would be like banning home computers in the 1970s. Obviously, the people who have a stake in selling people stuff they may be able to manufacture themselves in the near future are going to love this. Moral panics are always useful for promoting a ruthless, rent seeking economic agenda, as the debate over digital rights has shown.
Sorry to correct you, but the ET must be structural - the orbiter is attached to it, but not to the SRBs. The SRBs produce more thrust than the SSME so the ET must be able to transfer this thrust through to the orbiter. If you side mount the payload (think Energia/Polyus or Shuttle-C) I can't see any reason why the thing would need to be modified internally. You just would need a structure at the base to transfer thrust where it expects it.
I'd disagree with having multiple copies of the same; the strength of designs like Energia, Ariane 5 and the Space Shuttle is having a high Isp (LH2) core stage that gets extra thrust from a lower Isp, high trust booster stage. This gives you the best possible balance between efficient accumulation of delta-V and a minimization of gravity losses.
This. Sure, the F1A fantasy engine gets more thrust - but its still a very old design. There is a modern, closed cycle, engine that gives you similar thrust - and it is available right now, zero development costs. Just swallow your pride and buy Russian.
You could produce a near copy of Energia by using a core stage derived from the Shuttle ET (same width as the Energia core stage) with RS-68 engines (influenced by the RD-0120 engine design), and boosters derived from (currently flying) Zenit first stages. The aerodynamics are already proven.
Staged combustion engines are the most efficient ones you can get - and the Russians are hardly known for making things expensive. As I said, the half sized version of it, the RD-180, serves perfectly well on the Atlas V. The design is one that is well proven by both Private/Ukrainian flights and by US flights. Why would they be produced in the US? RD-180 engines are not (if they are, I'm slightly puzzled as to why they've got Cyrillic letters all over them...)
Let me go further. The RD-180 is actually a 2 thrust chamber version of a 4 trust chamber engine, the RD-170. The newer version of the RD-170, the RD-171 - is currently in service as the first stage engine of the Zenit rocket and critically produces more thrust than an F-1 engine does.
If NASA wants to break out the most powerful liquid fuel engines ever built, they need to go to Russia with their checkbooks again. At the end of the cold war, the Soviets ended up way ahead in liquid engine design - which can be attested to by the fact that many modern US launchers use Russian engines (RD-180, NK-33 soon) or designs which draw on Russian expertise (RS-68)
Obviously this is far from a mass cure. Even if it is develops into a technique that can be widely applied, for low cost - there will be plenty who can't afford it (because pharmaceutical companies, when it comes down to it, care about shareholders not sick people) and there will be plenty who don't know they are infected, and continue to infect others. If any treatment requires your 'good' cells to overwhelm the cells with HIV DNA in them, its going to take a long time. This is not a shot-in-the-arm treatment.
Yes. Russian suits are much more sensibly designed than current, garment-like, US space suits. I've had the laborious process of getting one on explained in a lecture by a Shuttle astronaut - and my immediate thought was, if I were on the ISS and there was a decompression alarm, I'd float straight past the US suits and grab the nearest Orlan.
Its good that NASA isn't applying the not-invented-here principle, and is copying and incrementing the successful Soviet/Russian design.
Not having an airlock saves you a good bit of mass; but then again the LEM didn't have an airlock. They simply depressurized the entire thing. There is also the possibility of having a Voskhod-2 style inflatable airlock.
Depends what they do after the flag-and-footprints missions. They could conceivably follow what was proposed by NASA for the post Apollo era, and use their 100t+ rocket for really big modular missions...
People investing in aerospace who don't understand the difference between kerosene and hydrogen as fuels, deserve to lose their money. I should hope people dumping millions into a project would do a little bit of homework.
What do you mean nobody uses it? Ariane 5 works this way exactly, and it one of the best commercial launchers available. All rockets with boosters work this way to a certain extend. It is generally accepted that you get more reliability the more engines you start on the ground (even single body Falcon 9 adheres to this in a different way - 9 engines started (and checked) on the ground, 1 in the air.
"Unquestionably"? That is a pretty bold claim - especially when no mission, manned or unmanned, that has gone beyond Earth orbit has ever involved a rendezvous of separately launched components. The closest to doing so were the Gemini-Agena missions that got boosted to higher altitudes (which as partly a test run for a flight where the Agena was replaced by a centaur upper stage, and a Gemini flown around the Moon.)
Something that has never, ever been done in history cannot be "unquestionably" cheaper/faster/better than something that has been done.
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My position that libertarians are laughable to claim the title 'reason' exclusively for themselves? Its as based as much on data as it possible could be, seeing as its my opinion. Again, your cargo-cult imitation of rationality does not impress.
As for that crap you posted. Murder rates in the US a Soviet conspiracy? Please, that is conspiracy nut bullshit.
Well, you've kind of proven my point there. A device which makes creating a firearm much less hassle is something to worry about w.r.t. gun control.
I was aware of mass cloning of AKs - but again, the same question comes up. If it is so easy to do this, why isn't every gang in London driving around with home made AKs? They would certainly like to.
Implicitly, by asking for proof.
You guys are like a cargo-cult. Libertarians know what science and reason sound like, and try to emulate it so people will think their whacko beliefs are somehow supported by science.
Claiming the title 'reason' for your ideological rantings demonstrates you are unwilling to debate. You've made your mind up, convinced yourselves (in this case, that contrary to all the evidence, mass gun ownership is great) and then declared everyone who dares point out the gaping flaws in your argument as irrational.
This begs the question then - why is there not more crime committed with crude, homemade firearms, especially in places like Europe where - based on what you said - it would be fairly trivial to arm yourself with such?
You don't hear home-made firearms being used in crimes much - I'm guessing because the discipline required to make something of high enough quality that it can stand firing a bullet is not normally found in the same individual as the kind of impulsiveness normally required to commit a violent crime.
The issue here is the possibility of obtaining firearms with no requirement for discipline, training, patience, or anything else that might lower a chances person of using that firearm in anger.
Considering what I just called Libertarians is a set of subjective descriptions, that isn't possible. However, its kind of hilarious for you to assume that Libertarians claims of standing for 'reason' should be considered the null hypothesis - this in itself is pathetically anti-reason.
That is odd, considering Libertarians are some of the most emotionally-driven, unreasonable people around :)
A large % of Americans are impulsive, stupid, feel the world owes them and are inclined to get very angry when things don't work out for them. A likely identical proportion of Britons are like this too - the only difference is, my lot can't lay their hands on automatic weapons so easily. So yeah, I like gun control laws.
I have no problems with guns themselves - I was taught to shoot as a child - but every idiot walking around with them just seems to be a recipe for Badness.
Doing it with a machine shop requires time, skill, and more importantly a machine shop. The future that could threaten the effectiveness of gun control is one where desktop devices could produce enough parts of a gun that whatever is left over can be obtained legally in your jurisdiction - and the only entry requirement will be the desktop device itself and an internet connection.
As guns are far more strictly controlled over here, and as such you can't obtain the parts that you can't home make, this doesn't really apply to the UK or other countries that don't have everybody armed to the teeth.
...but its only a matter of time really. I actually like gun control laws, but I can't see any way they can be enforced, long term, in light of this kind of technology - without banning the technology outright, which would be like banning home computers in the 1970s. Obviously, the people who have a stake in selling people stuff they may be able to manufacture themselves in the near future are going to love this. Moral panics are always useful for promoting a ruthless, rent seeking economic agenda, as the debate over digital rights has shown.
Sorry to correct you, but the ET must be structural - the orbiter is attached to it, but not to the SRBs. The SRBs produce more thrust than the SSME so the ET must be able to transfer this thrust through to the orbiter. If you side mount the payload (think Energia/Polyus or Shuttle-C) I can't see any reason why the thing would need to be modified internally. You just would need a structure at the base to transfer thrust where it expects it.
I'd disagree with having multiple copies of the same; the strength of designs like Energia, Ariane 5 and the Space Shuttle is having a high Isp (LH2) core stage that gets extra thrust from a lower Isp, high trust booster stage. This gives you the best possible balance between efficient accumulation of delta-V and a minimization of gravity losses.
As you say, this is blue-sky engineering.
This. Sure, the F1A fantasy engine gets more thrust - but its still a very old design. There is a modern, closed cycle, engine that gives you similar thrust - and it is available right now, zero development costs. Just swallow your pride and buy Russian.
You could produce a near copy of Energia by using a core stage derived from the Shuttle ET (same width as the Energia core stage) with RS-68 engines (influenced by the RD-0120 engine design), and boosters derived from (currently flying) Zenit first stages. The aerodynamics are already proven.
Staged combustion engines are the most efficient ones you can get - and the Russians are hardly known for making things expensive. As I said, the half sized version of it, the RD-180, serves perfectly well on the Atlas V. The design is one that is well proven by both Private/Ukrainian flights and by US flights. Why would they be produced in the US? RD-180 engines are not (if they are, I'm slightly puzzled as to why they've got Cyrillic letters all over them...)
If NASA wants to break out the most powerful liquid fuel engines ever built, they need to go to Russia with their checkbooks again. At the end of the cold war, the Soviets ended up way ahead in liquid engine design - which can be attested to by the fact that many modern US launchers use Russian engines (RD-180, NK-33 soon) or designs which draw on Russian expertise (RS-68)
Obviously this is far from a mass cure. Even if it is develops into a technique that can be widely applied, for low cost - there will be plenty who can't afford it (because pharmaceutical companies, when it comes down to it, care about shareholders not sick people) and there will be plenty who don't know they are infected, and continue to infect others. If any treatment requires your 'good' cells to overwhelm the cells with HIV DNA in them, its going to take a long time. This is not a shot-in-the-arm treatment.
Safer. Uh huh. Really safe when the tube decompresses, the superconductors quench, and you smack into the side of the tube at 4000km/h....
Yes. Russian suits are much more sensibly designed than current, garment-like, US space suits. I've had the laborious process of getting one on explained in a lecture by a Shuttle astronaut - and my immediate thought was, if I were on the ISS and there was a decompression alarm, I'd float straight past the US suits and grab the nearest Orlan.
Its good that NASA isn't applying the not-invented-here principle, and is copying and incrementing the successful Soviet/Russian design.
Not having an airlock saves you a good bit of mass; but then again the LEM didn't have an airlock. They simply depressurized the entire thing. There is also the possibility of having a Voskhod-2 style inflatable airlock.
If its all the same to you, I'd prefer to fly on pre-cooled jet engines www.reactionengines.co.uk/lapcat.html
Depends what they do after the flag-and-footprints missions. They could conceivably follow what was proposed by NASA for the post Apollo era, and use their 100t+ rocket for really big modular missions...
The second stage motor on Ariane 5 is tiny compared to the boosters and the main engine. You are splitting hairs here, really.
People investing in aerospace who don't understand the difference between kerosene and hydrogen as fuels, deserve to lose their money. I should hope people dumping millions into a project would do a little bit of homework.
What do you mean nobody uses it? Ariane 5 works this way exactly, and it one of the best commercial launchers available. All rockets with boosters work this way to a certain extend. It is generally accepted that you get more reliability the more engines you start on the ground (even single body Falcon 9 adheres to this in a different way - 9 engines started (and checked) on the ground, 1 in the air.
"Unquestionably"? That is a pretty bold claim - especially when no mission, manned or unmanned, that has gone beyond Earth orbit has ever involved a rendezvous of separately launched components. The closest to doing so were the Gemini-Agena missions that got boosted to higher altitudes (which as partly a test run for a flight where the Agena was replaced by a centaur upper stage, and a Gemini flown around the Moon.)
Something that has never, ever been done in history cannot be "unquestionably" cheaper/faster/better than something that has been done.