Or, translating what you say into a simpler form: "I don't have an actual intelligent reply to your statement, so I'll just bullshit, handwave, and smokescreen".
But as a practical matter I don't see why anyone has a problem with cleaning up our act.
Because "cleaning up our act" is going to cost tens of trillions of dollars, possibly represent significant dislocations in lifestyles, and will have unknown environmental effects in and of itself.
I watched as Congress gutted NASA after Apollo and managed to create the kludge that is the Shuttle.
In other words, even though 'grew up' around NASA, you prefer urban legends to facts.
I know enough to realize that rocket science is hard and that Congress, as a body, is no more able to micromanage booster technology than it is able to manage, well just about anything.
Had Congress micromanaged booster technology, you'd have a point. But the fact is, a reusable booster was on NASA's menu from very early on. Even while Gemini was flying, NASA was planning the Shuttle.
Heck, remember Gemini was itself a political creation. As Mercury was winding down, NASA management realized that it would be years before Apollo flew and that they needed some Buck Rogers to keep the bucks flowing, so they dusted off an unsolicited McDonnell (not yet merged with Douglas) proposal for Mercury MKII and justified it was 'a development program for Apollo'. (Despite the fact that the Apollo design was already frozen.)
I watched as NASA and it's contractors managed to get the Shuttle off the ground despite the roadblocks put up in front of if.
Roadblocks largely put in front of it by NASA itself.
Despite being clearly told that budgets would be limited in the future, NASA insisted on proposing an expensive Shuttle-Station-Mars program. When rebuked by Congress, NASA responded by promising to deliver a revolutionary new spacecraft on an extremely optimistic budget and an even more optimistic schedule. Many space historians believe that NASA had convinced itself, despite abundant evidence otherwise, that the austerity of the late 60's and early 70's was an aberration and that soon happy times and near blank checks would resume shortly. More than a few believe that, institutionally, NASA retains this conviction even today.
Right. When that fist or nightstick is headed towards your face, don't throw up your arm to protect yourself, just take the hit. We have advanced dental science in America; once you get out of prison your teeth can be made almost as good as new. In fact, it's recommended that with every kick or punch, you say "Thank you sir may I have another".
And you think fighting back and attacking the cops is going to stop that? You truly live in a fantasy world utterly unconnected from reality.
Allowing cops to beat on people with no punishment for them and punishment for their victims even if the cops were in the wrong -- that's what's really anathema to the rule of law.
Had the OP suggested that, you'd have a point. Instead you're just an aggressive and ignorant asshole who thinks fighting cops doesn't make you look like an aggressive and ignorant asshole.
As a Canadian I will never understand why the US is so eager about its boarder security with Canada.
Mostly because, if you aren't American, Canadians tend to be less than picky about who they let into their country and lax about checking papers and background.
Take a look at a map of North America, we share a huge boarder. If some one wanted to get across undetected, they would go to Calgary, Edmonton, etc. Buy/Rent a off-road vehicle and just drive in across some open fields. It's not hard to figure out.
Since few people seem to try that method, that should be an indication of just how little it is likely to work.
Sounds like the unfortunate combination of a pissed off officer and a less-that-sympathetic citizen compounded by detectives/officers who get pissed when prisoners refuse to talk.
It sounds nothing like that - because that's not what your summary describes.
Because they only way to make the cops become something other than corrupt power-mongering jerks is to stand up, make a fuss, get noticed, and have someone above those cops do something about it. Which takes public outcry and attention.
Which, when you are confronted by a cop, is exactly the wrong thing to do - because it doesn't accomplish any of your goals. But you're too thick headed and aggressive to realize it.
If everyone rolls over, it no longer matters if what they are doing is wrong: They got away with it. With a cop, you have the chance you might be able to make a change by standing up to them. (At least in a country where the government is still concerned with public opinion.)
Whether the government care about public opinion or not is utterly irrelevant. When you act like an ignorant aggressive asshole, you're going to be dismissed in the court of public opinion as an ignorant aggressive asshole. And they're right - by provoking a confrontation for no other reason than to provoke a confrontation to 'prove' that you won't be 'rolled over', you're the one in the wrong.
Him and millions of other people who know absolutely nothing about security, yet somehow have come to the conclusions they are PhD level experts on all facets of security and have a massive bias against the Bush Administration, have decided, completely and utterly without experience or evidence, that a posted sign saying "Don't hijack the plane" would be about as effective and far less annoying than homeland security.
While reading through suprisingly ignorant comments on _new_ tech of launching an ICMB from submerged position (this is slashdot, we are all supposed to be armchair warriors with underdeveloped muscle tissue and oversized brains filled with data on weaponry we would never, ever see unless its on youtube)
That's the stereotype. But some of us have actually been there, done that, as well as being serious amateur historians and students of the weapons and technology involved.
Disclaimer: I am one such. I was a Ballistic Missile Fire Control tech for the USN, and have studied SLBM technology and operations for decades.
In 199something (don't remember, but it was a crappy year in Russia - lost of bad news, the story got lost and resurfaced only in 2002 I think) Russian submarine has successfully launched ITS ENTIRE PAYLOAD in quick succession (as in several seconds between missiles) from submerged position - quite a feat of technology
Hardly. Both the US and Russia have been able to do so since the early 60's.
Missile submarines are *designed* to be able to salvo their weapons within a short time frame. It's just that nobody regularly salvos a full load of test missiles because missiles are expensive and the maintenance required on the tubes afterward is time consuming.
US/UK (and I presume French and Russian) submarines are built with automatic systems to manage the ballast functions. It's not a particularly complex algorithm or overall problem. (The transistor based analog system US SSBN's started using in the early 70's, replacing an earlier system, fit in a box not much larger than a shoebox.) It's not even particularly difficult to do manually, anyone with average coordination can do so with a few days of intensive training. (I suspect a modern gamer would require even less.)
So all in all - ICBMS from under water = old news.
There was once a time that Russia would have just kept schtum.
The time Russia would simply have remained quiet ended long before the Soviet Union did. IIRC it was in the 60's that everyone agreed to notify the world of their launches in advance in order to prevent a test or training (or spacebound) launch from being mistaken for the opening salvo of WWIII.
How many UFO reports are due to similar failed firings prior to the end of the Cold War?
Probably plenty, but just because John (or Ivan) Q. Public was unaware of the launch does not mean the appropriate authorities were. Indeed, that's the case here - the appropriate notifications were filed and the appropriate announcements made, but the general population were unaware of them.
The first image from vg is taken with a long shutter time (or long exposure, or what the english expression is) on a tripod.
In other words - what the photograph show isn't what was seen by the naked eye. (In particular the neat concentric rings in that photograph strike me as being an artifact.) Comparing it to the very different image in your second link (also obviously a time exposure) is interesting.
The difference is that you act as though those problems are practically insurmountable. The others posting here believe that they can be solved.
No, the difference is I actually enumerate the problems and discuss them - while the others posting are either ignorant of them being problems in the first place or treat them as if they are already solved and ready to be applied off the shelf. Because the space advocacy community rarely (if ever) discusses engineering, financing, or any other problems in detail, this makes those of us willing to actually do so appear as pessimists or detractors.
Also, by negative, i meant that you do not contribute positively to the conversation. Instead of looking at the problems, and suggesting ways they might be solved, or an alternative method that doesn't result in that problem, you just dismiss the whole idea as being a ridiculous fantasy.
As I said - facts are neutral, neither positive or negative. Since the space advocacy community is, in general, unused to thinking critically and analytically, those few of us who do so appear negative in contrast. (And then they do as you do, attack us not on facts but on not being part of the herd and being touchy-feelie-fuzzy 'positive' rather than adressing those facts.)
Before one can solve a problem, one must define the background and boundary conditions. Then you can move forward to a valid solution. What the space advocacy community does is leap from assumption to conclusion without validating their assumptions against reality, and thus reaches conclusions that *are* ridiculous fantasies because they have no in grounding reality. (Like little children when each Christmas a pony stubbornly refuses to appear under the tree despite them wishing *really* hard and repeatedly asking the Santa down at the mall for one.)
And thus, again, I appear negative because I refuse to go with the herd in admiring the emperor's new clothes.
That's certainly true, but they probably wouldn't have gotten to that point as quickly as they did without NASA developing and handing them the technologies, or at least subsidizing the development of those technologies.
So what? The point it, the OP is wrong. Period. There has been a private space industry for decades, making a profit selling goods and services to other private industries. NASA and other government space activities really represent a small (however very well publicized) portion of the space industry.
It's actually quite sad, but I've found that the vocal majority of the space advocacy community to be generally rather ill informed. Most just repeat the same articles of faith (like the OP's) without knowledge or understanding of the facts.
I think the point the parent was trying to make is that governments have been leading development in space since the beginning.
Again, so what? That doesn't change the facts one bit, the OP's assertion is dead wrong.
I prefer to be an optimist.
Don't get me wrong, I'm in favor of more space access, etc. etc.. But I'm a realist. I deal in facts, not smokescreens and spin, and emphatically not in the urban legends that permeate the space advocacy community.
In short, you handwave, smokescreen, and bullshit to hide the fact that a) you can't support your claim, and b) you don't know what you are talking about.
Japan had only one real front in the lead up to Pearl Harbor. For all intents and purposes Japan was only focused on expanding westward into Asia.
In some alternate universe where Japan didn't attack southwards to obtain resources, sure.
So when America decided to blockade South Asian shipping routes to effectively starve Japan of steel and other necessary resources, the Japanese had only one recourse.
In some alternate universe where the US blockaded shipping routes, sure.
Back then, American planes could not land with unexpended munitions because the explosives were not inert and posed a risk of fire or explosion.
Now I know you're bullshitting or repeating bullshit somebody else has fed you - because explosives today aren't inert and pose a risk of fire or explosion. If it's inert, it's not a munition.
The 24/7 including holidays on call requirement sounds like something a company would do when they are expecting to have a lot of folk in India doing the technical work.
It also sounds like a company that operates 24/7 and on holidays - like a bank, or an airline, or a hospital/health care provider, or a major web based business, or a public utility, or... well any of hundreds of other functions and industries or the people who support them.
I know two IT workers who are on call 24/7/365. The first manages the SCADA system for a water utility as well as the county wide fiber optic backbone the utility operates. The second manages the internal logistics data processing center for a major international company with warehouses and retail outlets in virtually every time zone. (He used to manage the logistics data processing for a major e-tailer - he was on call 24/7/365 there too.)
Heck, my wife is 'on call' for IT support whenever the business she works at is open and she isn't there, despite not being a tech. She's the boss accountant, and as the business is too small to have a dedicated IT per person, she's in charge of the POS/vertical app that runs the business.
"Management" is code for "You're responsible when things go wrong"
It's also code for "here's some power and authority to make things right".
In fact, as long as I'm on a roll here, "No" is the most valuable word an employee has. Once they know you'll take a stand and won't be a doormat, they'll respect you and will think twice before trying to get you to clean up somebody else's mess.
Or they'll tag you as problem and unambitious and you end up in a dead end - unpromotable and last in line to be considered for any raises, extras, or bennies (and the first out the door when the axe falls). (I think the whole 'doormat' claim is the creation of people with serious self esteem problems anyhow.)
Actually being a publicly held company, Google has a legal obligation to adhere to it's mission statement approved by the share holders.
Um... Bullshit. No such legal obligation exists. In fact, this is the first time I've ever even heard such a claim.
The "Legal obligation to place money over principles" is a defense executives and PR firms like to toss around to shift blame.
Any publicly held corporation has the legal obligation to return value to it's shareholders, it's not a defense, it's the stone cold truth - hence the Revlon Rule.
I will accept that I have occasionally verged onto Google fandom, and that it can somewhat blind me to the dangers that Google can present. But I can explain why it has such appeal for many of us:
That smells like a backronym to me. Google fanboyism was strong from very early on, long before any of the things you cite came to be.
I was just showing that the numbers for aircraft payloads and rocket masses aren't that much at odds with each other.
And I showed where your assumptions diverge from reality. It's not just about raw mass.
I don't expect this video will change your mind...it's clearly a fabrication, something impossible: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uHIOLvXy8Bk Behold! Recent test of mock-up weighting 35 tonnes, half of the C-17 payload, dropped from the rear ramp of unmodified aircraft.
Do I really need to point out the difference between a (physically small) 35 ton mockup and a (physically large) 250 ton rocket? (And note that I never claimed it was impossible.)
Also, An-225 can carry 200 tonnes on its back so that's another option...one that Russians wanted to use in cheap launcher, actually... http://www.astronautix.com/lvs/maks.htm...too bad the project died together with Soviet Union. But their plans (which reached hardware development stage) clearly show that such launcher, with the weight of smallest Delta IV, can carry not 8.6 tonnes into LEO, but a spaceplane weighting almost 30 tonnes (with cargo)
Those are plans, not flight vehicles, and as above I shouldn't have to point out the difference between the two. In the real world of engineering payloads decrease and system weights increase when you move from paper to metal. Factor in the Soviet propensity to stubbornly stick to a project for political reasons even when the paper shows it to be dodgy...
Not to mention - you really should read what you link to, failing to do so makes you look stupid. Try reading the linked page above and note the cargo capacity of the MAKS orbiter. Once again, you're impressed by sheer mass and dick size with no more understanding of what the numbers really mean than the cushion beneath my butt.
Yes, it will be hard. Though I understand why you want it to be easy, it's not rocket science after all.
I don't know who you're responding to - because I never claimed I wanted it to be easy.
Slashdot Mirror
Or, translating what you say into a simpler form: "I don't have an actual intelligent reply to your statement, so I'll just bullshit, handwave, and smokescreen".
Higher compared to what? Are your statistics corrected for inflation?
Because "cleaning up our act" is going to cost tens of trillions of dollars, possibly represent significant dislocations in lifestyles, and will have unknown environmental effects in and of itself.
In other words, even though 'grew up' around NASA, you prefer urban legends to facts.
Had Congress micromanaged booster technology, you'd have a point. But the fact is, a reusable booster was on NASA's menu from very early on. Even while Gemini was flying, NASA was planning the Shuttle.
Heck, remember Gemini was itself a political creation. As Mercury was winding down, NASA management realized that it would be years before Apollo flew and that they needed some Buck Rogers to keep the bucks flowing, so they dusted off an unsolicited McDonnell (not yet merged with Douglas) proposal for Mercury MKII and justified it was 'a development program for Apollo'. (Despite the fact that the Apollo design was already frozen.)
Roadblocks largely put in front of it by NASA itself.
Despite being clearly told that budgets would be limited in the future, NASA insisted on proposing an expensive Shuttle-Station-Mars program. When rebuked by Congress, NASA responded by promising to deliver a revolutionary new spacecraft on an extremely optimistic budget and an even more optimistic schedule. Many space historians believe that NASA had convinced itself, despite abundant evidence otherwise, that the austerity of the late 60's and early 70's was an aberration and that soon happy times and near blank checks would resume shortly. More than a few believe that, institutionally, NASA retains this conviction even today.
And you think fighting back and attacking the cops is going to stop that? You truly live in a fantasy world utterly unconnected from reality.
Had the OP suggested that, you'd have a point. Instead you're just an aggressive and ignorant asshole who thinks fighting cops doesn't make you look like an aggressive and ignorant asshole.
Mostly because, if you aren't American, Canadians tend to be less than picky about who they let into their country and lax about checking papers and background.
Since few people seem to try that method, that should be an indication of just how little it is likely to work.
It sounds nothing like that - because that's not what your summary describes.
Which, when you are confronted by a cop, is exactly the wrong thing to do - because it doesn't accomplish any of your goals. But you're too thick headed and aggressive to realize it.
Whether the government care about public opinion or not is utterly irrelevant. When you act like an ignorant aggressive asshole, you're going to be dismissed in the court of public opinion as an ignorant aggressive asshole. And they're right - by provoking a confrontation for no other reason than to provoke a confrontation to 'prove' that you won't be 'rolled over', you're the one in the wrong.
There, fixed that for you.
That's the stereotype. But some of us have actually been there, done that, as well as being serious amateur historians and students of the weapons and technology involved.
Disclaimer: I am one such. I was a Ballistic Missile Fire Control tech for the USN, and have studied SLBM technology and operations for decades.
Hardly. Both the US and Russia have been able to do so since the early 60's.
Missile submarines are *designed* to be able to salvo their weapons within a short time frame. It's just that nobody regularly salvos a full load of test missiles because missiles are expensive and the maintenance required on the tubes afterward is time consuming.
US/UK (and I presume French and Russian) submarines are built with automatic systems to manage the ballast functions. It's not a particularly complex algorithm or overall problem. (The transistor based analog system US SSBN's started using in the early 70's, replacing an earlier system, fit in a box not much larger than a shoebox.) It's not even particularly difficult to do manually, anyone with average coordination can do so with a few days of intensive training. (I suspect a modern gamer would require even less.)
Very, very old news.
The time Russia would simply have remained quiet ended long before the Soviet Union did. IIRC it was in the 60's that everyone agreed to notify the world of their launches in advance in order to prevent a test or training (or spacebound) launch from being mistaken for the opening salvo of WWIII.
Probably plenty, but just because John (or Ivan) Q. Public was unaware of the launch does not mean the appropriate authorities were. Indeed, that's the case here - the appropriate notifications were filed and the appropriate announcements made, but the general population were unaware of them.
Of course knowing that SHPEGS is your concept puts your advocacy in a different light.
I notice in the two years since SHPEGS was featured on Slashdot you don't appear to have much progress.
"While nothing interesting was found by most scientific journals"
That's like asking the fox whether he's been keeping the henhouse secure.
In other words - what the photograph show isn't what was seen by the naked eye. (In particular the neat concentric rings in that photograph strike me as being an artifact.) Comparing it to the very different image in your second link (also obviously a time exposure) is interesting.
No, the difference is I actually enumerate the problems and discuss them - while the others posting are either ignorant of them being problems in the first place or treat them as if they are already solved and ready to be applied off the shelf. Because the space advocacy community rarely (if ever) discusses engineering, financing, or any other problems in detail, this makes those of us willing to actually do so appear as pessimists or detractors.
As I said - facts are neutral, neither positive or negative. Since the space advocacy community is, in general, unused to thinking critically and analytically, those few of us who do so appear negative in contrast. (And then they do as you do, attack us not on facts but on not being part of the herd and being touchy-feelie-fuzzy 'positive' rather than adressing those facts.)
Before one can solve a problem, one must define the background and boundary conditions. Then you can move forward to a valid solution. What the space advocacy community does is leap from assumption to conclusion without validating their assumptions against reality, and thus reaches conclusions that *are* ridiculous fantasies because they have no in grounding reality. (Like little children when each Christmas a pony stubbornly refuses to appear under the tree despite them wishing *really* hard and repeatedly asking the Santa down at the mall for one.)
And thus, again, I appear negative because I refuse to go with the herd in admiring the emperor's new clothes.
So what? The point it, the OP is wrong. Period. There has been a private space industry for decades, making a profit selling goods and services to other private industries. NASA and other government space activities really represent a small (however very well publicized) portion of the space industry.
It's actually quite sad, but I've found that the vocal majority of the space advocacy community to be generally rather ill informed. Most just repeat the same articles of faith (like the OP's) without knowledge or understanding of the facts.
Again, so what? That doesn't change the facts one bit, the OP's assertion is dead wrong.
Don't get me wrong, I'm in favor of more space access, etc. etc.. But I'm a realist. I deal in facts, not smokescreens and spin, and emphatically not in the urban legends that permeate the space advocacy community.
Sorry, but facts aren't negative. Virtually all of what you call 'optimistic' posts are nothing but fantasies with little or no grounding in reality.
In short, you handwave, smokescreen, and bullshit to hide the fact that a) you can't support your claim, and b) you don't know what you are talking about.
In some alternate universe where Japan didn't attack southwards to obtain resources, sure.
In some alternate universe where the US blockaded shipping routes, sure.
Now I know you're bullshitting or repeating bullshit somebody else has fed you - because explosives today aren't inert and pose a risk of fire or explosion. If it's inert, it's not a munition.
It also sounds like a company that operates 24/7 and on holidays - like a bank, or an airline, or a hospital/health care provider, or a major web based business, or a public utility, or... well any of hundreds of other functions and industries or the people who support them.
I know two IT workers who are on call 24/7/365. The first manages the SCADA system for a water utility as well as the county wide fiber optic backbone the utility operates. The second manages the internal logistics data processing center for a major international company with warehouses and retail outlets in virtually every time zone. (He used to manage the logistics data processing for a major e-tailer - he was on call 24/7/365 there too.)
Heck, my wife is 'on call' for IT support whenever the business she works at is open and she isn't there, despite not being a tech. She's the boss accountant, and as the business is too small to have a dedicated IT per person, she's in charge of the POS/vertical app that runs the business.
It's also code for "here's some power and authority to make things right".
Or they'll tag you as problem and unambitious and you end up in a dead end - unpromotable and last in line to be considered for any raises, extras, or bennies (and the first out the door when the axe falls). (I think the whole 'doormat' claim is the creation of people with serious self esteem problems anyhow.)
Um... Bullshit. No such legal obligation exists. In fact, this is the first time I've ever even heard such a claim.
Any publicly held corporation has the legal obligation to return value to it's shareholders, it's not a defense, it's the stone cold truth - hence the Revlon Rule.
That smells like a backronym to me. Google fanboyism was strong from very early on, long before any of the things you cite came to be.
And I showed where your assumptions diverge from reality. It's not just about raw mass.
Do I really need to point out the difference between a (physically small) 35 ton mockup and a (physically large) 250 ton rocket? (And note that I never claimed it was impossible.)
Those are plans, not flight vehicles, and as above I shouldn't have to point out the difference between the two. In the real world of engineering payloads decrease and system weights increase when you move from paper to metal. Factor in the Soviet propensity to stubbornly stick to a project for political reasons even when the paper shows it to be dodgy...
Not to mention - you really should read what you link to, failing to do so makes you look stupid. Try reading the linked page above and note the cargo capacity of the MAKS orbiter. Once again, you're impressed by sheer mass and dick size with no more understanding of what the numbers really mean than the cushion beneath my butt.
I don't know who you're responding to - because I never claimed I wanted it to be easy.