The ultimate mission of Apollo was to build a moon base.
No, the ultimate goal of Apollo (according to the only people that mattered - those who signed the checks, that is the Administration and Congress) was to "land a man on the moon and return him safely to Earth" as part of a cold war pissing contest. NASA, on their own hook and from whole cloth, invented and popularized the idea that Apollo was intended to build a moon base and to be a precursor to Mars missions. These 'extended missions' never were well funded, and were slashed in 1967.
The result of this, and NASA propaganda that didn't quiet until the early 70's, is generations of ill informed fan boys believing an utter falsehood.
Not if you've followed his blogs and read of the number of problems and failures he's faced over the years. (Not to mention quite a few outright screwups.) He's climbed a very steep learning curve learning the difference between software and hardware.
> A quantity of small "coulds" coming together at the wrong time and place is how a lot of accidents happen
That is absolutely correct. That is how accidents happen. But if you or I or McVeigh planned to force "a critical density of 'coulds'," it would never work.
Yep. Which is also why the launch command process has multiple 'fail safe' checkpoints - it takes more than quite a few 'coulds' to reach critical density.
Without going too much into detail - sending launch orders requires much more than simply hacking into the network (which are probably air gapped anyhow).
The message has to contain certain authorization codes so the recipient knows that it's not only a valid order, but that it is a valid launch order (as opposed to a valid test or training order). Those codes are stored in a double sealed envelope inside a safe with an inner and outer door - and each combo is controlled by a different person.
As I returned it to him, I said "I turned WiFi and Bluetooth off by default. I assume you'd get in trouble if your stealth-sub got spotted by something as simple as your opponent searching for available networks."
US submarines have been using walkie-talkies onboard for decades. Not to mention the not inconsiderable EMF put out by the vast quantities of electronics onboard. If this was a problem, we'd have done something about it decades ago... But as it turns out, salt water is a piss poor conductor of radio waves except at very long frequencies. This is something every competent submariner (at least in the US) knows, as it's why SSBN's carry radio buoys and every submarine mounts radio antennas in the sail and must come to at least periscope depth to communicate.
I got the LPD and the Wasp mixed up.. I always do.
Even if you get the Wasp and an LPD mixed up, my same comment still applies - neither an LPD or an LHD is a CV. Three different ships, three different missions. (Though the missions of the LPD and the LHD are related.)
The point of the comparison was really, both the Wasp and the British stuff can operate a few VTOL planes.
Which works so long as your opponent similarly limits himself to a small number of low performance aircraft. If you face an opponent who doesn't... You're in deep, deep shit.
I think the official british role is ASW but they were pressed quite successfuly into an assault and local air superiority role during the Falklands war.
Which worked because the Argentinean's were borderline incompetent, and operating at the extreme edge of their range. A very specific set of circumstances and one very, very, dangerous to generalize from.
I dunno, but didn't the Nazis lose with the current "Overengineering, exepensive and too few versus" principle the US is using today to the "Just barely good enough, cheap and lots of them" principle we had in WWII?
No. The Nazi's lost in WII because (among many other reasons) they didn't invest much in R&D (especially D) until too late, because they were reluctant to disturb existing production lines because they needed the capacity to not lose, and were reluctant to convert civilian production to military production or to greatly expand military production. Which meant that in 1943/44 they were facing Allied 1943/44 systems with their own 1938/39 systems.
The Nazi's planned on a short war, and when it went into extra innnings they had no reserves.
But it's nice to see A10s and B52s still in service. Made dack when the US actually knew how to build something.
The A-10 has been upgraded multiple times, it's hardly the same aircraft that rolled off the production lines in the 70's.
The B-52's have been upgraded and modified so many times, we've paid for each individual aircraft probably ten times over. So much of the original structure and systems have been replaced that the only original item on them is probably the nameplate.
This is a great idea because consumers can buy it and use option #2 while more and more electric-vehicle charging stations are built as the tech becomes more mainstream.
The problem isn't going to be in building electric charging stations - but in the distribution grid required to deliver the power levels needed for rapid recharge.
Republicans say they are against this, but, man, every year the US Senate bought another LPD because they were made in Trent Lotts home state, until now the USA has like almost 20 little aircraft carriers about the same size as the 2 the British operate, and that's on top of its nimitzs.
Umm... Generally what you say is true, but this is a bad example because an LPD isn't a CV and vice versa. Very different ships for very different jobs.
Getting there and seeing what's out there are the kind of thing EVERYBODY can get behind -- there's no specific religious, political or racial bias to outer space exploration.
True, but meaningless. While there is no bias to space exploration per se, there are plenty of arguments against spending the money, and plenty of people who believe those arguments. (And I can't convince myself they are entirely wrong.)
One thing we've stopped figuring out and stopped doing due our own personal greed are the grand, public gestures of government that provide some kind of bigger purpose.
With regards to Apollo, we can't stop doing something we never started doing in the first place. Apollo was a Cold War pissing contest, nothing more and nothing less.
It looked like we were *going somewhere* as a civilization.
That's a delusion based on the unfounded assumption that Apollo was something it wasn't.
8) SALT II would have long been abandoned and Earth would be surrounded by nuke armed stations. 9) No Cruise missiles. Why build a Mosquito when an Elephant would be cheaper.
Read up on the Revolt of the Admirals sometime. There's a good reason why we have cruise missiles and not nukes.
Partly right, mostly wrong. The Revolt lead to the USN cruise missiles of the 1950's/early 60's - but those were replaced by SLBM's as the shortcomings of cruise missiles became apparent. (The shortcomings were mostly guidance and accuracy problems, plus concerns of the hangars they would be housed in on submarines represented a major flooding hazard. Surface ship launching platforms were believed to be too vulnerable.)
Modern era cruise missiles (ALCM, GLCM, Tomahawk, etc...) came about because they were a class of nuclear weapon not limited by SALT II. (Though I find the grandfathers conclusion that SALT would be a dead issue to be a questionable one.)
Well, if the Apollo program had continued we'd be spared endless repeats of the question "what if the Apollo program had continued?". Instead, we'd have endless repeates of the question "what if Apollo had been canceled and NASA built a reusable system?".
Oh, wait. We do. Why are we even talking about building hybrids when the Navy already has more than 80 electrics in the form of nuclear powered vessels?
Because all but two of those nuclear powered submarines (Tulibee and Glenard P. Lipscomb) are direct drive - the turbines are directly geared to the propeller shaft. In the balance, electric propulsion was an only used for limited duration emergency backup. Not really a hybrid system at all. (We could have used it as a hybrid system, but we didn't for a variety of reasons.)
In addition, there are potentially a number of different arrangements of components and detail differences in implementation.
I've been saying that for years (and not just because I'm USN/Submarine service). The fighter jock mentality that worked so well for Mercury works less well as missions become longer and more demanding - but the submariner mentality is perfectly suited for such missions.
On the subject of Alan Shepard - I once saw a study that showed that NASA (probably unconsciously) tended to select Naval and Marine aviators over USAF pilots for mission command and pilot slots. Not overwhelming so, but the ratio was decidedly lopsided. (IIRC there were at least two all Navy Apollo crews to only one all USAF crew.)
See, those 105 people *knew* that just outside the cramped wall was a big, beautiful, receptive planet, with air to breathe, beer to drink, and babes walking around to scope out.
Believe it not, that makes it harder rather then easier. When I was making SSBN patrols for the USN, 'fast cruises' (simulating underway while tied up to the pier) were much harder knowing those things were so close. Actual patrols were easier because you knew they weren't close and thus weren't nearly so much a distraction.
Sure, just about anybody could live with this kind of stress for a while, but we're not talking about a while, we're talking about MONTHS of this kind of pressure. Many perfectly healthy, strong, capable people would crack under this kind of pressure.
Which is why they don't let just anyone go, just like the Submarine Service they pick preferentially from the right hand side of the bell curve. Sure, the occasional loon makes it through screening, but that doesn't disprove the whole concept.
I would have thought that would be an easy thing to provide them for mental stimulation on a long boring journey. Couple of laptops with few thousand hours of video, games, website snapshots, virtual environments to explore.
The question you ask in your subject ("Why no TV/Internet?") and the answer you provide are, to some extent, apples and oranges.
They had no [live] TV/internet because a real space craft headed even to the Moon, let alone Mars, would have such access. A laptop loaded as your propose is no substitute because it isn't 'live' or 'real' in the same manner they would experience TV or internet the same way they would sitting at home. It's canned, not spontaneous, and it doesn't change over time.
Which, of course, isn't to say that such things aren't valuable, only that they are to real thing like a Real Doll is to actual human contact and communication. (Even non sexual contact.) Over time, such things only serve to increase the pressure of being far from home. Canned and simulated entertainment is ultimately no substitute for actual communication.
Disclaimer - I am not an astronaut, nor do I play one on TV. But I did make multiple SSBN patrols while serving in the USN Submarine Service. (However, I served back in the 1980's, long before laptops became available or common.)
Nevertheless, when NASA delays a launch to do a safety check, everybody complains how incompetent they are. When Space-X delays, everybody praises them for being cautious.
As I've long said - NASA just can't win. Delay for safety, and they're incompetent. Don't delay, and they're reckless.
Slashdot Mirror
No, the ultimate goal of Apollo (according to the only people that mattered - those who signed the checks, that is the Administration and Congress) was to "land a man on the moon and return him safely to Earth" as part of a cold war pissing contest. NASA, on their own hook and from whole cloth, invented and popularized the idea that Apollo was intended to build a moon base and to be a precursor to Mars missions. These 'extended missions' never were well funded, and were slashed in 1967.
The result of this, and NASA propaganda that didn't quiet until the early 70's, is generations of ill informed fan boys believing an utter falsehood.
Not if you've followed his blogs and read of the number of problems and failures he's faced over the years. (Not to mention quite a few outright screwups.) He's climbed a very steep learning curve learning the difference between software and hardware.
Yep. Which is also why the launch command process has multiple 'fail safe' checkpoints - it takes more than quite a few 'coulds' to reach critical density.
Without going too much into detail - sending launch orders requires much more than simply hacking into the network (which are probably air gapped anyhow).
The message has to contain certain authorization codes so the recipient knows that it's not only a valid order, but that it is a valid launch order (as opposed to a valid test or training order). Those codes are stored in a double sealed envelope inside a safe with an inner and outer door - and each combo is controlled by a different person.
US submarines have been using walkie-talkies onboard for decades. Not to mention the not inconsiderable EMF put out by the vast quantities of electronics onboard. If this was a problem, we'd have done something about it decades ago... But as it turns out, salt water is a piss poor conductor of radio waves except at very long frequencies. This is something every competent submariner (at least in the US) knows, as it's why SSBN's carry radio buoys and every submarine mounts radio antennas in the sail and must come to at least periscope depth to communicate.
Because there doesn't currently exist a cheap method of storing huge amounts of electric power to release at demand.
Even if you get the Wasp and an LPD mixed up, my same comment still applies - neither an LPD or an LHD is a CV. Three different ships, three different missions. (Though the missions of the LPD and the LHD are related.)
Which works so long as your opponent similarly limits himself to a small number of low performance aircraft. If you face an opponent who doesn't... You're in deep, deep shit.
Which worked because the Argentinean's were borderline incompetent, and operating at the extreme edge of their range. A very specific set of circumstances and one very, very, dangerous to generalize from.
No. The Nazi's lost in WII because (among many other reasons) they didn't invest much in R&D (especially D) until too late, because they were reluctant to disturb existing production lines because they needed the capacity to not lose, and were reluctant to convert civilian production to military production or to greatly expand military production. Which meant that in 1943/44 they were facing Allied 1943/44 systems with their own 1938/39 systems.
The Nazi's planned on a short war, and when it went into extra innnings they had no reserves.
The A-10 has been upgraded multiple times, it's hardly the same aircraft that rolled off the production lines in the 70's.
The B-52's have been upgraded and modified so many times, we've paid for each individual aircraft probably ten times over. So much of the original structure and systems have been replaced that the only original item on them is probably the nameplate.
The problem isn't going to be in building electric charging stations - but in the distribution grid required to deliver the power levels needed for rapid recharge.
Umm... Generally what you say is true, but this is a bad example because an LPD isn't a CV and vice versa. Very different ships for very different jobs.
Yep - while Slashdot, supposedly the home of the forward looking geek and nerd, spend their time (once again) pointing and laughing.
Given that the X prize contributed not at all to SpaceX (and the US Government did)....
There were several set of additional hardware complete or in progress - but they were off the manifest and production halted in 1968 and early 1969.
Indeed, there was serious consideration given to canceling Apollo 17 on exactly those grounds.
True, but meaningless. While there is no bias to space exploration per se, there are plenty of arguments against spending the money, and plenty of people who believe those arguments. (And I can't convince myself they are entirely wrong.)
With regards to Apollo, we can't stop doing something we never started doing in the first place. Apollo was a Cold War pissing contest, nothing more and nothing less.
That's a delusion based on the unfounded assumption that Apollo was something it wasn't.
Partly right, mostly wrong. The Revolt lead to the USN cruise missiles of the 1950's/early 60's - but those were replaced by SLBM's as the shortcomings of cruise missiles became apparent. (The shortcomings were mostly guidance and accuracy problems, plus concerns of the hangars they would be housed in on submarines represented a major flooding hazard. Surface ship launching platforms were believed to be too vulnerable.)
Modern era cruise missiles (ALCM, GLCM, Tomahawk, etc...) came about because they were a class of nuclear weapon not limited by SALT II. (Though I find the grandfathers conclusion that SALT would be a dead issue to be a questionable one.)
Well, if the Apollo program had continued we'd be spared endless repeats of the question "what if the Apollo program had continued?". Instead, we'd have endless repeates of the question "what if Apollo had been canceled and NASA built a reusable system?".
Because all but two of those nuclear powered submarines (Tulibee and Glenard P. Lipscomb) are direct drive - the turbines are directly geared to the propeller shaft. In the balance, electric propulsion was an only used for limited duration emergency backup. Not really a hybrid system at all. (We could have used it as a hybrid system, but we didn't for a variety of reasons.)
In addition, there are potentially a number of different arrangements of components and detail differences in implementation.
Last I heard (I.E. I could be wrong and invite correction), the USN still uses 1950's era lead-acid batteries (the GUPPY II/SARGO battery).
I've been saying that for years (and not just because I'm USN/Submarine service). The fighter jock mentality that worked so well for Mercury works less well as missions become longer and more demanding - but the submariner mentality is perfectly suited for such missions.
On the subject of Alan Shepard - I once saw a study that showed that NASA (probably unconsciously) tended to select Naval and Marine aviators over USAF pilots for mission command and pilot slots. Not overwhelming so, but the ratio was decidedly lopsided. (IIRC there were at least two all Navy Apollo crews to only one all USAF crew.)
Believe it not, that makes it harder rather then easier. When I was making SSBN patrols for the USN, 'fast cruises' (simulating underway while tied up to the pier) were much harder knowing those things were so close. Actual patrols were easier because you knew they weren't close and thus weren't nearly so much a distraction.
Which is why they don't let just anyone go, just like the Submarine Service they pick preferentially from the right hand side of the bell curve. Sure, the occasional loon makes it through screening, but that doesn't disprove the whole concept.
The question you ask in your subject ("Why no TV/Internet?") and the answer you provide are, to some extent, apples and oranges.
They had no [live] TV/internet because a real space craft headed even to the Moon, let alone Mars, would have such access. A laptop loaded as your propose is no substitute because it isn't 'live' or 'real' in the same manner they would experience TV or internet the same way they would sitting at home. It's canned, not spontaneous, and it doesn't change over time.
Which, of course, isn't to say that such things aren't valuable, only that they are to real thing like a Real Doll is to actual human contact and communication. (Even non sexual contact.) Over time, such things only serve to increase the pressure of being far from home. Canned and simulated entertainment is ultimately no substitute for actual communication.
Disclaimer - I am not an astronaut, nor do I play one on TV. But I did make multiple SSBN patrols while serving in the USN Submarine Service. (However, I served back in the 1980's, long before laptops became available or common.)
That has to be one of the most convoluted piece of tin foil hat ramblings I've ever read.
Alfred P. Sloan can't like or dislike anything - he's been dead for forty years .
As I've long said - NASA just can't win. Delay for safety, and they're incompetent. Don't delay, and they're reckless.