That's fine when it comes to gasoline consumption.
But gasoline consumption is but one use of oil. In the long term, we need to rethink the infrastructure of a whole slew of industries which use petrochemicals as their input feedstocks.
What about war is comfortable exactly? And why are we trying to shield officers and civilians from reality (even further)?
How exactly is traveling to and from a destination in reasonable comfort 'shielding them from reality'?
Why isn't this being spent on the comfort and (psychological/physical) well being of our troops?
There's a few bleak spots (mostly due to years of neglect because Congress wouldn't pay for proper upkeep after the cutbacks of the early 90's), but millions of dollars a year are spent on on the comfort and (psychological/physical) well being of our troops. Hell, the barracks of today are considerably ahead of the ones I lived in during the 80's. (I know a guy living in the same room I was in 1988... The room is now wired for cable and phone, neither of which I had, for example.) The barracks I lived in during Sub school (crappy WWII era) and during SWSEA school (1970's era) have been demolished and replaced with modern barracks. Etc. Etc.
Seriously, I can understand the logic of having people be able to sleep on the flight, so as not to waste time at the destination; but how could anybody possibly justify this level of ostentation
First you have to realize that to anyone outside of the stereotypical Slashdotter (20yo, living in parents basement, no real job, no real possessions outside of a few tech toys), this isn't particularly ostentatious. Heck, when I finish remodeling our master bedroom it'll be much like this.
Are you suggesting that, because it is regular practice, we should ignore these transgressions?
No, he's suggesting (as I have before, as I agree with him) that Slashdot is less and less a tech news site - and more and more general news site with developing bias towards political news. This isn't even net neutrality, which can be vaguely claimed to be tech issue since it concerns the internet... It's out and out politics.
Nope, at a minimum it's the second. Steve Squyres helped to plan a scheme back in the 80's where a rover would be used to allow scientists to choose from which area samples would be taken. What amounts to an engineering model of the proposed rover flew as Sojourner on the Mars Pathfinder mission. A simplified version of the camera designed for the sample return rover is now the PANCAM on the two MER rovers. (Spirit, and Opportunity.)
No, I'm not overstating the case - I'm stating the bald facts. NASA never asked for funds for Shuttle/Skylab operations beyond the reboost module. This means that during the critical time frame for preparing for such missions, no preparations were being made. None.
And yes there were 'actual plans' for post STS-4. There was funding flowing, training being done, and metal being bent - not of which is true for manned Shuttle/Skylab operations beyond the reboost module.
We're in the process of shutting down our airline industry with ridiculous security policies that do nothing for security and everything for driving people away from air travel.
I take it you haven't actually flown or even been in an airport in the last few years? Because if people are being driven away, it's in numbers too tiny to be noticed.
A population that stays in the same place all the time is much easier to control. Transportation is under attack.
Yep. I can only imagine the howls of outrage when Shepard's Mercury tipped the scales at nearly _three time_ the original specified weight. The cries of incompetence when Gemini's much vaunted fuel cells continued to suffer problem after problem. The Slashdot crowd would have been excreting bricks over the extremely expensive Saturn V that, even after significant upgrades (including adding a fifth first stage engine) and extreme weight cutting measures - could only _just_ carry out it's mission.
Missions were planned to service Skylab using the Space Shuttle.
The 'plans' were vague pipe dreams and paper studies with little funding and massive obstacles - Skylab was virtually empty of consumables and required considerable maintenance.
the funding didn't materialize for an automated boost
Mostly because funding was never requested for an automated boost - only funding for vague studies to develop the necessary technology. (Which funding was never received.)
NASA would have been much happier continuing to run and expand Skylab than build the International Space Station.
That's the opinion of many authors who were breathlessly predicting How Wonderful the Shuttle Would Be and the engineers/management at JSC who would be out of a job when Skylab re-entered... That was not NASA's official position (to the extent it took such a position). Nor was Congress too enamored of that scheme either - as the costs and scope of work to reboost and maintain Skylab steadily escalated.
Don't confuse paper schemes and pipe dreams with actual plans. The latter never existed.
I am reminded of the gap between Apollo and the Shuttle - and look at what happened to Skylab...
Had Shuttle flown as scheduled Skylab would still have eventually re-entered - the purpose of the reboost flight(s) was to control, not prevent, reentry.
Look, does this news really come as a surprise? NASA's been over-budget and behind schedule since the last Apollo flight. Without the unlimited checkbook that Mercury/Gemini/Apollo had, this should be expected.
Except that Mercury/Gemini/Apollo *didn't* have a blank checkbook. Mercury in particular, while not done exactly on the cheap, wasn't even remotely the same priority as Apollo. Gemini was a perennial 'also ran', routinely coming in second in the competition for resources with Apollo.
Yet, all three vehicle came in over budget, over weight, and behind schedule.
In all seriousness, I do think scientists are an excellent canary for the local political/cultural environment.
Why? In most ways they aren't any different from any other random individual in the general population.
They rely on public funding while demanding the right to teach/work as they see best.
Without concerning themselves that these two items are, to some extent, mutually contradictory. Which leads to an instability higher than you might think.
When the scientists start leaving I sit up and take notice.
The problem is distinguishing signal from noise - as scientists and other academics routinely change venues, both at the organizational level and at the national level. It's never a high proportion, but it is steady. Dr Hawking moving would be news even if he moved just because he got a wild hair and decided he liked Canadian whiskey better than English beers.
Seriously, I've seen a TV program on the 'disaster' and from the ground the you can see where there is an band of young trees around shores of the the bay and older trees further up the slope, but that's about the only visual evidence remaining.
We can debate the facts, and while I believe my recollection is more accurate, it isn't worth a debate.
Your recollection is based on years of urban legend. My recollection is based on actually studying the facts.
But facts don't seem to be your long suit - you prefer bias.
The point was that I believe that competent engineers with an idea are more likely to be right than a bunch of suits.
Going back to your original post, who do you think prepared the proposal for the 'suits' ("a committee of military contractors and NASA administrators")?
Because it would require a fuel tank (roughly) 125% of the size of the current Shuttle External Tank in a addition to the one it already has - just to fly past the moon. It will take yet more fuel to enter orbit, and more still to return... Not to mention the SSMEs can't be restarted in flight, the Shuttle isn't designed for the thermal or radiation environment of translunar and lunar orbits, etc... etc...
Uh, no, actually that's exactly what happened. Griffin and Horowitz (the PHB's) came up with their Ares plan many years ago, did a 60 day "study" that came back with the recommendation to follow their plan, and ordered the MSFC engineers to build their designs,
That's an interesting claim considering Griffin became NASA administrator only two weeks before the ESAS study was started.
rather than the engineers' long standing plans to develop more conventional and cost-effective derivatives of the Shuttle (NLS/Magnum) or EELV.
That's an interesting claim given that Magnum was an entirely brand new booster on the scale of the Saturn V (and never really was much of plan, just a few preliminary designs), and the EELV is a DoD Project - and the launchers produced under the project aren't noted for being anything resembling cost effective.
Back in the '60s, the NASA PHB's were at least smart enough to see that John Houbolt had come up with a solution to fix their performance gap.
Yet another interesting claim - especially since Houbolt's plan (LOR) required the Saturn V while the preferred plan of NASA management (EOR) required the Saturn I.
Most sources seem to agree that the decision to launch Challenger was made by NASA and management...not engineering.
That would fall under "well, duh" because making decisions is what management does.:):) But who do you think provides the managers with the information that they base their decisions on?
but my point was just that - don't just go with consensus when you have a vocal minority of informed engineering experts who have a different opinion.
So, we should have listened to the vocal minority of engineering experts who insisted that landing on the moon was beyond the technology available? Or to put it another way, if you bow to every vocal minority... then nothing ever gets done.
Umm, the radiation belts are present *because* of earth's magnetic field.
Right - the Earth's magnetic field creates the radiation. Cosmic rays, solar radiation - all a conspiracy theory.
Satellites are shielded against this radiation and radiation exposure is inevitable.
Very true - but it's also true that the radiation environment is much more benign in LEO than in the belts or beyond because the Earth's magnetic fields protect them from that higher level of radiation.
I would trust a set of napkin drawings from dedicated engineers more than I'd trust a polished proposal from a committee of military contractors and NASA administrators.
Think of it this way, the latter said the O rings were safe, the former tried to warn everyone of the danger.
That's what the urban legend would have you believe.
In reality, O-ring erosion was occurring from the first static firings of the SRB - and the engineers told management that it was OK as the ring hadn't completely eroded through. Rather than fixing the problem causing the erosion (poor joint design) the engineers added a backup O-ring whose design function relied on the primary O-ring not failing during the first few dozen milliseconds after ignition. Despite ongoing problems with joint erosion - the engineers insisted it was safe to fly while they developed a fix. (Which is why after the loss of Challenger they were able to identify the failure and the fix so fast - it wasn't a miracle by the engineers, they'd been working on it for the better part of decade.)
Would you trust someone who kept telling you one thing, and then at the penultimate hour changed their story?
A handful of engineers and a stenographer cooped up in a hotel room over a weekend, designed and developed the B52.
Designed and developed? ROTFLMAO. They came up with a (very) rough set of specifications and concepts - and then it took four years to work out all the details and then actually build the aircraft.
Like all legends, this one has grown a bit over the years.
Slashdot Mirror
That's fine when it comes to gasoline consumption.
But gasoline consumption is but one use of oil. In the long term, we need to rethink the infrastructure of a whole slew of industries which use petrochemicals as their input feedstocks.
How exactly is traveling to and from a destination in reasonable comfort 'shielding them from reality'?
There's a few bleak spots (mostly due to years of neglect because Congress wouldn't pay for proper upkeep after the cutbacks of the early 90's), but millions of dollars a year are spent on on the comfort and (psychological/physical) well being of our troops. Hell, the barracks of today are considerably ahead of the ones I lived in during the 80's. (I know a guy living in the same room I was in 1988... The room is now wired for cable and phone, neither of which I had, for example.) The barracks I lived in during Sub school (crappy WWII era) and during SWSEA school (1970's era) have been demolished and replaced with modern barracks. Etc. Etc.
First you have to realize that to anyone outside of the stereotypical Slashdotter (20yo, living in parents basement, no real job, no real possessions outside of a few tech toys), this isn't particularly ostentatious. Heck, when I finish remodeling our master bedroom it'll be much like this.
No, he's suggesting (as I have before, as I agree with him) that Slashdot is less and less a tech news site - and more and more general news site with developing bias towards political news. This isn't even net neutrality, which can be vaguely claimed to be tech issue since it concerns the internet... It's out and out politics.
The rover would have carried the samples to a return capsule.
2006? Try 2000 - and that book references studies done years earlier on the issue. (My copy is buried somewhere, else I'd go check the bibliography.)
Nope, at a minimum it's the second. Steve Squyres helped to plan a scheme back in the 80's where a rover would be used to allow scientists to choose from which area samples would be taken. What amounts to an engineering model of the proposed rover flew as Sojourner on the Mars Pathfinder mission. A simplified version of the camera designed for the sample return rover is now the PANCAM on the two MER rovers. (Spirit, and Opportunity.)
Yet you find it quite acceptable to force your ideals on them...
Do you know what water vapor does when it condenses? Hmm... It seems I've seen something like that a time or two.
Oh Yeah!!!!
Clouds.
No, I'm not overstating the case - I'm stating the bald facts. NASA never asked for funds for Shuttle/Skylab operations beyond the reboost module. This means that during the critical time frame for preparing for such missions, no preparations were being made. None.
And yes there were 'actual plans' for post STS-4. There was funding flowing, training being done, and metal being bent - not of which is true for manned Shuttle/Skylab operations beyond the reboost module.
I take it you haven't actually flown or even been in an airport in the last few years? Because if people are being driven away, it's in numbers too tiny to be noticed.
ROTFLMAO.
Yep. I can only imagine the howls of outrage when Shepard's Mercury tipped the scales at nearly _three time_ the original specified weight. The cries of incompetence when Gemini's much vaunted fuel cells continued to suffer problem after problem. The Slashdot crowd would have been excreting bricks over the extremely expensive Saturn V that, even after significant upgrades (including adding a fifth first stage engine) and extreme weight cutting measures - could only _just_ carry out it's mission.
This is incorrect.
The 'plans' were vague pipe dreams and paper studies with little funding and massive obstacles - Skylab was virtually empty of consumables and required considerable maintenance.
Mostly because funding was never requested for an automated boost - only funding for vague studies to develop the necessary technology. (Which funding was never received.)
That's the opinion of many authors who were breathlessly predicting How Wonderful the Shuttle Would Be and the engineers/management at JSC who would be out of a job when Skylab re-entered... That was not NASA's official position (to the extent it took such a position). Nor was Congress too enamored of that scheme either - as the costs and scope of work to reboost and maintain Skylab steadily escalated.
Don't confuse paper schemes and pipe dreams with actual plans. The latter never existed.
Had Shuttle flown as scheduled Skylab would still have eventually re-entered - the purpose of the reboost flight(s) was to control, not prevent, reentry.
Except that Mercury/Gemini/Apollo *didn't* have a blank checkbook. Mercury in particular, while not done exactly on the cheap, wasn't even remotely the same priority as Apollo. Gemini was a perennial 'also ran', routinely coming in second in the competition for resources with Apollo.
Yet, all three vehicle came in over budget, over weight, and behind schedule.
Why? In most ways they aren't any different from any other random individual in the general population.
Without concerning themselves that these two items are, to some extent, mutually contradictory. Which leads to an instability higher than you might think.
The problem is distinguishing signal from noise - as scientists and other academics routinely change venues, both at the organizational level and at the national level. It's never a high proportion, but it is steady. Dr Hawking moving would be news even if he moved just because he got a wild hair and decided he liked Canadian whiskey better than English beers.
Godwin right in the first post! Bravo I say, Bravo! A true and shining accomplishment in the field of utterly irrelevant comparisons.
Well, see for yourself. :) :)
Seriously, I've seen a TV program on the 'disaster' and from the ground the you can see where there is an band of young trees around shores of the the bay and older trees further up the slope, but that's about the only visual evidence remaining.
Your recollection is based on years of urban legend. My recollection is based on actually studying the facts.
But facts don't seem to be your long suit - you prefer bias.
Going back to your original post, who do you think prepared the proposal for the 'suits' ("a committee of military contractors and NASA administrators")?
Hint: Engineers.
Because it would require a fuel tank (roughly) 125% of the size of the current Shuttle External Tank in a addition to the one it already has - just to fly past the moon. It will take yet more fuel to enter orbit, and more still to return... Not to mention the SSMEs can't be restarted in flight, the Shuttle isn't designed for the thermal or radiation environment of translunar and lunar orbits, etc... etc...
That's an interesting claim considering Griffin became NASA administrator only two weeks before the ESAS study was started.
That's an interesting claim given that Magnum was an entirely brand new booster on the scale of the Saturn V (and never really was much of plan, just a few preliminary designs), and the EELV is a DoD Project - and the launchers produced under the project aren't noted for being anything resembling cost effective.
Yet another interesting claim - especially since Houbolt's plan (LOR) required the Saturn V while the preferred plan of NASA management (EOR) required the Saturn I.
Got any other ones?
That would fall under "well, duh" because making decisions is what management does. :) :) But who do you think provides the managers with the information that they base their decisions on?
So, we should have listened to the vocal minority of engineering experts who insisted that landing on the moon was beyond the technology available? Or to put it another way, if you bow to every vocal minority... then nothing ever gets done.
Right - the Earth's magnetic field creates the radiation. Cosmic rays, solar radiation - all a conspiracy theory.
Very true - but it's also true that the radiation environment is much more benign in LEO than in the belts or beyond because the Earth's magnetic fields protect them from that higher level of radiation.
That's what the urban legend would have you believe.
In reality, O-ring erosion was occurring from the first static firings of the SRB - and the engineers told management that it was OK as the ring hadn't completely eroded through. Rather than fixing the problem causing the erosion (poor joint design) the engineers added a backup O-ring whose design function relied on the primary O-ring not failing during the first few dozen milliseconds after ignition. Despite ongoing problems with joint erosion - the engineers insisted it was safe to fly while they developed a fix. (Which is why after the loss of Challenger they were able to identify the failure and the fix so fast - it wasn't a miracle by the engineers, they'd been working on it for the better part of decade.)
Would you trust someone who kept telling you one thing, and then at the penultimate hour changed their story?
Designed and developed? ROTFLMAO. They came up with a (very) rough set of specifications and concepts - and then it took four years to work out all the details and then actually build the aircraft.
Like all legends, this one has grown a bit over the years.