Actually, you missed the point of the whole discussion. Of course you are absolutely correct: most of these are non-issues, technologically. The point is that these technologies still need to be developed (and tested!) simply to go to the Moon, and
Sorry, but you still don't have a clue here. I'll spell it out for you maybe you'll get it this time:
The technologies are already largely developed. There are no 'unknown unknowns' and vanishingly few 'known unknowns'. Only a very few items require any significant development (from a technological point of view) before we are ready to move to first generation operational designs.
Your handwaving implies we are much further away than we really are.
they still need to be paid for, although some of them are probably nearing completion already.
Of course they still need to paid for - duh. The program is only just now gathering momentum. But beyond the new launch vehicles - none of them are particularly expensive (taken individually). There aren't any particular developmental challenges to hurdle. (Who knows what will happen when we go from technology development to operational evaluation - there may be show stoppers there, but there's long odds against that.)
You should look up more on the dust, though. I thought it was a non-issue, but eventually some folks convinced me that this may be the biggest challenge NASA faces. Your solution might be the right one, it's certainly the most likely one for astronaut suits--but that's only the suits, it's not going to stop damage to the hardware that's exposed. The Apollo hardware was torn up pretty badly.
I have looked up the dust - unlike you, I've been actively following the issues. And to put it simply, you vastly overstate the problem. The dust isn't going to attack things just sitting there - and for everything else you just properly seal and coat it. The Apollo hardware was torn up because a) no real precautions (even simple ones) were taken and b) the hardware wasn't built very strong in the first place. (It was only going to be used for a few hours tops.) We build stuff for the desert all the time - the basic principles for dealing with dust are old hat. They need to be refined, but no show stopper lurks there.
Sorry that I didn't convey that point well.
You haven't conveyed any point very well - except that you have a very poor grasp of the issues involved.
Umm....no? I'm not a "rocket scientist," but I am an engineer who specializes in technology development at NASA...and, in fact, we don't have a lot of the technologies that we used to have.
You may work at NASA - but you seem to know pretty close to diddly when it comes to the current state of space technology.
Here's a "for instance" -- you need a deeply throtleable rocket engine to safely land a vehicle on the Moon. We had one on the LEM in Apollo, but it hasn't been built in 35 years. There are no CAD models of such an engine; the plans have been lost; the manufacturing isn't around; the rocket will be made with different materials, and will need a complete redesign anyway.
Rocket engine development hasn't stood still in the last thirty years - and throttleable rockets have been widely studied. (The SSME for example is a deeply throttleable engine. Both Blue Origin and Armadillo have such rockets on the drawing board.) Developing and building one is a fairly low hurdle.
Another "for instance" -- space suits have been made for in-space only use. We need to develop a space suit that can walk on the Moon again. There are no plans, the materials are all different, and the suit will need to be designed and tested.
You may note that we are currently producing space suits - and there is no essential difference between one for use in LEO and one for use on the Lunar surface. You need better insulation and a different cooling system, but these are well understood problems. Another low hurdle.
As noted by a later post, this is a particularly difficult technology, as it has to deal with lunar dust--basically microscopic shards of volcanic glass that have never had their edges dulled by contact with air. Some of the Apollo astronauts were barely able to move their suits by the end of a 3 day long stay on the surface of the Moon--how would a lunar astronaut survive a six-month stay?
The problem is well known - and the answer is to provide a proper cleaning kit to extend the life of the suits and enough extra suits to accomodate the for the extra wear and tear. This is a hurdle so low it's not even a speed bump.
Another "for instance" -- no Saturn 5? how are we supposed to launch something into lunar transit?
Between the latest versions of the Delta and the Atlas, (plus the Ariane V if the program goes international), and the new (shuttle derived) boosters NASA has on the drawing boards - this is another low hurdle.
Another "for instance" -- the Earth reentry vehicle will be travelling at 10-12 km/s. That's kilometers per second! Even if we had the drawings, the materials used in Apollo's heat shield have been deemed unsafe for the environment. We've got to find and test a replacement.
Already in work for the CEV. NASA and every space analyst (including Henry Spencer) regard this as a solved non problem.
And those are the critical technologies from off the top of my head,
And not a single one of them represents a significant problem or stumbling block.
not counting the technologies needed for a human habitat for use on the Moon...which would likely require a nuclear fission power plant to make it through the 14 day lunar night.
That *is* a problem - and an unsolved one.
Besides the technical problems of designing and building a fission power system to operate in 1/6g, can you imagine what would happen if NASA tried to launch a nuclear fission power plant? Cassini had large protests, and it had only radioisotope power, a nuclear power system that has survi
Living in sunny California is not without its problems too. What's that you're paying for gas there? And it takes you how long to get to work? My house has an attached garage, a big yard and is twice the size of your place and you pay three times as much?
Indeed. I live in a semi-rural area near Seattle - and my (detached) garage is larger than the house on a postage stamp lot a friend of mine owns in the Bay Area. Yet she paid almost 80% more for the privilege... (And I also have a 2900 sq ft house and a pool and a yard...) My sister own a price controlled (by the Uni my brother-in-law teaches at) house in LA, slightly smaller in square footage with no yard to speak of - and paid almost 50% more than I did.
I wouldn't live in any California metro area unless my life depended on it.
And for you elitest types (I keed!), RDP is home to the second highest percentage of PHD's (per capita) outside of Silicon Valley.
And sadly, because of this, the Triangle is following Charlotte and Atlanta in becoming Just Another Metropolis - it's Southern identity and charm lost forever. My sister, who lived in Durham from 1982 to 2002, said she didn't realize how bad it had gotten - till they moved to Irvine (CA.) and found the differences less than expected.
Even worse - my beloved Triad (I am a native)[1] seems to be going down the same path.
[1] NC can be a little confusing as it has both the Triangle (Raliegh/Durham/Chapel Hill) and the Triad (Winston-Salem/Greensboro/High Point).
Didn't Bush reinstate plans to start putting Americans back on the moon shortly after he was elected? If so, maybe there will be a race to see who can build the first moon base just as there was with putting the first man on the moon.
The chances of a race are essentially nil - niether country really has anything to prove by doing so. There is also one huge difference between the two announcements - America's is sponsored by the Head of State, where Japan's is merely hopeful thinking by the head of their space agency. (I.E. the headline of this story is somewhat incorrect as 'Japan' isn't announcing anything - the plans don't actually have goverment or public support.)
The story poster suggests that Japan could replace it's lack of capability by joining the Constellation project - but Japan doesn't really have anything to bring to the table that the US cannot do. Nor are there any indications that the US is looking for partners. (It's not unlikely that may change - going 'international' may be the only way the program survives the Bush Administration.)
Wikipedia contains statistical samples and you need to repeatedly sample an article in order to determine it's average and standard deviation-- slowly converging on the truth.
That's the theory - but as usual, reality is considerably divergent. the 'truthfulness' of an article can be reduced in an instant, and persist in that state for months.
But trusting wikipedia for current information-- or opinion, is very dangerous.
That's the airy handwave that Wikipedia supporters indulge in whenever the Wikipedia is criticized... Yet again - it's at variance with reality. Jimbo Wales and his editorial team are consistently and publically insisting that the Wikipedia is a reference source and is as trustworthy as the Brittanica. When Wales ceases to beat that drum - much of the criticism will disappear.
The First Amendment is silent on the issues a shield law would cover. All it guarantees is that the Goverment cannot prevent you from publishing something - though it has been interpreted more widely than that.
Really? I saw 'freedom of the press shall not be abbridged.' It didn't say anything about it only covering your ability to print something. "The press" pretty clearly referes to journalists
That's because you are attempting to retcon a fairly modern meaning in place of a historical meaning (usage). (In some ways the Constitution is written in a what is now a foreign language.)
In the 1870's 'press' was a noun and largely used to describe a physical object. 'Freedom of the press' meant the freedom to use that object to produce speech - in the form of printed material. Usage of the word 'press' to describe to profession of journalist or reporter comes about much later, the profession didn't even clearly exist at the time the Constitution was written. The Founding Fathers assumed that citizen-publishers would continue to fill the niche, today occupied by the Press, of presenting news (and opinion) to their fellow citizens. (Indeed at that time, the essay or opinion piece - written to educate, inform, and convince was considered the highest form of what we would today call 'journalism'. There's a reason why the authors of The Federalist Papers chose that literary device.)
Additionally, 'Freedom of' was a legal phrase with a specific meaning and interpretation - whose usage is largely redundant and meaningless today. That phrase meant (roughly) 'without let or hindrance, absent of restrictions save those provided by law and custom'. There is no implication of unlimited license or franchise as is commonly believed today. (Hence the famous quote - "Freedom of speech does not include the right to shout 'fire' in a crowded theatre'.)
Hence the need, today, for a more specific shield law to protect journalists. (Keep in mind that the Constitution is a very 'high level specification' - we have been writing laws to implement those specifications since the ink was barely dry on the specification itself.)
I could have predicted this subthread with half drunk and asleep - as the Slashdot hivemind solution to every corporate problem seems to be 'coddle the employees, treat them like pampered pets, and fire all the managers'.
But this quote is particularly annoying:
The best defense against this sort of thing is teams that are close enough that no member would betray the team because, they would be betraying people who they respect.
It's *impossible* to make someone a member of a team against their will - and making them part of a team is no sure solution.
The Submarine Service relies heavily on such protections. So does the USMC. Yet, members of such teams 'go bad'. Even well trusted and not badly treated (at least outside their own mind) individuals can 'go bad'.
When I was waiting for my TS clearance while working at the Pentagon (I had an interim clearance), I had to have an air force officer shadowing me the entire time, including, at points, typing for me as I dictated. The officer in question was not an IT person and had no idea what I was doing (or was supposed to do) with the UNIX systems under my care.
I could have typed, or told him to type "cd/; rm -rf *" at any point, or done many more subtle things, especially since I had to create accounts and such for Oracle or other applications.
Certainly you could have - but the officer in question was not there just to stop you from doing that. He was there to be a *witness* that you performed such an act. Its a bit of locking the door after admittedly, but its a darn sight better than nothing.
Who gets shielded and who doesn't? Is a New York Times reporter automatically better than a blogger? What about a press flack? The 1st Amendment is for *everybody*, not just reporters.
The First Amendment is silent on the issues a shield law would cover. All it guarantees is that the Goverment cannot prevent you from publishing something - though it has been interpreted more widely than that. (And myself, I prefer to rely on legislative law rather than case law.)
The idea of creating supercitizens with special rights doesn't sit well with me.
We already have a variety of classes of supercitizens. Virtually every minority for example. Whistle blowers, at least temporarily, move into a supercitizen type class. Etc... Etc..
If your problem is with the way the government can invade our privacy, propose new rules for government behavior that don't trample on the ideal of equality before the law.
There is, from a societal point of view, a grave difference between the Goverment collecting the phone records of a private citizen, and the Goverment attempting to interfere with the function of the Fourth Estate - as such interference strikes at the heart of the checks and balances built into our system. (Though admittedly, said Estate has not exercised it's powers with any great deal of responsibility of late.) Also, laws *are* limits on Goverment behavior.
Lastly, as I point out above - equality under the law is already well on it's way to becoming a joke in the US.
Not so. Exposure to radiation does not inherently make something radioactive. Radiation is just alpha particles (helium nuclei - as others have said, they can be stopped "by a sheet of tissue paper"), beta particles (just high-energy electrons) and gamma rays (a high-energy form of light).
If you designed a rocket just for this specific purpose, it would be cheaper.
Nope. The only way to make rockets cheaper is to build them by the bucketload (100+ launches/year) and reduce the man hours required per launch. We simply don't produce enough nuclear waste to make it worth the effort when you compare the costs of those rockets against a single (and overpriced) rocket of today. (Especially considering the effort that would be needed to increase the reliability beyond the 98% that seems to be the best we can do.)
(Before you invoke the Russians - their reliability rate is not significantly different. Nor is the Chinese.)
That's really cool - one of those things that you think are a bit Clancy-ish, and are then geeked out by when you find that they really existed (like the hover platforms from MGS3).
Methinks you read too much into the article. Wright and Northampton were cramped and overcrowded ships that never really worked well in their intended roles. (Mostly because communications were spotty and bandwith extremely limited.)
The question is, of course: what replaced CC-2 and CLC-1?
Nothing.
In the end, there was no real need for huge command ships controlling huge fleets spread across the ocean - because we didn't have the huge fleets, and CVBG's carried their own command staffs. (Not that there was any money to build these ships that we didn't need anyhow.) Insofar as the nuclear command and control structure goes (which Wright and Northampton never were part of), ships turned out to be way too expensive when compared with the ABNCP and TACAMO squadrons.
Any techno-thriller fan would demand some kind of super-secret nuclear-powered megaship constantly circling the globe without ever turning into port, with packs of bad guys just waiting for the ideal moment to strike and take it over...
Despite what was implied by the grandparent - Wright and Northampton never were nuclear command centers.
For a whole decade, teenagers wanted music that was, essentially, unchanged for the whole decade.
No.
Distance in time reduces our level of resolution just as surely as distance in space; we tend to think of recent decades as homogeneous chunks of time (and, if we go back a century or so, we think of centuries the same way; go back further, and it's millennia.) But they are not homogeneous at all to the people living in them.
It's not just distance in time, but lack of experience. It certainly seems to me as if the OP didn't (as I did) live through the 70's and 80's. The 70's all Saturday Night Fever? Puh-lease. The movie wasn't even released till 1977 - and the disco phenom predates it by a year or so, tops. (Disco's as a mass phenom - they'd been around and gathering steam for a couple of decades at that point.)
The same thing with 80's - New Wave and Synthpop didn't make much of a dent in the top 40 until around 1984 or so, though again - there were a few prescient spikes in the years before.
I'd wager that in the future bacterially manufactured fuels, be it ethanol, butane, or whatever new thing comes along, will all be made via bacteria on waste--or a catalyst. Hell, we've got bacteria that eats grass and poops ethanol now, and you can "grow" a batch of bacteria anywhere. All we'd need is a plot of space for a big-ass building to house the stuff in and tubes that drain the fuel into external tanks.
You also need to figure out how to dispose of the waste (the conversion process isn't 100% efficient). You need energy to keep the bugs in the temperature band they like, and to power the distilling process (most bacteria die somewhere around 10-20% ABV) and the pumps needed to move stuff around. The devil is in the details - and there are a *lot* of details.
Once Economies of Scale kicks in, it's worth the massive start-up cost.
I *love* how Slashdotters toss around terms like 'Economies of Scale' like they were a magic spell - but they aren't. (Amortization being a concept foreign to them.) The problem with many of these gasoline alternatives *isn't* just startup costs - but operating costs as well. (Not only in terms of dollars, but in terms of inputs into the process.)
We'll have to do something, and bitching about energy efficiencies and densities isn't the answer, doing is.
Discussing energy efficiencies and densities is very much the answer - because they matter a great deal. It does make a difference in the long term between taking x MW of power to produce y calories of fuel rather than.8y calories.
If you feel the need to control what your kid eats in high school through a system like this, you've allready failed as a parent.
Ah, the same ol' karmawhoring nonsense - you'll get a +5 for certain, and without the effort of thinking.
Truth is - parents can't catch a break on Slashdot. Monitor your kids? Violating their rights. Don't monitor your kids? You've failed as a parent. etc... etc...
The Wright (CC-2) has been decomissioned for thirty years.
There were two ships, the Northhampton and the Wright. One was always at sea while the other was in port.
Northhampton and Wright were emergency command posts for LANTFLT and only stood alert duty (I.E. always one at sea) for occasional and brief periods. Niether ever served in a (nuclear) strategic C&C role.
They Navy tried mightily across the whole decade of the 60's to get a seaborne equivalent of the NORAD/ABNCP - even going so far as to consider modifying Triton to adress the vulnerabilities of the surface ships. They didn't suceeed in getting a piece of the pie until the 1990's when the TACAMO aircraft took over the ABNCP role.
So, if I was a hostile nation that could sneak one suitcase bomb into the US, couldn't I just set it off near the AFB they're moving NORAD to before launching my missles?
You could - if you lived in a world where Glorious Leaders were in the habit of letting their nukes get outside of their close control. Equally, the world must be one where Glorious Leaders posess nukes with the actual intent of using them. Niether feature is characteristic of our world however.
In the real world GLs keep their nukes under close control - and don't let them wander about. (There's a reason why every serious nuclear weapons state is also chasing after ballistic and cruise missile technology.)
Equally, in the real world, GLs understand that exploding a nuke is a line that cannot be crossed back - missiles can threaten and deter, but suitcase nukes cannot.
I'd kill all the NORAD personnel, and even if they were others it'd take them a few hours to get the mountain up and running. By then the missles will have already flown.
So what? NORAD isn't the only command and control point for our strategic forces - and even if retribution was delayed a few hours, it's coming sure as sunrise.
I don't think this is a fair characterization of what has happened to the movie industry.
I would say the same thing has happened to the video game industry: stagnation due to remakes of the same themes, because nobody wants to do anything really original, for fear it won't be profitable. That is a slow and often unnoticeable process, a process which REQUIRES there actually being original thought at the beginning.
You can say it - but your beliefs don't match the facts. Look at the spate of cowboy movies, musicals, disaster movies, blaxploitation... Hollywood has been imitative, repititive, and unwilling (in the main) to do anything really orginal for decades. The exceptions stand out - because they are exceptions. The same thing has been true of the video game industry except in the very earliest of days - each original game spawns a slew of imitators (good and bad), derivatives, and sequels. But what sticks in your memory are the 'classics', the rarities - not the mountains of dross around them.
It is simple, the art and passion which existed in making movies and entertaining people has been replaced by hunger for making money by thrusting whatever junk they create, called "art and entertainment", into people's throats.
Frankly, you live in a dream world - one where that art and passion existed in the first place. Contrary to what most people seem to believe - Hollywood is, and always has been, about making money.
I was ID'd for a lighter the other day. Now, I am a bit younger looking, and I know that restricting lighter sales is the first step to restricting consumption of other products. In California, and at a Walmart, at that.
Now why exactly are you so surprised that it happened in California? California is (via it's enviromental laws) one of the most restrictive states in the US as regards to what you can purchase. (And why exactly do you think that restricting lighters is the first step? We've been tightening the restrictions on who can buy what and when for decades now.)
The real issue that would make me start to worry is data aggregation. And that is where I think it all falls apart (knock on wood). If they could aggregate all the data of my purchases, communications, etc, I would be a lot more worried.
What, precisely (I.E. no tinfoil hat nonsense), makes you frightened about such data aggreation?
Slashdot Mirror
Sorry, but you still don't have a clue here. I'll spell it out for you maybe you'll get it this time:
The technologies are already largely developed. There are no 'unknown unknowns' and vanishingly few 'known unknowns'. Only a very few items require any significant development (from a technological point of view) before we are ready to move to first generation operational designs.
Your handwaving implies we are much further away than we really are.
Of course they still need to paid for - duh. The program is only just now gathering momentum. But beyond the new launch vehicles - none of them are particularly expensive (taken individually). There aren't any particular developmental challenges to hurdle. (Who knows what will happen when we go from technology development to operational evaluation - there may be show stoppers there, but there's long odds against that.)
I have looked up the dust - unlike you, I've been actively following the issues. And to put it simply, you vastly overstate the problem. The dust isn't going to attack things just sitting there - and for everything else you just properly seal and coat it. The Apollo hardware was torn up because a) no real precautions (even simple ones) were taken and b) the hardware wasn't built very strong in the first place. (It was only going to be used for a few hours tops.) We build stuff for the desert all the time - the basic principles for dealing with dust are old hat. They need to be refined, but no show stopper lurks there.
You haven't conveyed any point very well - except that you have a very poor grasp of the issues involved.
You may work at NASA - but you seem to know pretty close to diddly when it comes to the current state of space technology.
Rocket engine development hasn't stood still in the last thirty years - and throttleable rockets have been widely studied. (The SSME for example is a deeply throttleable engine. Both Blue Origin and Armadillo have such rockets on the drawing board.) Developing and building one is a fairly low hurdle.
You may note that we are currently producing space suits - and there is no essential difference between one for use in LEO and one for use on the Lunar surface. You need better insulation and a different cooling system, but these are well understood problems. Another low hurdle.
The problem is well known - and the answer is to provide a proper cleaning kit to extend the life of the suits and enough extra suits to accomodate the for the extra wear and tear. This is a hurdle so low it's not even a speed bump.
Between the latest versions of the Delta and the Atlas, (plus the Ariane V if the program goes international), and the new (shuttle derived) boosters NASA has on the drawing boards - this is another low hurdle.
Already in work for the CEV. NASA and every space analyst (including Henry Spencer) regard this as a solved non problem.
And not a single one of them represents a significant problem or stumbling block.
That *is* a problem - and an unsolved one.
Indeed. I live in a semi-rural area near Seattle - and my (detached) garage is larger than the house on a postage stamp lot a friend of mine owns in the Bay Area. Yet she paid almost 80% more for the privilege... (And I also have a 2900 sq ft house and a pool and a yard...) My sister own a price controlled (by the Uni my brother-in-law teaches at) house in LA, slightly smaller in square footage with no yard to speak of - and paid almost 50% more than I did.
I wouldn't live in any California metro area unless my life depended on it.
And sadly, because of this, the Triangle is following Charlotte and Atlanta in becoming Just Another Metropolis - it's Southern identity and charm lost forever. My sister, who lived in Durham from 1982 to 2002, said she didn't realize how bad it had gotten - till they moved to Irvine (CA.) and found the differences less than expected.
Even worse - my beloved Triad (I am a native)[1] seems to be going down the same path.
[1] NC can be a little confusing as it has both the Triangle (Raliegh/Durham/Chapel Hill) and the Triad (Winston-Salem/Greensboro/High Point).
Once you realize that every paragraph of your post is handwaving nonsense - you'll understand why.
The chances of a race are essentially nil - niether country really has anything to prove by doing so. There is also one huge difference between the two announcements - America's is sponsored by the Head of State, where Japan's is merely hopeful thinking by the head of their space agency. (I.E. the headline of this story is somewhat incorrect as 'Japan' isn't announcing anything - the plans don't actually have goverment or public support.)
The story poster suggests that Japan could replace it's lack of capability by joining the Constellation project - but Japan doesn't really have anything to bring to the table that the US cannot do. Nor are there any indications that the US is looking for partners. (It's not unlikely that may change - going 'international' may be the only way the program survives the Bush Administration.)
That's the theory - but as usual, reality is considerably divergent. the 'truthfulness' of an article can be reduced in an instant, and persist in that state for months.
That's the airy handwave that Wikipedia supporters indulge in whenever the Wikipedia is criticized... Yet again - it's at variance with reality. Jimbo Wales and his editorial team are consistently and publically insisting that the Wikipedia is a reference source and is as trustworthy as the Brittanica. When Wales ceases to beat that drum - much of the criticism will disappear.
That's because you are attempting to retcon a fairly modern meaning in place of a historical meaning (usage). (In some ways the Constitution is written in a what is now a foreign language.)
In the 1870's 'press' was a noun and largely used to describe a physical object. 'Freedom of the press' meant the freedom to use that object to produce speech - in the form of printed material. Usage of the word 'press' to describe to profession of journalist or reporter comes about much later, the profession didn't even clearly exist at the time the Constitution was written. The Founding Fathers assumed that citizen-publishers would continue to fill the niche, today occupied by the Press, of presenting news (and opinion) to their fellow citizens. (Indeed at that time, the essay or opinion piece - written to educate, inform, and convince was considered the highest form of what we would today call 'journalism'. There's a reason why the authors of The Federalist Papers chose that literary device.)
Additionally, 'Freedom of' was a legal phrase with a specific meaning and interpretation - whose usage is largely redundant and meaningless today. That phrase meant (roughly) 'without let or hindrance, absent of restrictions save those provided by law and custom'. There is no implication of unlimited license or franchise as is commonly believed today. (Hence the famous quote - "Freedom of speech does not include the right to shout 'fire' in a crowded theatre'.)
Hence the need, today, for a more specific shield law to protect journalists. (Keep in mind that the Constitution is a very 'high level specification' - we have been writing laws to implement those specifications since the ink was barely dry on the specification itself.)
But this quote is particularly annoying:
It's *impossible* to make someone a member of a team against their will - and making them part of a team is no sure solution.
The Submarine Service relies heavily on such protections. So does the USMC. Yet, members of such teams 'go bad'. Even well trusted and not badly treated (at least outside their own mind) individuals can 'go bad'.
Certainly you could have - but the officer in question was not there just to stop you from doing that. He was there to be a *witness* that you performed such an act. Its a bit of locking the door after admittedly, but its a darn sight better than nothing.
The First Amendment is silent on the issues a shield law would cover. All it guarantees is that the Goverment cannot prevent you from publishing something - though it has been interpreted more widely than that. (And myself, I prefer to rely on legislative law rather than case law.)
We already have a variety of classes of supercitizens. Virtually every minority for example. Whistle blowers, at least temporarily, move into a supercitizen type class. Etc... Etc..
There is, from a societal point of view, a grave difference between the Goverment collecting the phone records of a private citizen, and the Goverment attempting to interfere with the function of the Fourth Estate - as such interference strikes at the heart of the checks and balances built into our system. (Though admittedly, said Estate has not exercised it's powers with any great deal of responsibility of late.) Also, laws *are* limits on Goverment behavior.
Lastly, as I point out above - equality under the law is already well on it's way to becoming a joke in the US.
You forgot neutrons.
Neutron activation.
Nope. The only way to make rockets cheaper is to build them by the bucketload (100+ launches/year) and reduce the man hours required per launch. We simply don't produce enough nuclear waste to make it worth the effort when you compare the costs of those rockets against a single (and overpriced) rocket of today. (Especially considering the effort that would be needed to increase the reliability beyond the 98% that seems to be the best we can do.)
(Before you invoke the Russians - their reliability rate is not significantly different. Nor is the Chinese.)
Methinks you read too much into the article. Wright and Northampton were cramped and overcrowded ships that never really worked well in their intended roles. (Mostly because communications were spotty and bandwith extremely limited.)
Nothing.
In the end, there was no real need for huge command ships controlling huge fleets spread across the ocean - because we didn't have the huge fleets, and CVBG's carried their own command staffs. (Not that there was any money to build these ships that we didn't need anyhow.) Insofar as the nuclear command and control structure goes (which Wright and Northampton never were part of), ships turned out to be way too expensive when compared with the ABNCP and TACAMO squadrons.
Despite what was implied by the grandparent - Wright and Northampton never were nuclear command centers.
It would be a piss-poor way to learn - because learning Morse Code also involves learning the hand and wrist motions for keying.
It's not just distance in time, but lack of experience. It certainly seems to me as if the OP didn't (as I did) live through the 70's and 80's. The 70's all Saturday Night Fever? Puh-lease. The movie wasn't even released till 1977 - and the disco phenom predates it by a year or so, tops. (Disco's as a mass phenom - they'd been around and gathering steam for a couple of decades at that point.)
The same thing with 80's - New Wave and Synthpop didn't make much of a dent in the top 40 until around 1984 or so, though again - there were a few prescient spikes in the years before.
Based on the average quality of Slashdot comments rated +3 or better - the media is largely right.
You also need to figure out how to dispose of the waste (the conversion process isn't 100% efficient). You need energy to keep the bugs in the temperature band they like, and to power the distilling process (most bacteria die somewhere around 10-20% ABV) and the pumps needed to move stuff around. The devil is in the details - and there are a *lot* of details.
I *love* how Slashdotters toss around terms like 'Economies of Scale' like they were a magic spell - but they aren't. (Amortization being a concept foreign to them.) The problem with many of these gasoline alternatives *isn't* just startup costs - but operating costs as well. (Not only in terms of dollars, but in terms of inputs into the process.)
Discussing energy efficiencies and densities is very much the answer - because they matter a great deal. It does make a difference in the long term between taking x MW of power to produce y calories of fuel rather than
Ah, the same ol' karmawhoring nonsense - you'll get a +5 for certain, and without the effort of thinking.
Truth is - parents can't catch a break on Slashdot. Monitor your kids? Violating their rights. Don't monitor your kids? You've failed as a parent. etc... etc...
Northhampton and Wright were emergency command posts for LANTFLT and only stood alert duty (I.E. always one at sea) for occasional and brief periods. Niether ever served in a (nuclear) strategic C&C role.
They Navy tried mightily across the whole decade of the 60's to get a seaborne equivalent of the NORAD/ABNCP - even going so far as to consider modifying Triton to adress the vulnerabilities of the surface ships. They didn't suceeed in getting a piece of the pie until the 1990's when the TACAMO aircraft took over the ABNCP role.
You could - if you lived in a world where Glorious Leaders were in the habit of letting their nukes get outside of their close control. Equally, the world must be one where Glorious Leaders posess nukes with the actual intent of using them. Niether feature is characteristic of our world however.
In the real world GLs keep their nukes under close control - and don't let them wander about. (There's a reason why every serious nuclear weapons state is also chasing after ballistic and cruise missile technology.)
Equally, in the real world, GLs understand that exploding a nuke is a line that cannot be crossed back - missiles can threaten and deter, but suitcase nukes cannot.
So what? NORAD isn't the only command and control point for our strategic forces - and even if retribution was delayed a few hours, it's coming sure as sunrise.
You can say it - but your beliefs don't match the facts. Look at the spate of cowboy movies, musicals, disaster movies, blaxploitation... Hollywood has been imitative, repititive, and unwilling (in the main) to do anything really orginal for decades. The exceptions stand out - because they are exceptions. The same thing has been true of the video game industry except in the very earliest of days - each original game spawns a slew of imitators (good and bad), derivatives, and sequels. But what sticks in your memory are the 'classics', the rarities - not the mountains of dross around them.
Frankly, you live in a dream world - one where that art and passion existed in the first place. Contrary to what most people seem to believe - Hollywood is, and always has been, about making money.
In other words - the only reason you can come up with is tinfoil handwaving.
Now why exactly are you so surprised that it happened in California? California is (via it's enviromental laws) one of the most restrictive states in the US as regards to what you can purchase. (And why exactly do you think that restricting lighters is the first step? We've been tightening the restrictions on who can buy what and when for decades now.)
What, precisely (I.E. no tinfoil hat nonsense), makes you frightened about such data aggreation?