As I've been saying for years - recruit submariners, not pilots. They're already partially screened for resistance to this syndrome. They are already used to living in confined spaces, isolation, etc.. etc..
Or they can hire nerds, who already know a bunch about space anyway, and also fit that criteria.
Nerds don't live in isolation or in cramped spaces for any significant time.
You may think I'm joking, but I haven't actually left this room all summer, except once or twice.
You have acess to TV, radio, the 'net, pizza delivery, etc... etc... You don't have any experience in living in confined spaces or isolated from the bulk of humanity, or training that provides the hair trigger reflexes that will be needed if there is an emergency...
I've been able to handle 3 months without any problems, I'm sure I can handle a year or two even.
I sincerly doubt it. Living in your bedroom and living [mumble] feet under the ocean are more different than you think.
748 days? Wow. Think about that - it's more than two years. Quite an accomplishment indeed.
[yawn] I know a dozen or more submariners in the US alone that have spent three or more years submerged and isolated. Heck, I accumulated a hair over a year (372 days) in a span of four years.
From TFA
There are also individual differences in the ability to handle the psychological hardships of long-term spaceflight, says Musson. Many space-farers go through a syndrome similar to depression after the novelty and excitement of the first few weeks in space wears off. It is marked by fatigue, lack of motivation, irritability, and problems sleeping.
As I've been saying for years - recruit submariners, not pilots. They're already partially screened for resistance to this syndrome. They are already used to living in confined spaces, isolation, etc.. etc..
Look, if you wanted to make money in the '80s, you became a lawyer, an MBA of a Finance major. I knew Engineers who washed cars.
That's pretty much true of any decade in American history. It's delusional to believe otherwise.
We changed our priorities as a culture from doing great things to making a buck.
ROTFLMAO. Our cultural priorities have been about making a buck since about.0032 seconds after the shoes of the first Pilgrim touched the ground. The only 'great thing' involved in the space program of the 60's was proving our penises were bigger than the USSR's. No dreams - just ego.
I'm making broad strokes with black and white but I'm trying to hit home that we aren't any closer to space because not enough people cared to support the effort.
You're painting a delusional picture that has no basis in reality. There's no engineering Eden in our past any more than there is in the future.
First, as you say, new technology would have to be developed and perfected. [to divert an asteroid.]
Nope. Pretty much everything we need (so far as technology goes) is already in hand, long tested and well proven. Some individual bits would have to be developed, but they'll be straightfoward adapations of existing stuff. Integration will be non-trivial, but again fairly straightforward. It's not like magic is needed.
[rant] I wish people would stop misusing the word 'technology'. [/rant]
The biggest problem would be mustering the needed level of international cooperation. No doubt the cost of the program would be too much for even the richest nations to go it alone.
[laughs] About 5% of what the US currently spends on welfare should be enough, 8-10% to be sure. The biggest obstacles will be getting a 'hunting license' to cut through red tape and to break a few enviromental regulations.
What would the USA do if 20 years down the road more accurate estimates of the impact point proved that the asteroid was going to impact on the other side of the globe? Would the USA withdraw its participation?
I'd moderate that as -1000 Unlikely.
I'd like to think not but I've lost much of my faith in American largess.
Then wake up and take your blinders off.
Anyway, balancing an enormous economic drain versus the morality of allowing a serious disaster to occur to someone else (possibly an enemy) would be a serious quandary for any nation.
If it would take a serious economic drain - you'd have a point. But an average of $3.00/day/US citizen? Hell, Starbucks takes in that much. A 10% sales tax on Wal-Mart would pretty much fund the program through the first few years.
The problems are certainly surmountable; in theory. The world's track record regarding other crises is spotty at best. How much progress have we made at: eliminating controllable diseases,
Pretty much every epidemic disease is long gone from the face of the earth.
controlling global population growth,
In the developed world, pretty much every country is headed towards negative population growth. The big problem is elsewhere - and there are darn few moral alternatives to getting them to keep their growth down.
controlling greenhouse gas emissions?
Not quite so good on those, but overall on the enviroment front we are making damm good strides.
I'm sure someone will come up with a good example where the world got together and solved a problem but overall history shows little that it's rare and difficult.
ROTFLMAO. Overall history shows quite the *opposite*. International cooperation on issues large and small have been growing for well over a century now. Most of the minor problems (not being able to mail a letter from Seattle to Lower Pantagonia) are long fixed, and we are making strides on the bigger ones.
So I don't think 35 years is really enough time. I'd say more like 300 years. At least in that much time one could hope for salvation from radically new technological advances such as anti-gravity or really really frickin powerful lasers in space.
You'd have a point if either of those were needed - but they aren't.
Assuming I had one of these cars, where would I plug it in? I park my car in a parking lot, not a private garage attached to a single-family house.
[nods] And my neighborhood has on-street parking. Even on the days when I can park in front of my walk, a cord connecting it to anything is an invitation to the various juvenile delinquents and gangsta wannabees.
Put this in perspective, people. There are TWO space shuttles still in service, and even though they have a CFC exemption, and it was the breaking off of a piece of that insulation that caused the Colombia disaster, they STILL use non-fluorocarbon (non-freon based) foam for insulation on the shuttles.
[sigh]
The 'enviromentally friendly' foam is only used as acreage foam. The hand sprayed and shaped foam (used for both the bipod ramp that damaged Columbia and for the PAL ramp on the recent STS-114 launch) is still the old 'unfriendly' foam. The switch to a new foam had nothing to do with accident.
Upgrading a $1.7B shuttle to make those launches more earth-friendly led directly to the Columbia disaster. They changed the formulation of the foam for the ET.
[sigh]
The 'enviromentally friendly' foam is only used as acreage foam. The hand sprayed and shaped foam (used for both the bipod ramp that damaged Columbia and for the PAL ramp on the recent STS-114 launch) is still the old 'unfriendly' foam. The switch to a new foam had nothing to do with accident.
Who is going to keep these weapons safe? These will have to be remotely fired, and with the state of system security these days I don't trust the government to keep their satellite weapons under control.
Here's a clue for you: Those control systems aren't on the 'net - and thus aren't vulnerable to random hackers and script kiddies. You have to gain physical acess to the control systems. (Then you have to figure out they work - they are designed to be operated by specialists, not by Hollywood. There are no buttons or icons labled "click here to destroy Baghdad".)
Holey-moley, somebody drops a 250 Kg iron-nickel rock on the house from orbit now we gotta problem. Hits the ground pretty hard, looks like a 15Kt nuke.
ROTFL.
A 1 meter sphere of nickel-iron weighs far more than that - and has an impact energy of about.00014 megatons. (About.14 ktons of TNT.) If you were a kilometer away you'd barely notice the effects.
Put it in a high-elipticle orbit, give it a little nudge at the right time and down it comes, almost striaght down on top of you at over 17,000 MPH, can't see, can't stop, house gone, city gone.
Sure, it would mess up a house - but the house across the street might not even have it's windows cracked. A 250Kg impactor will affect a city about as much as a hot water heater exploding - I.E. not noticeably.
I remember back in the 70's and 80's when test pilots for the air force flew fighterjets that were considered "unstable" and the air force wanted to test different designs. The common understanding was, there is a greater chance of it crashing than landing. Yet, many good pilots wanted the chance to fly. What motivated them even when they knew there was a greater chance of crashing than landing?
There are some jobs that are very dangerous.
That's true - but it's only half the story.
While they accepted the tests as dangerous - they didn't go out of their way to make them more dangerous. If the weather was bad - the flight didn't take place. If the hydraulic system on the plane was iffy - the flight didn't take place. etc.. etc...
Can man make a shuttle that is perfect, that will never have a mishap? Does anyone know the statistsics, of how many launches and how many crashes? I am just guessing, but I would think NASA has an over 90% success rate. If that was my college physics class, I would be jumping up and down with joy.
In the flight test business a sucess rate of only 90% would be considered an utter failure. (Even in the 1950's when the crash rate was at it's highest while we were trying to get a handle on jet engines, supersonic flight, new stability problems etc... etc..) Contrary to popular belief Flight Test isn't about flying in the face of risk - it's about calculated acceptance of risk. Killing pilots teaches you nothing and wastes a trained pilot.
There is a great quote NASA should try and understand better. Life is the master teacher. Unfortunatly, it gives the tests first, and the lessons second.
When it comes to iffy weather and aviation, the tests and lessons were completed decades ago. NASA waved off the landing oppurtunity because those lessons are long learned. ("Landing in iffy weather kills - don't do it if avoidable.")
Who cares if THEY accepted that it would continue? We did not.
Those who care to get their history and facts straight. The ABM treaty survived the fall of the USSR with the Russian Federation/CIS assuming the USSR's responsibilities/role within the treaty. The US withdrawal from the treaty came years later.
The USSR no longer exists, hence the treaty no longer exists.
Incorrect. The Russian Federation/CIS explicitly accepted that it would continue to be bound by the treaties that the USSR had signed. (I.E. SALT, START, the ABM treaty, a whole raft of postal agreements, etc... etc...)
I like Wikipedia because I can look up almost anything and find an entry. They're trying to curb the problem of malicious users before it gets out of hand, which is good, IMO.
The real problem with the 'pedias credibility isn't malicious users - it's clueless but well meaning users who belief truth can be determined by popularity. I don't know how many pages I corrected, only to have the reverted to the older version or edited out of recognizability because my facts didn't match the popular perceptions.
As a former submariner, I can attest to it's usefullness on a submarine. The only places that are dark are berthing, and Control, if we are doing night ops.
I was wondering about that myself - You can't use them in Control as you want it dark *now* when you kill the lights. You don't want them in berthing as you want it dark for people to sleep. You don't want them in the mess decks as you frequently need to darken it for running films, etc... That pretty much leaves a few passages ways and the machinery spaces where they might be useful. OTOH you increase your logistics costs by having two types of bulbs.
So, as a former submariner, I don't think they'll be particularly useful.
The article says this is being tested on the USS Alabama - I know a chief aboard her, I'll ask him.
The destruction of Nagasaki and Hiroshima were likely caused by communication problems, nothing more. When approached with proposals for surrender, Japan's leadership replied with "mokusatsu" -- a typically Japanese response when confronted with an unappealing offer -- "I hear you, but I choose to say nothing". The purpose of this sort of communication is to respond to an offensive offer respectfully whilst saving face, and it usually elicits a better offer.
The Japanese had been participating in international diplomacy for many decades by 1945 - and they understood quite well the lanquage and nuances thereof. If they failed to communicate properly - it's their own fault.
Yet no word on the point of view (that I assume was never taught in US schools) that the bombing was unnecessary, as Japan was about to surrender, the wheels were in motion but accidental/intentional communication problems prevented that from happening before the bombs were dropped.
Why should there be any word on revisionist fantasy?
It's true that a tiny minority of Japanese were urging surrender - but they had about as much influence as a snowflake on a forest fire. The reality is that the War Cabinet had no intention of surrendering and it took two nuclear weapons and divine intervention (their divinity, in the form of the Emperor) to change that point of view.
It's amazing how many people don't even know that Japan surrendered before the bombs were droped.
Most people don't know it - because it's an utter falsehood.
Consider the reality - It took the personal intervention of the Emperor to override the War Cabinet and force a surrender after the bombs were dropped. Throughout August 1945 Japan continued offensive actions. etc.. etc.. That and many other facts trump your out of context quotes.
Continue posting your lies if it makes you feel better - but the rest of us live in the real world, and know the truth.
Be warned that Zubrin is prone to handwaving and optimistic assumptions.
Uh huh.. based on his qualifications, I would treat his 'optimistic assumptions' as more valid than *any* comment here, and probably those of the New Scientist author too.
Uh huh. I see no indications he's a qualified Health Physicist, nor do I see any qualifications anywhere in the fields of astronomy or astronautics... The nuclear engineering degree is meaningless as that degree includes niether related field in it's curricula.
I *do* however know his record - which is one of handwaving away serious problems as mere speed bumps and of treating vast unknowns as minor development problems that can be solved by late tommorow afternoon. But you're welcome to blindly believe anyone you wish.
Why is the radiation bogeyman constantly brought up by critics of space exploration?
Because radiation is a bogeyman to John Q. Public.
Zubrin and others have definitively examined the radiation problem.
You can't definitively examine something you don't have a great deal of information on - and radiation in deep space is something we only have sketchy information on.
I didn't understand half the math in The Case for Mars but the author explains in detail how the route could be planned to be both low cost and safe from radiation.
Be warned that Zubrin is prone to handwaving and optimistic assumptions.
I think they'd also have to go through the Van Allen radiation belts which could also be a concern.
Either an Apollo or a Mars bound mission spent less than a day in the Van Allen belts - they are of essentially no concern.
Apollo had timed things however to make it accross while radiation was at a minimum.
Apollo did no such thing with regards to the Van Allen belts - what they did do was try and time the missions for when solar activity was at a minimum. (To avoid exposure to flares.)
Um - no. SpaceShip One isn't an orbiter any more than a R/C sail plane is a jet fighter, there's simply no reasonable comparison.
You're right, it isn't an orbital craft. But it is a step in the direction of crating a runway-to-runway orbital vehicle
That's just the problem - it isn't. There is nothing significant from SS1/SS2 that can be evolved into an orbital craft. There is nothing significant that SS1/SS2 taught us that wasn't learned decades ago with the X-15 and the various lifting body aircraft, PRIME/ASSET, etc... Technologically SS1/SS2 is a neat hack to solve the problem of 'how to win the X-Prize and provide cheap high tech amusement park rides', but it's a sterile dead end.
These (SDV) schemes are stupid - the worst of all possible worlds.
I agree with you here. A new capsule is needed now with work moving forward on new simpler/smaller orbiter. However reusing parts and subsystems from the current shuttle (shuttle == orbiter+external fuel tank+solid boosters) can make sense to reduce cost and time
That's the problem - despite appearances they aren't reusing parts and subsystems from the Shuttle. The ET will require substantial (expensive) modification and flight testing. The solid booster is significantly different from the existing one, again requiring an extensive (and expensive) modification and flight testing program. [1] They plan on using SSME's for the second stage - but they'll have to be heavily modified for independent start as opposed to using ground support equipment. etc, etc, etc...
In fact the more you look, the more differences you find. SDV's won't save money in the beginning, middle, or end. They are expensive pork.
[1] One item in particular, thrust termination ports for the SRB, has only been tried on motors a tenth of the size of the SRB. (The current SRB had a destruct system, not a thrust termination system.)
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From TFA
As I've been saying for years - recruit submariners, not pilots. They're already partially screened for resistance to this syndrome. They are already used to living in confined spaces, isolation, etc.. etc..[rant] I wish people would stop misusing the word 'technology'. [/rant]
[laughs] About 5% of what the US currently spends on welfare should be enough, 8-10% to be sure. The biggest obstacles will be getting a 'hunting license' to cut through red tape and to break a few enviromental regulations.I'd moderate that as -1000 Unlikely.Then wake up and take your blinders off.If it would take a serious economic drain - you'd have a point. But an average of $3.00/day/US citizen? Hell, Starbucks takes in that much. A 10% sales tax on Wal-Mart would pretty much fund the program through the first few years.Pretty much every epidemic disease is long gone from the face of the earth.In the developed world, pretty much every country is headed towards negative population growth. The big problem is elsewhere - and there are darn few moral alternatives to getting them to keep their growth down.Not quite so good on those, but overall on the enviroment front we are making damm good strides.ROTFLMAO. Overall history shows quite the *opposite*. International cooperation on issues large and small have been growing for well over a century now. Most of the minor problems (not being able to mail a letter from Seattle to Lower Pantagonia) are long fixed, and we are making strides on the bigger ones.You'd have a point if either of those were needed - but they aren't.That's mostly because children and adults aren't equals.
The 'enviromentally friendly' foam is only used as acreage foam. The hand sprayed and shaped foam (used for both the bipod ramp that damaged Columbia and for the PAL ramp on the recent STS-114 launch) is still the old 'unfriendly' foam. The switch to a new foam had nothing to do with accident.
The 'enviromentally friendly' foam is only used as acreage foam. The hand sprayed and shaped foam (used for both the bipod ramp that damaged Columbia and for the PAL ramp on the recent STS-114 launch) is still the old 'unfriendly' foam. The switch to a new foam had nothing to do with accident.
A 1 meter sphere of nickel-iron weighs far more than that - and has an impact energy of about .00014 megatons. (About .14 ktons of TNT.) If you were a kilometer away you'd barely notice the effects.
Sure, it would mess up a house - but the house across the street might not even have it's windows cracked. A 250Kg impactor will affect a city about as much as a hot water heater exploding - I.E. not noticeably.While they accepted the tests as dangerous - they didn't go out of their way to make them more dangerous. If the weather was bad - the flight didn't take place. If the hydraulic system on the plane was iffy - the flight didn't take place. etc.. etc...
In the flight test business a sucess rate of only 90% would be considered an utter failure. (Even in the 1950's when the crash rate was at it's highest while we were trying to get a handle on jet engines, supersonic flight, new stability problems etc... etc..) Contrary to popular belief Flight Test isn't about flying in the face of risk - it's about calculated acceptance of risk. Killing pilots teaches you nothing and wastes a trained pilot.When it comes to iffy weather and aviation, the tests and lessons were completed decades ago. NASA waved off the landing oppurtunity because those lessons are long learned. ("Landing in iffy weather kills - don't do it if avoidable.")So, as a former submariner, I don't think they'll be particularly useful.
The article says this is being tested on the USS Alabama - I know a chief aboard her, I'll ask him.
It's true that a tiny minority of Japanese were urging surrender - but they had about as much influence as a snowflake on a forest fire. The reality is that the War Cabinet had no intention of surrendering and it took two nuclear weapons and divine intervention (their divinity, in the form of the Emperor) to change that point of view.
Consider the reality - It took the personal intervention of the Emperor to override the War Cabinet and force a surrender after the bombs were dropped. Throughout August 1945 Japan continued offensive actions. etc.. etc.. That and many other facts trump your out of context quotes.
Continue posting your lies if it makes you feel better - but the rest of us live in the real world, and know the truth.
It all makes perfect sense now.
I *do* however know his record - which is one of handwaving away serious problems as mere speed bumps and of treating vast unknowns as minor development problems that can be solved by late tommorow afternoon. But you're welcome to blindly believe anyone you wish.
Because radiation is a bogeyman to John Q. Public.You can't definitively examine something you don't have a great deal of information on - and radiation in deep space is something we only have sketchy information on.In fact the more you look, the more differences you find. SDV's won't save money in the beginning, middle, or end. They are expensive pork.
[1] One item in particular, thrust termination ports for the SRB, has only been tried on motors a tenth of the size of the SRB. (The current SRB had a destruct system, not a thrust termination system.)