And to prove that you're quoting Soviet propaganda from a quarter of a century ago? You're way out of date.
Not to mention, the LK wasn't even tested until 1971... hardly "ready to go" in 1968. On top of that, the Soyuz 7LK1 didn't have a successful test (I.E. one the crew would have survived) until 1969.
Your alleged only runner in the race is completely false. Good grief man, read some history.
I have - extensively. I also, unlike you, grasp that the topic of discussion is the *Moon* race - which indeed, we were essentially the only runner in. If you expand it to include the whole of the space race, the Soviet Union still doesn't fare much better... after the empty 'firsts' you list, Gemini gets rolling in 1964 and racked up practical first after practical first. Leaving the Soviets behind for the balance of the race.
Your other statements about JFK backing away is just as wrong, at least in terms of the race to the Moon. Are you confusing US involvement in Vietnam with the Space Race or something? You sure don't seem to have any concern for actual events and history.
See my other message for links. And no, I'm not confusing anything with anything - I'm relating actual facts and history.
And why had we been developing the engines in the first place?
Sheer lack of anything better to do. Seriously, it started as a (USAF) research project to develop a million pound thrust engine - not a booster program, and there wasn't a particular or intended use.
Looked at one way the goal itself did nothing practical for us, it was all the things we had to learn to be able to achieve it.
Except... we learned very little in the process of achieving it. The number of practical technological advancements that came out of Apollo can be counted on the thumbs of one foot. The tight deadline mitigated against developing any new technologies, and as a result Apollo was a plagiarizer. Taking a bit here, and a bit there, and duct taping the whole affair together and claiming it as it's own.
And if you go by federal laws which require truck drivers to take a 30 minute break within the firs 8 hours of their maximum 11 hour drives, then the requirement to recharge doesn't really seem like a big deal.
0.o? That has to be the most nonsensical thing I've ever heard.
And it's great that you can drive for 16 hours just about straight through, but put a wife and two kids in the car and good luck with that.
My dad did it with a wife and four kids.
And that you ignored my other scenario.. well, that's telling.
My money is on electric vehicles. Battery prices are falling just due to small incremental improvements plus scaling, and there are a number of technologies on the horizon that promise to significantly increase the kWh/$ ratio. Yes, yes, many of them have been "on the horizon" for a while, but there are so many promising technologies that it seems very probable that at least one will work out.
The smart money is indeed on electric vehicles. The smarter money is on not putting all our eggs in one basket.
Note that I'm not talking about recharge times, because Tesla has already solved that problem... given ~300 miles range and a one-hour recharge time, you're good even for cross-country trips.
An enforced down-time of one hour out of every six? No, you're not good for cross-country trips. You're not even close. Yeah, I know I stop to eat and pee... but that's one or the other every two to three hours or so, and the cumulative stop time over a twelve to sixteen hour driving day is less than an hour.
For that matter, it's barely good enough for the routine jaunts I used to take up and down the east coast - which would routinely involve five to eight hours of driving.
Those were two hugely important realizations because they meant that space launches were not inherently expensive and therefore there is enormous potential for reducing launch costs.
I'd be impressed by the first of these realizations (part of the expense being due to throwing the rocket away) - if it hadn't been common knowledge before Musk was even born. That's the whole reason why NASA kicked off what eventually became the Shuttle program around the same time they kicked off the (original, earth orbiter) Apollo program. The second, well, it's been widely realized since about the time Musk shifted from diapers to regular underwear that there was a lot of room (but little impetus) for reducing manufacturing costs.
Seriously folks, Musk didn't invent the idea of reusable or cheap rocketry - the ideas he's putting into practice and batting around for the future we were batting around on USENET s.s.* back in the mid 90's. The difference between us (and a whole bunch of people from the 70's onward) and him is that he has a couple of billion dollars to burn to see if it work, while we didn't.
Unless they're particle physicists with a bunch of computer power at their disposal... not much beyond bumping fists and shouting *information wants to be frrrrreeeeeeeeeeeeee!*.
Seriously, even though it's only useful to a limited number of people, it's still cool.
Maybe it's more noteworthy the second time that they publish this through official channels?
Not really. The Russians have been publishing all manner of powerpoints about what they plan to do "real soon now" in space for a quarter of a century - and only a dozen or so have progressed to more powerpoints, less than a handful to anything more, and precisely none to fruition. And yet, people keep falling for them.
- People don't trust large institutions or governments, who are often the only entities big or powerful enough to mandate huge changes or push science forward. (Example: AT&T funding Bell Labs with phone company revenues leading to discoveries that could be rolled into products and services for profit, or the US funding Apollo and other NASA programs to prove that US was better and stronger than the other kids on the block.)
FTFY...
Seriously, people forget that neither of those things were done out of altruism. They were funded with a purpose, and any advancements in science were nothing more than by products and fuel for the spin and hype machine.
And because President Kennedy died in 1963 (before he could completely back away from the commitment)...
Do you have any evidence that he intended to do that, or are you just looking for an excuse to blame everything on LBJ and Nixon?
It's fairly well known among space historians, though like much of the factual matters surrounding the space program it's practically unknown by the fanboys. Anyhow, a tape containing a discussion between Kennedy and Webb was released a few years back where Kennedy voices his doubts. In 1963 he proposed a joint mission with the Soviets, which has also long been interpreted as a backing away from his original commitment. The Space Review also has a twopart story shedding some light on the issue.
And no, I blame nothing on Nixon - after the Congressional budget cuts of '65-'67, Apollo was already essentially cancelled. Nixon inherited a program already running short of funds and operating mostly on momentum and force a habit - and Congress disinclined to change that. He didn't kill Apollo, he just stood by while a patient already in a deep coma and dependent on machines for every bodily function simply slipped away.
There was a time when the U.S. didn't settle for second place. President John F. Kennedy delivered his famous "we choose to go to the moon" speech in 1962, and seven years later a man walked on the moon.
We only walked on the moon seven years later because we'd already been developing the parts - for as much as six years in the case of the F1 engine. And because President Kennedy died in 1963 (before he could completely back away from the commitment), allowing LBJ to push for funding as a monument.
Not to mention we couldn't really end up in second place - because we were essentially the only runner in the race. The Soviets were years late in starting because they didn't believe we'd actually even stick with it. And even when they did enter the race, it was a half hearted effort with little political support.
I'm pretty sure the solar panel and batteries are heavier...
Not really once you consider the weight of the plutonium is only a small portion of the weight of an RTG. Plus, you still need batteries for peak loads.
Fire departments do a lot of EMT work. This would be a great tool for getting a medic to an injured person in rugged terrain.
But the grandparent's point's two and three still apply - a medic sans equipment and supplies isn't much better than no medic at all, and you still need to get the patient evacuated. And all that assumes you know where the injured person is in the first place...
This jetpack really does look like it's mostly a solution in search of a problem.
Netfilx has it - the folks that want to sell shows to Netflix, the folks that have shows on Netflix and want to keep them honest, etc... etc... these are the people who are the Nielsen's customers for this data.
In my area there's an extremely well funded (bribed) bill that the electric company is ramming through our legislature that will make the pay for back-fed electricity send into the grid like 5x lower. That's about as blatant as it gets when it comes to CO2-producing assholes being assholes.
No, that's about as blatant as is gets for you being stupid. Somebody has to pay to build and maintain the infrastructure - and if you're going to be a source of power you should shoulder your share of the load (represented by the difference between the wholesale price you sell to them for and the retail price they sell the power to others for). TANSTAAFL.
It would make more sense to crank up the diesel tax.
Trains run on diesel too... and it's impractical to electrify a significant portion of the US's freight routes due to capital and maintenance costs. Differential taxation is going to be a very tough sell politically.
If they raise the taxes high enough, perhaps weâ(TM)ll see a resurgence in the use of trains for shipping (which is more energy efficient, too).
Trains have been seeing a resurgence for a couple of decades now. (Rail currently carries around 40% of the total ton-miles moved inside the US.)
But there are some pretty severe limits on how much more that can grow. First off, there's the "last 100 miles" problem... There's only so many freight transshipment points, and there's a lot of places where it makes no economic sense to put one. (Not only because of the cost of building and operating the yard, but because there may not being enough traffic to keep trucks on hand on a regular basis.) There's also only so much rail, and rail is very expensive per mile to build and maintain. (And there's a lot of places where you simply can't put more tracks.) Locomotives, even smaller ones, aren't exactly cheap either.
And then on top of all that - rails simply aren't that efficient unless they're moving large amounts of unitized cargo (either bulk cargo like coal, or containers of a single product). They're really, really inefficient at moving mixed cargoes (like what arrive at your local megamart on a daily basis) due to the labor costs of breaking down the bulk shipments and high cost per ton-mile of moving many smaller shipments.
In many parts of the world, and no doubt in many parts of the USA, rooftop solar is already at parity if subsidies and externalised costs are taken into account.
Do these externatilities and subsidies include the cost of keeping coal plants at standby for nights and cloudy days, or are we talking about fully grid-independent installations?
"Externatilities" is a buzzword for "handwaving" and "cooking the books the achieve the desired result". When Big Evil Corps do it, it's evil. When little individual greenies do it, it's praiseworthy.
If you're going to drill any decent depth you'll have to put together a manned mission with a bunch of roughneck drilling rig workers. They're the only ones that can operate drilling equipment. It can't possibly be taught to other astronauts, and most certainly not some dumb robot.
Never mind the facts... where Apollo astronauts operated drills during the lunar landing. Or where, on a daily basis, pretty much ordinary joe sixpacks drill (water) wells to much deeper depths. Or that we have drills in rock quarries and mines that drill holes to considerable depths with minimal human intervention. Etc... etc... Thus there is no a priori reason to assume that it can't be taught to a "dumb robot", especially one that can so easily be backed up by teleoperation from Earth.
You think some GPS satellite orbiting Earth is going to come up with different results?
Ok, here's one for you - Voyager is a cheap ass grade school optical microscope. The GPS constellation is a scanning tunneling microscope. Which would you choose to look at atomic level features?
Seriously, you're comparing apples to the thing least like apples that you can imagine. For starters they're looking at different effects, Voyager's effects manifested as variations in trajectory, while they're looking for variations in (some extremely precise) clocks with the GPS constellation. Voyager is a single bird, while the GPS constellation is an array of 32 birds - which means you have enough that the effects are amenable to statistical analysis. Etc... etc...
Save me the "When Good Men Do Nothing," I have family and other considerations outside Slashdot idealism.
The problem isn't "When good men do nothing". It's your tinfoil chapeau and paranoia. If you seriously care about your family, seek professional help as soon as possible.
The factual errors remain, as does my recommendation for readers of slashdot to look to other sources for a more rounded view.
I've been following the news about the strategic services for decades - and this story is, as I said, consistent with what has been coming out for years from a wide variety of sources.
If you have evidence to the contrary, give it to us. Or shut the fuck up.
Slashdot Mirror
And to prove that you're quoting Soviet propaganda from a quarter of a century ago? You're way out of date.
Not to mention, the LK wasn't even tested until 1971... hardly "ready to go" in 1968. On top of that, the Soyuz 7LK1 didn't have a successful test (I.E. one the crew would have survived) until 1969.
I have - extensively. I also, unlike you, grasp that the topic of discussion is the *Moon* race - which indeed, we were essentially the only runner in. If you expand it to include the whole of the space race, the Soviet Union still doesn't fare much better... after the empty 'firsts' you list, Gemini gets rolling in 1964 and racked up practical first after practical first. Leaving the Soviets behind for the balance of the race.
See my other message for links. And no, I'm not confusing anything with anything - I'm relating actual facts and history.
Sheer lack of anything better to do. Seriously, it started as a (USAF) research project to develop a million pound thrust engine - not a booster program, and there wasn't a particular or intended use.
Except... we learned very little in the process of achieving it. The number of practical technological advancements that came out of Apollo can be counted on the thumbs of one foot. The tight deadline mitigated against developing any new technologies, and as a result Apollo was a plagiarizer. Taking a bit here, and a bit there, and duct taping the whole affair together and claiming it as it's own.
0.o? That has to be the most nonsensical thing I've ever heard.
My dad did it with a wife and four kids.
And that you ignored my other scenario.. well, that's telling.
The smart money is indeed on electric vehicles. The smarter money is on not putting all our eggs in one basket.
An enforced down-time of one hour out of every six? No, you're not good for cross-country trips. You're not even close. Yeah, I know I stop to eat and pee... but that's one or the other every two to three hours or so, and the cumulative stop time over a twelve to sixteen hour driving day is less than an hour.
For that matter, it's barely good enough for the routine jaunts I used to take up and down the east coast - which would routinely involve five to eight hours of driving.
I'd be impressed by the first of these realizations (part of the expense being due to throwing the rocket away) - if it hadn't been common knowledge before Musk was even born. That's the whole reason why NASA kicked off what eventually became the Shuttle program around the same time they kicked off the (original, earth orbiter) Apollo program. The second, well, it's been widely realized since about the time Musk shifted from diapers to regular underwear that there was a lot of room (but little impetus) for reducing manufacturing costs.
Seriously folks, Musk didn't invent the idea of reusable or cheap rocketry - the ideas he's putting into practice and batting around for the future we were batting around on USENET s.s.* back in the mid 90's. The difference between us (and a whole bunch of people from the 70's onward) and him is that he has a couple of billion dollars to burn to see if it work, while we didn't.
Which makes sense - since the AI it's testing for is itself a moving target.
Unless they're particle physicists with a bunch of computer power at their disposal... not much beyond bumping fists and shouting *information wants to be frrrrreeeeeeeeeeeeee!*.
Seriously, even though it's only useful to a limited number of people, it's still cool.
Not really. The Russians have been publishing all manner of powerpoints about what they plan to do "real soon now" in space for a quarter of a century - and only a dozen or so have progressed to more powerpoints, less than a handful to anything more, and precisely none to fruition. And yet, people keep falling for them.
FTFY...
Seriously, people forget that neither of those things were done out of altruism. They were funded with a purpose, and any advancements in science were nothing more than by products and fuel for the spin and hype machine.
It's fairly well known among space historians, though like much of the factual matters surrounding the space program it's practically unknown by the fanboys. Anyhow, a tape containing a discussion between Kennedy and Webb was released a few years back where Kennedy voices his doubts. In 1963 he proposed a joint mission with the Soviets, which has also long been interpreted as a backing away from his original commitment. The Space Review also has a two part story shedding some light on the issue.
And no, I blame nothing on Nixon - after the Congressional budget cuts of '65-'67, Apollo was already essentially cancelled. Nixon inherited a program already running short of funds and operating mostly on momentum and force a habit - and Congress disinclined to change that. He didn't kill Apollo, he just stood by while a patient already in a deep coma and dependent on machines for every bodily function simply slipped away.
From TFS:
We only walked on the moon seven years later because we'd already been developing the parts - for as much as six years in the case of the F1 engine. And because President Kennedy died in 1963 (before he could completely back away from the commitment), allowing LBJ to push for funding as a monument.
Not to mention we couldn't really end up in second place - because we were essentially the only runner in the race. The Soviets were years late in starting because they didn't believe we'd actually even stick with it. And even when they did enter the race, it was a half hearted effort with little political support.
Not really once you consider the weight of the plutonium is only a small portion of the weight of an RTG. Plus, you still need batteries for peak loads.
But the grandparent's point's two and three still apply - a medic sans equipment and supplies isn't much better than no medic at all, and you still need to get the patient evacuated. And all that assumes you know where the injured person is in the first place...
This jetpack really does look like it's mostly a solution in search of a problem.
Netfilx has it - the folks that want to sell shows to Netflix, the folks that have shows on Netflix and want to keep them honest, etc... etc... these are the people who are the Nielsen's customers for this data.
No, that's about as blatant as is gets for you being stupid. Somebody has to pay to build and maintain the infrastructure - and if you're going to be a source of power you should shoulder your share of the load (represented by the difference between the wholesale price you sell to them for and the retail price they sell the power to others for). TANSTAAFL.
Trains run on diesel too... and it's impractical to electrify a significant portion of the US's freight routes due to capital and maintenance costs. Differential taxation is going to be a very tough sell politically.
Trains have been seeing a resurgence for a couple of decades now. (Rail currently carries around 40% of the total ton-miles moved inside the US.)
But there are some pretty severe limits on how much more that can grow. First off, there's the "last 100 miles" problem... There's only so many freight transshipment points, and there's a lot of places where it makes no economic sense to put one. (Not only because of the cost of building and operating the yard, but because there may not being enough traffic to keep trucks on hand on a regular basis.) There's also only so much rail, and rail is very expensive per mile to build and maintain. (And there's a lot of places where you simply can't put more tracks.) Locomotives, even smaller ones, aren't exactly cheap either.
And then on top of all that - rails simply aren't that efficient unless they're moving large amounts of unitized cargo (either bulk cargo like coal, or containers of a single product). They're really, really inefficient at moving mixed cargoes (like what arrive at your local megamart on a daily basis) due to the labor costs of breaking down the bulk shipments and high cost per ton-mile of moving many smaller shipments.
"Externatilities" is a buzzword for "handwaving" and "cooking the books the achieve the desired result". When Big Evil Corps do it, it's evil. When little individual greenies do it, it's praiseworthy.
And where the ef do you think the materials for the wind farms come from? Unicorn farts?
Never mind the facts... where Apollo astronauts operated drills during the lunar landing. Or where, on a daily basis, pretty much ordinary joe sixpacks drill (water) wells to much deeper depths. Or that we have drills in rock quarries and mines that drill holes to considerable depths with minimal human intervention. Etc... etc... Thus there is no a priori reason to assume that it can't be taught to a "dumb robot", especially one that can so easily be backed up by teleoperation from Earth.
Ok, here's one for you - Voyager is a cheap ass grade school optical microscope. The GPS constellation is a scanning tunneling microscope. Which would you choose to look at atomic level features?
Seriously, you're comparing apples to the thing least like apples that you can imagine. For starters they're looking at different effects, Voyager's effects manifested as variations in trajectory, while they're looking for variations in (some extremely precise) clocks with the GPS constellation. Voyager is a single bird, while the GPS constellation is an array of 32 birds - which means you have enough that the effects are amenable to statistical analysis. Etc... etc...
That word does not mean what you think it does.
The problem isn't "When good men do nothing". It's your tinfoil chapeau and paranoia. If you seriously care about your family, seek professional help as soon as possible.
I've been following the news about the strategic services for decades - and this story is, as I said, consistent with what has been coming out for years from a wide variety of sources.
If you have evidence to the contrary, give it to us. Or shut the fuck up.
Which is mostly a testament to how freakin' desperate we were for SF on the little screen in 1978.