It would be like arguing that you have stopped beating your wife, but you retain the right to resume beating her if she "really needs it".
The governments play here is quite plain and obvious. Getting the case this far has taken a long time. They are seeking a dismissal so that the case will have to be restarted from scratch once they've restarted their wireless wiretaps.
To a Democratic society, elections are our most sacred ritual. Desecrating elections should be one of our highest crimes. We should treat those who murder democracy at least as harshly as those who murder people. I'd say a proof solid election fraud case should be a 10-20 years in prison. A further insult would be putting these individuals' jailhouse photos on the election training materials so that everyone KNOWS what happens to those who subvert democracy.
Actually, it's just the opposite. Lazy folks don't do preparation work and end up with even MORE work later. No, these folks were VERY dilligent VERY early making darn sure that they could eliminate any scent of voting irregularities.
A lazy Republican operative would have let someone choose precincts at random, counted just the three and then found out that they then had to recount every single ballot.
I believe you are overestimating the desire of billionaires to take a brief rocket ride to the edge of space only to be immediately pulled back down. Then there is the risk factor. Anytime you're dealing with rocket fuel, there is a serious risk of going BOOOOM!!!!
Billionaires may be rich. But do you think they're stupid? Besides, billionaires get to their status by getting SOMEONE ELSE to pay for it. Like say... the government.
NASA absoluetly has incentive to make spaceflight cheaper. Their incentive is they can run more missions on a shrinking budget.
Just remember one thing though. NASA is a public agency. This means that they are incredibly afraid of PR problems that occur when their vehicles explode with people on board. Granted that this will hurt a private corporation too. But not until it actually happens. Do not expect double and triple redundancy in the efforts of the private firms to provide an elevator ride just above the atmosphere.
Something tells me that this craft as configured would not be capable of achieving orbit from a ground launch. Perhaps a balloon launch would make things more feasible. However, why would you want to come down with such BIG empty fuel tanks that are no longer necessary? There being empty certainly decreases the mass... but it's still mass.
In any case... good luck to them. I think they're going to need it. I don't think anyone will pay a cent for a sub-orbital flight.
You would need more than a machine shop. You would need ore refiners and foundries. You need massive hydroponic facilities. You would have to mine a substantial amount ore just to get the raw materials to start with. Just keep in mind the amount of resources it would take just to get STARTED. Then you have to wonder to yourself about how many people will actually WANT to work in an environment like this.
As far as exporting products to Earth, everything will have to be transported by rocket. I am well aware that such rockets would be much smaller than the ones needed to get from the earth to the moon, but you still need to get off the moon and out of orbit. Then all the products that are petroleum (plastic) or organic (any other fiber) based would have to rocketed up to the moon at an extra-ordinary cost.
If the Chinese want the moon, I say let them have it. They'll go broke trying to colonize it... as would we. Mars has some potential, but only if we can figure out how to manufacture an atmosphere. Otherwise, you would have nothing but societies of mole people.
I don't think this is exactly correct x/0 does not equal infinity. The limit of x/y as y approaches zero is infinity. Infinity is not a number, it just means something is unbounded.
For instance:
a=1
while (true)
a++;
Fell free to trace this program in order to compute your "value" of infinity.
Well, this seems to simply be another way of saying that Nullity=[b]R[/b]. The difficulty here is that division of two elements in the set of real numbers could produce a set instead of another element of the set. The other way of looking at it is that it produces a variable which is a member of the real numbers, furthermore since the variable can never have a value you could never actually perform any operations on it as you would only get nullity back.
>in Europe we DO use the dayofmonth/month/year notation... just as a side remark, tough...
I live in the US, and I prefer that order as well. Files sort correctly when you list things that way. But I use '.' characters instead of '/' characters so I won't confuse my fellow Americans who do not write dates in a sortable way.
Colonies have always provided some economic or military benefit to the colonizing power. Typically they are expected to become profitable. The outposts in Antarctica are not profitable. They are 100% dependent upon the outside world for their food and fuel. Thankfully, they are blessed with oxygen and water. The net export of these outposts is scientific data.
Compared to the cost of space exploration, the observation stations in Antarctica is a giveaway. The most expensive part is when they cannot get in by ship and have to use cargo planes. Even the cargo planes are a giveaway when compared to the notion of a moon station and the ISS is pennies on the dollar.
There is a really high "COOL" factor to be had from creating a Luna station. But it's pretty much just that... cool. Yes, a useful telescope could be constructed there. But it could be constructed much cheaper as an orbiting vehicle. The cool factor to this mission is way too high. It's a waste of taxpayers money.
Well, I think you have to consider the number of rockets necessary to send all the equipment to do the mining and processing to Luna. I think you need to consider whether this is all worthwhile in the end. I think you need to consider wether a Lunar base could ever be self-sufficient.
I have no doubt that we the human race could accomplish this task. I just wonder what toll it would take on the Terran economy and whether it is actually worth it.
No doubt that cost would go down as we got better at some things. But you really have to consider whether it would ever go down enough to make a cost-benefit analysis acceptable.
[i]But there are several companies that are gearing up to send a small team of humans to Mars for a decade stay (one is saying that it is a one-way mission).[/i]
Yeah, there are companies out there that want to drop a couple 100 billion and an expiditinary mission to determine the economic feasibility of mining. And I'm sure there are 10 highly qualified geologists out there who would like to spend 10 years on the big bald red rock of war.
If there are companies advertising that they are doing this work, than they are whoring for grants. They've been told that such grants will be available in the future and they can be paid to do bullshit planning that will never happen.
Oh please, let us have the private sector tackle the problem if the promised economic resources are available. This is what "pro-moon" people are always saying. So if there is economic opportunity, it is the PRIVATE sector that should pursue it.
What is MORE likely to happen is that the new space "entrepreneurs" will do what virtually every other sector of the economy has. They will swagger around in public and ask for subsidies in private.
Wishing will not make things so. And I will further point out that longboats were beached in places with a breathable atmosphere, waters supplies and arable soil. These things are no readily available on any planetoid around here. And if you think water can be mined in an "economic" fashion, you need to investigate the process of mining and extraction to realize that these notions are NUTS!!!!
The stated purpose for the space shuttle was to have a re-usable vehicle in orbit. We had one, it was called SPACELAB. But that was the product of another President. Hence, we needed something different and Spacelab had to go.
To replace spacelab, we decided to create what is essentially a mini space station that could be launched and retrieved. So instead of just leaving the space station up in space, we decided to create an orbital RV.
The repair of the Hubble space telescope was a giant coup for the Space Shuttle program. But I would point out that we could have launched the original from a rocket AND it would probably have been far cheaper to simply build another telescope and launch it on another disposable rocket rather than fund the space shuttles.
So 30 years later, we are back to capsules. We are back to the notion that crafts that vehicles which burst into flame as part of normal operation are probably more disposable in nature. Being in the country that invented disposable... EVERYTHING... I'm amazed that we did not realize how right we got it in the first place.
President Bush would have us divert funding away from serious scientific missions utilizing probes in order to fund an extra-orbital camping trip. I don't think the new Democratic Congress will tolerate this though. Bush squandered a $250 billion surplus and turned it into a $300 million deficit. We have to recover some of the wasted funding and we certainly have to spend our budget wisely. Weenies and Smores with Tang on Luna is not a responsible use of the taxpayers money at this point.
No, the point of sending people to the moon is generating pork for aerospace contractors.
The equation for people surviving off planet is quite simple. They require food, oxygen and water. And it is plain that providing those things will be outlandishly expensive as these most basic commodities just are not readily available on Mars or Luna.
Once Antarctica is colonized, I'll accept the notion of Lunar colonization. Antarctica is MUCH closer than the Moon. It has a breathable atmosphere and tremendous water resources. Furthermore, it has economic value in the form of mineral resources. It even has native fauna that can be caught and butchered in a pinch.
Given all these tremendous opportunities at a micro-fraction of the cost of lunar colonization, why would anyone want to colonize Luna before Antarctica?
The plan for the moon would be to dig hole into the ground, mine water. People would live like moles.
To save humanity in case of an asteroid strike you would do EXACTLY the same thing here on earth. Dig deep holes and stock them well with food and water. You'll save a LOT more people at 1/1000 of the cost.
Space exploration should be left to lifelong career professionals... ROBOTS!!!
Hugo Chavez is a socialist who is bitterly opposed by the Venzuelan oligarchs. Exactly WHO may I ask would corrupt him?
The guy is not perfect by any stretch of the imagination. But I think you need to apply the same standards to the Bush administration. It makes one more consistent AND you are actually a constituent of the United States.
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It would be like arguing that you have stopped beating your wife, but you retain the right to resume beating her if she "really needs it".
The governments play here is quite plain and obvious. Getting the case this far has taken a long time. They are seeking a dismissal so that the case will have to be restarted from scratch once they've restarted their wireless wiretaps.
You forgot the issuance of press credentials and the subsequent destruction of visitation records for a certain male prostitute.
[url]http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/3/8/12305
One has to wonder exactly who he was "interviewing" after hours?
To a Democratic society, elections are our most sacred ritual. Desecrating elections should be one of our highest crimes. We should treat those who murder democracy at least as harshly as those who murder people. I'd say a proof solid election fraud case should be a 10-20 years in prison. A further insult would be putting these individuals' jailhouse photos on the election training materials so that everyone KNOWS what happens to those who subvert democracy.
Actually, it's just the opposite. Lazy folks don't do preparation work and end up with even MORE work later. No, these folks were VERY dilligent VERY early making darn sure that they could eliminate any scent of voting irregularities.
A lazy Republican operative would have let someone choose precincts at random, counted just the three and then found out that they then had to recount every single ballot.
I believe you are overestimating the desire of billionaires to take a brief rocket ride to the edge of space only to be immediately pulled back down. Then there is the risk factor. Anytime you're dealing with rocket fuel, there is a serious risk of going BOOOOM!!!!
Billionaires may be rich. But do you think they're stupid? Besides, billionaires get to their status by getting SOMEONE ELSE to pay for it. Like say
NASA absoluetly has incentive to make spaceflight cheaper. Their incentive is they can run more missions on a shrinking budget.
Just remember one thing though. NASA is a public agency. This means that they are incredibly afraid of PR problems that occur when their vehicles explode with people on board. Granted that this will hurt a private corporation too. But not until it actually happens. Do not expect double and triple redundancy in the efforts of the private firms to provide an elevator ride just above the atmosphere.
There is no spaceflight involved in a sub-orbital flight. This is just a slight longer version of the Vomit Comet.
Something tells me that this craft as configured would not be capable of achieving orbit from a ground launch. Perhaps a balloon launch would make things more feasible. However, why would you want to come down with such BIG empty fuel tanks that are no longer necessary? There being empty certainly decreases the mass
In any case
Don't forget your computer.
You would need more than a machine shop. You would need ore refiners and foundries. You need massive hydroponic facilities. You would have to mine a substantial amount ore just to get the raw materials to start with. Just keep in mind the amount of resources it would take just to get STARTED. Then you have to wonder to yourself about how many people will actually WANT to work in an environment like this.
As far as exporting products to Earth, everything will have to be transported by rocket. I am well aware that such rockets would be much smaller than the ones needed to get from the earth to the moon, but you still need to get off the moon and out of orbit. Then all the products that are petroleum (plastic) or organic (any other fiber) based would have to rocketed up to the moon at an extra-ordinary cost.
If the Chinese want the moon, I say let them have it. They'll go broke trying to colonize it
Well, that's about what the Time Cube website says about me. So maybe I need to visit the Flat Earth Society website to be told that too.
Infinity isn't a number, it's simply means there is an unbounded limit.
I don't think this is exactly correct x/0 does not equal infinity. The limit of x/y as y approaches zero is infinity. Infinity is not a number, it just means something is unbounded.
For instance:
a=1
while (true)
a++;
Fell free to trace this program in order to compute your "value" of infinity.
Well, this seems to simply be another way of saying that Nullity=[b]R[/b]. The difficulty here is that division of two elements in the set of real numbers could produce a set instead of another element of the set. The other way of looking at it is that it produces a variable which is a member of the real numbers, furthermore since the variable can never have a value you could never actually perform any operations on it as you would only get nullity back.
I think this guy is up quack creek.
>in Europe we DO use the dayofmonth/month/year notation... just as a side remark, tough...
I live in the US, and I prefer that order as well. Files sort correctly when you list things that way. But I use '.' characters instead of '/' characters so I won't confuse my fellow Americans who do not write dates in a sortable way.
Colonies have always provided some economic or military benefit to the colonizing power. Typically they are expected to become profitable. The outposts in Antarctica are not profitable. They are 100% dependent upon the outside world for their food and fuel. Thankfully, they are blessed with oxygen and water. The net export of these outposts is scientific data.
... cool. Yes, a useful telescope could be constructed there. But it could be constructed much cheaper as an orbiting vehicle. The cool factor to this mission is way too high. It's a waste of taxpayers money.
Compared to the cost of space exploration, the observation stations in Antarctica is a giveaway. The most expensive part is when they cannot get in by ship and have to use cargo planes. Even the cargo planes are a giveaway when compared to the notion of a moon station and the ISS is pennies on the dollar.
There is a really high "COOL" factor to be had from creating a Luna station. But it's pretty much just that
Well, I think you have to consider the number of rockets necessary to send all the equipment to do the mining and processing to Luna. I think you need to consider whether this is all worthwhile in the end. I think you need to consider wether a Lunar base could ever be self-sufficient.
I have no doubt that we the human race could accomplish this task. I just wonder what toll it would take on the Terran economy and whether it is actually worth it.
No doubt that cost would go down as we got better at some things. But you really have to consider whether it would ever go down enough to make a cost-benefit analysis acceptable.
[i]But there are several companies that are gearing up to send a small team of humans to Mars for a decade stay (one is saying that it is a one-way mission).[/i]
Yeah, there are companies out there that want to drop a couple 100 billion and an expiditinary mission to determine the economic feasibility of mining. And I'm sure there are 10 highly qualified geologists out there who would like to spend 10 years on the big bald red rock of war.
If there are companies advertising that they are doing this work, than they are whoring for grants. They've been told that such grants will be available in the future and they can be paid to do bullshit planning that will never happen.
Oh please, let us have the private sector tackle the problem if the promised economic resources are available. This is what "pro-moon" people are always saying. So if there is economic opportunity, it is the PRIVATE sector that should pursue it.
What is MORE likely to happen is that the new space "entrepreneurs" will do what virtually every other sector of the economy has. They will swagger around in public and ask for subsidies in private.
Wishing will not make things so. And I will further point out that longboats were beached in places with a breathable atmosphere, waters supplies and arable soil. These things are no readily available on any planetoid around here. And if you think water can be mined in an "economic" fashion, you need to investigate the process of mining and extraction to realize that these notions are NUTS!!!!
The stated purpose for the space shuttle was to have a re-usable vehicle in orbit. We had one, it was called SPACELAB. But that was the product of another President. Hence, we needed something different and Spacelab had to go.
... EVERYTHING ... I'm amazed that we did not realize how right we got it in the first place.
To replace spacelab, we decided to create what is essentially a mini space station that could be launched and retrieved. So instead of just leaving the space station up in space, we decided to create an orbital RV.
The repair of the Hubble space telescope was a giant coup for the Space Shuttle program. But I would point out that we could have launched the original from a rocket AND it would probably have been far cheaper to simply build another telescope and launch it on another disposable rocket rather than fund the space shuttles.
So 30 years later, we are back to capsules. We are back to the notion that crafts that vehicles which burst into flame as part of normal operation are probably more disposable in nature. Being in the country that invented disposable
President Bush would have us divert funding away from serious scientific missions utilizing probes in order to fund an extra-orbital camping trip. I don't think the new Democratic Congress will tolerate this though. Bush squandered a $250 billion surplus and turned it into a $300 million deficit. We have to recover some of the wasted funding and we certainly have to spend our budget wisely. Weenies and Smores with Tang on Luna is not a responsible use of the taxpayers money at this point.
No, the point of sending people to the moon is generating pork for aerospace contractors.
The equation for people surviving off planet is quite simple. They require food, oxygen and water. And it is plain that providing those things will be outlandishly expensive as these most basic commodities just are not readily available on Mars or Luna.
Once Antarctica is colonized, I'll accept the notion of Lunar colonization. Antarctica is MUCH closer than the Moon. It has a breathable atmosphere and tremendous water resources. Furthermore, it has economic value in the form of mineral resources. It even has native fauna that can be caught and butchered in a pinch.
Given all these tremendous opportunities at a micro-fraction of the cost of lunar colonization, why would anyone want to colonize Luna before Antarctica?
The plan for the moon would be to dig hole into the ground, mine water. People would live like moles.
To save humanity in case of an asteroid strike you would do EXACTLY the same thing here on earth. Dig deep holes and stock them well with food and water. You'll save a LOT more people at 1/1000 of the cost.
Space exploration should be left to lifelong career professionals
> Hitler was a leftist.
Yes this explains the support offered to Hitler by Prescott Bush and Henry Ford. We all know that both of these individuals were sreaming pinkos.
Hugo Chavez is a socialist who is bitterly opposed by the Venzuelan oligarchs. Exactly WHO may I ask would corrupt him?
The guy is not perfect by any stretch of the imagination. But I think you need to apply the same standards to the Bush administration. It makes one more consistent AND you are actually a constituent of the United States.