The timing needed on such a launch system is far too critical, in my opinion. You have a very, very narrow launch window if you plan to meet up with the graple (which is travelling at quite a pace). Once you're in the vicinity of the grapple, you may have to manoevre to link up. We currently know very little about precision manoevering at suborbital velocities.
You will need a heat sheild to keep the cargo from melting on its way up. We have enough problems with Mach 25 in a rarefied upper atmosphere, and you want to push a payload at that speed through the lower atmosphere without a heat shield?
Holy Moley! What kind of screen do you have??? 5MP is barely acceptible onscreen? 5MP would work out to a 31" monitor at 100 pixels per inch. NVidia's G6 maxes out at 2048x1536 which is 3MP.
I did not mean to imply that because it is not all literal, that not all of it is important. Like you say, read it for what it is. Revelation is full of symbolism, and trying to make first century symbolism line up with 21st century fact is a mistake. Revelation was written to first century Christians. To understand it well, you have to think like a first century Christian. Unfortunately, most people don't put in the effort it takes to understand it well. Instead (like you point out) they try to twist it to fit preconceived ideas or popular opinions.
So, they are using a cheaper, lower quality lens and expecting people to pay 350 pounds for it? That's about US$630! Am I missing something? Is the ceramic lens harder/more scratch resistant? You could buy a 7 or 8 megapixel camera for that kind of money.
The Bible is not all literal. It is full of allegory, hyperbole, symbolism, etc. For example, in Luke, Jesus calls Herod a fox in no uncertain terms. Was Jesus being literal? Was Herod a small furry doglike animal with a big bushy tail? Nope.
Although I am sure these cars are reasonably safe (otherwise the Ministry of Transportation would forbid their sale), I doubt if they will catch on much here in the snow belt. They look more like a summer car, or something that will be used as a promotional vehicle. How will these things handle in a blizzard, or on a windy day?
You aren't thinking it through properly. To build a spacecraft, you need refined metals. The moon has no refined metals. It has no refineries to convert the raw metals into the specialty alloys needed. It has no mines from which do extract the ores needed to make the raw metals in the first place. All of the metals need to be brought up from Earth.
To build a spacecraft you need plastics. Plastics are, for the most part, petrochemical in nature. The moon has no petrochemicals. The moon has no facilities for moulding and shaping plastics. The moon has no supplies of industrial adhesives. All of the plastics need to be brought up from Earth.
To build a spacecraft, you need workers. The moon has none. Workers need to be supplied with air, water, food. While there may be oxygen and water, there is no food. The workers would have to be protected from radiation, from the extremes in temperature, from the lack of atmosphere. The moon has little to offer in terms of creature comforts. All this will need to be brought up from Earth.
To build a spacecraft, you need various electronic components. The moon has none. You need hydraulics components. The moon has none. You will need cloth. You will need wire, rope, ceramics, glass, and probably hundreds of other components. You will need fuel, food, air, water, etc to outfit the trip. The moon has none of it. It will all need to be shipped up from Earth.
If your job is to explore the mid-Atlantic ridge, you don't build an underwater submersible factory on the Caribbean seabed. You build a submersible in an on-shore facility.
I disagree. The logical place to store stuff is in orbit. Why drop stuff down a gravity well if you're only going to lift it up later? It is a complete waste of fuel. Lunar telescopes would have very little to do with a Mars mission. Training and living facilities might be possible, but the Moon has a completely different environment than that of Mars (Earth probably has closer environments) so I don't know how valuable it would be as a training centre. Communications is not a problem that a Moon base, or lunar satellites can solve. Fuel, we can lift it from Earth far cheaper than we can extract it from the Moon. Sorry, but I don't buy a Moon base as any sort of stepping stone for Mars.
Why are people so gung-ho on asteroid mining? I can only assume that they have little concept of the processes involved in getting refined metals out of a mixture of ores. According to this page to create a ton of pig iron, you start with 2 tons of ore, 1 ton of coke and half-ton of limestone. The fire consumes 5 tons of air. Once you get the pig iron, you need to blast oxygen through the molten iron to convert it to steel. Or are they planning to "land" an asteroid in the Earth, and refine it here?
The big bucks will be in capturing comets. Comets are full of water, which means oxygen. A large plastic bag wrapped around a comet can capture the outgassing. By directing the outgassing through jets, the comet can be coaxed into a reasonable orbit. Solar power and distillation techniques could separate the materials.
The 100km boundary isn't exactly arbitrary. The thinner the atmosphere, the faster a plane has to travel in order to maintain lift. At 100km, the speed a plane would have to travel would be as fast as the speed a satellite would be if it were in orbit at that height. Above that height, you have to fly faster than the orbital velocity. Below that, you fly slower than the orbital velocity.
Building a lunar waystation merely diverts funds away from a Mars mission. There is no reason to go to the moon on a mars trip. (Well, perhaps a gravity slingshot). Once you're in Earth orbit, you go directly to Mars. Going to the moon first is like travelling from New York to Los Angeles via Miami. It is a pointless side trip*.
Perhaps, but I imagine the number of filthy rich space geek idiots is rather low. Once the suborbital space-jump extreme ironing craze is over, what is going to support the industry? Much as I would like to go, I'm not about to spend two years earnings on an 80 minute trip.
However, I will be in London this weekend, checking out the private astronaut school.
Space tourism and Extreme space diving are not going to be profitable. The next phase is likely going to be a private satellite launch system. However, I could see a new "X-Prize" for private launch to low earth orbit as the next step.
Creationists have no problem with evolution on this level. What they have a problem with is that evolution can account for the development of different species, or that it somehow allows a puddle of goo somewhere in France to became human.
Fluidic circuits would be immune to electromagnetic pulse effects from nuclear blasts.
Whenever I hear of fluidic circuits, I am reminded of Han Solo's Revenge. Han and Chewie had to repair the Millennium Falcon on a planet where fluidic circuitry was the highest tech on the planet.
Slashdot Mirror
Where do you think we got it from in the first place?
I believe the US was also kind enough to drop a nuclear bomb on us.
Interesting list. I think a more interesting list would be the list of launch accidents involving spacecraft with nuclear materials onboard.
The timing needed on such a launch system is far too critical, in my opinion. You have a very, very narrow launch window if you plan to meet up with the graple (which is travelling at quite a pace). Once you're in the vicinity of the grapple, you may have to manoevre to link up. We currently know very little about precision manoevering at suborbital velocities.
You will need a heat sheild to keep the cargo from melting on its way up. We have enough problems with Mach 25 in a rarefied upper atmosphere, and you want to push a payload at that speed through the lower atmosphere without a heat shield?
Cruithne is merely a co-orbital object, not a satellite. It does not orbit the Earth, so it cannot be a moon. Do you have any other candidates?
Could one be built that could hurl payloads into orbit from the moon's surface?
Holy Moley! What kind of screen do you have??? 5MP is barely acceptible onscreen? 5MP would work out to a 31" monitor at 100 pixels per inch. NVidia's G6 maxes out at 2048x1536 which is 3MP.
I did not mean to imply that because it is not all literal, that not all of it is important. Like you say, read it for what it is. Revelation is full of symbolism, and trying to make first century symbolism line up with 21st century fact is a mistake. Revelation was written to first century Christians. To understand it well, you have to think like a first century Christian. Unfortunately, most people don't put in the effort it takes to understand it well. Instead (like you point out) they try to twist it to fit preconceived ideas or popular opinions.
So, they are using a cheaper, lower quality lens and expecting people to pay 350 pounds for it? That's about US$630! Am I missing something? Is the ceramic lens harder/more scratch resistant? You could buy a 7 or 8 megapixel camera for that kind of money.
The Bible is not all literal. It is full of allegory, hyperbole, symbolism, etc. For example, in Luke, Jesus calls Herod a fox in no uncertain terms. Was Jesus being literal? Was Herod a small furry doglike animal with a big bushy tail? Nope.
Although I am sure these cars are reasonably safe (otherwise the Ministry of Transportation would forbid their sale), I doubt if they will catch on much here in the snow belt. They look more like a summer car, or something that will be used as a promotional vehicle. How will these things handle in a blizzard, or on a windy day?
Thanks!
Maybe it was hype. But it was Canadian hype!
Although, I think the idea of a balloon lift has merit, I was more in favour of the Canadian Arrow effort.
You aren't thinking it through properly. To build a spacecraft, you need refined metals. The moon has no refined metals. It has no refineries to convert the raw metals into the specialty alloys needed. It has no mines from which do extract the ores needed to make the raw metals in the first place. All of the metals need to be brought up from Earth.
To build a spacecraft you need plastics. Plastics are, for the most part, petrochemical in nature. The moon has no petrochemicals. The moon has no facilities for moulding and shaping plastics. The moon has no supplies of industrial adhesives. All of the plastics need to be brought up from Earth.
To build a spacecraft, you need workers. The moon has none. Workers need to be supplied with air, water, food. While there may be oxygen and water, there is no food. The workers would have to be protected from radiation, from the extremes in temperature, from the lack of atmosphere. The moon has little to offer in terms of creature comforts. All this will need to be brought up from Earth.
To build a spacecraft, you need various electronic components. The moon has none. You need hydraulics components. The moon has none. You will need cloth. You will need wire, rope, ceramics, glass, and probably hundreds of other components. You will need fuel, food, air, water, etc to outfit the trip. The moon has none of it. It will all need to be shipped up from Earth.
If your job is to explore the mid-Atlantic ridge, you don't build an underwater submersible factory on the Caribbean seabed. You build a submersible in an on-shore facility.
I disagree. The logical place to store stuff is in orbit. Why drop stuff down a gravity well if you're only going to lift it up later? It is a complete waste of fuel. Lunar telescopes would have very little to do with a Mars mission. Training and living facilities might be possible, but the Moon has a completely different environment than that of Mars (Earth probably has closer environments) so I don't know how valuable it would be as a training centre. Communications is not a problem that a Moon base, or lunar satellites can solve. Fuel, we can lift it from Earth far cheaper than we can extract it from the Moon. Sorry, but I don't buy a Moon base as any sort of stepping stone for Mars.
Why are people so gung-ho on asteroid mining? I can only assume that they have little concept of the processes involved in getting refined metals out of a mixture of ores. According to this page to create a ton of pig iron, you start with 2 tons of ore, 1 ton of coke and half-ton of limestone. The fire consumes 5 tons of air. Once you get the pig iron, you need to blast oxygen through the molten iron to convert it to steel. Or are they planning to "land" an asteroid in the Earth, and refine it here?
The big bucks will be in capturing comets. Comets are full of water, which means oxygen. A large plastic bag wrapped around a comet can capture the outgassing. By directing the outgassing through jets, the comet can be coaxed into a reasonable orbit. Solar power and distillation techniques could separate the materials.
The 100km boundary isn't exactly arbitrary. The thinner the atmosphere, the faster a plane has to travel in order to maintain lift. At 100km, the speed a plane would have to travel would be as fast as the speed a satellite would be if it were in orbit at that height. Above that height, you have to fly faster than the orbital velocity. Below that, you fly slower than the orbital velocity.
Building a lunar waystation merely diverts funds away from a Mars mission. There is no reason to go to the moon on a mars trip. (Well, perhaps a gravity slingshot). Once you're in Earth orbit, you go directly to Mars. Going to the moon first is like travelling from New York to Los Angeles via Miami. It is a pointless side trip*.
*No offense intended to the good people of Miami.
Having $200K to blow on a suborbital hop makes one filthy rich in my little world.
Perhaps, but I imagine the number of filthy rich space geek idiots is rather low. Once the suborbital space-jump extreme ironing craze is over, what is going to support the industry? Much as I would like to go, I'm not about to spend two years earnings on an 80 minute trip.
However, I will be in London this weekend, checking out the private astronaut school.
The Canadian Arrow team recently had a successful test firing of their engine. (They are the ones who set up the world's first private astronaut training centre.) The DaVinci team is likely to be the second private team into space.
Space tourism and Extreme space diving are not going to be profitable. The next phase is likely going to be a private satellite launch system. However, I could see a new "X-Prize" for private launch to low earth orbit as the next step.
And the US patent laws say that if unlicensed tech is sold, it is a patent infringement.
Creationists have no problem with evolution on this level. What they have a problem with is that evolution can account for the development of different species, or that it somehow allows a puddle of goo somewhere in France to became human.
Fluidic circuits would be immune to electromagnetic pulse effects from nuclear blasts.
Whenever I hear of fluidic circuits, I am reminded of Han Solo's Revenge. Han and Chewie had to repair the Millennium Falcon on a planet where fluidic circuitry was the highest tech on the planet.