Well put. Your post and Ian Wolf's post, and the one somewhat earlier in the thread about the child porno being hosted there (and not being shut down) changed my whole mind about what was going on here.
I've seen enough about that to be convinced that it *was* related to the attacks; what I haven't seen was any public disclosure of who it was that was pushing the trading. I can't think of any reason that particular knowledge couldn't have been sniffed out.
I'd be interested in any links you have. I lost a couple friends 9/11.
The more I see wrt to 9/11 and the trading, the more it stinks.
(journal comment or shadowbearer at at at yahoo. blah blah spam defense)
After reading thru this thread, it strikes me that some supervisor over the agent in charge probably realized what a minefield his subordinate had stepped into, and expedited the return of the hardware. Given the FBI's track record, it's the only thing that makes sense.
Now we can hope that the agent in question gets a sincere cluebat slap on the head^H^H^H^H wrist:)
As I recall (no links handy) from reading about the 1908 event, the entry fireball was actually observed, which would rule out a terrestrial origin.
In any case it'd take very stable local atmospheric conditions (i.e. no wind at all or a extraordinarily stable inversion layer), and a fair amount of time, even with a large natural gas vent, to produce an explosion that large.
If it happened in the US, I think we'd be able to reconstruct events (NORAD radar, etc) afterwards, and determine that it was an asteroid.
You're absolutely right about the reaction of the general population (esp. given the current political climate in the US), and some other countries. It's one of the nightmare scenarios. Sagan knew what he was talking about when he wrote about scientific ignorance.
and lightning strikes only have to happen *once*...
kinda like this...but in that regard, you could brand an asteroid strike as a WMD.
I am going to comment on the priorities our country has (as the most powerful technological entity on the planet and the only one capable of reliable space launches); we burned up millions of person-hours worrying about some has-been singer showing part of her tit on national TV during a semi-violent* sports game and it was considered important.
Sheeeeeiiiiit.
* Like every other sport, they're killing it by going to ludicrous measures to make it *perfectly safe*. Uh, huh. Headlines in ten years: "100 million miles of rushing, and Football star Min Headroom was killed by a mugger in NYC"
Irony nowadays is beyond being a subtlety and becoming a fact of "reality"./rant
1) Could be convinced of the reality of the threat. 2) Could/would be willing to release the resources. 3) Would think it wasn't some Zionist/Capitalist/Communist/environmentalist/ science grant/* plot. 4) Didn't form a Indefinite Committee on the subject proclaiming it "demanding more study"
Neat idea, but the smaller you want the rock pieces, the more precise (and therefore prone to failure) your mechanisms will be, and therefore your failure rates will go up. Keep the moving parts and the precision of their machining to a minimum.
Any mining company knows this.
In this particular application, "large-bore" EM accelerators would seem to have the lowest overall failure rates, given vacuum "cementing" of moving parts.
Of course this would depend on the type of asteroid. Are we talking nickel-iron asteroids, or carbonaceous (carbonaceous would be easier to convert to particles that, say, an ion engine could use - just melt the ice and seperate out the impurities)
Any more knowledgeable engineers like to comment on this?
Goddamn, that whole rant reminds of this totally whacked out dream I had as a kid, where I invented a rocket engine that ran on toothpaste, and could have saved the world as the falling moon darkened the skies, except my parents thought I was full of shit, and threw it in the dumpster.
Thirty years since I had that dream. *shiver*:) Thank Bog all my dreams now are about nubile 16 year olds:0... oh, wait... must be the innurnet ads
Imagine a Beowulf cluster of small spacecraft mining an asteroid:) Some of them are dedicated to building more of themselves, and a small portion of those seek out other asteroids to mine, sending the resultant (small quantities) of seperated rock to receiving stations which process them...
I find the idea quite interesting. Rather than a one-shot attempt, using many distributed small craft. Small craft with integrated, solar powered railguns would be ideal (it'd take some good programming and planning).
The greatest advantage of the distributed model would be that your chances of success would be much higher than with one or a few spacecraft which could fail, leaving you with no options. Of course it might be simpler to use nukes, seeing as we have so many, but whatever. That's a political question.
The disadvantage, as I see it, is convincing someone to fund it:)
I suspect that asteroid mining, when(if?) it's done, will be done with similar approaches. With todays tech, even, it makes more sense than one big centralized installation.
Running CUPs technically qualifies your computer as a server, too; for that matter, there's X....makes you wonder if that language was intentional or just plain ignorant.
The sick part of it is, that Fleetwood Mac probably saw about 50 cents off that purchase (if that, I'm guessing). The individual band members most likely saw ~zippo after various extractions.
Wish I still had my Rumors LP worth real money now:)
I don't think so. I've never heard of it, anyway. Launched from where? Cuba? Did he land (we WOULD have found links for that), or get back out? MiG range was not that great. But still, a lone aircraft, especially a smallish fighter, can't do a whole lot of damage.
IIRC, he didn't land, but was escorted back out of US airspace. Mig range not being that great, he would have *had* to come from Cuba, although I don't remember any more than speculations from the references I read. Mig range at the time (IIRC, argh) being about 1200 miles with tankage, he'd have been at the extreme end of his flying range).
I don't think those references were wrong, they were National Guard documents which I read about ten years (?) ago. It was of minor interest to me, so I didn't pursue it further; but I've seen other references on the web and other places to the incident since. I'm still not sure of the validity of it, but it wouldn't surprise me (back in the early 60s/late 50s, which is where I remember the article referencing this as occurring) we didn't have nearly the detection capabilities we do now).
Plus, it would make sense. At the time the Mississippi basin was relatively unpopulated, and not considered (Cuba being a fairly recent threat) a likely entry point for attack craft. In any case, for a nuclear armed aircraft, Mig or not, to come up the M. basin would, as you said, have put them outside of usable attack range of any US installations at the time. But - it would be a good place for them to test our defences. A Mig might not have been able to sustain the range nor carry the weapons to hurt us, but a nuclear bomber might, and there were Nuclear AF installations within fairly easy flying range of the basin (Kansas, Oklahoma) for a longrange bomber. So I don't consider it totally unlikely.
The Distant Early Warning line was pretty concentrated on polar penetrations. It's irrelevant here.
As to airliners, etc, I wasn't commenting on that. WRT to military penetrations, I wouldn't find it implausible that our airspace has been penetrated undetected numerous times (Alaska). Alas, it's not likely that you or I will ever be privy to such information:)
I wish I could find some of those refs; I thought they were quite interesting, and it would not surprise me in the least if such penetrations had at least been attempted 40-50 years ago. Nowadays, of course, is quite a different proposition...but also remember the German flying his Cessna into Moscow some years ago:) and if there's anyone who was more paranoid than us about airspace penetrations at the time, it was the Soviets. What if he'd had a nuclear weapon onboard? That could have done quite a lot of damage and disruption.
Thanks for the comments. As before, I wasn't commenting on civilian airliners - that's a whole 'nother ball of wax. My only comment on that is arm the fucking pilots, give them carte blanche against mistakes, and for high-risk flights, put at least one US Marshal (armed, of course) on board. But that's old hat, now, and the TSA has demonstrated it's unwillingness to let such a program continue...fools.
The concept of 'hostile' aircraft popping up in the interior of the country just wasn't imagined.
Wasn't there an instance of a Soviet Mig penetrating a few hundred miles up the Mississippi river basin back in the 60s? I can't seem to find a link, but I know I've read about it before.
I can't believe it wasn't imagined. After all, most of our plans for nuclear war with the USSR were based on some of bombers penetrating their airspace undetected to a certain point.
Slashdot Mirror
(3) Microsoft takes over the Microsoft-problem-solving industry.
Dammit, I'm going to do it again.
4. Pro(fit)(phet)?
SB
Well put. Your post and Ian Wolf's post, and the one somewhat earlier in the thread about the child porno being hosted there (and not being shut down) changed my whole mind about what was going on here.
:)
I knew there was some value to reading slashdot
SB
I've seen enough about that to be convinced that it *was* related to the attacks; what I haven't seen was any public disclosure of who it was that was pushing the trading. I can't think of any reason that particular knowledge couldn't have been sniffed out.
I'd be interested in any links you have. I lost a couple friends 9/11.
The more I see wrt to 9/11 and the trading, the more it stinks.
(journal comment or shadowbearer at at at yahoo. blah blah spam defense)
SB
After reading thru this thread, it strikes me that some supervisor over the agent in charge probably realized what a minefield his subordinate had stepped into, and expedited the return of the hardware. Given the FBI's track record, it's the only thing that makes sense.
Now we can hope that the agent in question gets a sincere cluebat slap on the head^H^H^H^H wrist
SB
As I recall (no links handy) from reading about the 1908 event, the entry fireball was actually observed, which would rule out a terrestrial origin.
In any case it'd take very stable local atmospheric conditions (i.e. no wind at all or a extraordinarily stable inversion layer), and a fair amount of time, even with a large natural gas vent, to produce an explosion that large.
Interesting, tho.
SB
Excellent post.
I feel the need to point out that it's not so much the Earth's size as in diameter that makes us more likely to get hit, it's our deeper gravity well.
SB
That's what a lot of people don't understand.
Those who are involved in, contribute to, or care about, the space program, no matter what nationality...this is like a death in the family.
It doesn't matter where you come from, what religion you are, what political views you endorse, or any other of that social claptrap.
It's all the same goal. It's too bad there isn't such banding together on so many of the other issues that divide humanity from being a whole.
Yeah, I'm bitter tonite. Bite me.
SB
If it happened in the US, I think we'd be able to reconstruct events (NORAD radar, etc) afterwards, and determine that it was an asteroid.
You're absolutely right about the reaction of the general population (esp. given the current political climate in the US), and some other countries. It's one of the nightmare scenarios. Sagan knew what he was talking about when he wrote about scientific ignorance.
SB
and lightning strikes only have to happen *once* ...
/rant
kinda like this...but in that regard, you could brand an asteroid strike as a WMD.
I am going to comment on the priorities our country has (as the most powerful technological entity on the planet and the only one capable of reliable space launches); we burned up millions of person-hours worrying about some has-been singer showing part of her tit on national TV during a semi-violent* sports game and it was considered important.
Sheeeeeiiiiit.
* Like every other sport, they're killing it by going to ludicrous measures to make it *perfectly safe*. Uh, huh. Headlines in ten years: "100 million miles of rushing, and Football star Min Headroom was killed by a mugger in NYC"
Irony nowadays is beyond being a subtlety and becoming a fact of "reality".
SB
Enough nations as:
1) Could be convinced of the reality of the threat.
2) Could/would be willing to release the resources.
3) Would think it wasn't some Zionist/Capitalist/Communist/environmentalist/ science grant/* plot.
4) Didn't form a Indefinite Committee on the subject proclaiming it "demanding more study"
Kinda like now....
SB
Neat idea, but the smaller you want the rock pieces, the more precise (and therefore prone to failure) your mechanisms will be, and therefore your failure rates will go up. Keep the moving parts and the precision of their machining to a minimum.
Any mining company knows this.
In this particular application, "large-bore" EM accelerators would seem to have the lowest overall failure rates, given vacuum "cementing" of moving parts.
Of course this would depend on the type of asteroid. Are we talking nickel-iron asteroids, or carbonaceous (carbonaceous would be easier to convert to particles that, say, an ion engine could use - just melt the ice and seperate out the impurities)
Any more knowledgeable engineers like to comment on this?
SB
Goddamn, that whole rant reminds of this totally whacked out dream I had as a kid, where I invented a rocket engine that ran on toothpaste, and could have saved the world as the falling moon darkened the skies, except my parents thought I was full of shit, and threw it in the dumpster.
Thirty years since I had that dream. *shiver*
SB
Lucifer's Hammer :)
SB
Who said anything about nukes?
So we send up a couple thousand 50kg spacecraft with paintball guns, and they paint the entire asteroid surface white....
Who needs nukes? The whole point is that with many spacecraft rather than just one or two, we don't need massive applications of force per spacecraft.
RTFA.
SB
That was also one of my first responses to this idea - it makes sense (even if we can't devote the resources to it yet)
Parent deserves Informative, at least. Think about it. In critical applications (such as internet servers) many is better, eh?
Poo-pooed or not, NASA's smaller is better missions actually had the right idea, especially wrt to newer technology.
WRT to asteroid deflection: Von Neumann, anyone?
SB
One question:
Where did you get "thousands of nations" from "thousands of MADMEN could be built by many nations"?
SB
So they invented shotguns in Atlanta? :)
SB
Hee.
:) Some of them are dedicated to building more of themselves, and a small portion of those seek out other asteroids to mine, sending the resultant (small quantities) of seperated rock to receiving stations which process them...
Imagine a Beowulf cluster of small spacecraft mining an asteroid
SB
I find the idea quite interesting. Rather than a one-shot attempt, using many distributed small craft. Small craft with integrated, solar powered railguns would be ideal (it'd take some good programming and planning).
The greatest advantage of the distributed model would be that your chances of success would be much higher than with one or a few spacecraft which could fail, leaving you with no options. Of course it might be simpler to use nukes, seeing as we have so many, but whatever. That's a political question.
The disadvantage, as I see it, is convincing someone to fund it
I suspect that asteroid mining, when(if?) it's done, will be done with similar approaches. With todays tech, even, it makes more sense than one big centralized installation.
SB
Running CUPs technically qualifies your computer as a server, too; for that matter, there's X....makes you wonder if that language was intentional or just plain ignorant.
SB
Ob text
The sick part of it is, that Fleetwood Mac probably saw about 50 cents off that purchase (if that, I'm guessing). The individual band members most likely saw ~zippo after various extractions.
Wish I still had my Rumors LP worth real money now
SB
I don't think so. I've never heard of it, anyway. Launched from where? Cuba? Did he land (we WOULD have found links for that), or get back out? MiG range was not that great.
:)
:) and if there's anyone who was more paranoid than us about airspace penetrations at the time, it was the Soviets. What if he'd had a nuclear weapon onboard? That could have done quite a lot of damage and disruption.
But still, a lone aircraft, especially a smallish fighter, can't do a whole lot of damage.
IIRC, he didn't land, but was escorted back out of US airspace. Mig range not being that great, he would have *had* to come from Cuba, although I don't remember any more than speculations from the references I read. Mig range at the time (IIRC, argh) being about 1200 miles with tankage, he'd have been at the extreme end of his flying range).
I don't think those references were wrong, they were National Guard documents which I read about ten years (?) ago. It was of minor interest to me, so I didn't pursue it further; but I've seen other references on the web and other places to the incident since. I'm still not sure of the validity of it, but it wouldn't surprise me (back in the early 60s/late 50s, which is where I remember the article referencing this as occurring) we didn't have nearly the detection capabilities we do now).
Plus, it would make sense. At the time the Mississippi basin was relatively unpopulated, and not considered (Cuba being a fairly recent threat) a likely entry point for attack craft. In any case, for a nuclear armed aircraft, Mig or not, to come up the M. basin would, as you said, have put them outside of usable attack range of any US installations at the time. But - it would be a good place for them to test our defences. A Mig might not have been able to sustain the range nor carry the weapons to hurt us, but a nuclear bomber might, and there were Nuclear AF installations within fairly easy flying range of the basin (Kansas, Oklahoma) for a longrange bomber. So I don't consider it totally unlikely.
The Distant Early Warning line was pretty concentrated on polar penetrations. It's irrelevant here.
As to airliners, etc, I wasn't commenting on that. WRT to military penetrations, I wouldn't find it implausible that our airspace has been penetrated undetected numerous times (Alaska). Alas, it's not likely that you or I will ever be privy to such information
I wish I could find some of those refs; I thought they were quite interesting, and it would not surprise me in the least if such penetrations had at least been attempted 40-50 years ago. Nowadays, of course, is quite a different proposition...but also remember the German flying his Cessna into Moscow some years ago
Thanks for the comments. As before, I wasn't commenting on civilian airliners - that's a whole 'nother ball of wax. My only comment on that is arm the fucking pilots, give them carte blanche against mistakes, and for high-risk flights, put at least one US Marshal (armed, of course) on board. But that's old hat, now, and the TSA has demonstrated it's unwillingness to let such a program continue...fools.
Cheers
SB
The concept of 'hostile' aircraft popping up in the interior of the country just wasn't imagined.
Wasn't there an instance of a Soviet Mig penetrating a few hundred miles up the Mississippi river basin back in the 60s? I can't seem to find a link, but I know I've read about it before.
I can't believe it wasn't imagined. After all, most of our plans for nuclear war with the USSR were based on some of bombers penetrating their airspace undetected to a certain point.
SB
Yeah, silly me, assuming integrity on the part of lawyers who'll take on the RIAA
SB