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User: CrimsonAvenger

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  1. Re:Why not preserve it? on NASA Plans To De-Orbit ISS In 2016 · · Score: 1

    Delta-V required to generate escape velocity for an object that size would be huge.

    Delta-V required to generate escape speed (not velocity) for an object that size is exactly the same as escape speed for a basketball. Escape speed does not depend on mass.

    Also, it's largely irrelevant. If we wanted to keep ISS, we'd not be sending it out of Earth orbit. Raise its orbit, maybe.

    Which is doable, if we're willing to start real soon - double the size of whatever it's using now to maintain orbit, and keep feeding it fuel, and eventually it will be in a new, higher, orbit. Or if whatever we're using now is only used intermittently, run it less intermittently, and keep feeding it fuel.

    Problem being that we won't have any way to reach it in a higher orbit, unless we develop an OTV (which we had planned to do in the 80's), or develop a new manned vehicle with, say, 1 nautical mile per second of delta-V (which, oddly enough, is the design delta-V of Orion - God only knows why they picked that exact value.).

    Note that Orion can reach an orbit more than 2000 km above the Earth's surface....

  2. Re:So what does that make the IRR? on NASA Plans To De-Orbit ISS In 2016 · · Score: 2, Informative

    Would have been great, and the shuttle was originally designed with that in mind, but the ISS can't do it. You need a station in orbit around the equator for that

    No, ideally you want an orbit in the plane of the ecliptic to do that, not the Equator.

    The Equator is inclined 23.44 degrees from the ecliptic, so a station orbiting at the Equator would have just as much trouble as the current ISS for a launch to Mars, the Moon, etc.

  3. Re:whats the crime in hate crime? on British Men Jailed For Online Hate Crimes · · Score: 1

    I suspect that it's cases like this that allow such laws to remain in effect - try to oppose the law on principle and you'll find yourself in the position of having to defend the bigots, something that even those most committed to free speech find repellent.

    And yet, the ACLU has represented the American Nazi Party and KKK from time to time. They, at least, understand that if the people you disagree with aren't free to speak, it's just a matter of time till you're not free to speak....

  4. Re:This is the way to spend taxpayer money! on Stacking of New Space Vehicle Begins At KSC · · Score: 1

    You are merely seeing your reflection with your love for the shuttle and mistaking me for an opponent.

    No. Shuttle has issues. The biggest one being that the original conception was never followed up on - it was not used in any way terribly differently than an Apollo or Gemini had been used. No space station to support until recently, no deep space missions to support, so really nothing for it to do that couldn't have been done just as well with an Apollo on a Saturn I.

    Oh, and the fact that we built just the handful of them, of course. When Shuttle was first conceived, I expected we'd spend a couple of year working the kinks out, then build a new one every year, expanding the launch schedule as we had more capacity. Would have been really nice if we'd been launching a Shuttle every week for the last decade or so...

    I think the problem that most people have with the shuttle is it doesn't always get used for missions where the huge launch bay is an advantage

    No, the problem is that most people have been taught that Shuttle is inferior to Soyuz for every purpose. Note the post I was originally responding to, which asserted, as an example, that Soyuz had flown many more times than Shuttle. Or many earlier posts over the years that asserted that Soyuz was much safer than Shuttle (even though both have had exactly the same number of crew-loss accidents, and Soyuz has had far more failures in general than Shuttle).

    People, in general, seem to make no effort to determine the truth of the matter. Note that I first started delving into the safety record of Shuttle/Soyuz after someone a few years ago asserted Soyuz was much safer (I already knew that Soyuz had lost at least two crews by that time), so I went and started digging around on the web for information on Soyuz and Shuttle flight records. I was actually appalled to find how many times Soyuz was sent up to one Soviet space station or another, then couldn't actually even make a linkup with the station (which says something about the design of the docking station, but says something more about the design of Soyuz - it shouldn't be all that hard for the pilot to tweak the Soyuz position the small amount required to mate up the two).

    And yet, whenever we have a discussion of Shuttle, we have someone, as in this thread, that asserts that Soyuz is safer than Shuttle, that Soyuz has flown far more than Shuttle, etc.

    Or, in your case, after looking at a bunch of numbers I provided about Shuttle/Soyuz, asserts that I am saying this from "patriotism". Which was, frankly, idiotic of you. The numbers don't come from patriotism, they come from history - look them up sometime....

  5. Re:Solution looking for a problem? on MIT Develops Camera-Like Fabric · · Score: 1

    Suppose the "one area" that's damaged is the processing unit, or the interface that relays threat information to the wearer.

    Let's suppose we solve that problem.

    Let's suppose the processing unit is near the vital organs of the soldier, and that the interface that relays threat information is near his eyes and ears.

    Then, we might conclude that if the suit is broken, the soldier is broken too, and doesn't really need the information provided by the suit.

  6. Re:Um, obvious speculation? on NTSB Says a Downdraft Killed Steve Fossett · · Score: 1

    PS am I the only one who finds something terribly wrong with a rich guy polluting the world just so he can provide for his own selfish pleasure? (please pass cap-and-trade soon...)

    You're the only one.

    P.S. Cap-and-Trade might affect YOUR ability to have fun with fossil fuels, it won't affect a rich guy one iota - he's rich! He can afford gas for his plane even if it costs $100 per gallon.

  7. Re:This is the way to spend taxpayer money! on Stacking of New Space Vehicle Begins At KSC · · Score: 1

    And thus led to improvements in the docking system used on ISS now, plus that wasn't the only purpose of that paticular mission.

    Which, of course, is why I counted that mission as a success. Note that if Shuttle had damaged ISS in a docking, there are many people who would have insisted that this demonstrated the complete inadequacy of Shuttle as a manned spacecraft.

    It's cool or whatever to be patriotic in front of your countrymen but think of what it sounds like to others that really care more about space exploration than who does it.

    Quite so. Which is why I used numbers to demonstrate that, contrary to popular belief, Shuttle was actually a better system than Soyuz.

    Alas, you seem to be one of those in love with Soyuz. It is not relevant that Soyuz is Russian (it's barely even accurate, since it was developed by the Soviets, and pretty much all the improvements to the original design were done under the USSR), nor that Shuttle is American.

    What is relevant is that by pretty much any metric, Shuttle is better. Arguably, cost is lower for Soyuz. But even that is not so clear-cut, since while one flight of a Soyuz is much cheaper than one flight of Shuttle, Soyuz (Progress version) would require about 15 flights to move as much cargo as Shuttle can carry on one flight.

    Note also that Progress isn't a manned vehicle, which makes the comparison less than exact. On the other hand, there's not a good reason to send consumables up to ISS via a manned vehicle, and the USA is getting out of that business - the unmanned form of Dragon will be delivering US consumables in a couple of years, if SpaceX can get off the dime and start flying again (I know, I know. They have to test everything very carefully so that there isn't a launch failure that can be avoided. But Falcon9 maiden flight shouldn't have taken this long....)

  8. Re:This is the way to spend taxpayer money! on Stacking of New Space Vehicle Begins At KSC · · Score: 4, Informative

    Soyuz has flown many more times than the Shuttle, IIRC, so two losses is statistically much better for the Soyuz.

    Umm, no. Soyuz 102 manned flights. Shuttle has done 126. So its two losses are statistically worse for Soyuz (1.96% Soyuz, 1.58% Shuttle).

    I know there are people who have been indoctrinated into believing that the Shuttle is the worst vehicle to ever fly into space, and the Soyuz is the best. But, fact is, the numbers support the reverse position.

    Shuttle has had 126 missions. 124 of them reached orbit and returned.

    Soyuz has had 102 missions. 98 of them reached orbit and returned.

    Of the 124 Shuttle missions that reached orbit and returned, 122 completed their intended missions, two had to abort due to non-lethal technical difficulties.

    Of the 98 Soyuz missions that reached orbit and returned, 91 completed their intended missions, seven had to abort due to non-lethal technical difficulties. Note that one of the 91 "successful" missions included accidentally ramming Mir.

  9. Re:This is the way to spend taxpayer money! on Stacking of New Space Vehicle Begins At KSC · · Score: 1

    considering the shuttles require something like a quarter-billion dollars to launch, aren't exactly the safest spacecraft invented (two have blown up already, and the remaining ones aren't getting any younger),

    Note that the only other spacecraft that has flown anywhere near as many times as Shuttle (Soyuz) has lost two crews also. And then there's the one that blew up without killing the crew. So, what is this "safest spacecraft" of which you speak?

  10. Re:Imagine on Vint Cerf Imagines the Net's Future At NASA · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Basically, every advance has the potential to be used for evil purposes. It is up to us as a society to stand up against that. That has nothing to do with the technology itself.

    Yep. Every technology can be used for evil purposes. And "society" has every right to stand up against that sort of thing.

    The question becomes: is there any way that society CAN stand up against that sort of thing if we're all wearing our little monitoring devices?

    I'm not specifically talking about the government doing the monitoring, but SOMEONE will monitor things, if only for "quality control purposes". Any problems with your ex- being one of the people who do the monitoring? Yes, your ex- is unlikely to be doing that but the people doing that are going to be SOMEONE's ex-. Is it okay if they can keep track of every orgasm you have? If they can monitor your vitals, they can tell when you're having sex, after all.

    How about if they can check on WHO you're having sex with? It'll be someone in the same location, and unless you're really crappy at the whole sex thing, your partner's vitals will let anyone watching know that they're having a good time too...

    Lots of things I could be doing that I don't want the government to know about. Even more that I don't especially want the neighbors to know about. Much less than neighbor's computer-literate teenagers....

    And since this is all broadcast, just about anyone with sufficient savvy and equipment can monitor pretty much whatever they want - the internet doesn't keep too many secrets very well, after all. And cell phones even fewer....

  11. Re:Imagine on Vint Cerf Imagines the Net's Future At NASA · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Imagine having advice hooked up that could monitor for a heart attack or a stroke.

    Imagine having a device hookedup that could monitor basically everything about you, and report it in real time to the government. Or anyone else that you might not like knowing everything about you.

    In the ideal, this could be really incredibly useful. In actual practice, it sounds like the worst nightmare of basically anyone who wants privacy of any kind.

  12. Re:High Thrust, High Specific Impulse (Isp) on Successful Test of Superconducting Plasma Rocket Engine · · Score: 1

    That said, the fact that a VASIMR can maintain thrust all the way would make them faster than NTRs for any sufficiently long trip - maybe even for just getting to the moon and back; anybody want to do the math on that?

    Let's see. Assume something about the size of Orion - 25T or so (just to get round numbers).

    5N thrust means it'll get 0.0000002 m/s^2 acceleration.

    The moon is 384400 Km away, on average. Assuming we could just accelerate halfway there, and decelerate to a stop at the end (we can't, it's actually quite a bit more complicated, but bear with me), it would take just on 33 MONTHS to reach the moon.

    Actually, it'll take a lot longer than that. 0.0000002 m/s^2 means you'll only get about 20 m/s deltaV in 33 months, and that's not going to be enough to raise your orbit by much more than 30 Km.

    Seriously, VASIMR might be God's gift to space drives, but it'll only be quicker than an ion engine when we can build a VERY powerful powerplant that is also VERY small. Say, 1MW/kg or thereabouts.

  13. Re:How many lives have been lost? on US Finalizes Stem Cell Research Guidelines · · Score: 3, Insightful

    During the 6 years that this has been banned how much research into life saving treatments has been delayed?

    Probably none at all. It's not like the "ban" prevented research, it just prevented Federal funding for research. And it didn't even really prevent that, as long as you were willing to abide by Federal rules.

    BLOCKQUOTE>How many living, breathing, people have been denied these treatments?

    Zero. Latest guesstimates I've seen say it'll be 20 years minimum before any of these treatments get all the way through clinical trials to general use. So none of them would be ready for use today, even if we'd started six years back.

    How many more will die over the next 10 years that could have been saved?

    Zero. See above. If we'd started six years ago, best guess says we'd have no usable treatments for another 14 years.

    Again, note that President Bush's "ban" wasn't actually a ban. It wasn't even a ban on Federal funding (for that, we have to drop back to Clinton's Presidency, when no Federal funding for stem cell research was available at all).

    Was Bush's "ban" a good thing? I doubt it, myself, but it's arguable.

    Would we be better off if it had not been done? No, since absent his "ban", we'd have been operating under the old rules (which WAS a ban).

    Would we have these miracle cures available now? No. Clinical trials take much longer, especially when we're dealing with "treatments" that might give us novel new cancers.

    Would they be available soon? It'll be a bloody miracle if I live that long, but then I'm an old guy with cancer.

    Would they be available SOONER? Probably. Probably not soon enough to do anything for me, even assuming they'd fix what I have.

  14. Re:Both are bad. on The Dilemma of Level vs. Skill In MMOs · · Score: 1

    Don't know anything about the game you are talking about but I can still guess what happened. They changed the solution, not when somebody came up with something clever but when someone POSTED the clever solution.

    Nope. Made the change as soon as they saw it done. I should note that the "clever solution" turned a quest that required 100 to complete to one that required no more than 40....

  15. Re:Written Before Christianity Was PAGANIZED on British Library Puts Oldest Surviving Bible Online · · Score: 1

    Why would L. Ron Hubbard give up his writing career to spawn a religion?

    As I recall reading, it had something to do with a bet he had going with R.A. Heinlein.

  16. Re:Both are bad. on The Dilemma of Level vs. Skill In MMOs · · Score: 1

    Success should be from solving a problem in novel ways, not grinding.

    Wish someone had told the lads at Mythic this. Every time someone came up with a clever solution to a really hard quest, Mythic would change the quest so that solution no longer worked...

  17. Re:High Thrust, High Specific Impulse (Isp) on Successful Test of Superconducting Plasma Rocket Engine · · Score: 1

    Meanwhile, the thrust of Ion engines ranges from 90-3,000 mN while the thrust of VASMIR is expected to be ~5000 mN of thrust when tested at 200 kW of power.

    ~5000 mN sounds nice, but it doesn't sound so significant when we use proper SI - 5 Newtons thrust, rather than 5000 milli-Newtons.

    In order to get to the moon in a day at 5N, we'd need a vehicle that massed about 25 kg. Or, perhaps, a 200 MW power plant that massed considerably less than 5 tons - good luck with that.

    Realisitcally, VASIMR won't substitute for much of anything but an ion drive. And the only real advantage it has there is that it scales better.

  18. Re:Um, why? on NASA Hedges Their Bets On Return To Moon · · Score: 1

    Assuming the nuclear power plant is out, then the time to Mars is closer to 9 months with an ion/vasimr engine; or, 18 months coasting.

    Umm, the MINIMUM energy transfer orbit to Mars is less than nine months. Wherever did you get the idea that it would take 18 months coasting? Or that a vasimr/ion engine would take that long?

    Note also that a six month Earth Return trajectory to Mars is quite achievable with chemical fuel, though a NERVA would be nice to decrease required payload to Earth orbit.

  19. Re:Genetic drift on Ant Mega-Colony Covers the World · · Score: 1

    But if her pheremones only differ slightly... not enough to trigger the 'attack' behavior...

    And then when she begins a new colony, one of her offspring is also only slightly different...

    And so on until differentiation is complete.

    But when you reach that point, all of the neighbors (who are, after all, descendants of the original queen's mom) will come over and eat the new, divergent queen.

    There've been a lot of ant generations since that super-colony got started without any drift to speak of....

  20. Re:Only dealing with symptoms, not the problem. on What the US Can Learn From Europe's Pollution Credit System · · Score: 4, Insightful

    That problem is overpopulation. massive overpopulation.

    So, what do you think the ideal population should be?

    Frankly, I fail to see overpopulation as the problem, since our population (in the advanced countries that are actually capable of limiting pollution) is declining, and has been for years.

  21. Re:Hopefully it will cut down on affiliate-link sp on Rhode Island Affiliates Banned From Amazon.com Sales · · Score: 1

    If they substantially raised taxes as part of a budget compromise I missed it. The last news I read was along the lines of "There appears to be little chance that a compromise on how to solve a $24.3 billion budget will be made before the midnight deadline."

    You missed it. There was a substantial tax increase early in the year, then come the deadline, they wanted a SECOND substantial tax increase. Needless to say, they didn't get it.

  22. Re:smaller code size without copy& paste on The Incredible Shrinking Genome · · Score: 1

    Are we seeing the same tendency in other warm blooded creatures, such as birds?

    Since birds are dinosaurs, I'd expect not.

  23. Re:What a f**king dick on Galactic Origin For 62M-Year Extinction Cycle? · · Score: 1

    Those gas clouds are probably circulating at the same speed as us.

    Probably pretty close to the same speed, yes.

    But, alas, not necessarily close to the same velocity.

    To use a car analogy, two cars going 75 mph are both going the same speed. If one is eastbound on West Esplanade, and the other northbound on Power, they'll have a velocity differential of over 100 mph when they meet at the intersection of Power and Esplanade...

  24. Re:Hopefully it will cut down on affiliate-link sp on Rhode Island Affiliates Banned From Amazon.com Sales · · Score: 1

    Despite not living in California, I have been following this with great interest. What I am hoping to see, before the inevitable rise in taxes, is a real attempt to reduce government spending.

    A bit late for that. Didn't California raise taxes about $12 billion early this year?

    And they still can't come within $20 billion of a balanced budget....

  25. Re:Because Cisco would never do such a thing on Senators Want To Punish Nokia, Siemens Over Iran · · Score: 1

    Legally, sure.

    Do you somehow imagine that a bunch of lawyers who also write laws would be interested in anything other than "legally"?

    And their own reelection, of course....