> I realise that people in the US are a bit strange, but on what highways are you liable to encounter a car going the other way in your lane of traffic?
Anywhere you may have a drunk driver or someone unfamiliar with the road (both of which I've seen).
Second that. Driving home from work one night, I noticed headlights ahead of me that seemed a bit close to my lane (I was on a four-lane, divided highway - the oncoming lanes were 30 yards to my left).
Shortly thereafter, I went onto the shoulder to avoid the oncoming car in my lane. The nearest place he could have gotten onto the road without driving through a ditch was 15 miles ahead of me...
It will be because we spend the plurality, probably even a majority of our budget on warfare.
In 2008, we spent about 25% more on Social Security than we spent on the Department of Defense.
The majority of the 2008 budget (about 61%) was "mandatory spending" - Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, interest on the National Debt, Welfare, that sort of thing.
The remaining 39% was "discretionary spending". DoD's budget was 43% of the discretionary spending (about 16.5% of the total budget).
My guess would be that you weren't still doing 70 when you went off the road. You'd be surprised how quickly you slow down when your sleepy ass releases the pressure on the accelerator.
so why are we paying so much more per gallon than we did in the 70's and 80's? (Inflation, sure, but oil prices have well outpaced inflation.)
Well, no. They haven't outpaced inflation. When adjusted for inflation, gasoline prices exceeded the 1980 level for a few months in 2008. Most of the last three decades have seen lower prices for gasoline than in 1980, not higher.
Negative emotion stress is, of course, not good. The adrenaline, edge of your seat, put you in the zone stress is great.
Quite so.
However, I've never heard anyone use the phrase "stressed out" to describe "adrenaline, edge of your seat, put you in the zone stress".
On the other hand, I've known a lot of people who worked really hard to get every little marker of success a game offers, even when it took enormous amounts of time, was mind-numbingly boring, and didn't help them with the fun parts of the game at all.
To be sure, most games need more "fun parts" and fewer "mind-numbingly boring parts" that take "enormous amounts of time"....
But a vast majority of people I know feel the urge to complete every single last achievement, even if it means them sitting there getting more and more stressed out because they can't get it.
Where I come from, we call people like that "idiots". Getting stressed out over a game defeats the purpose of a game.
I can assure you that Obama is not following that. Just look at the copyright treaty that is classified do to "national security"
No, he's following it to the letter. Note the phrase "consistent with law and policy" that he used. "consistent with law" is pretty reasonable, in general, but when you add "and policy", you're saying "we'll be open when we think it favours us, and not otherwise".
Which is pretty much how he's been behaving. If it will make him look good to be open on a subject, he's open. If it won't make him look good....
Now imagine a tax which made the hamburger cost 3 euro and lowered the sales tax on healthy foor dropping its price to 2,50. A LOT easier to remain healthy.
You obviously don't understand American government. Lowering taxes isn't part of the plan, just raising taxes.
You just quoted him twice and said the same thing as he did, twice... all while saying he was wrong. I guess you just misunderstood what he wrote.
No, I just understand the difference between a "spiral" and an "ellipse". Trust me on this, nothing in free flight "spirals" anywhere.
Orbits do NOT (in spite of what you may have seen in the movies or read in bad science fiction) "spiral".
What orbits do is follow elliptical paths. An ellipse, in case you're wondering, goes down a bit, then back up to the same point that it started from. Or up a bit, and back down to the same point in started from.
There are more than 12 hours of sunlight 194 days of the year.
That's pretty incredible, since the times when the days are the same length as the nights (we call the equinoxes where I come from, not sure what they're called in Arizona) are only 182 days apart, traditionally.
Correct me if I'm wrong (you probably will), but the shuttle (or any other rocket for that matter), does not just go straight up and then stop... it spirals away from the earth and then levels out gradually at whatever oribital plane is desired.
You're wrong. The shuttle goes straight up, then begins to tilt over to enter an orbit that is tangential to the desired orbit. When it reaches that tangential point, it makes a very small burn to circularize the orbit.
Likewise, when they want to "come down" again, after a brief thrust, it gradually spirals back down to earth.
It makes a short burn which puts it into an orbit that will intersect the Earth.
So obviously changing the orbit isn't the issue, the issue actually being able to stop the bloody thing so it doesn't smack into the ISS at thousands of miles per hour.
Which is to say that changing the orbit is the issue. It's got to be in the same orbit as the ISS in order to rendezvous with same.
Now, let's look at the deltaV required for some of these manuevers.
Deorbitting from the orbit is it currently in: in the vicinity of 115 m/s.
Rendezvous with the ISS, from the orbit the Shuttle is currently in:
This one is a bit more complicated. Shuttle is in an orbit about 394 km high, ISS is in an orbit about 357 km high. DeltaV to change from a 394 km orbit to a 357 km orbit is about 25 m/s.
But (there's always a but), that leaves the Shuttle in an orbit with an inclination of 28.3 degrees, as opposed to the ISS orbital inclination of 51.9 degrees. So an additional burn of 3150 m/s is required to match orbits with the ISS.
Note that this makes the assumption that a point in Shuttle's orbit from which such a burn could be made will conveniently happen within the next few days. That's not as likely as you think. So more deltaV would be required.
Note that the difference between deorbitting (no more than 115 m/s required) and rendezvous with ISS (no less than 3175 m/s required) is quite large.
Now, for some rough figures on fuel requirements. Very rough.
Shuttle masses in the vicinity of 100t. Assuming 316 Isp (that's what the OMS is rated at - it might be a touch higher or lower in practice)...
I have 48 solar panels on my roof in northern CA. Yesterday they generated 45 kWH between them. Figure that the middle of the desert is actually a better solar energy source and bump that to (say) 60, and the multiplier becomes 110,000 / 60 = ~1800 times as many panels or 86,400.
There's ~116 miles between Tucson and Phoenix. That's ~750 panels per mile. It's a lot, but it's not unfeasible.
You're magically converting from MW to kWh. Your 48 panels generated 45 kWh in about 12 hours, which is a lot closer to 3kW than it is to 60 kW. 110,000 / 3 = ~36000 times as many panels, or 1,728,000 of the things.
Note also that you need to be able to handle generating that power in winter also, when you have rather fewer than 12 hours of sunlight per day, even ignoring weather.
It's not infeasible. Not even close. But it's not a trivial investment, and unless there are going to be enough customers to pay for the thing, it'll never be built.
Fighting to the bitter end isn't either. Had the Warsaw Uprising resulted in the victims escaping death, or halted the advance of the German army, then I might call it an accomplishment.
A bit of history might be relevant here. The Warsaw Uprising happened as the Soviet Army approached Warsaw. It was a last ditch attempt to keep the remaining Jews alive till the Soviets could "rescue" them (it must be remembered that the Soviets cared as little for Jews as the Nazis).
Unfortunately, Stalin didn't really want a bunch of feisty Jews in his territory post-war, so teh Soviet Army halted its advance until the Germans could deal with the Uprising.
The intent of Geneva Convention is not to exclude any category if people that may be captured during a war that is not already protected by other laws. It is assumed that whoever is not protected by Convention, would be protected under local laws related to civilian population. Treating Geneva Convention as an invitation for loophole hunt is nothing but word games on part of Bush administration.
This is pretty much true, if you're looking at all of the Geneva Conventions (note the plural). Alas, the USA never signed onto the last two protocols of the Geneva Convention, which were deliberately designed (by the Soviets) to hamstring US efforts in Vietnam. Excluding those last two sections (which we never signed) actually DOES leave some gaps that aren't covered by either local laws or the Conventions.
Which, of course, is why those last two sections were generally considered acceptable.
Note, by the way, that the Soviets never signed on to those last two protocols either. Even though they authored them.
Note also that "intent" is meaningless in international law - if it's not written into the Treaty, it's not relevant, even if you "intended" it to be covered by the Treaty.
How ever I think it's important not to simply shut our eyes and claim things impossible.
Arthur Clarke: "When a elderly and learned scientist says something is possible, he is very likely right. When he says something is impossible, is is very likely wrong".
Two photons are emitted from a stationary point in opposite directions. What is the speed of photon A relative to photon B? I had assumed the answer would be 2*c, but if I understand you correctly you're telling me it's no more than c. This doesn't make sense to me...
Photons are a bad choice for this thought experiment, since they are fundamentally different than things with mass.
Photons move at c. Time doesn't pass for photons, so the movement of other photons is pretty much irrelevant to them.
Particles with mass travel at less than c. And, yes, if you shoot a particle at 0.75c in one direction, and another particle at 0.75c in the opposite direction, from the point of view of either particle, the other is moving less than c. 0.866c, if I remember correctly.
Clinton, in his final years, is the only president not to have a deficit in recent history. That means money could actually be put to paying interest without having to borrow more money.
And yet, we had to borrow more money both of Clinton's last two years. Note that the amount of DEBT went up. If we had actually paid all the bills, including the interest on the debt, from income from that year, then DEBT would have, at worst been constant, instead of increasing.
If 'any reasonable person' would find it unconstitutional, this legislation should have never been proposed in the first place. These people are supposed to have taken an oath to protect the Constitution, not deliberately undermine it.
That rule stopped applying to Congress in 1937. Arguably earlier, but '37 was really the point that Congress found itself with no restraint on its powers.
Lower tax rates can spur economic growth, but so can government spending (funded by higher tax rates) and investment in infrastructure and technology
Simple solution to all the problems then - raise tax rates to 100%, and let the government spend the money. That should definitely improve the economy dramatically, right?
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Second that. Driving home from work one night, I noticed headlights ahead of me that seemed a bit close to my lane (I was on a four-lane, divided highway - the oncoming lanes were 30 yards to my left).
Shortly thereafter, I went onto the shoulder to avoid the oncoming car in my lane. The nearest place he could have gotten onto the road without driving through a ditch was 15 miles ahead of me...
In 2008, we spent about 25% more on Social Security than we spent on the Department of Defense.
The majority of the 2008 budget (about 61%) was "mandatory spending" - Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, interest on the National Debt, Welfare, that sort of thing.
The remaining 39% was "discretionary spending". DoD's budget was 43% of the discretionary spending (about 16.5% of the total budget).
Two words: Cruise Control.
Well, no. They haven't outpaced inflation. When adjusted for inflation, gasoline prices exceeded the 1980 level for a few months in 2008. Most of the last three decades have seen lower prices for gasoline than in 1980, not higher.
No, it would be Rishathra - sex with hominids outside your species.
Well, of course! Why do you think we divide the world into "eaters" and "eatees"?
Quite so.
However, I've never heard anyone use the phrase "stressed out" to describe "adrenaline, edge of your seat, put you in the zone stress".
On the other hand, I've known a lot of people who worked really hard to get every little marker of success a game offers, even when it took enormous amounts of time, was mind-numbingly boring, and didn't help them with the fun parts of the game at all.
To be sure, most games need more "fun parts" and fewer "mind-numbingly boring parts" that take "enormous amounts of time"....
Where I come from, we call people like that "idiots". Getting stressed out over a game defeats the purpose of a game.
No, he's following it to the letter. Note the phrase "consistent with law and policy" that he used. "consistent with law" is pretty reasonable, in general, but when you add "and policy", you're saying "we'll be open when we think it favours us, and not otherwise".
Which is pretty much how he's been behaving. If it will make him look good to be open on a subject, he's open. If it won't make him look good....
You obviously don't understand American government. Lowering taxes isn't part of the plan, just raising taxes.
No, I just understand the difference between a "spiral" and an "ellipse". Trust me on this, nothing in free flight "spirals" anywhere.
Orbits do NOT (in spite of what you may have seen in the movies or read in bad science fiction) "spiral".
What orbits do is follow elliptical paths. An ellipse, in case you're wondering, goes down a bit, then back up to the same point that it started from. Or up a bit, and back down to the same point in started from.
Absent perturbing forces, of course.
At least two American Generals were fired for using their knowledge of D-Day as after-dinner conversation at some cocktail parties.
And the Soviets had spies in the Manhattan Project.
Not really good examples.
That's pretty incredible, since the times when the days are the same length as the nights (we call the equinoxes where I come from, not sure what they're called in Arizona) are only 182 days apart, traditionally.
You're wrong. The shuttle goes straight up, then begins to tilt over to enter an orbit that is tangential to the desired orbit. When it reaches that tangential point, it makes a very small burn to circularize the orbit.
It makes a short burn which puts it into an orbit that will intersect the Earth.
Which is to say that changing the orbit is the issue. It's got to be in the same orbit as the ISS in order to rendezvous with same.
Now, let's look at the deltaV required for some of these manuevers.
Deorbitting from the orbit is it currently in: in the vicinity of 115 m/s.
Rendezvous with the ISS, from the orbit the Shuttle is currently in:
This one is a bit more complicated. Shuttle is in an orbit about 394 km high, ISS is in an orbit about 357 km high. DeltaV to change from a 394 km orbit to a 357 km orbit is about 25 m/s.
But (there's always a but), that leaves the Shuttle in an orbit with an inclination of 28.3 degrees, as opposed to the ISS orbital inclination of 51.9 degrees. So an additional burn of 3150 m/s is required to match orbits with the ISS.
Note that this makes the assumption that a point in Shuttle's orbit from which such a burn could be made will conveniently happen within the next few days. That's not as likely as you think. So more deltaV would be required.
Note that the difference between deorbitting (no more than 115 m/s required) and rendezvous with ISS (no less than 3175 m/s required) is quite large.
Now, for some rough figures on fuel requirements. Very rough.
Shuttle masses in the vicinity of 100t. Assuming 316 Isp (that's what the OMS is rated at - it might be a touch higher or lower in practice)...
Deorbit manuever: 3.8t fuel. Maximum.
Rendezvous with ISS: 179t fuel. Minimum.
Note again that Shuttle mass - 100t....
You're magically converting from MW to kWh. Your 48 panels generated 45 kWh in about 12 hours, which is a lot closer to 3kW than it is to 60 kW. 110,000 / 3 = ~36000 times as many panels, or 1,728,000 of the things.
Note also that you need to be able to handle generating that power in winter also, when you have rather fewer than 12 hours of sunlight per day, even ignoring weather.
It's not infeasible. Not even close. But it's not a trivial investment, and unless there are going to be enough customers to pay for the thing, it'll never be built.
No.
That would require a retrograde orbit, which noone uses.
Of course, if Hubble were in a polar orbit, this could happen. But it's not, so it won't.
A bit of history might be relevant here. The Warsaw Uprising happened as the Soviet Army approached Warsaw. It was a last ditch attempt to keep the remaining Jews alive till the Soviets could "rescue" them (it must be remembered that the Soviets cared as little for Jews as the Nazis).
Unfortunately, Stalin didn't really want a bunch of feisty Jews in his territory post-war, so teh Soviet Army halted its advance until the Germans could deal with the Uprising.
Not as much as you might think. No universal military service here, so fewer people with military training than your average European country.
Mostly what the USA shows is that criminalizing recreational drugs produces criminals, who shoot each other fighting over drug profits.
This is pretty much true, if you're looking at all of the Geneva Conventions (note the plural). Alas, the USA never signed onto the last two protocols of the Geneva Convention, which were deliberately designed (by the Soviets) to hamstring US efforts in Vietnam. Excluding those last two sections (which we never signed) actually DOES leave some gaps that aren't covered by either local laws or the Conventions.
Which, of course, is why those last two sections were generally considered acceptable.
Note, by the way, that the Soviets never signed on to those last two protocols either. Even though they authored them.
Note also that "intent" is meaningless in international law - if it's not written into the Treaty, it's not relevant, even if you "intended" it to be covered by the Treaty.
Arthur Clarke: "When a elderly and learned scientist says something is possible, he is very likely right. When he says something is impossible, is is very likely wrong".
Photons are a bad choice for this thought experiment, since they are fundamentally different than things with mass.
Photons move at c. Time doesn't pass for photons, so the movement of other photons is pretty much irrelevant to them.
Particles with mass travel at less than c. And, yes, if you shoot a particle at 0.75c in one direction, and another particle at 0.75c in the opposite direction, from the point of view of either particle, the other is moving less than c. 0.866c, if I remember correctly.
And yet, we had to borrow more money both of Clinton's last two years. Note that the amount of DEBT went up. If we had actually paid all the bills, including the interest on the debt, from income from that year, then DEBT would have, at worst been constant, instead of increasing.
Odd that this Bill has been proposed by a Democratic Congresscritter then....
That rule stopped applying to Congress in 1937. Arguably earlier, but '37 was really the point that Congress found itself with no restraint on its powers.
Simple solution to all the problems then - raise tax rates to 100%, and let the government spend the money. That should definitely improve the economy dramatically, right?