If oil companies didn't have to distribute their products to 17 million places worldwide, they could reduce their costs fairly dramatically. They'd surely need to pump less, but they'd be closing down some refineries (the ones that make gasoline, at least), closing down most of their distribution network (only have to deliver to plastics factories and such), generally gutting the cost side of the equation.
So even if they stayed entirely away from "energy" production, and stuck to "oil" production, odds are good they'd come out ahead on the deal.
What, you think that we are in terrible danger of running out of stupidity soon?
Or are you offended that other people seem to be violating the Stupidity Patent? Trust me, it expired years ago - now everyone can be stupid without paying any fees at all.
Nonsense! I pay less in taxes that you, for the same income, but my expenses are greater than your's. I have to pay to feed that extra mouth, and clothe her, and all that.
Note that you get a deduction for yourself, also. Is that a usbsidy?
Those standard deductions for yourself, your spouse, your kids, are nothing more than a convenience that the government supplies so that you don't have to keep detailed records of everything you do, and deduct all your "costs" before the tax is applied to your "profits". It incidently (and not accidently) makes it much easier on the IRS, since they don't have to check over 100,000,000+ tax forms that are filled with such minutia as the deduction for your son's new shoes.
Keep in mind that, in general, taxes are not assessed against gross, but against net. Or, more properly, against what your net would be if you weren't extravagant. No allowances for your kid's Jag, but the deductions cover reasonable costs for keeping the kids.
Hmm, Not sure what the first deduction is all about, so really couldn't say.
The second they mention is a "cost of doing business" thing. Every company in the USA gets to deduct that sort of thing from their taxes (when my employer buys me a new test box, it gets the same kind of deduction).
The third is the tax credit for alternative fuels! So you're complaining because oil companies are making ethanol/gasoline mixtures, and getting tax credits for it?! Wow, if you were to take that tax credit away, then there'd be LESS alternate fuels, not more!
Sorry, tax deductions aren't subsidies. Or do you consider the deduction for your children on your individual income taxes a "subsidy"? If so, you should refuse to accept it, by the simple expedient of not declaring your child(ren) as dependents.
Tax credits are a lot more like a subsidy. Not entirely, but more. In this case, the credit is for making alternate fuels. Which means that the oil companies are making MORE EXPENSIVE fuels and selling them at below cost. And making up the difference with the tax credit.
Wouldn't want to have oil companies making any efforts to develop alternate fuels, would we? They're "evil", so no doubt if they made alternate fuels, it would be just a trick, right?
I don't consider free roads a gasoline subsidy. We had roads before we had cars. If you consider free roads to be a gasoline subsidy, perhaps you should stop using them, until the price of gasoline is raised to support them. However...
I note on checking old Federal highway funding reports that ~84% of HIghway funding comes from oil/gas taxes, motor vehicle taxes, and tolls. But some of that is eaten up in subsidizing Mass Transit system, rather than maintaining the Highways.
That rate might argue for a 20% increase in gasoline taxes, to meet the shortfall (assuming we first removed the subsidy for mass transit). Which would push gasoline prices up by ~$0.04. I have no problem with paying an extra four cents a gallon for my gas. Hell, normal price fluctuations this summer have been far greater than that.
As I understand, the palladium is a catalyst to whatever happens, and is not consumed in the process. Question is whether it generates more energy than (input + extraction of deuterium from H2O + saturation of Pa electrodes).
Actually, even that isn't the question. The question is "can we come up with a theory to explain "cold fusion"?"
Imagine sticking it to oil companies with nuclear cars and planes.
Oil companies would be richer than ever if this pans out. The oil won't stop being needed, it'll just stop being burned. And quite a few "oil companies" have figured out that they are in the energy business, not the oil business. And would probably be in the forefront of providing high-grade deuterium for your cold fusion units.
Depends on the force. Carthage seems to have been stopped quite conclusively.
Russian Communism (which wasn't really communism) overextended themselves because they were trying to fight a "cold war". Which means no shooting, but building a military big enough to win when the shooting starts. It is unlikely that the USSR would have fallen absent that Cold War. War isn't always about killing people and breaking things.
I suspect that, if this was the case, it was accidental. That is, P&F didn't set out to saturate their electrodes with D, but it just so happened that they were. So they were unaware that they had achieved a special case condition prerequisite for cold fusion.
Not asymmetrical warfare. Unrestricted submarine warfare is what I have in mind. In order for the Chinese to attack, say, Madagascar, they must move troops, weapons, supplies and such to Madagascar. Air supply of large military formations is impractical, so the men/guns/supplies would move by ship. They put invasion fleet into ocean, a couple of LA class attack boats send them for close look at bottom of ocean.
The Chinese can't fight us far from home. Actually, the Chinese can't fight ANYONE far from home. It takes Seapower to do that, and they don't have any to speak of. This is not meant to imply that they couldn't get Seapower if they chose to do so. But they haven't made the choice yet, and it would take 20 years or more to turn the idea into reality (the Soviet Union spent 40 years at it without real success).
Yah, the Chinese could play the nuclear card. Last I looked, if it came to exchanging nukes, they'd lose. We have more, and more ways to deliver them, than they do.
In a conventional war between us and China, the biggest weakness China would have is a complete inability to reach us with anything but an ICBM. WW2 showed quite clearly what happens when one side can reach the other's industry, without the other side being able to replay in kind.
"Deep Well"? This is New Orleans. It's built on a swamp. Dig six inches anywhere to strike water. No deep wells. No subways. No basements. None of that stuff. The most interesting (to me, still) sight in New Orleans is the Canal between Orleans and Jefferson Parish. Driving over it, you can clearly see that the houses on both sides of the canal are below the water level of the canal. One story houses roofs are below the water level of the canal.
"face pressed into someone's...armpit"? I'm 6'3". In the situation you describe, I would be the source of the less than aromatic armpit, not the victim.;-)
No, it comes because we are by no means certain that such a law would be properly enforced.
Consider, if you will, a request for data concerning yourself on these CCTV's you have. YOu ask, they spend some time, come back, and say something to the effect of "Sorry, that data was erased last week. We're only allowed to keep it seen days, you know". Does the fact that it is illegal for someone to retain data more than seen days actually imply the erase it after seven days?
The USA has an "instant check" system in place for handgun purchases these days. Passed by Clinton, of course. The law specifically required that no records of any transactions be kept longer than it took to actually process the transaction. The Clinton Justice Department decided that they needed to retain records of transactions more or less indefinitely (for QA/audit purposes), and proceeded to do so, in violation of the law.
When the Bush administration subsequently decided to actually obey that part of the law, the gun-control nute howled to the high heavens! Interesting that nearly half of Congress (the Democrat part) opposed the idea of obeying a law written and passed by themselves (this was written and passed by the last Democrat-controlled House and Senate).
"A well regulated militia". Well regulated indicates that it's a body with some official backing and organisation, not a bunch of yahoo's with guns shooting up anyone they don't like. Regulation implies control and organisation, therefore the militia must be raised by some existing body. Regulation, in this context, also implies training as each member of the force would need to be aware of the scope of their actions and influence, indeed the reason they are participating in the milia.
Umm, no. "well regulated" in the late 18th Century was more or less synonymous with "well trained" today. It in no way implies government or any other control.
"being necessary to the security of a free state". Links it to the states so now we know where the well regulation is supposed to come from. Without that you could have churches raising their own militia to kill off other faiths (remember, the first ammendment only stops the federal government outlawing religeons, it doesn't stop other faiths taking up arms).
Again, no. "State" in this context more properly refers to the Nation as a whole. That is, that a well trained militia is necessary to the security of a "free" country. This is as opposed to a national army, by the way.
Note that during deliberations on the Constitution, it was proposed that the USA be Constitutionally limited to a 10,000 man Army. This particular feature was voted down when George Washington proposed adding to that article a provision that no foreign power be permitted to invade the US with more than 20,000 men.
"the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.". This is the bit that people often remember. If that was the entirety of the ammendment then it would be a protection of a person's right to keep and bear arms regardless of the purpose. It is not, however, the full text of the ammendment. The ammendment explicitly states that people should be allowed to keep and bear arms for participation in a well regulated state militia.
Well, no. The explanatory text in no way detracts from the "right" (which, if you read the constitution carefully are granted to individuals - "powers" are granted to governments).
That said, if we take the Second Amendment as being only about militias, then we must conclude that while pistols and hunting rifles might be restricted, assault rifles, machine guns, and heavier weapons would not be so restricted, as they are necessary for that "state militia" thing you speak of.
There have been several cases before the Supreme Court where the Second Amendment was mentioned in passing, and one case where it was cited as a reason for the decision. As examples:
The Dred Scott case: a notorious decision, but it actually mentioned the Second Amendment. The Ruling mentioned the Second Amendment in the context of Free Blacks, and stated, more or less, that if we were to recognize Blacks as citizens, they would have the right to keep and bear arms. Which idea was considered ludicrous in that time and place.
I forget the name of this one. Happened in the early 20th century, and involved a man with a sawed-off shotgun. The Supremes remanded the case back the the State Court, because the State Court had not considered the utility of a sawed-off shotgun as a weapon for the militia.
Note that in neither case was it assumed that the person involved be part of some organization. It WAS assumed in that one case that weapons of war suitable to the individual soldier had more right to protection than weapons not so suited.
Note further the Militia Act. Which defined the militia as "every able-bodied man [between 18 and 45]" (save for a few government officials), and required the militia (every able-bodied man) to procure for himself a rifle/musket & bayonet, and a certain amount of powder and shot (enough for 24 shots for a musket, 20 for a rifle - rifles were slower loading than muskets).
I think it got down to 25C one night this summer (it's been a cool summer so far). And there were even a few days where the high wasn't >32C. Luckily, humidity stayed at the usual 90%, so even those "cool" days weren't fun.
By the by, usual temp range in summer here is 27C(nightly low)-35C+(daily high), 90% humidity, every day from May to October.
That is why one of the rights guaranteed in the Bill of Rights is that of the states to raise and train a civil militia (and the right of the civilians to keep and bear arms for participation in that militia) to oppose and even overthrow the federal government.
Umm, no. Read the writings of the Founding Fathers sometime. The Second Amendment isn't about that States "raising and training" a militia. The Militia was defined as "every able-bodied man", with the exception of some government officials.
The Constitution doesn't even address the question of the States' ability to raise a military force. It merely allows the Citizenry to own firearms.
Interestingly enough, at that time, the right to keep and bear arms was part of the British Bill of Rights as well. It wasn't until this century, and the Irish insurrection that the British gradually began losing the right to keep and bear arms.
Please accept that in other countries, we are able to distinguish between public safety issues and privacy concerns.
Why should we accept that? You don't seem to accept that *we* can distinguish between public safety issues and privacy concerns.
Personally, all this just convinces me that the UK is not a place I really need to visit. I don't mind at all that you are doing this sort of thing to yourselves, long as I don't have to suffer under it.
the tube is *unbearable*, especially in the hot weather.
Just out of curiousity, what do you consider "hot weather" over there? Somehow, I can't quite get myself to believe that you're using the same definition I am over here in N'Awlins.
With one qualifier. Given the way humans work, if we start mining Lunar water for reaction mass, will we bother to import hydrogen from Earth? Before the Moon runs out of water?
If you believe so, consider oil.
Personally, I want to get off to the right start out there. Lunar base(s) will have a closed ecosystem, to the greatest extent possible. Getting in the habit of spraying rare components of that ecosystem into vacuum regularly would be bad.
But: a 2000 mile thick rock with even distribution of materials could easily require lifting more mining/refining/etc crap than you'd ever need to build a fleet in space. And if you are going to do it with von neumann machines, it'll take longer than getting resources from the belt given present technologies.
If we're talking Von Neumann machines, we're not talking current technology. I was assuming nothing more than what we have now.
However, "building a fleet in space" doesn't stop, if this is to be done right. It is a more or less permanent process, requiring a stable base of operations with certain characteristics - minimal deltaV requirements to get to-from the place to pretty much anywhere else (which is why Earth sucks as that base of operations), and a ready supply of the more commonly used materials (the moon qualifies, in that the majority of the mass required for a spacecraft are structural metals and oxygen). Sure, many asteroids fit just as well. But first we have to get to the asteroids. And a base on the moon makes that easier.
AFAIK there are no currently known mineral concentrations on the moon (probably small ones at major asteroid impacts) so it would not be wise to assume they exist.
Far as I know, we haven't actually prospected on the moon much. But we can turn feldspar and olvine into aluminium, iron, magnesium, and oxygen with just an application of enough energy. And energy isn't hard to come by in space.
I was planning on lifting everything, and figuring it would cost less than lifting mohole machines and silicon factories to the moon.
We don't do silicon factories on the moon. IC's are tiny, and Fabs for same are large and expnsive. We lift them from Earth. Most of a spacecraft will be sheet aluminium. Which isn't nearly so hard to produce, and factories to make it scale much better than IC Fabs. So we lift the essential components of the factory, and use its output to build a bigger base, spacecraft, whatever. As examples. In general, I prefer to lift small, difficult to make stuff, and make large things onsite.
Um, as far as local masses, I wasn't counting planets as the only useable gravitational mass available in the asteroid belt. For example, a very very tiny push on a nice chunk of nickel-iron could send it on a multi-pass slingshot around Ceres, out to a decel pass by earth or luna (better put some attitude controls on that rock just in case) and thence gracefully into earth/lunar L5.
I don't have my references handy, but I doubt you can slingshot around Ceres to get to Earth. Only about 0.025g surface acceleration, and ~475Km radius. You'd need a turning angle of 70 degrees or thereabouts, and I don't think you can manage that with so low a surface G to pull you around. Not without riding right along Ceres escape speed, which would put you in the position of taking nearly forever to get into position for the slingshot.
Hmm, ~2.4Km/s deltaV to deliver lunar raw materials to Earth. ~5.5Km/s deltaV to deliver asteroidal material to Earth. So delivering asteroidal materials takes longer, and costs more deltaV. Great trade-off, don't you think?
Care to explain the derivation of those numbers? Seems awfully simplistic to me. What kind of trajectories are you limiting yourself to? What use are you making of other local masses for acceleration and deceleration?
Sure! Lunar to Earth assumptions : we need to move that stuff at lunar escape velocity pointing somewhere at Earth. Lunar escape velocity is 2370-odd m/s, so that much deltaV, rounded up, should do nicely.
Asteroid to Earth: Assume an asteroid in a circular, coplanar orbit at 500Gm from the sun. Hohmann transfer orbit with sufficient eccentricity to reach Earth. Round up from 5400-odd m/s. Realistically, most asteroids aren't in coplanar orbits, and would take more deltaV.
I did not bother to assume a gravity-whip around Mars. However, to do so, we must have a MINIMUM 3.2km/s deltaV, just to reach Mars.
Jupiter could be useful for a gravity assist as well, and would require a minimum 1.4Km/s deltaV.
We'd prolly want to stop those shipments before they slammed into the ground. When we add in deltaV to bring those rocks to a stop in LEO, we get something on the order of 5.6Km/s for lunar material, 10.8Km/s for asteroids the straight path, 7.7Km/s w/ Jupiter assist, 6.8Km/s w/ Mars assist. Note that the two assists are absolute minimums, assuming that we can insert things into position precisely, and even then are, at best, rough numbers. Note further that either of those assists will be useful (with those deltaV's) no more often than every 11 years (Jupiter), or two years (Mars), and that doesn't take into account how often Earth is in proper position for such an orbit.
Nonetheless, I will cheerfully concede that it takes much longer, and time ~= money. But the resources should be better, lots of nearly everything in the asteroid belt the astronomer boys tell me. And don't forget the trojan asteroids if you don't want to enter the belt proper.
The Trojans are slightly farther away, deltaV-wise, than my original assumption for an asteroid.
I do not argue that the asteroids are not important. We want to use them as quickly as possible. I am arguing that getting to the asteroids will be MUCH harder without a foothold on the moon.
Hands down, RAH's best book. But, anyway, I still disagree. It could be a close call (because it would be easier to construct spaceships in low gravity than floating in space) but I think the light flimsy ships that you could quickly spew out of a trojan factory would get more done for far less investment than building an industrial base on the moon capable of using the local resources.
How much material is available in Earth's L4 & 5 positions? Enough to build the factories, plus the ships? It's really expensive to ship things up from Earth, so we need to boostrap ourselves as much as possible. The more we get from out there, the less we have to bring up from the ground at $1000+/pound.
Gravity isn't really why I want to use the moon. A 2000 mile thick rock is a lot of raw materials. Way more than L4 & L5. And sending a ship to Jupiter's Trojans from Earth would be painful.
I think you like gravity too much... why bother with planets at all? Leave Mars and Venus to the BEMs and live in rotating space habitats constructed from moonlets, asteroids and eventually comets.
I have to admit a slight prejudice for planets. However, I mention them purely as convenient waypoints. Except for Mercury, which will be a treasure trove of heavier metals, once we can get there and back easily. Space habitats are the very long-term future for humanity. And we'll want some of them in operation early on. But it's easier to describe space exploration and colonization in terms of Mars/Jupiter/Venus/Mercury/etc. than in terms of "2004 J-35", or something like that.
Slashdot Mirror
So even if they stayed entirely away from "energy" production, and stuck to "oil" production, odds are good they'd come out ahead on the deal.
What, you think that we are in terrible danger of running out of stupidity soon?
Or are you offended that other people seem to be violating the Stupidity Patent? Trust me, it expired years ago - now everyone can be stupid without paying any fees at all.
Note that you get a deduction for yourself, also. Is that a usbsidy?
Those standard deductions for yourself, your spouse, your kids, are nothing more than a convenience that the government supplies so that you don't have to keep detailed records of everything you do, and deduct all your "costs" before the tax is applied to your "profits". It incidently (and not accidently) makes it much easier on the IRS, since they don't have to check over 100,000,000+ tax forms that are filled with such minutia as the deduction for your son's new shoes.
Keep in mind that, in general, taxes are not assessed against gross, but against net. Or, more properly, against what your net would be if you weren't extravagant. No allowances for your kid's Jag, but the deductions cover reasonable costs for keeping the kids.
Hmm, Not sure what the first deduction is all about, so really couldn't say.
The second they mention is a "cost of doing business" thing. Every company in the USA gets to deduct that sort of thing from their taxes (when my employer buys me a new test box, it gets the same kind of deduction).
The third is the tax credit for alternative fuels! So you're complaining because oil companies are making ethanol/gasoline mixtures, and getting tax credits for it?! Wow, if you were to take that tax credit away, then there'd be LESS alternate fuels, not more!
Sorry, tax deductions aren't subsidies. Or do you consider the deduction for your children on your individual income taxes a "subsidy"? If so, you should refuse to accept it, by the simple expedient of not declaring your child(ren) as dependents.
Tax credits are a lot more like a subsidy. Not entirely, but more. In this case, the credit is for making alternate fuels. Which means that the oil companies are making MORE EXPENSIVE fuels and selling them at below cost. And making up the difference with the tax credit.
Wouldn't want to have oil companies making any efforts to develop alternate fuels, would we? They're "evil", so no doubt if they made alternate fuels, it would be just a trick, right?
I don't consider free roads a gasoline subsidy. We had roads before we had cars. If you consider free roads to be a gasoline subsidy, perhaps you should stop using them, until the price of gasoline is raised to support them. However...
I note on checking old Federal highway funding reports that ~84% of HIghway funding comes from oil/gas taxes, motor vehicle taxes, and tolls. But some of that is eaten up in subsidizing Mass Transit system, rather than maintaining the Highways.
That rate might argue for a 20% increase in gasoline taxes, to meet the shortfall (assuming we first removed the subsidy for mass transit). Which would push gasoline prices up by ~$0.04. I have no problem with paying an extra four cents a gallon for my gas. Hell, normal price fluctuations this summer have been far greater than that.
Ahhh, someone out there remembers!
Actually, even that isn't the question. The question is "can we come up with a theory to explain "cold fusion"?"
Just out of suriousity, who did they defraud?
Why should there be a "war surcharge"?
Fossil fuels are not subsidized in the USA, just taxed at a lower rate than European countries choose to tax gasoline.
Price at the pump is based on the owners of the oil selling it profitably. If they can do so even during a war, more power to them.
Oil companies would be richer than ever if this pans out. The oil won't stop being needed, it'll just stop being burned. And quite a few "oil companies" have figured out that they are in the energy business, not the oil business. And would probably be in the forefront of providing high-grade deuterium for your cold fusion units.
"Mr. Fusion", anyone?
Depends on the force. Carthage seems to have been stopped quite conclusively.
Russian Communism (which wasn't really communism) overextended themselves because they were trying to fight a "cold war". Which means no shooting, but building a military big enough to win when the shooting starts. It is unlikely that the USSR would have fallen absent that Cold War. War isn't always about killing people and breaking things.
I suspect that, if this was the case, it was accidental. That is, P&F didn't set out to saturate their electrodes with D, but it just so happened that they were. So they were unaware that they had achieved a special case condition prerequisite for cold fusion.
Not asymmetrical warfare. Unrestricted submarine warfare is what I have in mind. In order for the Chinese to attack, say, Madagascar, they must move troops, weapons, supplies and such to Madagascar. Air supply of large military formations is impractical, so the men/guns/supplies would move by ship. They put invasion fleet into ocean, a couple of LA class attack boats send them for close look at bottom of ocean.
The Chinese can't fight us far from home. Actually, the Chinese can't fight ANYONE far from home. It takes Seapower to do that, and they don't have any to speak of. This is not meant to imply that they couldn't get Seapower if they chose to do so. But they haven't made the choice yet, and it would take 20 years or more to turn the idea into reality (the Soviet Union spent 40 years at it without real success).
Yah, the Chinese could play the nuclear card. Last I looked, if it came to exchanging nukes, they'd lose. We have more, and more ways to deliver them, than they do.
In a conventional war between us and China, the biggest weakness China would have is a complete inability to reach us with anything but an ICBM. WW2 showed quite clearly what happens when one side can reach the other's industry, without the other side being able to replay in kind.
"Deep Well"? This is New Orleans. It's built on a swamp. Dig six inches anywhere to strike water. No deep wells. No subways. No basements. None of that stuff. The most interesting (to me, still) sight in New Orleans is the Canal between Orleans and Jefferson Parish. Driving over it, you can clearly see that the houses on both sides of the canal are below the water level of the canal. One story houses roofs are below the water level of the canal.
"face pressed into someone's...armpit"? I'm 6'3". In the situation you describe, I would be the source of the less than aromatic armpit, not the victim. ;-)
Consider, if you will, a request for data concerning yourself on these CCTV's you have. YOu ask, they spend some time, come back, and say something to the effect of "Sorry, that data was erased last week. We're only allowed to keep it seen days, you know". Does the fact that it is illegal for someone to retain data more than seen days actually imply the erase it after seven days?
The USA has an "instant check" system in place for handgun purchases these days. Passed by Clinton, of course. The law specifically required that no records of any transactions be kept longer than it took to actually process the transaction. The Clinton Justice Department decided that they needed to retain records of transactions more or less indefinitely (for QA/audit purposes), and proceeded to do so, in violation of the law.
When the Bush administration subsequently decided to actually obey that part of the law, the gun-control nute howled to the high heavens! Interesting that nearly half of Congress (the Democrat part) opposed the idea of obeying a law written and passed by themselves (this was written and passed by the last Democrat-controlled House and Senate).
Umm, no. "well regulated" in the late 18th Century was more or less synonymous with "well trained" today. It in no way implies government or any other control.
"being necessary to the security of a free state". Links it to the states so now we know where the well regulation is supposed to come from. Without that you could have churches raising their own militia to kill off other faiths (remember, the first ammendment only stops the federal government outlawing religeons, it doesn't stop other faiths taking up arms).
Again, no. "State" in this context more properly refers to the Nation as a whole. That is, that a well trained militia is necessary to the security of a "free" country. This is as opposed to a national army, by the way.
Note that during deliberations on the Constitution, it was proposed that the USA be Constitutionally limited to a 10,000 man Army. This particular feature was voted down when George Washington proposed adding to that article a provision that no foreign power be permitted to invade the US with more than 20,000 men.
"the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.". This is the bit that people often remember. If that was the entirety of the ammendment then it would be a protection of a person's right to keep and bear arms regardless of the purpose. It is not, however, the full text of the ammendment. The ammendment explicitly states that people should be allowed to keep and bear arms for participation in a well regulated state militia.
Well, no. The explanatory text in no way detracts from the "right" (which, if you read the constitution carefully are granted to individuals - "powers" are granted to governments).
That said, if we take the Second Amendment as being only about militias, then we must conclude that while pistols and hunting rifles might be restricted, assault rifles, machine guns, and heavier weapons would not be so restricted, as they are necessary for that "state militia" thing you speak of.
There have been several cases before the Supreme Court where the Second Amendment was mentioned in passing, and one case where it was cited as a reason for the decision. As examples:
The Dred Scott case: a notorious decision, but it actually mentioned the Second Amendment. The Ruling mentioned the Second Amendment in the context of Free Blacks, and stated, more or less, that if we were to recognize Blacks as citizens, they would have the right to keep and bear arms. Which idea was considered ludicrous in that time and place.
I forget the name of this one. Happened in the early 20th century, and involved a man with a sawed-off shotgun. The Supremes remanded the case back the the State Court, because the State Court had not considered the utility of a sawed-off shotgun as a weapon for the militia.
Note that in neither case was it assumed that the person involved be part of some organization. It WAS assumed in that one case that weapons of war suitable to the individual soldier had more right to protection than weapons not so suited.
Note further the Militia Act. Which defined the militia as "every able-bodied man [between 18 and 45]" (save for a few government officials), and required the militia (every able-bodied man) to procure for himself a rifle/musket & bayonet, and a certain amount of powder and shot (enough for 24 shots for a musket, 20 for a rifle - rifles were slower loading than muskets).
And if they haven't, they should. $1000 was a great deal more money when the laws were written that it is now.
ANd Petty Larceny is less than $25 (?). Depends on the State, I suppose, and also should be adjusted for inflation.
I think it got down to 25C one night this summer (it's been a cool summer so far). And there were even a few days where the high wasn't >32C. Luckily, humidity stayed at the usual 90%, so even those "cool" days weren't fun.
By the by, usual temp range in summer here is 27C(nightly low)-35C+(daily high), 90% humidity, every day from May to October.
Umm, no. Read the writings of the Founding Fathers sometime. The Second Amendment isn't about that States "raising and training" a militia. The Militia was defined as "every able-bodied man", with the exception of some government officials.
The Constitution doesn't even address the question of the States' ability to raise a military force. It merely allows the Citizenry to own firearms.
Interestingly enough, at that time, the right to keep and bear arms was part of the British Bill of Rights as well. It wasn't until this century, and the Irish insurrection that the British gradually began losing the right to keep and bear arms.
Why should we accept that? You don't seem to accept that *we* can distinguish between public safety issues and privacy concerns.
Personally, all this just convinces me that the UK is not a place I really need to visit. I don't mind at all that you are doing this sort of thing to yourselves, long as I don't have to suffer under it.
Just out of curiousity, what do you consider "hot weather" over there? Somehow, I can't quite get myself to believe that you're using the same definition I am over here in N'Awlins.
With one qualifier. Given the way humans work, if we start mining Lunar water for reaction mass, will we bother to import hydrogen from Earth? Before the Moon runs out of water?
If you believe so, consider oil.
Personally, I want to get off to the right start out there. Lunar base(s) will have a closed ecosystem, to the greatest extent possible. Getting in the habit of spraying rare components of that ecosystem into vacuum regularly would be bad.
But: a 2000 mile thick rock with even distribution of materials could easily require lifting more mining/refining/etc crap than you'd ever need to build a fleet in space. And if you are going to do it with von neumann machines, it'll take longer than getting resources from the belt given present technologies.
If we're talking Von Neumann machines, we're not talking current technology. I was assuming nothing more than what we have now.
However, "building a fleet in space" doesn't stop, if this is to be done right. It is a more or less permanent process, requiring a stable base of operations with certain characteristics - minimal deltaV requirements to get to-from the place to pretty much anywhere else (which is why Earth sucks as that base of operations), and a ready supply of the more commonly used materials (the moon qualifies, in that the majority of the mass required for a spacecraft are structural metals and oxygen). Sure, many asteroids fit just as well. But first we have to get to the asteroids. And a base on the moon makes that easier.
AFAIK there are no currently known mineral concentrations on the moon (probably small ones at major asteroid impacts) so it would not be wise to assume they exist.
Far as I know, we haven't actually prospected on the moon much. But we can turn feldspar and olvine into aluminium, iron, magnesium, and oxygen with just an application of enough energy. And energy isn't hard to come by in space.
I was planning on lifting everything, and figuring it would cost less than lifting mohole machines and silicon factories to the moon.
We don't do silicon factories on the moon. IC's are tiny, and Fabs for same are large and expnsive. We lift them from Earth. Most of a spacecraft will be sheet aluminium. Which isn't nearly so hard to produce, and factories to make it scale much better than IC Fabs. So we lift the essential components of the factory, and use its output to build a bigger base, spacecraft, whatever. As examples. In general, I prefer to lift small, difficult to make stuff, and make large things onsite.
Um, as far as local masses, I wasn't counting planets as the only useable gravitational mass available in the asteroid belt. For example, a very very tiny push on a nice chunk of nickel-iron could send it on a multi-pass slingshot around Ceres, out to a decel pass by earth or luna (better put some attitude controls on that rock just in case) and thence gracefully into earth/lunar L5.
I don't have my references handy, but I doubt you can slingshot around Ceres to get to Earth. Only about 0.025g surface acceleration, and ~475Km radius. You'd need a turning angle of 70 degrees or thereabouts, and I don't think you can manage that with so low a surface G to pull you around. Not without riding right along Ceres escape speed, which would put you in the position of taking nearly forever to get into position for the slingshot.
Yah, Pebble Bed is safe. So is Pressurized Water, if properly designed.
I'm irrationally prejudiced against Helium. ;-)
Hopefully the Chinese won't do something stupid to queer it for the rest of us.
Care to explain the derivation of those numbers? Seems awfully simplistic to me. What kind of trajectories are you limiting yourself to? What use are you making of other local masses for acceleration and deceleration?
Sure! Lunar to Earth assumptions : we need to move that stuff at lunar escape velocity pointing somewhere at Earth. Lunar escape velocity is 2370-odd m/s, so that much deltaV, rounded up, should do nicely.
Asteroid to Earth: Assume an asteroid in a circular, coplanar orbit at 500Gm from the sun. Hohmann transfer orbit with sufficient eccentricity to reach Earth. Round up from 5400-odd m/s. Realistically, most asteroids aren't in coplanar orbits, and would take more deltaV.
I did not bother to assume a gravity-whip around Mars. However, to do so, we must have a MINIMUM 3.2km/s deltaV, just to reach Mars.
Jupiter could be useful for a gravity assist as well, and would require a minimum 1.4Km/s deltaV.
We'd prolly want to stop those shipments before they slammed into the ground. When we add in deltaV to bring those rocks to a stop in LEO, we get something on the order of 5.6Km/s for lunar material, 10.8Km/s for asteroids the straight path, 7.7Km/s w/ Jupiter assist, 6.8Km/s w/ Mars assist. Note that the two assists are absolute minimums, assuming that we can insert things into position precisely, and even then are, at best, rough numbers. Note further that either of those assists will be useful (with those deltaV's) no more often than every 11 years (Jupiter), or two years (Mars), and that doesn't take into account how often Earth is in proper position for such an orbit.
Nonetheless, I will cheerfully concede that it takes much longer, and time ~= money. But the resources should be better, lots of nearly everything in the asteroid belt the astronomer boys tell me. And don't forget the trojan asteroids if you don't want to enter the belt proper.
The Trojans are slightly farther away, deltaV-wise, than my original assumption for an asteroid.
I do not argue that the asteroids are not important. We want to use them as quickly as possible. I am arguing that getting to the asteroids will be MUCH harder without a foothold on the moon.
Hands down, RAH's best book. But, anyway, I still disagree. It could be a close call (because it would be easier to construct spaceships in low gravity than floating in space) but I think the light flimsy ships that you could quickly spew out of a trojan factory would get more done for far less investment than building an industrial base on the moon capable of using the local resources.
How much material is available in Earth's L4 & 5 positions? Enough to build the factories, plus the ships? It's really expensive to ship things up from Earth, so we need to boostrap ourselves as much as possible. The more we get from out there, the less we have to bring up from the ground at $1000+/pound.
Gravity isn't really why I want to use the moon. A 2000 mile thick rock is a lot of raw materials. Way more than L4 & L5. And sending a ship to Jupiter's Trojans from Earth would be painful.
I think you like gravity too much... why bother with planets at all? Leave Mars and Venus to the BEMs and live in rotating space habitats constructed from moonlets, asteroids and eventually comets.
I have to admit a slight prejudice for planets. However, I mention them purely as convenient waypoints. Except for Mercury, which will be a treasure trove of heavier metals, once we can get there and back easily. Space habitats are the very long-term future for humanity. And we'll want some of them in operation early on. But it's easier to describe space exploration and colonization in terms of Mars/Jupiter/Venus/Mercury/etc. than in terms of "2004 J-35", or something like that.