This is one of the reasons why most railroads now use a "Diesel-Electric" combination when they don't have access to overhead electrical power grids. Essentially the locomotive consists of an electric generator burning diesel fuel and some electric motors that operate the wheels themselves. This isn't really a hybrid as the two motors aren't really connected except through electrical power cables. Getting a train to move is one of those things where you certainly need a huge amount of torque going from a full stop.
I would presume that Tesla Motors knows a things or two about how to build a proper automobile with an electric motor, and it should be noted that the Roadster (don't know about the Model S) has a transmission. Originally it was supposed to be a multi-gear (aka "multi-speed") transmission, but the high RPM numbers + torque produced by their motors basically ate through any normal transmission used for an ICE motor. Instead most of the early Roadsters had a very simple transmission that was essentially a set of gears to more evenly match the RPMs to the wheel, but it still had what was technically a transmission.
Getting a transmission to work at all was one of the last major roadblocks to getting the Roadster into production, and was one of the things (along with many other issues) that ended up getting Martin Eberhard fired as CEO. Getting it to work nearly put Tesla into bankruptcy. While in theory you could simply hook an electric motor straight up to the drive shaft of a vehicle, a transmission can and does offer some additional benefits that can help improve performance of the vehicle.
Montana did at one time remove all posted speed limits on some stretches of rural interstate highway, but it turns out that it was being abused and treated as a sort of drag strip. Also, the highways in America really aren't built up to the standards of the Autobahn, which was also one of the problems: there were some German tourists familiar with the Autobahn driving in Montana who followed the customs of the Autobahn and it didn't really mesh in very well with the American judicial/law enforcement community.
It was an interesting experiment, but the people of Montana decided to put the speed limits in with just a few years of "unlimited speed limits" in place. BTW, even at the time the speed limits were "unlimited", you still had to maintain control over your vehicle and in fact without the formal speed limits it made fighting a speeding ticket much harder. It was based upon "driving conditions", which are very subjective.
I'm not surprised that some people still think Montana has unlimited speed highways as it was a major news item when it first happened.
{{Citation needed}}... at least for this assertion that electric cars can't compete for fuel economy. There may have been a successful lawsuit in terms of mileage claims, but that isn't the same thing as poorer fuel efficiency.
The advantage of electical distribution is that the energy delivery is incredibly efficient, widespread, and can be made from a wide variety of energy stocks. It takes gasoline (or at least other petroleum products) to move gasoline to a convenient location, and that also doesn't take into account the refinery energy costs involved and a whole bunch of other factors that impact the efficiency of converting a barrel of petroleum to mileage in your automobile. Petroleum can be converted directly to electricity with only minor losses at a power generation facility burning unrefined crude oil if necessary, not to mention how economies of scale apply to industrial levels of electricity production making it much more efficient. In theory, you could even build a generic boiler system that simply takes whatever fuel stock is handy at the moment and burn that substance to drive the generators even at a single facility. That is certainly something which can't be done with most automobiles. So you have an oil embargo.... fine, burn some coal or if you are desperate even some wood or other "renewable" resources in a pinch. Electricity doesn't care and the end-users of electricity certainly don't care or for that matter even know how their electricity is generated.
As for the need for private cars, public transit generally doesn't work for on demand point to point travel at all hours including semi-rural locations. An automobile meets that market. I've known people who live in New York City or other major metro areas that can seem to get along and live their lives without an automobile, but that unfortunately misses a huge segment of society that doesn't live in that environment. In addition, there are "urban planners" who are designing cities in a way that simply don't permit people to live without an automobile. If I have to get my daughter to the emergency room of a hospital at 4 a.m. living in suburbia, I can't count on a taxi being around much less a city bus to be able to get me there before she dies from appendicitis. Yes, that has happened to me too, where it was a critical thing to worry about and I was grateful that an automobile was available for me to use.
There is a real need for automobiles and wishing them away isn't going to happen any time soon. Changing these kind of lifestyles is something that will take generations if you really want to force public transit, and in a democratic environment expect that there will be people pushing back against the idea too even if it is plainly obvious that it should happen. Not only that, but some people happen to like living in suburbia and can't stand major urban high density housing situations.
* They were married after they were both in the space program. They met as astronauts.
* NASA didn't find out that they were married until after the flight assignments were made and the two had been training together for some time. Given their choice, the NASA astronaut's office would have preferred to have kept them separated.
If I'm not mistaken (please correct me if I'm wrong here!) the furthest somebody has been from the Earth's surface and the fastest that anybody has ever traveled in absolute terms relative to the Earth was on Apollo 13. Not exactly a distinction that those astronauts were trying for, but it was a by product of the free return trajectory that they used to return back to the Earth. I don't know if these astronauts are the ones setting this record or not, but it is at least worth mentioning. Velocities of the ISS are trivial in comparison.
Virgin Galactic is far enough along, as is SpaceShip Two, that I think any group of investors that takes over after Richard Branson is going to at least continue to offer SS2 flights for the foreseeable future. I think the flight deposits that have been offered so far will be honored and the flights are going to happen.
What might put a monkey wrench into the company would be if something happened where the engine on the vehicle couldn't be certified (it is still going through R&D development) or some sort of fatal flaw in the design is discovered during the flight testing that would cause the FAA to refuse to give an air worthiness certificate on the vehicle. That is a big deal and something that could conceivably still happen. I would put that as almost completely unlikely, but there have been aircraft development projects this far along that have failed before. On the other hand, Scaled Composites has plenty of experience with trying to pass that hurdle and is very closely working with the various bureaucrats to make sure that isn't a problem.
There is the tiny problem with the fact that the FAA-AST has never certified for regular non-experimental purposes any sort of manned spaceflight vehicle. The entire process is currently being worked out explicitly to get SpaceShip Two going, but it is possible that Congress might enact legislation or have some sort of brainfart that would kill any sort of vehicle from getting a certificate for flight. It would hit Slashdot if that happened and there would be a thousand cries of complaint about it happening among geeks if something like that happened, but worse has gone through the legislative sausage factory called Congress.
The worry about Richard Branson and Burt Rutan is that if either die, it is likely that SpaceShip Three will never be built. That one is supposed to be more for the point to point travel, or perhaps flights into orbit (depending on who is being asked). It would be a shame if the follow on spacecraft weren't built.
I've heard some rumors that the engines on this vehicle are being a tad bit temperamental and that there are some problems trying to get the SS1 engines to scale up to the size that SS2 is going to need. Yes, I could post some on-line references for this rather than pure gossip, but the issue still is outstanding. There were some unfortunate deaths that happened with the engine testing that I'm quite certain have been part of the delay as it is.
To keep things simple, have the problems been worked with the engines and are they close to being used for test flights, or is that something still a long way away. All that was tested today is the avionics and everything that didn't need the engine working. At the moment, I'm not even sure if Scaled Composites is still using the N2O/HTPB engines. I'm not trying to troll here, I'm really curious about the answer.
Watch for the landing gear extend at the end of the flight.
Yeah, it seems like the new rocket designers forgot that spacecraft weren't supposed to have those sleek designs like those old magazine covers illustrated. Yes, that is a real rocket in this video too.
Sub-orbital flights between two different destinations on the Earth is something that has been talked about in several cases, giving a huge advantage over airplanes in terms of travel time between two locations. For intercontinental distances, it is something that has been seriously talked about.
It is this that I believe the original poster is sort of hinting at too, BTW.
Something like this also gives the ability to have something like FedEx deliver a package to a destination yesterday (crossing the international dateline) for things that really need to get there. I'm sure there are things that people would be willing to pay $1000 per pound to deliver in that fashion if they could get from say New York to Tokyo in three hours. For some items there are people who would be willing to pay 100x that price if it could be done quickly.
Yes, there is a realistic commercial market for these kind of vehicles, even though SpaceShip Two isn't going to be able to pull off those kind of flights any time soon. It doesn't necessarily require a destination in space in order to be useful for point to point travel.
If congress thinks that Charles Bolden is doing something worthy of impeachement, yes they as a body can do something about it. But seriously this is only a single congressman (out of 435) that is raising a complaint here and isn't even talking impeachment either for that matter as a possibility. He is only screaming that Bolden isn't jumping around like Congressional staffers.
Obama could even "promote" Bolden to be a Presidential assistant.... which doesn't need congressional confirmation and is out of reach of impeachent too. Really, it is up to whatever Obama wants out of Bolden, and everything I've seen him do is mostly as a lightning rod for what policies Obama doesn't want to directly articulate.
If there is an agreement that comes out of this trip, it will be reported to Congress and it will be up to Congress to decide what it is that they want to do when that happens. So far it hasn't even been to that stage yet.
Otherwise, shy of an impeachment proceeding, Congress can only restrict funding. It can't stop negotiations or somebody acting like Bolden to at least see what potential opportunities might be available.
I'm not missing anything here. Bolden is going to China to engage in a dialog, and it is but one squealing congressman (not even a committee or a large group of congressmen) that are complaining about him even engaging in a dialog claiming that's illegal. It isn't illegal and in fact a part of the direct responsibilities of the U.S. President through which Charles Bolden is acting with delegated authority.
If, and this is a big if, an agreement comes out of these meetings, it will be brought to Congress for their consideration. No money is being spent, or for that matter even needed other than the transportation of the delegation itself. The President is certainly well within his authority to authorize that kind of travel and for Charles Bolden to involve itself in discussions with the Chinese government. This congressman is claiming that such a meeting is somehow illegal.
The Iran-Contra affair was involving much more than dialog and discussions. Yes, it was unconstitutional and exceeding the authority of the executive branch, but are you honestly telling me that what Charles Bolden is doing here is something that is illegal and somehow giving the Chinese something material like this? Congress simply can't tell the President to not negotiate with another country, even a nation under a declared state of war. That doesn't even seem to be the situation with China at the moment.
Besides, the law that is being claimed to have been violated was never even passed by congress.
What is China going to do.... invade and occupy California? Good luck with that. China is not going to be getting away with an attack on North America if they tried, which would be the only point to nuclear primacy. Besides, they are more worried about India coming over the Himalayas and taking Tibet or Russia deciding to head south to be too much of a problem in that regard.
The USA isn't going anywhere at any time soon, and America certainly isn't going to fade into history gracefully or falling to the hand of China without taking China down with it ending Chinese culture too. The Chinese might not be too concerned about the loss of a million people, but losing the whole country would be of concern to them.
America still has most of the natural resources that put it into the position to win World War II. The population of America has also more than doubled since then too with technological advances that were only dreamed about at the time. That hasn't changed.
What concerns China, and why they are targeting America as a potential threat (with India too, I should add) is that America has the potential to beat China at the game they normally play in terms of empire building: Flood the country with troops until the sheer mass of soldiers overwhelms the enemy. If China would try that against America, they find themselves facing the potential position of an enemy who could do the same thing with the possibility that China would be instead overrun by a mass of people, particularly when America as an enemy can kill Chinese soldiers at a ratio of at least 3:1 or better. That was the case in Korea, and scared the Chinese in a major way. That is why the Korean War also ended in a stalemate instead of a clear victor. America is a country for China to reckon with.
The "middle kingdom" (what the Chinese call themselves) has always had a chip on its shoulder thinking that it was the center of the universe and that all people bowed to Beijing. The current leaders really do think of themselves as the new Mandarin leaders who are answerable to none but themselves, and now that they got the emperor taken care of they really are the most important people in the world.
Basically, China never had peers that they had to deal with in the past, and their culture is one that is having a hard time coping with that fact of life. China simply dominated everything they saw. Sure, there might be periods of time where there were losses, but they always came out on top and in fact in charge of everything. That is Chinese history, where they look at problems in a context of thousands of years, not merely a couple. When viewed from this perspective, America has seemingly come from out of nowhere and is suddenly a major rival that is doing the same thing in a place they can't get to. Europe has never been a threat because Europe can never get its act together before they start fighting each other in from a Chinese perspective is only a bunch of civil wars. India may be a threat, but the Himalayas keep that from being too easy, and besides India has been so poor that they weren't a threat.
America might be a nation temporarily on a decline, but it isn't going to go away any time soon. China knows this all too well.
Who said they weren't? And there certainly were plenty of rallies condemning Bush. Who do you think put Obama in the White House in the first place?
Most conservatives look at Bush and said mostly "at least he isn't Clinton or Gore", and then McCain came along with a very lackluster support for "their" candidate in 2008. With an energized liberal base that supported Obama, that is how Obama got into the big seat.
You should note here that the "tea party" groups are not pulling punches with the "establishment Republicans" at all and are more than willing to tell a Republican candidate to leave office too. Just ask Bob Bennett why his name isn't going to be on the ballot next month.... and he really wanted it to be there. Bob Bennett didn't even make it to the primary election, talk about an incumbent getting kicked out.
I should also note that most "tea party" groups are new to the whole political process and are really getting involved for the first time this year. When I go to some of the meeting, often they don't even know basic parliamentary processes or procedures. But they are learning real fast. For the most part these guys were busy living their lives in quiet, trying to go to school and raise families being essentially ignorant of politics thanks to a public school system that tries to train you to stay as uninvolved as possible.
If Bush tried to run for re-election today, I don't think he would get the nomination much less win. Bill Clinton, on the other hand, might just be able to get both the nomination and win the general election if he were constitutionally capable of doing so.
Negotiating treaties isn't something Congress does at all. That is an executive branch function completely, and something that is up to the President to decide. The Constitution trumps the law in this case.
If Congress passes an unconstitutional law that prohibits the President to carry out his constitutionally mandated duties, he certainly is well within his means to ignore that law. Besides, the law being claimed to have been passed was only proposed and then defeated in committee. It is only one silly congressman who is complaining that he didn't get his way and isn't being listened to. A NASA administrator doesn't have to listen to a single congressman who is blowing his top. Be kind and courteous, perhaps, but Bolden doesn't have to follow his orders.
How is the technology that the Chinese using remotely compared to the Russian program? The Shenzhou capsules look superficially like the Soyuz design because they are using a similar method for launching them.... sort of like how the Buran and Shuttle vehicles look the same. But they are in both cases clean sheet designs from completely different groups of engineers merely working in the same design realm giving similar looking vehicles. The Shenzhou is certainly not a Soyuz spacecraft.
While it may seem like the Chinese are copying the Russian technology (and in a way they are), it is something that is uniquely Chinese in its basic design and made in Chinese factories with Chinese engineers. Dismissing China in this way is a sure way to ignore a potential competitor that has been successful at sending people into orbit. Only two other countries have done that, so it sort of puts China in a unique position in that regard.
Unless I'm mistaken, I would have sworn that I saw a Japanese astronaut in space, complete with the rising sun flag on his shoulder floating in the ISS. JAXA also built one of the modules on the ISS. Yes, that Japanese astronaut went up on the Space Shuttle, he was still a JAXA employee. While JAXA may be suffering from similar kinds of problems that NASA is facing in terms of a democratically elected government knowing they want to do something but not knowing what that something is that they want to do, it doesn't mean they are doing nothing at all and that the agency exists in a cardboard box. They've gone through growing pains just like all such similar organizations, particularly when there is no room for almost as in "it almost works". I should note here too that JAXA is an ISS partner that has regular meetings between all of the ISS partner agency head (a couple of times a year) not to mention cross training of personnel between all of the various agencies. China and India are the only major spacefaring nations excluded at the moment. Even Brazil is involved with the ISS inter-agency discussions.
If you want to really spend money in a foolish and wasteful manner, try to make it an "international cooperation" agreement instead. While these are sometimes touted as being more cost efficient, in nearly every case I've seen an international group made up of governments get together they end up spending about 5x the money that any one of them by themselves could have spent had they simply done it themselves. And that is on top of the typical wasteful spending by a government bureaucrat compared to a private individual would spend if they simply did it themselves without bureaucratic overhead.
Robert Bigelow is going to be putting up, with his own dime, a space station about as big as the ISS for about $400 million. It cost the "international" community about $100 billion to put up the ISS. Heck, NASA's budget for the ISS this next fiscal year is about $2 billion, including only one Shuttle flight that has been authorized (plus a "rescue flight" if needed), which isn't even in the ISS budget section.
I'm all for talks with other countries for minor stuff like joint rescue agreements or establishing standards for communications and docking equipment. Some of what Bolden is going to China to discuss is precisely these kind of things, not necessarily trying to purchase a Shenzhou rocket ride for NASA astronauts.... not that I'd complain too much if he did.
Not that the Chinese have stayed out of the political process in America in the past. A whole bunch of Buddhist monks (who have taken a vow of poverty) in California helped to fund Al Gore's election in 2000 with the money coming directly from the Chinese government.
More importantly, are you saying that this is the very first time people from outside of America have decided to get involved in the American political process? With the possible exception of the first couple of congressional elections, I think you can find some outside money having participated from foreign countries in American elections. Indeed what the Chamber of Commerce is alleged to have done here is chump change and the small stuff compared to other more blatant kinds of corruption. The only thing being alleged here is that this organization has mixed some of the funds that came from dues including Chinese nationals that is being used for political purposes in America.
BTW, why is it that the Chinese connection is being emphasized here when in face a great many other companies in many other countries are also involved here too? It isn't just Chinese companies that have contributed to this same fund.
There are so many things wrong with what you've said here that I don't know where to begin. NASA (or anybody else for that matter) will not ever take a rocket designed for manned spaceflight or even unmanned space research and use those vehicles for launching a nuclear warhead or other military armament. They have the wrong performance characteristics and simply would be the wrong tool for the job. It would be like trying to hammer a nail in with a saw. It might "work" after a fashion, but you will cause yourself more harm than it is worth and not do your saw or the nail any bit of good. If you insist, I can go into more details here. National security implications are simply going over the top on this matter.
Also, "this joker" was appointed by the President and subsequently approved by the Senate for this post. I suppose that is why you say he wouldn't have this job if it wasn't for Congress. The man complaining though isn't in the U.S. Senate and didn't have a vote on that particular matter. Charles Bolden serves at the pleasure of the President in his capacity as the Administrator for NASA. Congress can control the funding for NASA so Charles Bolden ought to be nice and respectful to members of Congress, but he doesn't have to listen to or follow order from any of them. The only person that matters here is Barack Obama, and if you think Mr. Obama is doing a lousy job of things then you have the chance in about a year to put somebody else in his place (if you are an American).
Only if the President decides to shut down NASA can it happen. Congress can cut funding to NASA and effectively shut it down, but only the President can really kill an agency in this way.
The dangerous precedent would be some punk of a congressman having any real authority over executive branch personnel. That violates the principles of the separation of the branches of government. This isn't running roughshod over the government, it is knowing who is really in charge. If Charles Bolden is going too far, it is Barack Obama that needs to pull him back and put him in his place. So far I haven't seen Bolden say or do much that is insubordinate to Obama and if anything he is implementing the wishes of the Obama administration.
The President, and his "advisors" (which includes Bolden), can negotiate treaties and agreements with foreign governments "with the advise and consent of the Senate". Dating back to the Washington administration, the President has mostly ignored congress until after the treaty has been signed. George Washington at one time tried to sit down in a Senate session where he tried to get "advise" in a more informal manner on some key treaties, and then got fed up with the whole process and basically told the Senate to "screw themselves" (in a manner that only an 18th century politician could have pulled that off) and only sent the completed documents for thumbs up or down approval afterward.
That is precisely what Bolden is doing here, as an official emissary of Barack Obama going to China to discuss issues related to the space programs of the two countries. Obama in this case is following the lead of George Washington in terms of how this business should be handled. If you think George Washington set a bad precedent in this case, so be it, but at least note where the precedent comes from.
However, Bolden's boss happens to sit on 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and not on Capitol Hill. Congressmen who are presuming that they can order executive department heads about how they are conducting their business are exceeding their constitutional authority. Congress can tell the President (and hence any of the President's subordinates) how much money he has to spend and what things they are allowed to spend it on, but how that money is going to be spent and what process is going to be used for spending that money is entirely up to the President. If Congress doesn't like how the money is being spent, they can cut the funding, but that is about it.
The only person that Charles Bolden has to really answer to is Barack Obama, the duly elected President of the United States. He ought to be nice to members of congress as they are responsible for funding his agency, but he doesn't have to do a single thing they ask of him if he doesn't want to do that, particularly if it is in conflict with instructions from his boss.
In the UK, it is a bit different as the national legislature (House of Commons) is also directly responsible via the Prime Minister to administer all "executive functions" that don't fall directly under the monarchy. It would be more akin in this situation as if Prince Harry was being told by a member of parliament that he couldn't take a trip to Afghanistan but he was asked to go there by the Queen in the first place as her official representative. Do you think Prince Harry would be worried about what an MP thought of his trip in that case?
One of the roles of the 2nd Amendment is to ensure that the citizens have at least the theoretical potential of overthrowing the government if things get out of control. In almost every oppressive government that has come along, including ancient governments, denying the right of the ordinary people to possess arms has been consistently employed. It was a problem during the days of the American Revolution and the individual right to bear arms including firearms was one of the key things that formed America in the first place. New Hampshire even went so far that in their state constitution that the "right to rebellion" is one of the enumerated rights in its bill of rights.
Besides, state militias really don't exist any more in America, and if you think a typical national guard unit cares one little bit about their state beyond mostly lip service, ask one of the guardsman this simple question: If there were conflicting orders coming from Washington DC and the state capital, who would they follow? Most (nearly all) guardsmen would drop the orders from the state government like yesterday's bad news and not even hesitate even if it meant the direct loss of that state government, its leaders, or even territory. I've even heard guardsmen say that they wouldn't even follow orders from the U.S. President in some cases if it came in conflict with orders from their commanding officer, not necessarily because it was an "unlawful order". And this is the group that the ACLU is suggesting that the 2nd Amendment only applies to?
Mind you, I'm not dissing guardsmen who do an incredible service to this country and their communities, and have an important role to do in terms of maintaining an orderly society, but as the recipients of the mantle of a state militia acting independently of the federal armies to be a check and balance on potential abuse by the federal government violating civil liberties, they really don't do that role at all. There aren't really any groups that legitimately hold this title any more. The "militia groups" that do exist are a shadow of the real thing, and certainly aren't acting with state authorization.
The initial "tea party" crowds were genuine in their anger toward Obama, but it should be noted that the largest victories to date that can be claimed by those involved with the tea party groups have been unseating incumbent Republicans from office, not necessarily winning the whole ball game.
As for the big bucks pouring into the elections, what about the liberal elite in Hollywood and the labor unions pouring money into the Democratic party for some time? Seriously, the flow of monster amounts of money is nothing new to political campaigning. What is new is the somewhat organized conservative groups that seem to be introducing a new dynamic in American politics. Of course there are going to be some people wanting to channel that energy into their own campaigns, including a bunch of fake politicians that simply put their finger up to see what way the wind is blowing at the moment so they can be put in the front of whatever group happens to be the hot darlings at the moment. Those exist among all ideological groups, and it could be argued that there is a "ruling class" of idiots who really don't give a damn about political philosophies as long as they are the ones that remain in charge.
They are spending money as if there is no tomorrow as they don't really care about tomorrow anyway.
My biggest complaint about Bush is that he was a "moderate" that put on the guise of conservatism but really didn't practice the philosophies. If you think the Bush executive expansion was embraced by conservatism, you need to see what Tea Party guys are saying about that expansion too.
I only voted for the guy because the alternatives were much worse. But that is just me and I'm sure you had your own opinion on the matter. George W. Bush was certainly not out of the same mold as Ronald Reagan. And yes, I hate the Patriot Act and most of the expansion in the Department of Homeland Security.
Slashdot Mirror
This is one of the reasons why most railroads now use a "Diesel-Electric" combination when they don't have access to overhead electrical power grids. Essentially the locomotive consists of an electric generator burning diesel fuel and some electric motors that operate the wheels themselves. This isn't really a hybrid as the two motors aren't really connected except through electrical power cables. Getting a train to move is one of those things where you certainly need a huge amount of torque going from a full stop.
I would presume that Tesla Motors knows a things or two about how to build a proper automobile with an electric motor, and it should be noted that the Roadster (don't know about the Model S) has a transmission. Originally it was supposed to be a multi-gear (aka "multi-speed") transmission, but the high RPM numbers + torque produced by their motors basically ate through any normal transmission used for an ICE motor. Instead most of the early Roadsters had a very simple transmission that was essentially a set of gears to more evenly match the RPMs to the wheel, but it still had what was technically a transmission.
Getting a transmission to work at all was one of the last major roadblocks to getting the Roadster into production, and was one of the things (along with many other issues) that ended up getting Martin Eberhard fired as CEO. Getting it to work nearly put Tesla into bankruptcy. While in theory you could simply hook an electric motor straight up to the drive shaft of a vehicle, a transmission can and does offer some additional benefits that can help improve performance of the vehicle.
Montana did at one time remove all posted speed limits on some stretches of rural interstate highway, but it turns out that it was being abused and treated as a sort of drag strip. Also, the highways in America really aren't built up to the standards of the Autobahn, which was also one of the problems: there were some German tourists familiar with the Autobahn driving in Montana who followed the customs of the Autobahn and it didn't really mesh in very well with the American judicial/law enforcement community.
It was an interesting experiment, but the people of Montana decided to put the speed limits in with just a few years of "unlimited speed limits" in place. BTW, even at the time the speed limits were "unlimited", you still had to maintain control over your vehicle and in fact without the formal speed limits it made fighting a speeding ticket much harder. It was based upon "driving conditions", which are very subjective.
I'm not surprised that some people still think Montana has unlimited speed highways as it was a major news item when it first happened.
{{Citation needed}} ... at least for this assertion that electric cars can't compete for fuel economy. There may have been a successful lawsuit in terms of mileage claims, but that isn't the same thing as poorer fuel efficiency.
The advantage of electical distribution is that the energy delivery is incredibly efficient, widespread, and can be made from a wide variety of energy stocks. It takes gasoline (or at least other petroleum products) to move gasoline to a convenient location, and that also doesn't take into account the refinery energy costs involved and a whole bunch of other factors that impact the efficiency of converting a barrel of petroleum to mileage in your automobile. Petroleum can be converted directly to electricity with only minor losses at a power generation facility burning unrefined crude oil if necessary, not to mention how economies of scale apply to industrial levels of electricity production making it much more efficient. In theory, you could even build a generic boiler system that simply takes whatever fuel stock is handy at the moment and burn that substance to drive the generators even at a single facility. That is certainly something which can't be done with most automobiles. So you have an oil embargo.... fine, burn some coal or if you are desperate even some wood or other "renewable" resources in a pinch. Electricity doesn't care and the end-users of electricity certainly don't care or for that matter even know how their electricity is generated.
As for the need for private cars, public transit generally doesn't work for on demand point to point travel at all hours including semi-rural locations. An automobile meets that market. I've known people who live in New York City or other major metro areas that can seem to get along and live their lives without an automobile, but that unfortunately misses a huge segment of society that doesn't live in that environment. In addition, there are "urban planners" who are designing cities in a way that simply don't permit people to live without an automobile. If I have to get my daughter to the emergency room of a hospital at 4 a.m. living in suburbia, I can't count on a taxi being around much less a city bus to be able to get me there before she dies from appendicitis. Yes, that has happened to me too, where it was a critical thing to worry about and I was grateful that an automobile was available for me to use.
There is a real need for automobiles and wishing them away isn't going to happen any time soon. Changing these kind of lifestyles is something that will take generations if you really want to force public transit, and in a democratic environment expect that there will be people pushing back against the idea too even if it is plainly obvious that it should happen. Not only that, but some people happen to like living in suburbia and can't stand major urban high density housing situations.
A few things about that couple:
* They were married after they were both in the space program. They met as astronauts.
* NASA didn't find out that they were married until after the flight assignments were made and the two had been training together for some time. Given their choice, the NASA astronaut's office would have preferred to have kept them separated.
If I'm not mistaken (please correct me if I'm wrong here!) the furthest somebody has been from the Earth's surface and the fastest that anybody has ever traveled in absolute terms relative to the Earth was on Apollo 13. Not exactly a distinction that those astronauts were trying for, but it was a by product of the free return trajectory that they used to return back to the Earth. I don't know if these astronauts are the ones setting this record or not, but it is at least worth mentioning. Velocities of the ISS are trivial in comparison.
Virgin Galactic is far enough along, as is SpaceShip Two, that I think any group of investors that takes over after Richard Branson is going to at least continue to offer SS2 flights for the foreseeable future. I think the flight deposits that have been offered so far will be honored and the flights are going to happen.
What might put a monkey wrench into the company would be if something happened where the engine on the vehicle couldn't be certified (it is still going through R&D development) or some sort of fatal flaw in the design is discovered during the flight testing that would cause the FAA to refuse to give an air worthiness certificate on the vehicle. That is a big deal and something that could conceivably still happen. I would put that as almost completely unlikely, but there have been aircraft development projects this far along that have failed before. On the other hand, Scaled Composites has plenty of experience with trying to pass that hurdle and is very closely working with the various bureaucrats to make sure that isn't a problem.
There is the tiny problem with the fact that the FAA-AST has never certified for regular non-experimental purposes any sort of manned spaceflight vehicle. The entire process is currently being worked out explicitly to get SpaceShip Two going, but it is possible that Congress might enact legislation or have some sort of brainfart that would kill any sort of vehicle from getting a certificate for flight. It would hit Slashdot if that happened and there would be a thousand cries of complaint about it happening among geeks if something like that happened, but worse has gone through the legislative sausage factory called Congress.
The worry about Richard Branson and Burt Rutan is that if either die, it is likely that SpaceShip Three will never be built. That one is supposed to be more for the point to point travel, or perhaps flights into orbit (depending on who is being asked). It would be a shame if the follow on spacecraft weren't built.
I've heard some rumors that the engines on this vehicle are being a tad bit temperamental and that there are some problems trying to get the SS1 engines to scale up to the size that SS2 is going to need. Yes, I could post some on-line references for this rather than pure gossip, but the issue still is outstanding. There were some unfortunate deaths that happened with the engine testing that I'm quite certain have been part of the delay as it is.
To keep things simple, have the problems been worked with the engines and are they close to being used for test flights, or is that something still a long way away. All that was tested today is the avionics and everything that didn't need the engine working. At the moment, I'm not even sure if Scaled Composites is still using the N2O/HTPB engines. I'm not trying to troll here, I'm really curious about the answer.
This YouTube video has an even cooler "1930's SciFi" look to it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nATMe_NKgo0
Watch for the landing gear extend at the end of the flight.
Yeah, it seems like the new rocket designers forgot that spacecraft weren't supposed to have those sleek designs like those old magazine covers illustrated. Yes, that is a real rocket in this video too.
Sub-orbital flights between two different destinations on the Earth is something that has been talked about in several cases, giving a huge advantage over airplanes in terms of travel time between two locations. For intercontinental distances, it is something that has been seriously talked about.
It is this that I believe the original poster is sort of hinting at too, BTW.
Something like this also gives the ability to have something like FedEx deliver a package to a destination yesterday (crossing the international dateline) for things that really need to get there. I'm sure there are things that people would be willing to pay $1000 per pound to deliver in that fashion if they could get from say New York to Tokyo in three hours. For some items there are people who would be willing to pay 100x that price if it could be done quickly.
Yes, there is a realistic commercial market for these kind of vehicles, even though SpaceShip Two isn't going to be able to pull off those kind of flights any time soon. It doesn't necessarily require a destination in space in order to be useful for point to point travel.
If congress thinks that Charles Bolden is doing something worthy of impeachement, yes they as a body can do something about it. But seriously this is only a single congressman (out of 435) that is raising a complaint here and isn't even talking impeachment either for that matter as a possibility. He is only screaming that Bolden isn't jumping around like Congressional staffers.
Obama could even "promote" Bolden to be a Presidential assistant.... which doesn't need congressional confirmation and is out of reach of impeachent too. Really, it is up to whatever Obama wants out of Bolden, and everything I've seen him do is mostly as a lightning rod for what policies Obama doesn't want to directly articulate.
If there is an agreement that comes out of this trip, it will be reported to Congress and it will be up to Congress to decide what it is that they want to do when that happens. So far it hasn't even been to that stage yet.
Otherwise, shy of an impeachment proceeding, Congress can only restrict funding. It can't stop negotiations or somebody acting like Bolden to at least see what potential opportunities might be available.
I'm not missing anything here. Bolden is going to China to engage in a dialog, and it is but one squealing congressman (not even a committee or a large group of congressmen) that are complaining about him even engaging in a dialog claiming that's illegal. It isn't illegal and in fact a part of the direct responsibilities of the U.S. President through which Charles Bolden is acting with delegated authority.
If, and this is a big if, an agreement comes out of these meetings, it will be brought to Congress for their consideration. No money is being spent, or for that matter even needed other than the transportation of the delegation itself. The President is certainly well within his authority to authorize that kind of travel and for Charles Bolden to involve itself in discussions with the Chinese government. This congressman is claiming that such a meeting is somehow illegal.
The Iran-Contra affair was involving much more than dialog and discussions. Yes, it was unconstitutional and exceeding the authority of the executive branch, but are you honestly telling me that what Charles Bolden is doing here is something that is illegal and somehow giving the Chinese something material like this? Congress simply can't tell the President to not negotiate with another country, even a nation under a declared state of war. That doesn't even seem to be the situation with China at the moment.
Besides, the law that is being claimed to have been violated was never even passed by congress.
What is China going to do.... invade and occupy California? Good luck with that. China is not going to be getting away with an attack on North America if they tried, which would be the only point to nuclear primacy. Besides, they are more worried about India coming over the Himalayas and taking Tibet or Russia deciding to head south to be too much of a problem in that regard.
The USA isn't going anywhere at any time soon, and America certainly isn't going to fade into history gracefully or falling to the hand of China without taking China down with it ending Chinese culture too. The Chinese might not be too concerned about the loss of a million people, but losing the whole country would be of concern to them.
Seriously, this isn't going to be a problem.
America still has most of the natural resources that put it into the position to win World War II. The population of America has also more than doubled since then too with technological advances that were only dreamed about at the time. That hasn't changed.
What concerns China, and why they are targeting America as a potential threat (with India too, I should add) is that America has the potential to beat China at the game they normally play in terms of empire building: Flood the country with troops until the sheer mass of soldiers overwhelms the enemy. If China would try that against America, they find themselves facing the potential position of an enemy who could do the same thing with the possibility that China would be instead overrun by a mass of people, particularly when America as an enemy can kill Chinese soldiers at a ratio of at least 3:1 or better. That was the case in Korea, and scared the Chinese in a major way. That is why the Korean War also ended in a stalemate instead of a clear victor. America is a country for China to reckon with.
The "middle kingdom" (what the Chinese call themselves) has always had a chip on its shoulder thinking that it was the center of the universe and that all people bowed to Beijing. The current leaders really do think of themselves as the new Mandarin leaders who are answerable to none but themselves, and now that they got the emperor taken care of they really are the most important people in the world.
Basically, China never had peers that they had to deal with in the past, and their culture is one that is having a hard time coping with that fact of life. China simply dominated everything they saw. Sure, there might be periods of time where there were losses, but they always came out on top and in fact in charge of everything. That is Chinese history, where they look at problems in a context of thousands of years, not merely a couple. When viewed from this perspective, America has seemingly come from out of nowhere and is suddenly a major rival that is doing the same thing in a place they can't get to. Europe has never been a threat because Europe can never get its act together before they start fighting each other in from a Chinese perspective is only a bunch of civil wars. India may be a threat, but the Himalayas keep that from being too easy, and besides India has been so poor that they weren't a threat.
America might be a nation temporarily on a decline, but it isn't going to go away any time soon. China knows this all too well.
Who said they weren't? And there certainly were plenty of rallies condemning Bush. Who do you think put Obama in the White House in the first place?
Most conservatives look at Bush and said mostly "at least he isn't Clinton or Gore", and then McCain came along with a very lackluster support for "their" candidate in 2008. With an energized liberal base that supported Obama, that is how Obama got into the big seat.
You should note here that the "tea party" groups are not pulling punches with the "establishment Republicans" at all and are more than willing to tell a Republican candidate to leave office too. Just ask Bob Bennett why his name isn't going to be on the ballot next month.... and he really wanted it to be there. Bob Bennett didn't even make it to the primary election, talk about an incumbent getting kicked out.
I should also note that most "tea party" groups are new to the whole political process and are really getting involved for the first time this year. When I go to some of the meeting, often they don't even know basic parliamentary processes or procedures. But they are learning real fast. For the most part these guys were busy living their lives in quiet, trying to go to school and raise families being essentially ignorant of politics thanks to a public school system that tries to train you to stay as uninvolved as possible.
If Bush tried to run for re-election today, I don't think he would get the nomination much less win. Bill Clinton, on the other hand, might just be able to get both the nomination and win the general election if he were constitutionally capable of doing so.
Negotiating treaties isn't something Congress does at all. That is an executive branch function completely, and something that is up to the President to decide. The Constitution trumps the law in this case.
If Congress passes an unconstitutional law that prohibits the President to carry out his constitutionally mandated duties, he certainly is well within his means to ignore that law. Besides, the law being claimed to have been passed was only proposed and then defeated in committee. It is only one silly congressman who is complaining that he didn't get his way and isn't being listened to. A NASA administrator doesn't have to listen to a single congressman who is blowing his top. Be kind and courteous, perhaps, but Bolden doesn't have to follow his orders.
How is the technology that the Chinese using remotely compared to the Russian program? The Shenzhou capsules look superficially like the Soyuz design because they are using a similar method for launching them.... sort of like how the Buran and Shuttle vehicles look the same. But they are in both cases clean sheet designs from completely different groups of engineers merely working in the same design realm giving similar looking vehicles. The Shenzhou is certainly not a Soyuz spacecraft.
While it may seem like the Chinese are copying the Russian technology (and in a way they are), it is something that is uniquely Chinese in its basic design and made in Chinese factories with Chinese engineers. Dismissing China in this way is a sure way to ignore a potential competitor that has been successful at sending people into orbit. Only two other countries have done that, so it sort of puts China in a unique position in that regard.
Unless I'm mistaken, I would have sworn that I saw a Japanese astronaut in space, complete with the rising sun flag on his shoulder floating in the ISS. JAXA also built one of the modules on the ISS. Yes, that Japanese astronaut went up on the Space Shuttle, he was still a JAXA employee. While JAXA may be suffering from similar kinds of problems that NASA is facing in terms of a democratically elected government knowing they want to do something but not knowing what that something is that they want to do, it doesn't mean they are doing nothing at all and that the agency exists in a cardboard box. They've gone through growing pains just like all such similar organizations, particularly when there is no room for almost as in "it almost works". I should note here too that JAXA is an ISS partner that has regular meetings between all of the ISS partner agency head (a couple of times a year) not to mention cross training of personnel between all of the various agencies. China and India are the only major spacefaring nations excluded at the moment. Even Brazil is involved with the ISS inter-agency discussions.
If you want to really spend money in a foolish and wasteful manner, try to make it an "international cooperation" agreement instead. While these are sometimes touted as being more cost efficient, in nearly every case I've seen an international group made up of governments get together they end up spending about 5x the money that any one of them by themselves could have spent had they simply done it themselves. And that is on top of the typical wasteful spending by a government bureaucrat compared to a private individual would spend if they simply did it themselves without bureaucratic overhead.
Robert Bigelow is going to be putting up, with his own dime, a space station about as big as the ISS for about $400 million. It cost the "international" community about $100 billion to put up the ISS. Heck, NASA's budget for the ISS this next fiscal year is about $2 billion, including only one Shuttle flight that has been authorized (plus a "rescue flight" if needed), which isn't even in the ISS budget section.
I'm all for talks with other countries for minor stuff like joint rescue agreements or establishing standards for communications and docking equipment. Some of what Bolden is going to China to discuss is precisely these kind of things, not necessarily trying to purchase a Shenzhou rocket ride for NASA astronauts.... not that I'd complain too much if he did.
Not that the Chinese have stayed out of the political process in America in the past. A whole bunch of Buddhist monks (who have taken a vow of poverty) in California helped to fund Al Gore's election in 2000 with the money coming directly from the Chinese government.
More importantly, are you saying that this is the very first time people from outside of America have decided to get involved in the American political process? With the possible exception of the first couple of congressional elections, I think you can find some outside money having participated from foreign countries in American elections. Indeed what the Chamber of Commerce is alleged to have done here is chump change and the small stuff compared to other more blatant kinds of corruption. The only thing being alleged here is that this organization has mixed some of the funds that came from dues including Chinese nationals that is being used for political purposes in America.
BTW, why is it that the Chinese connection is being emphasized here when in face a great many other companies in many other countries are also involved here too? It isn't just Chinese companies that have contributed to this same fund.
There are so many things wrong with what you've said here that I don't know where to begin. NASA (or anybody else for that matter) will not ever take a rocket designed for manned spaceflight or even unmanned space research and use those vehicles for launching a nuclear warhead or other military armament. They have the wrong performance characteristics and simply would be the wrong tool for the job. It would be like trying to hammer a nail in with a saw. It might "work" after a fashion, but you will cause yourself more harm than it is worth and not do your saw or the nail any bit of good. If you insist, I can go into more details here. National security implications are simply going over the top on this matter.
Also, "this joker" was appointed by the President and subsequently approved by the Senate for this post. I suppose that is why you say he wouldn't have this job if it wasn't for Congress. The man complaining though isn't in the U.S. Senate and didn't have a vote on that particular matter. Charles Bolden serves at the pleasure of the President in his capacity as the Administrator for NASA. Congress can control the funding for NASA so Charles Bolden ought to be nice and respectful to members of Congress, but he doesn't have to listen to or follow order from any of them. The only person that matters here is Barack Obama, and if you think Mr. Obama is doing a lousy job of things then you have the chance in about a year to put somebody else in his place (if you are an American).
Only if the President decides to shut down NASA can it happen. Congress can cut funding to NASA and effectively shut it down, but only the President can really kill an agency in this way.
The dangerous precedent would be some punk of a congressman having any real authority over executive branch personnel. That violates the principles of the separation of the branches of government. This isn't running roughshod over the government, it is knowing who is really in charge. If Charles Bolden is going too far, it is Barack Obama that needs to pull him back and put him in his place. So far I haven't seen Bolden say or do much that is insubordinate to Obama and if anything he is implementing the wishes of the Obama administration.
The President, and his "advisors" (which includes Bolden), can negotiate treaties and agreements with foreign governments "with the advise and consent of the Senate". Dating back to the Washington administration, the President has mostly ignored congress until after the treaty has been signed. George Washington at one time tried to sit down in a Senate session where he tried to get "advise" in a more informal manner on some key treaties, and then got fed up with the whole process and basically told the Senate to "screw themselves" (in a manner that only an 18th century politician could have pulled that off) and only sent the completed documents for thumbs up or down approval afterward.
That is precisely what Bolden is doing here, as an official emissary of Barack Obama going to China to discuss issues related to the space programs of the two countries. Obama in this case is following the lead of George Washington in terms of how this business should be handled. If you think George Washington set a bad precedent in this case, so be it, but at least note where the precedent comes from.
However, Bolden's boss happens to sit on 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and not on Capitol Hill. Congressmen who are presuming that they can order executive department heads about how they are conducting their business are exceeding their constitutional authority. Congress can tell the President (and hence any of the President's subordinates) how much money he has to spend and what things they are allowed to spend it on, but how that money is going to be spent and what process is going to be used for spending that money is entirely up to the President. If Congress doesn't like how the money is being spent, they can cut the funding, but that is about it.
The only person that Charles Bolden has to really answer to is Barack Obama, the duly elected President of the United States. He ought to be nice to members of congress as they are responsible for funding his agency, but he doesn't have to do a single thing they ask of him if he doesn't want to do that, particularly if it is in conflict with instructions from his boss.
In the UK, it is a bit different as the national legislature (House of Commons) is also directly responsible via the Prime Minister to administer all "executive functions" that don't fall directly under the monarchy. It would be more akin in this situation as if Prince Harry was being told by a member of parliament that he couldn't take a trip to Afghanistan but he was asked to go there by the Queen in the first place as her official representative. Do you think Prince Harry would be worried about what an MP thought of his trip in that case?
One of the roles of the 2nd Amendment is to ensure that the citizens have at least the theoretical potential of overthrowing the government if things get out of control. In almost every oppressive government that has come along, including ancient governments, denying the right of the ordinary people to possess arms has been consistently employed. It was a problem during the days of the American Revolution and the individual right to bear arms including firearms was one of the key things that formed America in the first place. New Hampshire even went so far that in their state constitution that the "right to rebellion" is one of the enumerated rights in its bill of rights.
Besides, state militias really don't exist any more in America, and if you think a typical national guard unit cares one little bit about their state beyond mostly lip service, ask one of the guardsman this simple question: If there were conflicting orders coming from Washington DC and the state capital, who would they follow? Most (nearly all) guardsmen would drop the orders from the state government like yesterday's bad news and not even hesitate even if it meant the direct loss of that state government, its leaders, or even territory. I've even heard guardsmen say that they wouldn't even follow orders from the U.S. President in some cases if it came in conflict with orders from their commanding officer, not necessarily because it was an "unlawful order". And this is the group that the ACLU is suggesting that the 2nd Amendment only applies to?
Mind you, I'm not dissing guardsmen who do an incredible service to this country and their communities, and have an important role to do in terms of maintaining an orderly society, but as the recipients of the mantle of a state militia acting independently of the federal armies to be a check and balance on potential abuse by the federal government violating civil liberties, they really don't do that role at all. There aren't really any groups that legitimately hold this title any more. The "militia groups" that do exist are a shadow of the real thing, and certainly aren't acting with state authorization.
The initial "tea party" crowds were genuine in their anger toward Obama, but it should be noted that the largest victories to date that can be claimed by those involved with the tea party groups have been unseating incumbent Republicans from office, not necessarily winning the whole ball game.
As for the big bucks pouring into the elections, what about the liberal elite in Hollywood and the labor unions pouring money into the Democratic party for some time? Seriously, the flow of monster amounts of money is nothing new to political campaigning. What is new is the somewhat organized conservative groups that seem to be introducing a new dynamic in American politics. Of course there are going to be some people wanting to channel that energy into their own campaigns, including a bunch of fake politicians that simply put their finger up to see what way the wind is blowing at the moment so they can be put in the front of whatever group happens to be the hot darlings at the moment. Those exist among all ideological groups, and it could be argued that there is a "ruling class" of idiots who really don't give a damn about political philosophies as long as they are the ones that remain in charge.
They are spending money as if there is no tomorrow as they don't really care about tomorrow anyway.
My biggest complaint about Bush is that he was a "moderate" that put on the guise of conservatism but really didn't practice the philosophies. If you think the Bush executive expansion was embraced by conservatism, you need to see what Tea Party guys are saying about that expansion too.
I only voted for the guy because the alternatives were much worse. But that is just me and I'm sure you had your own opinion on the matter. George W. Bush was certainly not out of the same mold as Ronald Reagan. And yes, I hate the Patriot Act and most of the expansion in the Department of Homeland Security.