This discussion has gone totally off topic, even from the side topic I started, but I'll bite.
Clearly Saddam Hussein had Weapons of Mass Destructions, namely chemical weapons, because he used them. And used them against not only his own people, but also militarily against his enemies including Iran. He also did considerable research with biological and nuclear weapons, and if not for Isreal he would have had nuclear weapons in his arsenal in 1991 with Gulf War I. Where his stockpiles of chemical weapons went I don't know, but as Timothy McVeigh was able to point out, mixing chemicals isn't exactly the most difficult thing to do. Try to mix some chlorine bleach and ammonia, and you got your own private WMD in your bathroom (or rather your backyard if you really want to experiment with a minimum of brains). Other chemical "weapons" are just as easy to make.
Clearly he was not only morally supporting Al-Qeida, as demonstrated by his own website prior to the Iraq war (sorry, but you will have to look them up on your own on archive.org... the links don't take on/.) Saddam even went so far as to say that the hijackers were holy and went straight to Allah with their 70 virgins. The only thing Saddam was sad about was the death of some 100 muslims in the WTC, who Saddam claimed were martyrs as well.
Saddam also supported financially and through training camps and places of refuge for Al-Qeida. I will admit, however, that Saddam didn't directly plan or participate in 9/11, nor did any of the hijackers ever even enter Iraq other than as normal tourists like many other Arabs did in the past and will likely do so in the future. That wasn't the point anyway, nor were any credible people in support of the Iraq War ever claiming that to be the case.
I will also admit that going into Iraq was wrong, but for only one reason: President Bush did not obtain a formal "Declaration of War" from Congress. The problem there is that no President since Roosevelt has ever thought that to be necessary, and in that regard Clinton is in far worse shape in terms of invading foreign countries without even congressional approval, even in the form of a "authorization for the use of force" resolution. Nor do I think Reagan is squeeky clean in that regard with Gradada or Beirut. George H.W. Bush at least had a formal excuse for going into Panama: Noreiga showed incredible stupidity by formally declaring war on the U.S.A. and then cemented it by invading soverign U.S. territory (the Canal Zone) and took U.S. citizens in their own homes hostage. Bush I simply had to react and do the same as if an army had come into Kansas doing the same thing.
In terms of justification for going into Iraq, that justification was already there in regards to the Gulf War. U.S. troops were on the ground, and only a cease-fire was signed between the USA an IRAQ. Technically a state of war never ended from 1991 until the fall of the statue of Saddam in Bagdad. And Iraq consistantly violated the terms of the cease fire, so in that regard it was really just a resumption of hostilities. Basically, if you don't have a formal peace treaty with a nuclear power, don't expect to have your country too long. If that attitude is Machivellian, then so be it.
In terms of Halliburton, I would dare you to try and suggest another company that could have done the same task in the same accelerated time period. While the no-bid contract is fishy, it still must have congressional approval to occur, and the fact that Halliburton still has the contract speaks volumes over their ability to get the job done. I've been involved with Federal contracts myself, and you need active involvement with your local congressional representatives just to get any piece of the action, much less get a multi-billion contract like that. If you think the President is out to lunch with that contract, you are complaining to the wrong person: Spending bills according to the U.S. Constitution must start in the U.S. House of Representati
Invoking Bill wan't ignorant. At that particular moment when OBL was in Sudan under arrest the Secret Service litterally couldn't get ahold of Mr. Clinton to get his OK to approve the extradition to the USA of OBL. He was not taking his job seriously, and let a choice opportunity to stop a major terrorism campaign from ending.
Likely somebody else would have done the same thing as OBL, so it really is moot as to if that really prevented 9/11 or not, although bin Laden was even at that time a major target for the FBI to get ahold of, due to his earlier bombing of the World Trade Center.
I'm sorry that I make you sick, but I am exposing a reality that is there, and I'm sorry that you have to resort to name calling and totally unjustified untruths about our current President. I am saddened when innocent people die in war, but it is a war going on in Iraq, and unfortunately you have cowards who hide behind innocent people hoping that they can get away with brutality and killing armed soldiers by doing that attack in the middle of a crowd of otherwise innocent people. Unfortunately the same thing happens all the time here in the USA as well, which is why most police departments have hostage negotiators of some sort or another, to try and keep the innocent deaths to a minimum. And it costs our country BILLIONS of dollars to try and keep these idiots from killing more innocent Americans in America. How do you justify that cost?
I'll tell you why they can't find OBL.... he is deliberately trying to hide from just about everybody, and has many friends that can also help keep him hidden. He is also taking precautions like not showing up in Times Square or going through U.S. airport security checkpoints. Basically, being somewhat intelligent. This is no worse than most of the people on America's Most Wanted, including Ted Kazinski. And he was able to run around in America and get through airport security checkpoints during his so-called manhunt.
BTW, OBL was found and even held custody during the Clinton Administration. It was just that ol' Bill decided it was more important to get some sexual relief at that time rather than commit U.S. resoruces to get him.
I am also not worried about a few idiots who decide to kill themselves by inhaling plutonium dust. They will kill themselves long before they actually do any damage to anybody else. Nuclear weapons need a national government just to maintain, not to mention to build. And as a result, any use of nuclear weapons will be traced directly back to that government who built them. The only real problem is what to do if it turns out that the nukes were made by France. Declare war by nuking Paris? I certainly hope that doesn't happen.
The terrorist in Iraq are disbanded military units from the Iraqi Army, and in particular the Republican Guard. As far as news reports for their organization, they seem to be very good at following news reporters, and in particular television camera crews.
BTW, I am not saying they couldn't attack us, I'm just saying that they havn't, and that shows a certain level of incompetance that isn't being discussed. The 9/11 attacked occured in part due to a long standing airline policy of giving in to hijacker demands and pretty much letting them do what ever they wanted to do. This was pretty much U.S. policy from the end of WWII to 2001, and could be summed up from an episode of "I Love Lucy" I saw recently (yes, a very old rerun) where Ricky Ricardo was on a hijacked airplane and ended up on a "holidy" by visiting Havana for a few days. Every previous hijacker simply wanted to go somewhere that airlines wouldn't let you get to (like Russia, Cuba, or some other silly place like the middle of Montana). Since 9/11, the act of hijacking a plane will simply get the hijacker dead, even if it takes the plane out with it, so passengers won't let it happen in the first place, or at least die trying to stop the hijacker in the first place.
Are there other ways to hurt America based on customs and traditions (like the hijacking plane tradition mentioned above?) Yes. What are those traditions? I think there is quite a bit being looked into, but unfortunately it also takes away freedoms. I don't know if I really want that anyway, so I'm more of the attitude to let the idiots screw it up for the rest of us first. And OBL is one of those idiots.
I know that this is getting late, and more than likely won't be read, but I strongly disagree with your point.
Osama tried to "declare war" on the USA, and he has failed miserably. While I might be able to agree that this "pause" since 9/11/01 has been due to hard planning on the part of Al-Qeida, it is more to show just how amaturish and stupid they really are.
Amaturish, because they couldn't possibly follow up on what was otherwise a brillian attack on the USA.
Stupid because they are really in the long term doing much more damage to Muslims and the cause of Islam than any short-term prospects could possibly have gained from such an assult. As it is, being called an Arab or Muslim is not something you want to have happen while boarding airplanes in the USA, or even any dealing with law enforcement personnel. And the full backlash hasn't happened yet. If Bin Laden is really successful in turning this into a Christian vs. Muslim 3rd World War, the cause of Islam will be dead and American troops will in fact be marching through the nuclear bombed out ruins of Mecca and Medina. Seriously, I doubt that anybody truly wants that to happen, least of all the Saudis, and they do in fact realize that could be a possibility.
And you pointed out the DC snipers. You are right that they were very successful, and had that been just a couple of Al-Qeida operatives instead of two deranged idiots, or worse yet, with some good trained terrorists duplicating the same thing in other U.S. cities, they would have been very successful. That would have been a perfect follow-up to 9/11.
Terrorism is either a lone idiot (like Tim McVeigh or the DC Snipers), or somebody like bin Laden that is trying to get a nationalist movement behind it. In the case of Vietnam and the Palestinians, they started out with terrorism because it is much easier to carry out acts of war in that manner rather than frontal military engagements. George Washington did the same thing during the Revolutionary War in the USA. And as was the case with George Washington and the North Vietnamese, they eventually had to move on to actual armies in formal military engagements with organized military units. Saigon did not fall to the "popular" support of ordinary people, instead it fell to the tanks of the NVA. Washington had to defeat the British at Yorktown. The Palestinians are attempting to do the same thing politically, and might possibly succeed without defeating Israel in a major battle. This will be a historic first if they succeed, and the Palestinians alread got actual territory, something neither the Kurds nor Tibetans are able to claim at the moment. Tibetian terrorists seem almost like an oxymoron anyway, doesn't it?
In the case of Al-Qeida, they can't even get the basic terrorist cells put together, except in Iraq, and that is with considerable support from foreign governments including Syria and Iran. In this case, Syria is willing to get "dirty" in Iraq, but if it showed up that Syria was directly responsible for a terrorist bombing in the USA, they know they would be toast. Perhaps of the nuclear kind.
More to the point of my original posting. Here we are, we rejected the idle threats of Al-Qeida, and I am proclaiming that they are too stupid to even be able to pull off a terrorist attack here. And even if they did some random attack, there wouldn't be the ability to follow up and do anything else in an organized manner to really cause much damage anyway, just like they couldn't follow up on 9/11.
What was costly to the American economy primarily becase the USA shifted to a war-time economy and then shifted back to a peace-time economy. This also happened under Bush I. During WWII it wasn't so bad because the war lasted long enough that businesses knew what to expect. In 2001, it happened so quickly that most mid-level managers were simply confused about what to expect, and rather than huge orders from the Pentagon (typical in a war-economy... or at least the analogy), the results instead were critical workers pulled out to serve in Iraq. All in all, a bad deal for most businesses, even ones not directly tied to defense contracts.
On a more serious tone, I really hope that the vicious attacks that occured over the course of this campaign can be left alone now. In 2008, there will be a new President, regardless of what Bush does now, and I don't think it will be Dick Cheeny either... I don't think the VP will even run, but who knows.
I also hope that this shows clearly to Al-Queida that the USA will not be intimidated by threats. I would also like to be a bug on the wall of the FBI anti-terrorism center to see what was done to keep this election incident-free. That there wasn't even a single bomb or even mugging at any polling locations shows just how powerless Al-Queida has become. I mean, for the state of Utah alone (from the link above) there were almost 2,000 different places they could have targeted, and Utah is a very small state. And most of these voting places didn't even have a police officer present, much less any other security at all.
If you have the chance to lobby to members of your government to stop software patents before they are even started in the first place, please do so. Let your political representatives know how you feel on this issue, and read up on the damage that it is doing to the software industry in the USA. While not "THE" issue that is destroying software developers, it certainly is a major factor and IMHO a major reason to why I have personally had difficulty in the past couple of years trying to find work. I fear that I need a Juris Doctorate just to be able to program effectively. that should not be the case.
I also think 20 years is too long for a software copyright. I mean, should the original software developed for the ENIAC in 1947 by Adm. Grace Hooper still be under copyright in 2067? By the Bern Convention and U.S. Copyright law that is currently the case. The earliest that any computer software will enter the public domain due to copyright expiration will be 2022, unless you count the software developed by Ada Lovelace. And even that could still be questioned.
While I admire Robert Kahn and Vinton Cerf, and certainly _THEY_ recieved considerable assistance from the federal government, I'm trying to point out that there are many other ways that large scale compuer networks could have come about. What we know as "The Internet" could have come about in many different forms than what we currently know.
I am speaking (or writing, as this case may be) from the perspective of somebody who has dealt with asynronous communications and network protcols extensively, and dealt with many things besides TCP/IP for those communications protocols. I'm not dissing TCP/IP, because I use it not only for web surfing, but also for dedicated low-level application specific software development as well. For what it does, it does very well.
I'm just pointing out that there are many other ways it could have gone, and neither Vinton Cerf or Robert Kahn are gods, they are simply very good engineers who happen to have the happy coincidence of being at the right place at the right time with the right set of skills to get everything to work out with the contributions they have made. If I had been there back then with many of my present software development skills, I would have been able to contribute considerably to the development of TCP/IP. Instead, I'm working in different areas and making unique contributions to the computer industry in my own way.
As far as Albert Gore Jr.'s role in the whole thing, he didn't contribute any engineering ideas or plan any real aspects of the development of the technology. I will acknowledge Mr. Gore's role in securing funding for DARPAnet and helping to move it beyond the "laboratory" in the sense of giving political support at perhaps a crutial moment. I do think Rep. Baucher of Virginia has done far more for the computer community, and specificly the free software/open source movement by comparison than anything that Al Gore did.
I also think that the transition from research universities to the commercial interests, in particular with ICANN, as well as Internic, Verisign, and much of the "internet governing bodies" are messed up, with much of the negotiations being done through then Senator Gore's office as one of the major participants.
I will also give credit where credit is due, and it was largely due to Al Gore that the White House "got on-line" well before even HTTP was a popular protocol. It was at the start of the Clinton Administration that you could finally send an e-mail to president@whitehouse.gov (no need to spam protect that one, however). The George H.W. Bush (Bush I) administration simply was clueless regarding the internet at the time and I don't think they even had access to USENET except through COMPUSERV dial-up. The White House website, again under the Clinton administration and due to the efforts of then Vice-President Gore, was one of the first websites up for any government agency. In this aspect, he was a major contributor to getting government access to ordinary citizens electronicly through the internet, and of that I will give Al Gore total credit. The White House was "on-line" for at least four years before the Senate and U.S. House got going, and for awhile even there it was Democrats (with the big "D") who were better connected, in part thanks to Al Gore. It was only after constituants in Republican districts started to complain that they couldn't get access to "their" congressmen that the Republicans finally started to make their own websites and e-mail accounts.
Unfortunately there already is a "regulatory body" that administers spaceflight: The Administration for Space Transportation. If you look into their history, you will find that they have been bounced all over the federal government, but it looks like they are in the FAA for the long-haul. It is a better fit anyway.
NASA really needs to get back to the original missions of the NACA, and do more "Star Trek"-like misisons.... to boldly go where nobody has gone before. Spending the last 20 year in LEO just doesn't work and is wasting NASA's talents and resources. It is for going to exotic places that you need a PhD. Space construction should be done by roughnecks who have the temperment to build oil drilling platforms in the North Sea or Gulf of Mexico, not somebody who just defended his dissertation in Biology or Earth Science.
If NASA could transform itself back into a "Space _EXPLORATION_" agency, I don't have any problem with their current level of funding to be maintained or even increased. It is just that LEO is more than simply explored, it is getting civilian tourists, and Scaled Composites is just the beginning. If NASA wants to stay in the space transportation business, it should be sold off to the highest bidder and made a private corporation.
I'm not denying that the "internet" had some major contributions from government research grants. And certainly back in the 1970's and 1980's when the TCP/IP protocols were being developed it was only government research grants that could afford long-distance dedicated digital communication links, originally in the form of dedicated long-distance telephone lines (from AT&T Long Lines department... incredibly expensive at the time for even a 2400 baud connection).
My thesis is, however, that by 1990 there really were many LAN technologies, and in almost every case these were ramping up for ever larger and larger WANs. There is also nothing really unique about TCP/IP in the 7-layer architechture, except for the fact that it is totally copyright and patent free, together with the fact that by the time wide area networks were finally being put together TCP/IP already had more than 10% of the overall mindshare in this are, including over half of all major research networks, with an emphasis on universities.
The University connection was even more critical with the technology, because it was there that students (both graduate and undergraduate) were able to gain considerable experience with "The Internet" by learning TCP/IP protocols from the ground up. They also had student projects using these protocols, so naturally when they went on to an employer or advanced research project team, naturally they stuck with what they already knew. With groups like Apple Computer and Novell putting huge restrictions and non-disclosure documents on who could read the fine technical document, while RFCs where free to download for incoming freshmen CS students, it was very obvious just what budding hackers would get access to and experiment with.
BTW, much of this same university knowledge transfer is also occuring with Linux, for much of the same reason. The difference is that Microsoft was also fully aware of this fact, and gave away or at least at substantially lower cost huge student and educational discounts for much of their development software and operating systems. Apple Computer was also aware of the need to stick with educational institutions to push their product, because it brought about the next generation of software developers. The availability of that software is still impacting what I am doing for software development to this day.
So basically what I'm saying, is that although the U.S. Federal Government was involved with the initial setup of the protocols, it pretty much grew on its own and the government has done more to screw it up than actually help out. Al Gore's contribution to the internet is an absolte joke, and is perhaps more responsible for the current mess at ICANN and the things that are wrong about the internet than actually getting the current networks up and going.
The need was already in the marketplace to exchange data, and the effective monopoly over digital data communication was with only one company in the USA: Western Union. If there is a person or company that royally screwed up and threw away their big chance of becomming a multi-billion dollar company larger than Microsoft, Phillip Morris, IBM, and General Electric combined, it was that company. In some ways, thank goodness, because it is a much better world without them, but long-distance digital data communication could have looked considerably different.
I think you underestimate just how difficult it is to live in Antarctica, and how much "modern" technology has made it much more accessable. In the early 20th Century (when a good portion of the initial Antarctic exploration like even getting to the South Pole was taking place), it was a major expedition that involved financing on the part of national governments in order to accomplish. You can't simply hop in your rowboat on the Hudson River and expect to get to the South Pole on a budget of a Wal-Mart stocking clerk. While at least in theory possible now, it was impossible 100 years ago.
Deep-sea exploration is happening by robotic crews for much of the same reason that robotic spacecraft are used: the inhospitalble environment (as you mentioned). Of course, there are people who take diving trips in person, and sometimes for reasons that have nothing to do with science (like the couple that got married on the deck of the Titanic... on the bottom of the Atlantic in a submarine).
Human space exploration must continue, and it need not be in direct competition for funds from the robotic science missions. It is unfortunately the science community that tries to push it that way and make it Hard Science vs. Manned Spaceflight.
Once stable populations of people are "up there" in space, the economics of going up and flying people into space will take care of themselves. The problem is how do you achieve that goal in the first place? Should NASA even be directly involved?
Ansari did not put up the prize. It was a bunch of other people, including folks like Tom Clancy and Tom Hanks (with his cute photo from the movie Apollo 13 on the sponsorship page).
Ansari simply put up enough money to "buy off" the X-Prize Foundation to put the name onto the X-Prize as a johnny-come-lately, after the prize was fully funded.
Still, it will be interesting to see what the X-Prize Foundation will do with the Ansari money, as that is what they are running off of at the moment.
BTW, the $50 million for the "America's Prize" might still offer at least some financial incentive that will be useful if you are trying to invest in a company trying to build an orbital rocket. Even more useful is the "guarenteed" contracts to keep going up once the spacecraft is built.
I would love to see NASA do something similar. For example, $2 Billion to build a new system to fly 7 astronauts to the ISS, and a guarenteed $150 million per flight for 15 flights afterward. That would get the attention of Boeing and McDonell-Douglas, and be far cheaper than the current shuttle program... to even run the shuttle program for 1 year.
daVinci and Armadillo Aerospace were somewhat close, but I would say that without Scaled Composites pushing them along, it would have been another 2-3 years for either of those teams. Still, I think it would have happened eventually, although the prize money more than likely would have run out.
I've also noticed that Brian Walker ("The Rocket Guy") has pretty much dropped away altogether, although he also made some rather interesting progress on his own equipment. It is hard to say what would have happened with him without the X-Prize or Scaled Composites. At least now there is a place to even put in a flight plan for going into space. Before the X-Prize, you could only do that if you were a NASA astronaut.
I'll have to raise an objection here about the internet. The only real thing that government funding did with DARPAnet was to establish protocols that had a widely used standard that were also not encumbered with copyright nor patent issues.
By about 1990 there were at least a dozen networking protocols, including some being used far more than the internet. Any one of those protocols could have become as dominant, or even done with a company like AT&T coming into the fray and pushing their own networking protocol (again without government assistance directly, although a network developed by AT&T back in the 1980's or 1970's would clearly have been intended for government institutions...indeed it was).
There was also the issue of how the internet came around with essentially no distance toll charges. The government didn't enforce distance charges on DARPAnet, and as a result the subsequent networks followed the same tradition until you get to the commercial networks that essentially follow the same principle. All you typically pay for is bandwidth, not how far your packet actually travels. This is by far the most unique thing about the internet as opposed to earlier networks like the POTS lines or TELEX (which has horrendous rates for use...and BTW is also digital).
No, I think you could have pretty much done just about everything today that you could have back in 1960, at least as far as lunar exploration was concerned. There was a considerable flurry of unmanned lunar exploration (the Ranger and Surveyor series, for example) well before Neil Armstrong landed there.
The two approaches to exploring space really go hand in hand, and I've pointed out earlier (in previous articles, not just this one) that I doubt the public would put up with robotic exploration without at least some sort of manned program in the wings. Sure, in terms of the amount of actual science done per $ (or euro) it is far better to send a robot.
It is also better to send a robot to Antarctica as well, but actual people do go there and live year-round under extreme circumstances. Another good example (perhaps even better) is deep-ocean exploration.
Also, like in the example with Antarctica, sometimes it is better in some circumstances to have a living, breathing person who is right there, able to use intelligent judgement (AI systems havn't become that advanced yet) and change mission parameters on the fly. Not to mention the ability to actually repair equipment on the fly and get it to work correctly. Or even a manual override if it is clear that the automated systems aren't working correctly. None of this can be done with Cassini, and even the Galleleo probe would have worked better had somebody been available to fix the Hi-gain antenna.
In the last case, I don't know why NASA just didn't perform a quick test of the equipment before sending it along. It was one of the few major probes that was actually launched not into space, but FROM space (LEO on the Shuttle). Had an astronaut been able to do a final diagnostics before firing the booster engine and even just tested the antennas before the firing, it would have been comparatively easier to fix, and would have by itself justified the cost of having astronauts on board the launch vehicle.
The point I was trying to make in Shuttle vs. Apollo is that at least both were manned spacecraft, and from just about everything I've seen written you can get a much cheaper launch vehicle from a substantially redesigned Apollo/Gemini spacecraft with a capacity of seven astronauts. Something like that could have easily been launched from a Saturn V rocket into LEO, and if the ISS building blocks had been the size of Skylab for each major module instead of the size requirement for the Shuttle loading bay, the ISS construction would have been essentially complete by now, including housing for at least 7-12 astronauts on board. That would have allowed for real science to occur instead of having two astronauts/cosmonauts that are essentially doing no science because they are working 24/7 trying to keep the station kept together and running.
All of this is with proven technology, not inventing something new that needs to be tried again. Basically, the Shuttle program has accomplished almost none of its original design goals except one: Being able to retrieve large objects from space and bring them to the ground without burning up. And that is a purpose that it has used so seldom that it is hardly worth even mentioning. I will conceed that the shuttle is a lousy program and needs to end, with the remaining shuttles being placed properly into several good museums. This even in the case that there is no other spacecraft to carry astronauts for several years.
Hijacking airplanes is not just against "international law", it is an act of war, and you risk the consequences of war if you do such an act. It is just that the P.R. China is unlikely to be a target of full U.S. military action due to some silly stunt like that. Still, if done at the wrong time you might find bombs exploding where you don't want them at.
That really isn't a fair comparison between the Cassini program and shuttle program.
A much more accurate comparison would have been between the Apollo program and the Shuttle program, both of which involved manned spaceflight.
The Apollo program achieved an incredible goal, namely that of putting a crew of two on the moon, and was both an incredible engineering accomplishment as well as accomplishing some very useful science that is still being sorted through to this day.
While you can cite some very good references to useful science that was produced on the shuttle, there is another very important comparison that needs to be made:
Skylab + Apollo did an incredible amount of pure scientific research, and the internal volume of useable lab space was almost identical to what is now available on the ISS.
The Shuttle + ISS program is incredibly expensive, and while they have proven the ability to do major space construction projects with the ISS (needed if we ever get L-5 going), there has been comparatively little actual science.
Since when was this any different than in times past. During medeval times, only the rich could afford an armored horse and a set of mail for combat, together with retainers and squires to help feed and maintain the horse. Even now you have to be fairly wealthy to get some of the weapons, not to mention that you have to have property in places away from cities so you don't have draconian laws keeping you from having those weapons.
I take it you havn't read the article. Besides, even in the worst possible case of a 100% plutonium reactor with other fission by-products it would be no worse than the fall-out of atmosphereic nuclear bomb tests like what happened in the 1960's. And even then, from KSC, almost all of the fallout would be over uninhabited North Atlantic ocean. Not something I would encourage, but not many people would die from the resulting accident. And the design they are talking about here is considerably safer than that worst case example I gave above.
Really, nuclear engines are very safe, and considerably safer than what happened with Chernobyl. Chernobyl was an accident waiting to happen, and would never have been certified in America.
Besides, this is more something that can be used in space rather than something that will be launched from a place like KSC. The days where a whole manned space mission will be assembled in the Vehicle Assembly Building and fly to its destination in once piece, then return, are soon to be over. Future space missions like the Moon, Mars, and Beyond program are going to be multi-staged projects with considerable assembly taking place in space before the spaceships are moving between planets. In this case, having a highly radioactive nuclear power plant in solar orbit will have practically zero impact on the Earth.
I would have to say that the foreign policy attitude toward South America has pretty much been === Mexican Forign Policy + minor tweaks. And even that has been awful for the most part except during the NAFTA talks. Brazil and Argentina are very different countries than Mexico, with population bases that are larger, and potentially even more consumer demand than all of Europe.
In fact, in the next century I think you will see the overall population of South America pass that of all of Europe, and it will become strategically as significant if not more so. There are some political and economic problems on that continent, but it is substantially better off than Africa, by comparison. And both Argentina and Brazil have the talent of competent engineers and research scientists that would put them equal with any single European nation, including France, Germany, or England. Not to mention that even now Brazil is an ISS partner (minor, but it did get them a slot for an ISS service mission to put an astronaut on board, and some equipment on the ISS is of Brazilian manufacture).
One thing that might also add to this paranoia regarding Brazilian nukes: Back in the 1980's during the Cold War, Brazilian "spies" (don't laugh too hard now) discovered that the USSR had a few nukes specifically targeting São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. Essentially, Brazil was relying on a deterance force by the USA to keep the nukes off their cities. I don't know if this is a problem now, and I somehow doubt that modern Russia would even consider Brazil to be a militarily important target for nukes, but it certainly made some interesting political discussions in Brazil when that news was made public. And no doubt drives some military planning discussions in Brazil.
Not only are spacecraft like the shuttle registered, but space station modules are also "registered" as spacecraft. Indeed, if an incident were to happen on the ISS, the nation who owns and built the module would have primary juristiction in terms of law enforcement. Indeed, it was because of liability concerns that Dennis Tito was originaly denied entry into the ISS.
What would be interesting is to see what body of law comes out of dealing with criminal and civil legal issues in space. If you kill somebody while "out there", who gets the privilege of hauling you into court? This is no different than if you kill somebody while on a trans-atlantic flight, and clearly you would be in handcuffs as soon as the plane lands, if not before.
If being thrown into jail or being executed is the only option besides sticking a knife or taking pot shots with a hunting rifle at the invading army, I think I know why my option is going to be.
While a little bit far-fetched, I think "Red Dawn" at least gives a little bit of taste of what ordinary citizens would do when occupied by an invading army. The real question would then be just how far would organized resistance be, and would citizen-soldiers be employed during such an invasion. The very fact that foriegn soldiers are occupying parts of America would indicate a failure of major proprotions on the part of the U.S. military, so under such a theoretical situation the regular U.S. Federal military would be in shambles.
If being thrown into jail or being executed is the only option besides sticking a knife or taking pot shots with a hunting rifle at the invading army, I think I know why my option is going to be.
While a little bit far-fetched, I think "Red Dawn" at least gives a little bit of taste of what ordinary citizens would do when occupied by an invading army. The real question would then be just how far would organized resistance be, and would citizen-soldiers be employed during such an invasion. The very fact that foriegn soldiers are occupying parts of America would indicate a failure of major proprotions on the part of the U.S. military, so under such a theoretical situation the regular U.S. Federal military would be in shambles.
Not a lot of civilians, but there were a few. Remember, it was a Sunday morning during "peacetime" activities, which included tours of ships (like they were some kind of museum), catering services, civilian dock workers, dependants of military personnel, visiting priests (during workship service... yes, I know there were chaplins as well). The same could be said about the air bases.
Honolulu itself also recieved some collateral damage, and some ordinary citizens minding their own business and not being directly connected to or immediately at military installations also died. The exact number is not particularly high, but yes, some very ordinary civilians did die there.
Indeed, it was precisely because ordinary citizens could very easily extrapolate that if Pearl Harbor was attacked, what would be next? Los Angeles? Seattle? San Francisco? There were at least six senators and a couple dozen members of the House of Representatives that had constituents realizing that they were indeed the very next target. That makes congressmen very twitchy and wanting to "DO SOMETHING NOW!"(tm) And in terms of the Japanese plans, there were also specific plans to at least bomb San Francisco in a manner similar to Pearl Harbor. That it never happened is more a credit to the fact that the U.S. military was able to at least push Japan into a stalemate for a couple years, with the main battle front in the Western Pacific region.
With all the complaining in Iraq about the deaths of ordinary civilians who are caught in the crossfire, as well as people complaining about civilian deaths in Gaza, why should Hawaii be any different in 1941? Japan certainly didn't have non-leathal combat weapony, nor even "smart bombs".
Unfortunately there are times and situations where every single member of a society is in grave danger, and notable situations where every single person in a society was killed due to warfare. This is the situation that is going on right now in Sudan, and had those people living there been able to bear arms to fight the invaders driving the Sudanese from their homes, it may not be as big of an international issue.
BTW, there have been many battles that take place in major towns. The problem is that such warfare is always problematic and tends to have extreamly high casulty rates for everybody that tries to do it. It was in Stalingrad that the German Army pretty much bled to death and was stopped, although at a very high cost to the Red Army as well. During that series of battles in that city, a major offensive was considered successful when they captured a single city block. In terms of the American Revolutionary War, you might want to look up the Battle of Brooklyn Heights for some interesting "urban" combat that took place, including a series of skirmishes that occured on Manhattan itself. These make a very interesting tour if you ever get to NYC and want to visit the old battle fields. New York City was occupied by the British Army primarily because Royal Marines and the Royal Army were able to invade with sufficient numbers to completely overwhelm the Americans.
One of the advantages of the Geneva Protocols of Warfare is to make an honorable means to surrender, and realizing that civilian populations will be (at least attempted) to be kept away from combat operations. The problem is when civilians become the target of operations on one side, the gloves come off and these procedures are thrown out the window, as happened during WWII.
Americans have been pretty much isolated from having to directly face warfare as civilians, with the exception of Pearl Harbor and the 9/11 attacks. Indeed, it is because of 9/11 directly affecting ordinary Americans that has given Pres. Bush much of his current warmaking power. It would be interesting if infantry combat operations took place on American soil what the civilian component to combat resistance would be.
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This discussion has gone totally off topic, even from the side topic I started, but I'll bite.
/.) Saddam even went so far as to say that the hijackers were holy and went straight to Allah with their 70 virgins. The only thing Saddam was sad about was the death of some 100 muslims in the WTC, who Saddam claimed were martyrs as well.
Clearly Saddam Hussein had Weapons of Mass Destructions, namely chemical weapons, because he used them. And used them against not only his own people, but also militarily against his enemies including Iran. He also did considerable research with biological and nuclear weapons, and if not for Isreal he would have had nuclear weapons in his arsenal in 1991 with Gulf War I. Where his stockpiles of chemical weapons went I don't know, but as Timothy McVeigh was able to point out, mixing chemicals isn't exactly the most difficult thing to do. Try to mix some chlorine bleach and ammonia, and you got your own private WMD in your bathroom (or rather your backyard if you really want to experiment with a minimum of brains). Other chemical "weapons" are just as easy to make.
Clearly he was not only morally supporting Al-Qeida, as demonstrated by his own website prior to the Iraq war (sorry, but you will have to look them up on your own on archive.org... the links don't take on
Saddam also supported financially and through training camps and places of refuge for Al-Qeida. I will admit, however, that Saddam didn't directly plan or participate in 9/11, nor did any of the hijackers ever even enter Iraq other than as normal tourists like many other Arabs did in the past and will likely do so in the future. That wasn't the point anyway, nor were any credible people in support of the Iraq War ever claiming that to be the case.
I will also admit that going into Iraq was wrong, but for only one reason: President Bush did not obtain a formal "Declaration of War" from Congress. The problem there is that no President since Roosevelt has ever thought that to be necessary, and in that regard Clinton is in far worse shape in terms of invading foreign countries without even congressional approval, even in the form of a "authorization for the use of force" resolution. Nor do I think Reagan is squeeky clean in that regard with Gradada or Beirut. George H.W. Bush at least had a formal excuse for going into Panama: Noreiga showed incredible stupidity by formally declaring war on the U.S.A. and then cemented it by invading soverign U.S. territory (the Canal Zone) and took U.S. citizens in their own homes hostage. Bush I simply had to react and do the same as if an army had come into Kansas doing the same thing.
In terms of justification for going into Iraq, that justification was already there in regards to the Gulf War. U.S. troops were on the ground, and only a cease-fire was signed between the USA an IRAQ. Technically a state of war never ended from 1991 until the fall of the statue of Saddam in Bagdad. And Iraq consistantly violated the terms of the cease fire, so in that regard it was really just a resumption of hostilities. Basically, if you don't have a formal peace treaty with a nuclear power, don't expect to have your country too long. If that attitude is Machivellian, then so be it.
In terms of Halliburton, I would dare you to try and suggest another company that could have done the same task in the same accelerated time period. While the no-bid contract is fishy, it still must have congressional approval to occur, and the fact that Halliburton still has the contract speaks volumes over their ability to get the job done. I've been involved with Federal contracts myself, and you need active involvement with your local congressional representatives just to get any piece of the action, much less get a multi-billion contract like that. If you think the President is out to lunch with that contract, you are complaining to the wrong person: Spending bills according to the U.S. Constitution must start in the U.S. House of Representati
Invoking Bill wan't ignorant. At that particular moment when OBL was in Sudan under arrest the Secret Service litterally couldn't get ahold of Mr. Clinton to get his OK to approve the extradition to the USA of OBL. He was not taking his job seriously, and let a choice opportunity to stop a major terrorism campaign from ending.
Likely somebody else would have done the same thing as OBL, so it really is moot as to if that really prevented 9/11 or not, although bin Laden was even at that time a major target for the FBI to get ahold of, due to his earlier bombing of the World Trade Center.
I'm sorry that I make you sick, but I am exposing a reality that is there, and I'm sorry that you have to resort to name calling and totally unjustified untruths about our current President. I am saddened when innocent people die in war, but it is a war going on in Iraq, and unfortunately you have cowards who hide behind innocent people hoping that they can get away with brutality and killing armed soldiers by doing that attack in the middle of a crowd of otherwise innocent people. Unfortunately the same thing happens all the time here in the USA as well, which is why most police departments have hostage negotiators of some sort or another, to try and keep the innocent deaths to a minimum. And it costs our country BILLIONS of dollars to try and keep these idiots from killing more innocent Americans in America. How do you justify that cost?
I'll tell you why they can't find OBL.... he is deliberately trying to hide from just about everybody, and has many friends that can also help keep him hidden. He is also taking precautions like not showing up in Times Square or going through U.S. airport security checkpoints. Basically, being somewhat intelligent. This is no worse than most of the people on America's Most Wanted, including Ted Kazinski. And he was able to run around in America and get through airport security checkpoints during his so-called manhunt.
BTW, OBL was found and even held custody during the Clinton Administration. It was just that ol' Bill decided it was more important to get some sexual relief at that time rather than commit U.S. resoruces to get him.
I am also not worried about a few idiots who decide to kill themselves by inhaling plutonium dust. They will kill themselves long before they actually do any damage to anybody else. Nuclear weapons need a national government just to maintain, not to mention to build. And as a result, any use of nuclear weapons will be traced directly back to that government who built them. The only real problem is what to do if it turns out that the nukes were made by France. Declare war by nuking Paris? I certainly hope that doesn't happen.
The terrorist in Iraq are disbanded military units from the Iraqi Army, and in particular the Republican Guard. As far as news reports for their organization, they seem to be very good at following news reporters, and in particular television camera crews.
BTW, I am not saying they couldn't attack us, I'm just saying that they havn't, and that shows a certain level of incompetance that isn't being discussed. The 9/11 attacked occured in part due to a long standing airline policy of giving in to hijacker demands and pretty much letting them do what ever they wanted to do. This was pretty much U.S. policy from the end of WWII to 2001, and could be summed up from an episode of "I Love Lucy" I saw recently (yes, a very old rerun) where Ricky Ricardo was on a hijacked airplane and ended up on a "holidy" by visiting Havana for a few days. Every previous hijacker simply wanted to go somewhere that airlines wouldn't let you get to (like Russia, Cuba, or some other silly place like the middle of Montana). Since 9/11, the act of hijacking a plane will simply get the hijacker dead, even if it takes the plane out with it, so passengers won't let it happen in the first place, or at least die trying to stop the hijacker in the first place.
Are there other ways to hurt America based on customs and traditions (like the hijacking plane tradition mentioned above?) Yes. What are those traditions? I think there is quite a bit being looked into, but unfortunately it also takes away freedoms. I don't know if I really want that anyway, so I'm more of the attitude to let the idiots screw it up for the rest of us first. And OBL is one of those idiots.
I know that this is getting late, and more than likely won't be read, but I strongly disagree with your point.
Osama tried to "declare war" on the USA, and he has failed miserably. While I might be able to agree that this "pause" since 9/11/01 has been due to hard planning on the part of Al-Qeida, it is more to show just how amaturish and stupid they really are.
Amaturish, because they couldn't possibly follow up on what was otherwise a brillian attack on the USA.
Stupid because they are really in the long term doing much more damage to Muslims and the cause of Islam than any short-term prospects could possibly have gained from such an assult. As it is, being called an Arab or Muslim is not something you want to have happen while boarding airplanes in the USA, or even any dealing with law enforcement personnel. And the full backlash hasn't happened yet. If Bin Laden is really successful in turning this into a Christian vs. Muslim 3rd World War, the cause of Islam will be dead and American troops will in fact be marching through the nuclear bombed out ruins of Mecca and Medina. Seriously, I doubt that anybody truly wants that to happen, least of all the Saudis, and they do in fact realize that could be a possibility.
And you pointed out the DC snipers. You are right that they were very successful, and had that been just a couple of Al-Qeida operatives instead of two deranged idiots, or worse yet, with some good trained terrorists duplicating the same thing in other U.S. cities, they would have been very successful. That would have been a perfect follow-up to 9/11.
Terrorism is either a lone idiot (like Tim McVeigh or the DC Snipers), or somebody like bin Laden that is trying to get a nationalist movement behind it. In the case of Vietnam and the Palestinians, they started out with terrorism because it is much easier to carry out acts of war in that manner rather than frontal military engagements. George Washington did the same thing during the Revolutionary War in the USA. And as was the case with George Washington and the North Vietnamese, they eventually had to move on to actual armies in formal military engagements with organized military units. Saigon did not fall to the "popular" support of ordinary people, instead it fell to the tanks of the NVA. Washington had to defeat the British at Yorktown. The Palestinians are attempting to do the same thing politically, and might possibly succeed without defeating Israel in a major battle. This will be a historic first if they succeed, and the Palestinians alread got actual territory, something neither the Kurds nor Tibetans are able to claim at the moment. Tibetian terrorists seem almost like an oxymoron anyway, doesn't it?
In the case of Al-Qeida, they can't even get the basic terrorist cells put together, except in Iraq, and that is with considerable support from foreign governments including Syria and Iran. In this case, Syria is willing to get "dirty" in Iraq, but if it showed up that Syria was directly responsible for a terrorist bombing in the USA, they know they would be toast. Perhaps of the nuclear kind.
More to the point of my original posting. Here we are, we rejected the idle threats of Al-Qeida, and I am proclaiming that they are too stupid to even be able to pull off a terrorist attack here. And even if they did some random attack, there wouldn't be the ability to follow up and do anything else in an organized manner to really cause much damage anyway, just like they couldn't follow up on 9/11.
What was costly to the American economy primarily becase the USA shifted to a war-time economy and then shifted back to a peace-time economy. This also happened under Bush I. During WWII it wasn't so bad because the war lasted long enough that businesses knew what to expect. In 2001, it happened so quickly that most mid-level managers were simply confused about what to expect, and rather than huge orders from the Pentagon (typical in a war-economy... or at least the analogy), the results instead were critical workers pulled out to serve in Iraq. All in all, a bad deal for most businesses, even ones not directly tied to defense contracts.
At least based on one interpretation of Bin Laden's last video taped speech.
How is this for a target?
I can say, bring it on, too.
On a more serious tone, I really hope that the vicious attacks that occured over the course of this campaign can be left alone now. In 2008, there will be a new President, regardless of what Bush does now, and I don't think it will be Dick Cheeny either... I don't think the VP will even run, but who knows.
I also hope that this shows clearly to Al-Queida that the USA will not be intimidated by threats. I would also like to be a bug on the wall of the FBI anti-terrorism center to see what was done to keep this election incident-free. That there wasn't even a single bomb or even mugging at any polling locations shows just how powerless Al-Queida has become. I mean, for the state of Utah alone (from the link above) there were almost 2,000 different places they could have targeted, and Utah is a very small state. And most of these voting places didn't even have a police officer present, much less any other security at all.
If you have the chance to lobby to members of your government to stop software patents before they are even started in the first place, please do so. Let your political representatives know how you feel on this issue, and read up on the damage that it is doing to the software industry in the USA. While not "THE" issue that is destroying software developers, it certainly is a major factor and IMHO a major reason to why I have personally had difficulty in the past couple of years trying to find work. I fear that I need a Juris Doctorate just to be able to program effectively. that should not be the case.
I also think 20 years is too long for a software copyright. I mean, should the original software developed for the ENIAC in 1947 by Adm. Grace Hooper still be under copyright in 2067? By the Bern Convention and U.S. Copyright law that is currently the case. The earliest that any computer software will enter the public domain due to copyright expiration will be 2022, unless you count the software developed by Ada Lovelace. And even that could still be questioned.
While I admire Robert Kahn and Vinton Cerf, and certainly _THEY_ recieved considerable assistance from the federal government, I'm trying to point out that there are many other ways that large scale compuer networks could have come about. What we know as "The Internet" could have come about in many different forms than what we currently know.
I am speaking (or writing, as this case may be) from the perspective of somebody who has dealt with asynronous communications and network protcols extensively, and dealt with many things besides TCP/IP for those communications protocols. I'm not dissing TCP/IP, because I use it not only for web surfing, but also for dedicated low-level application specific software development as well. For what it does, it does very well.
I'm just pointing out that there are many other ways it could have gone, and neither Vinton Cerf or Robert Kahn are gods, they are simply very good engineers who happen to have the happy coincidence of being at the right place at the right time with the right set of skills to get everything to work out with the contributions they have made. If I had been there back then with many of my present software development skills, I would have been able to contribute considerably to the development of TCP/IP. Instead, I'm working in different areas and making unique contributions to the computer industry in my own way.
As far as Albert Gore Jr.'s role in the whole thing, he didn't contribute any engineering ideas or plan any real aspects of the development of the technology. I will acknowledge Mr. Gore's role in securing funding for DARPAnet and helping to move it beyond the "laboratory" in the sense of giving political support at perhaps a crutial moment. I do think Rep. Baucher of Virginia has done far more for the computer community, and specificly the free software/open source movement by comparison than anything that Al Gore did.
I also think that the transition from research universities to the commercial interests, in particular with ICANN, as well as Internic, Verisign, and much of the "internet governing bodies" are messed up, with much of the negotiations being done through then Senator Gore's office as one of the major participants.
I will also give credit where credit is due, and it was largely due to Al Gore that the White House "got on-line" well before even HTTP was a popular protocol. It was at the start of the Clinton Administration that you could finally send an e-mail to president@whitehouse.gov (no need to spam protect that one, however). The George H.W. Bush (Bush I) administration simply was clueless regarding the internet at the time and I don't think they even had access to USENET except through COMPUSERV dial-up. The White House website, again under the Clinton administration and due to the efforts of then Vice-President Gore, was one of the first websites up for any government agency. In this aspect, he was a major contributor to getting government access to ordinary citizens electronicly through the internet, and of that I will give Al Gore total credit. The White House was "on-line" for at least four years before the Senate and U.S. House got going, and for awhile even there it was Democrats (with the big "D") who were better connected, in part thanks to Al Gore. It was only after constituants in Republican districts started to complain that they couldn't get access to "their" congressmen that the Republicans finally started to make their own websites and e-mail accounts.
Unfortunately there already is a "regulatory body" that administers spaceflight: The Administration for Space Transportation. If you look into their history, you will find that they have been bounced all over the federal government, but it looks like they are in the FAA for the long-haul. It is a better fit anyway.
NASA really needs to get back to the original missions of the NACA, and do more "Star Trek"-like misisons.... to boldly go where nobody has gone before. Spending the last 20 year in LEO just doesn't work and is wasting NASA's talents and resources. It is for going to exotic places that you need a PhD. Space construction should be done by roughnecks who have the temperment to build oil drilling platforms in the North Sea or Gulf of Mexico, not somebody who just defended his dissertation in Biology or Earth Science.
If NASA could transform itself back into a "Space _EXPLORATION_" agency, I don't have any problem with their current level of funding to be maintained or even increased. It is just that LEO is more than simply explored, it is getting civilian tourists, and Scaled Composites is just the beginning. If NASA wants to stay in the space transportation business, it should be sold off to the highest bidder and made a private corporation.
I'm not denying that the "internet" had some major contributions from government research grants. And certainly back in the 1970's and 1980's when the TCP/IP protocols were being developed it was only government research grants that could afford long-distance dedicated digital communication links, originally in the form of dedicated long-distance telephone lines (from AT&T Long Lines department... incredibly expensive at the time for even a 2400 baud connection).
My thesis is, however, that by 1990 there really were many LAN technologies, and in almost every case these were ramping up for ever larger and larger WANs. There is also nothing really unique about TCP/IP in the 7-layer architechture, except for the fact that it is totally copyright and patent free, together with the fact that by the time wide area networks were finally being put together TCP/IP already had more than 10% of the overall mindshare in this are, including over half of all major research networks, with an emphasis on universities.
The University connection was even more critical with the technology, because it was there that students (both graduate and undergraduate) were able to gain considerable experience with "The Internet" by learning TCP/IP protocols from the ground up. They also had student projects using these protocols, so naturally when they went on to an employer or advanced research project team, naturally they stuck with what they already knew. With groups like Apple Computer and Novell putting huge restrictions and non-disclosure documents on who could read the fine technical document, while RFCs where free to download for incoming freshmen CS students, it was very obvious just what budding hackers would get access to and experiment with.
BTW, much of this same university knowledge transfer is also occuring with Linux, for much of the same reason. The difference is that Microsoft was also fully aware of this fact, and gave away or at least at substantially lower cost huge student and educational discounts for much of their development software and operating systems. Apple Computer was also aware of the need to stick with educational institutions to push their product, because it brought about the next generation of software developers. The availability of that software is still impacting what I am doing for software development to this day.
So basically what I'm saying, is that although the U.S. Federal Government was involved with the initial setup of the protocols, it pretty much grew on its own and the government has done more to screw it up than actually help out. Al Gore's contribution to the internet is an absolte joke, and is perhaps more responsible for the current mess at ICANN and the things that are wrong about the internet than actually getting the current networks up and going.
The need was already in the marketplace to exchange data, and the effective monopoly over digital data communication was with only one company in the USA: Western Union. If there is a person or company that royally screwed up and threw away their big chance of becomming a multi-billion dollar company larger than Microsoft, Phillip Morris, IBM, and General Electric combined, it was that company. In some ways, thank goodness, because it is a much better world without them, but long-distance digital data communication could have looked considerably different.
I think you underestimate just how difficult it is to live in Antarctica, and how much "modern" technology has made it much more accessable. In the early 20th Century (when a good portion of the initial Antarctic exploration like even getting to the South Pole was taking place), it was a major expedition that involved financing on the part of national governments in order to accomplish. You can't simply hop in your rowboat on the Hudson River and expect to get to the South Pole on a budget of a Wal-Mart stocking clerk. While at least in theory possible now, it was impossible 100 years ago.
Deep-sea exploration is happening by robotic crews for much of the same reason that robotic spacecraft are used: the inhospitalble environment (as you mentioned). Of course, there are people who take diving trips in person, and sometimes for reasons that have nothing to do with science (like the couple that got married on the deck of the Titanic... on the bottom of the Atlantic in a submarine).
Human space exploration must continue, and it need not be in direct competition for funds from the robotic science missions. It is unfortunately the science community that tries to push it that way and make it Hard Science vs. Manned Spaceflight.
Once stable populations of people are "up there" in space, the economics of going up and flying people into space will take care of themselves. The problem is how do you achieve that goal in the first place? Should NASA even be directly involved?
Ansari did not put up the prize. It was a bunch of other people, including folks like Tom Clancy and Tom Hanks (with his cute photo from the movie Apollo 13 on the sponsorship page).
Ansari simply put up enough money to "buy off" the X-Prize Foundation to put the name onto the X-Prize as a johnny-come-lately, after the prize was fully funded.
Still, it will be interesting to see what the X-Prize Foundation will do with the Ansari money, as that is what they are running off of at the moment.
BTW, the $50 million for the "America's Prize" might still offer at least some financial incentive that will be useful if you are trying to invest in a company trying to build an orbital rocket. Even more useful is the "guarenteed" contracts to keep going up once the spacecraft is built.
I would love to see NASA do something similar. For example, $2 Billion to build a new system to fly 7 astronauts to the ISS, and a guarenteed $150 million per flight for 15 flights afterward. That would get the attention of Boeing and McDonell-Douglas, and be far cheaper than the current shuttle program... to even run the shuttle program for 1 year.
daVinci and Armadillo Aerospace were somewhat close, but I would say that without Scaled Composites pushing them along, it would have been another 2-3 years for either of those teams. Still, I think it would have happened eventually, although the prize money more than likely would have run out.
I've also noticed that Brian Walker ("The Rocket Guy") has pretty much dropped away altogether, although he also made some rather interesting progress on his own equipment. It is hard to say what would have happened with him without the X-Prize or Scaled Composites. At least now there is a place to even put in a flight plan for going into space. Before the X-Prize, you could only do that if you were a NASA astronaut.
I'll have to raise an objection here about the internet. The only real thing that government funding did with DARPAnet was to establish protocols that had a widely used standard that were also not encumbered with copyright nor patent issues.
By about 1990 there were at least a dozen networking protocols, including some being used far more than the internet. Any one of those protocols could have become as dominant, or even done with a company like AT&T coming into the fray and pushing their own networking protocol (again without government assistance directly, although a network developed by AT&T back in the 1980's or 1970's would clearly have been intended for government institutions...indeed it was).
There was also the issue of how the internet came around with essentially no distance toll charges. The government didn't enforce distance charges on DARPAnet, and as a result the subsequent networks followed the same tradition until you get to the commercial networks that essentially follow the same principle. All you typically pay for is bandwidth, not how far your packet actually travels. This is by far the most unique thing about the internet as opposed to earlier networks like the POTS lines or TELEX (which has horrendous rates for use...and BTW is also digital).
No, I think you could have pretty much done just about everything today that you could have back in 1960, at least as far as lunar exploration was concerned. There was a considerable flurry of unmanned lunar exploration (the Ranger and Surveyor series, for example) well before Neil Armstrong landed there.
The two approaches to exploring space really go hand in hand, and I've pointed out earlier (in previous articles, not just this one) that I doubt the public would put up with robotic exploration without at least some sort of manned program in the wings. Sure, in terms of the amount of actual science done per $ (or euro) it is far better to send a robot.
It is also better to send a robot to Antarctica as well, but actual people do go there and live year-round under extreme circumstances. Another good example (perhaps even better) is deep-ocean exploration.
Also, like in the example with Antarctica, sometimes it is better in some circumstances to have a living, breathing person who is right there, able to use intelligent judgement (AI systems havn't become that advanced yet) and change mission parameters on the fly. Not to mention the ability to actually repair equipment on the fly and get it to work correctly. Or even a manual override if it is clear that the automated systems aren't working correctly. None of this can be done with Cassini, and even the Galleleo probe would have worked better had somebody been available to fix the Hi-gain antenna.
In the last case, I don't know why NASA just didn't perform a quick test of the equipment before sending it along. It was one of the few major probes that was actually launched not into space, but FROM space (LEO on the Shuttle). Had an astronaut been able to do a final diagnostics before firing the booster engine and even just tested the antennas before the firing, it would have been comparatively easier to fix, and would have by itself justified the cost of having astronauts on board the launch vehicle.
The point I was trying to make in Shuttle vs. Apollo is that at least both were manned spacecraft, and from just about everything I've seen written you can get a much cheaper launch vehicle from a substantially redesigned Apollo/Gemini spacecraft with a capacity of seven astronauts. Something like that could have easily been launched from a Saturn V rocket into LEO, and if the ISS building blocks had been the size of Skylab for each major module instead of the size requirement for the Shuttle loading bay, the ISS construction would have been essentially complete by now, including housing for at least 7-12 astronauts on board. That would have allowed for real science to occur instead of having two astronauts/cosmonauts that are essentially doing no science because they are working 24/7 trying to keep the station kept together and running.
All of this is with proven technology, not inventing something new that needs to be tried again. Basically, the Shuttle program has accomplished almost none of its original design goals except one: Being able to retrieve large objects from space and bring them to the ground without burning up. And that is a purpose that it has used so seldom that it is hardly worth even mentioning. I will conceed that the shuttle is a lousy program and needs to end, with the remaining shuttles being placed properly into several good museums. This even in the case that there is no other spacecraft to carry astronauts for several years.
Hijacking airplanes is not just against "international law", it is an act of war, and you risk the consequences of war if you do such an act. It is just that the P.R. China is unlikely to be a target of full U.S. military action due to some silly stunt like that. Still, if done at the wrong time you might find bombs exploding where you don't want them at.
That really isn't a fair comparison between the Cassini program and shuttle program.
A much more accurate comparison would have been between the Apollo program and the Shuttle program, both of which involved manned spaceflight.
The Apollo program achieved an incredible goal, namely that of putting a crew of two on the moon, and was both an incredible engineering accomplishment as well as accomplishing some very useful science that is still being sorted through to this day.
While you can cite some very good references to useful science that was produced on the shuttle, there is another very important comparison that needs to be made:
Skylab vs. The ISS
Skylab + Apollo did an incredible amount of pure scientific research, and the internal volume of useable lab space was almost identical to what is now available on the ISS.
The Shuttle + ISS program is incredibly expensive, and while they have proven the ability to do major space construction projects with the ISS (needed if we ever get L-5 going), there has been comparatively little actual science.
Since when was this any different than in times past. During medeval times, only the rich could afford an armored horse and a set of mail for combat, together with retainers and squires to help feed and maintain the horse. Even now you have to be fairly wealthy to get some of the weapons, not to mention that you have to have property in places away from cities so you don't have draconian laws keeping you from having those weapons.
I take it you havn't read the article. Besides, even in the worst possible case of a 100% plutonium reactor with other fission by-products it would be no worse than the fall-out of atmosphereic nuclear bomb tests like what happened in the 1960's. And even then, from KSC, almost all of the fallout would be over uninhabited North Atlantic ocean. Not something I would encourage, but not many people would die from the resulting accident. And the design they are talking about here is considerably safer than that worst case example I gave above.
Really, nuclear engines are very safe, and considerably safer than what happened with Chernobyl. Chernobyl was an accident waiting to happen, and would never have been certified in America.
Besides, this is more something that can be used in space rather than something that will be launched from a place like KSC. The days where a whole manned space mission will be assembled in the Vehicle Assembly Building and fly to its destination in once piece, then return, are soon to be over. Future space missions like the Moon, Mars, and Beyond program are going to be multi-staged projects with considerable assembly taking place in space before the spaceships are moving between planets. In this case, having a highly radioactive nuclear power plant in solar orbit will have practically zero impact on the Earth.
I would have to say that the foreign policy attitude toward South America has pretty much been === Mexican Forign Policy + minor tweaks. And even that has been awful for the most part except during the NAFTA talks. Brazil and Argentina are very different countries than Mexico, with population bases that are larger, and potentially even more consumer demand than all of Europe.
In fact, in the next century I think you will see the overall population of South America pass that of all of Europe, and it will become strategically as significant if not more so. There are some political and economic problems on that continent, but it is substantially better off than Africa, by comparison. And both Argentina and Brazil have the talent of competent engineers and research scientists that would put them equal with any single European nation, including France, Germany, or England. Not to mention that even now Brazil is an ISS partner (minor, but it did get them a slot for an ISS service mission to put an astronaut on board, and some equipment on the ISS is of Brazilian manufacture).
One thing that might also add to this paranoia regarding Brazilian nukes: Back in the 1980's during the Cold War, Brazilian "spies" (don't laugh too hard now) discovered that the USSR had a few nukes specifically targeting São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. Essentially, Brazil was relying on a deterance force by the USA to keep the nukes off their cities. I don't know if this is a problem now, and I somehow doubt that modern Russia would even consider Brazil to be a militarily important target for nukes, but it certainly made some interesting political discussions in Brazil when that news was made public. And no doubt drives some military planning discussions in Brazil.
Not only are spacecraft like the shuttle registered, but space station modules are also "registered" as spacecraft. Indeed, if an incident were to happen on the ISS, the nation who owns and built the module would have primary juristiction in terms of law enforcement. Indeed, it was because of liability concerns that Dennis Tito was originaly denied entry into the ISS.
What would be interesting is to see what body of law comes out of dealing with criminal and civil legal issues in space. If you kill somebody while "out there", who gets the privilege of hauling you into court? This is no different than if you kill somebody while on a trans-atlantic flight, and clearly you would be in handcuffs as soon as the plane lands, if not before.
If being thrown into jail or being executed is the only option besides sticking a knife or taking pot shots with a hunting rifle at the invading army, I think I know why my option is going to be.
While a little bit far-fetched, I think "Red Dawn" at least gives a little bit of taste of what ordinary citizens would do when occupied by an invading army. The real question would then be just how far would organized resistance be, and would citizen-soldiers be employed during such an invasion. The very fact that foriegn soldiers are occupying parts of America would indicate a failure of major proprotions on the part of the U.S. military, so under such a theoretical situation the regular U.S. Federal military would be in shambles.
If being thrown into jail or being executed is the only option besides sticking a knife or taking pot shots with a hunting rifle at the invading army, I think I know why my option is going to be.
While a little bit far-fetched, I think "Red Dawn" at least gives a little bit of taste of what ordinary citizens would do when occupied by an invading army. The real question would then be just how far would organized resistance be, and would citizen-soldiers be employed during such an invasion. The very fact that foriegn soldiers are occupying parts of America would indicate a failure of major proprotions on the part of the U.S. military, so under such a theoretical situation the regular U.S. Federal military would be in shambles.
Well, 11,000 dead is a far cry from the estimated 20 million dead civilians in Russia during WWII, isn't it, huh?
Not a lot of civilians, but there were a few. Remember, it was a Sunday morning during "peacetime" activities, which included tours of ships (like they were some kind of museum), catering services, civilian dock workers, dependants of military personnel, visiting priests (during workship service... yes, I know there were chaplins as well). The same could be said about the air bases.
Honolulu itself also recieved some collateral damage, and some ordinary citizens minding their own business and not being directly connected to or immediately at military installations also died. The exact number is not particularly high, but yes, some very ordinary civilians did die there.
BTW, this is a listing of casualties at Pearl Harbor, including an official death toll of 54 civilians.
Indeed, it was precisely because ordinary citizens could very easily extrapolate that if Pearl Harbor was attacked, what would be next? Los Angeles? Seattle? San Francisco? There were at least six senators and a couple dozen members of the House of Representatives that had constituents realizing that they were indeed the very next target. That makes congressmen very twitchy and wanting to "DO SOMETHING NOW!"(tm) And in terms of the Japanese plans, there were also specific plans to at least bomb San Francisco in a manner similar to Pearl Harbor. That it never happened is more a credit to the fact that the U.S. military was able to at least push Japan into a stalemate for a couple years, with the main battle front in the Western Pacific region.
With all the complaining in Iraq about the deaths of ordinary civilians who are caught in the crossfire, as well as people complaining about civilian deaths in Gaza, why should Hawaii be any different in 1941? Japan certainly didn't have non-leathal combat weapony, nor even "smart bombs".
Unfortunately there are times and situations where every single member of a society is in grave danger, and notable situations where every single person in a society was killed due to warfare. This is the situation that is going on right now in Sudan, and had those people living there been able to bear arms to fight the invaders driving the Sudanese from their homes, it may not be as big of an international issue.
BTW, there have been many battles that take place in major towns. The problem is that such warfare is always problematic and tends to have extreamly high casulty rates for everybody that tries to do it. It was in Stalingrad that the German Army pretty much bled to death and was stopped, although at a very high cost to the Red Army as well. During that series of battles in that city, a major offensive was considered successful when they captured a single city block. In terms of the American Revolutionary War, you might want to look up the Battle of Brooklyn Heights for some interesting "urban" combat that took place, including a series of skirmishes that occured on Manhattan itself. These make a very interesting tour if you ever get to NYC and want to visit the old battle fields. New York City was occupied by the British Army primarily because Royal Marines and the Royal Army were able to invade with sufficient numbers to completely overwhelm the Americans.
One of the advantages of the Geneva Protocols of Warfare is to make an honorable means to surrender, and realizing that civilian populations will be (at least attempted) to be kept away from combat operations. The problem is when civilians become the target of operations on one side, the gloves come off and these procedures are thrown out the window, as happened during WWII.
Americans have been pretty much isolated from having to directly face warfare as civilians, with the exception of Pearl Harbor and the 9/11 attacks. Indeed, it is because of 9/11 directly affecting ordinary Americans that has given Pres. Bush much of his current warmaking power. It would be interesting if infantry combat operations took place on American soil what the civilian component to combat resistance would be.