Then there's you folks. If the cost were exactly the same, and you had to choose between long life and better portability, how would you choose?
I think most techies would choose longer life - I know I certainly did. The prettiest screen and most powerful processor is exactly no use to you if it runs out of battery. Then its just a glorified doorstop.
Unfortunately, you are probably leaving out a big chunk of energy for losses due to air friction. This is why rockets need something like 8600 m/s delta-v to get to LEO, while orbital velocity is actually a bit less than that. Still, a rocket firing as a velocity sustainer through the atmosphere is a lot easier than trying to get it going that fast from a standstill in one stage.
Well friction can be somewhat mitigated by designing the vehicle to be as low friction as possible. Current designs need to carry vast amounts of fuel, and I wouldn't call them the most aerodynamic options. I would envision long, needle like craft with three to five wings (for gliding up the maglev rails of a possibly evacuated launch tube), perhaps with scramjets for the final push to orbit. Actually that scramjet option looks very exciting, to quote the article:
Opponents of scramjet research claim that most of the theoretical advantages for scramjets only accrue if a single stage to orbit (SSTO) vehicle can be successfully produced.
Indeed!
If we can build such a tower for 4 to 5 billion, then a much longer ramp reaching 11km but at a 30 degree incline might be feasible for under 15 billion. (Especially if it were built suspension-bridge style.) If we did this instead of a moon-base or manned Mars exploration, it would make those two things a heck of a lot cheaper!
Yes, a ramp rather than a tower. You can't build any curvature into the construction, the stresses are phenomenal, but a 30 degree angle to assist with the orbital velocity would be perfect. Hmm. I would see the first things to be constructed as being orbital refineries to process handy ore bearing asteroids, using the raw force of the sun in space. Set up a refinery and send robotic prospectors out, before the miners themselves go up, ship back the chopped up bits to the refinery, and build whatever needs building up there! Or just drop the refined ore to the earth for processing. There is the commercial reason for space exploration, if anyone needs it.
Ha, yes, I dug out me old post on it! Here is the tower launch archive, from a few years back, which I was pointed to by Carlton Meyer, the guy responsible for the skyramp website. He and I were thinking along the same lines - how hard would it be to build a mountain to reach space? Obviously not literally, but you get the idea. Once you are past the 11km mark, you jump out of the troposphere. I'll quote one of the responses to my long ago post here:
I also went ahead and did some quick math. 1 m/s/s acceleration over 11 km is not enough:
s = s(0) + v(0)*t + 0.5*a*t^2, where s(0)=0 and v(0) = 0 so:
t = ((2*s)/a)^0.5 = 148 seconds to traverse the 11 km
v = v(0) + a*t = 0 + 1 m/s/s * 148 s = 148 m/s = 331 mph
Woefully short of escape velocity.
So then I tried 1 G and got 1040 mph, which still doesn't cut it. Next I went for 5 G's, which is on the order of what astronauts experience during a launch, and that gave me 2,326 mph. It's still not escape velocity, but surprisingly enough, it is sufficient kinetic energy to loft an object to a height of 22,000 miles, or the altitude of a geosynchronous orbit. Unfortunately, when it gets there it doesn't have sufficient tangetial velocity to stay there, so it follows a funny elliptical path 22,000 miles to the hard ground. I ran out of scratch paper before I could quantify that, however. I did have one line left to note that a 1000 kg payload accellerating at 5 G's requires 2.4 MW of power, not accounting for losses, which is one capability we do easily have.
Tack on some engines which engage after launch and you have a winner!
As for Gs, nn important question is, how fast can we accelerate? Accelerations of short duration (under perhaps 200 milliseconds) do not involve significant fluid shifts within the body, nor do they involve the various reflex responses that can affect responses to longer duration acceleration. Depending on the time that is spend under high acceleration, people can withstand extreme g-foreces. Depending on the individual's "g-tolerance" the oxygen supply to the head stops completely at 5 to 6 g resulting in unconsciousness, G-LOC. 4 is probably okay for small time periods.
The best part about it is the economy involved. Once you get past the engineering of making sure the whole thing doesn't fall down, you could probably put it all in place for around 4 to 5 billion, a quarter of NASAs annual budget.
Unfortunately, 11km is far too short an acceleration distance for anything but unmanned cargoes. (Think of how far downrange the Shuttle gets, accelerating all the while. You'd need a structure with length on that scale!) Also, getting altitude is only a small part of the problem. It's getting up to orbital velocity which is the big sticking point.
I had this discussion with a few people before, apparently you can reach orbital velocity with reasonable Gs within such a structure, which would need no space age materials, but rather be more of a pylon-like arrangement (I haven't the figures handy now). Even if you need to add a rocket booster for post-launch orbital velocity, you still save orders of magnitude on fuel, making cargo and manned missions considerably cheaper per kilo.
Fascinating about the boron balloons though, I didn't know that...
First of all, think pylons, not towers as in skyscrapers. This I assure you is technically feasible. Second, 11km puts you above most of the drag of the lower atmosphere (although I'll grant you it is only a few %), and crucially, above high winds and storms. Thirdly you don't need to reach escape velocity, just orbital. From there you can do what you like.
If you can make orbital velocity, even low orbit easy and cheap to reach, its orders of magnitude more easy to reach escape velocity from there. If you really needed to reach escape, you can pack rockets into the flyer as well to give it a post launch boost. This has the advantage that you can save on the enormous amounts of fuel required to get to escape velocity, leaving more room for whatever you like.
OP is a loon who regularily posts semi well informed bullshit claiming he worked for every government agency in the world. Last time I called him on it, I listed off his claimed jobs, but I made one up, saying he worked at NASA. He confirmed his dribble chinned nuttiness by saying yes, he had been consulted by NASA several times. Wahooo!
We will give ZERO food and money to ANY nation. We will simply take care of ourselves, and fuck the rest of you.
Most of the difficulties with starvation and poverty are caused by political problems. Giving food and money to places with these problems will only make them worse, for the most part. And incidentally, hasn't the US got a long and rich history of dicking with other nations politically, not for any noble cause, but in order to get 100% back on the dollar?
We will put every one of our troops on our border and shoot anyone trying to get in.
And how are you going to pay your mighty armies without foreign loans?
Just don't come crying and bitching to us when a giant wave floods your entire country or when lava buries your villages.
Yes, the whole world outside the US is only composed of extras from Ghandi: The Movie.
We (America) will pull every troop out of every nation we are operating in
And you are right, many scientists do spend 40-50% of their time on begging for money, I and my fellow scientists here do as well. It's an insane way to fund scientists.
Why don't you hire a PR team or marketing group to assist you in your search for grants? If you find a small up and coming one they might do it pro bono, and/or accept payment only on receipt of grant funding. In fact this is a large market for PR groups which they seem to have missed out on, albeit a risky one. If you don't want to have to peddle your wares to MBAs, get MBAs to do it! How much is 50% of your time worth?
Google's proposal to cover SF in a similar fasion is slated to provide only 300 k/sec speeds to free users
Which is almost 6 times faster than dial up, for which you need to pay line rental plus a fee, and are tied to a contract. Also 300k/sec is just fine for emailing and browsing, even live IM, which covers 99% of the population.
1 megabit/sec to those paying $22/month; At those prices, DSL is almost certainly a better option
Free is the first option, and I am hard pressed to see how you will find a better price than that. $22 a month is cutting out the line rental and contractual obligations you have with DSL, cable, or any of those alternatives, and at 1 megabit per second is plenty to do whatever you want on the web, including VoIP and MMORPGs.
Science is a useful way to pursue truth, but it is not the only way. I think people need to see that, and this is a good example of how that is true.
You buffoon. Take your ignorance and creationist agenda and dry up. Is there anything that you maroons can't turn to your own cult recruitment tactics? You are wrong in so many ways its almost impossible to figure out where to start correcting you, and definitely not worth the bother.
Moving matter is expensive. Moving information is a lot cheaper. Space freighters, whether interplanetary or interstellar, don't make any sense. Just because it worked for sea ships doesn't mean it works for space ships.
Aha, but what if the matter isn't where you want it to be? You are assuming a relatively even spread of resources and population throughout a hypothetical galactic civilistation, and forgetting about economies of scale. The more of something you do, the less expensive it is per unit. What if you want to set up a starship factory in orbit round the sun, but there isn't enough iron or what have you nearby? You just have to go someplace else for your raw materials, which is where freighters come in.
The difference between them and standard earth sea ships is they will be hauling millions or billions of tons of raw materials. The raw output from a sparsely populated system for a year could well be sold in the 50-billion strong earth system for a handsome profit. Alternately if you set up a steady chain of ships, you can achieve the same effect.
So, eh, does this mean that the universe is infinite, and can we harness a small boxful of this stuff to provide enough energy for our civilisation for all eternity?
The best thing a third world country can have is "empty" soil. WE ARE the ones that make these despots powerful.
Aha but you are making the mistake of thinking that interfering with a tyrant to bring freedom to people, and looting the weak of their few riches are the same thing. They are not... War in Iraq, and general US policy, that is the latter. Knocking over Tokyo and Berlin at the end of world war 2, the former.
you're still not focusing on the disease, and that's fundamental inequality and slavery in this world.
Its a misnomer to apply the term "world" to a group of discrete units. In most of Europe and the USA, for example, there is to a very great degree of equality, more so than has ever existed in the world before. And where there is inequality, there are structures in place to deal with it. Outside these areas however you're dealing with third world despots, corruption, and non elected officials with more power than the elected.
The most direct method to bring equality and freedom to these places is literally to invade and occupy them, or use some other means to destabilise and depose the government there. Change must come from within, etc., but its hard to effect change with a boot on your neck. Where does that become the west imposing its cultural vaues and judgements on other nations, however? Its a bit tricky...
They have no benefit to make their nation or their enemies think they are idiots.
Actually there is considerable benefit to making your enemies think you are an idiot. For example I was recently helping the police with their inquiries on a case (not that I was a suspect or anything), and the detective in question made a point of saying that they had no internet connection at the station, because they were "a bit behind the times". When I made it clear that I understood they had no connection because of security concerns, he grimaced in a kind of "aha got me" sort of way, and nodded.
Slashdot Mirror
Then there's you folks. If the cost were exactly the same, and you had to choose between long life and better portability, how would you choose?
I think most techies would choose longer life - I know I certainly did. The prettiest screen and most powerful processor is exactly no use to you if it runs out of battery. Then its just a glorified doorstop.
Unfortunately, you are probably leaving out a big chunk of energy for losses due to air friction. This is why rockets need something like 8600 m/s delta-v to get to LEO, while orbital velocity is actually a bit less than that. Still, a rocket firing as a velocity sustainer through the atmosphere is a lot easier than trying to get it going that fast from a standstill in one stage.
Well friction can be somewhat mitigated by designing the vehicle to be as low friction as possible. Current designs need to carry vast amounts of fuel, and I wouldn't call them the most aerodynamic options. I would envision long, needle like craft with three to five wings (for gliding up the maglev rails of a possibly evacuated launch tube), perhaps with scramjets for the final push to orbit. Actually that scramjet option looks very exciting, to quote the article:
Opponents of scramjet research claim that most of the theoretical advantages for scramjets only accrue if a single stage to orbit (SSTO) vehicle can be successfully produced.
Indeed!
If we can build such a tower for 4 to 5 billion, then a much longer ramp reaching 11km but at a 30 degree incline might be feasible for under 15 billion. (Especially if it were built suspension-bridge style.) If we did this instead of a moon-base or manned Mars exploration, it would make those two things a heck of a lot cheaper!
Yes, a ramp rather than a tower. You can't build any curvature into the construction, the stresses are phenomenal, but a 30 degree angle to assist with the orbital velocity would be perfect. Hmm. I would see the first things to be constructed as being orbital refineries to process handy ore bearing asteroids, using the raw force of the sun in space. Set up a refinery and send robotic prospectors out, before the miners themselves go up, ship back the chopped up bits to the refinery, and build whatever needs building up there! Or just drop the refined ore to the earth for processing. There is the commercial reason for space exploration, if anyone needs it.
Ha, yes, I dug out me old post on it! Here is the tower launch archive, from a few years back, which I was pointed to by Carlton Meyer, the guy responsible for the skyramp website. He and I were thinking along the same lines - how hard would it be to build a mountain to reach space? Obviously not literally, but you get the idea. Once you are past the 11km mark, you jump out of the troposphere. I'll quote one of the responses to my long ago post here:
I also went ahead and did some quick math. 1 m/s/s acceleration over 11 km is not enough:
s = s(0) + v(0)*t + 0.5*a*t^2, where s(0)=0 and v(0) = 0 so:
t = ((2*s)/a)^0.5 = 148 seconds to traverse the 11 km
v = v(0) + a*t = 0 + 1 m/s/s * 148 s = 148 m/s = 331 mph
Woefully short of escape velocity.
So then I tried 1 G and got 1040 mph, which still doesn't cut it. Next I went for 5 G's, which is on the order of what astronauts experience during a launch, and that gave me 2,326 mph. It's still not escape velocity, but surprisingly enough, it is sufficient kinetic energy to loft an object to a height of 22,000 miles, or the altitude of a geosynchronous orbit. Unfortunately, when it gets there it doesn't have sufficient tangetial velocity to stay there, so it follows a funny elliptical path 22,000 miles to the hard ground. I ran out of scratch paper before I could quantify that, however. I did have one line left to note that a 1000 kg payload accellerating at 5 G's requires 2.4 MW of power, not accounting for losses, which is one capability we do easily have.
Tack on some engines which engage after launch and you have a winner!
As for Gs, nn important question is, how fast can we accelerate? Accelerations of short duration (under perhaps 200 milliseconds) do not involve significant fluid shifts within the body, nor do they involve the various reflex responses that can affect responses to longer duration acceleration. Depending on the time that is spend under high acceleration, people can withstand extreme g-foreces. Depending on the individual's "g-tolerance" the oxygen supply to the head stops completely at 5 to 6 g resulting in unconsciousness, G-LOC. 4 is probably okay for small time periods.
The best part about it is the economy involved. Once you get past the engineering of making sure the whole thing doesn't fall down, you could probably put it all in place for around 4 to 5 billion, a quarter of NASAs annual budget.
Unfortunately, 11km is far too short an acceleration distance for anything but unmanned cargoes. (Think of how far downrange the Shuttle gets, accelerating all the while. You'd need a structure with length on that scale!) Also, getting altitude is only a small part of the problem. It's getting up to orbital velocity which is the big sticking point.
I had this discussion with a few people before, apparently you can reach orbital velocity with reasonable Gs within such a structure, which would need no space age materials, but rather be more of a pylon-like arrangement (I haven't the figures handy now). Even if you need to add a rocket booster for post-launch orbital velocity, you still save orders of magnitude on fuel, making cargo and manned missions considerably cheaper per kilo.
Fascinating about the boron balloons though, I didn't know that...
First of all, think pylons, not towers as in skyscrapers. This I assure you is technically feasible. Second, 11km puts you above most of the drag of the lower atmosphere (although I'll grant you it is only a few %), and crucially, above high winds and storms. Thirdly you don't need to reach escape velocity, just orbital. From there you can do what you like.
:D
If you can make orbital velocity, even low orbit easy and cheap to reach, its orders of magnitude more easy to reach escape velocity from there. If you really needed to reach escape, you can pack rockets into the flyer as well to give it a post launch boost. This has the advantage that you can save on the enormous amounts of fuel required to get to escape velocity, leaving more room for whatever you like.
Simple!
What about 11km high launch towers with electromagnetic rails on the inside, powered by nuclear power plants?
Your post is much better when I do a comic book guy voice over on it...
OP is a loon who regularily posts semi well informed bullshit claiming he worked for every government agency in the world. Last time I called him on it, I listed off his claimed jobs, but I made one up, saying he worked at NASA. He confirmed his dribble chinned nuttiness by saying yes, he had been consulted by NASA several times. Wahooo!
We will give ZERO food and money to ANY nation. We will simply take care of ourselves, and fuck the rest of you.
Most of the difficulties with starvation and poverty are caused by political problems. Giving food and money to places with these problems will only make them worse, for the most part. And incidentally, hasn't the US got a long and rich history of dicking with other nations politically, not for any noble cause, but in order to get 100% back on the dollar?
We will put every one of our troops on our border and shoot anyone trying to get in.
And how are you going to pay your mighty armies without foreign loans?
Just don't come crying and bitching to us when a giant wave floods your entire country or when lava buries your villages.
Yes, the whole world outside the US is only composed of extras from Ghandi: The Movie.
We (America) will pull every troop out of every nation we are operating in
Don't let the door hit you on the arse.
What a turkey.
We have invented the most perfect democracy in the world
I do not think that word means what you think it means. As a hint, a two party system is only one step away from a one party system...
And you are right, many scientists do spend 40-50% of their time on begging for money, I and my fellow scientists here do as well. It's an insane way to fund scientists.
Why don't you hire a PR team or marketing group to assist you in your search for grants? If you find a small up and coming one they might do it pro bono, and/or accept payment only on receipt of grant funding. In fact this is a large market for PR groups which they seem to have missed out on, albeit a risky one. If you don't want to have to peddle your wares to MBAs, get MBAs to do it! How much is 50% of your time worth?
What are you smoking?
Google's proposal to cover SF in a similar fasion is slated to provide only 300 k/sec speeds to free users
Which is almost 6 times faster than dial up, for which you need to pay line rental plus a fee, and are tied to a contract. Also 300k/sec is just fine for emailing and browsing, even live IM, which covers 99% of the population. 1 megabit/sec to those paying $22/month; At those prices, DSL is almost certainly a better option
Free is the first option, and I am hard pressed to see how you will find a better price than that. $22 a month is cutting out the line rental and contractual obligations you have with DSL, cable, or any of those alternatives, and at 1 megabit per second is plenty to do whatever you want on the web, including VoIP and MMORPGs.
Anyone who can't explain something in plain English doesn't understand it themselves.
Science is a useful way to pursue truth, but it is not the only way. I think people need to see that, and this is a good example of how that is true.
You buffoon. Take your ignorance and creationist agenda and dry up. Is there anything that you maroons can't turn to your own cult recruitment tactics? You are wrong in so many ways its almost impossible to figure out where to start correcting you, and definitely not worth the bother.
Any previous advanced civilization on earth would have depleted its mineral resources in its rise to high technology, just as we have.
Who is to say that mineral resources on earth were not vastly more abundant before they began their rise, and what we are using is the leftovers?
Moving matter is expensive. Moving information is a lot cheaper. Space freighters, whether interplanetary or interstellar, don't make any sense. Just because it worked for sea ships doesn't mean it works for space ships.
Aha, but what if the matter isn't where you want it to be? You are assuming a relatively even spread of resources and population throughout a hypothetical galactic civilistation, and forgetting about economies of scale. The more of something you do, the less expensive it is per unit. What if you want to set up a starship factory in orbit round the sun, but there isn't enough iron or what have you nearby? You just have to go someplace else for your raw materials, which is where freighters come in.
The difference between them and standard earth sea ships is they will be hauling millions or billions of tons of raw materials. The raw output from a sparsely populated system for a year could well be sold in the 50-billion strong earth system for a handsome profit. Alternately if you set up a steady chain of ships, you can achieve the same effect.
So, eh, does this mean that the universe is infinite, and can we harness a small boxful of this stuff to provide enough energy for our civilisation for all eternity?
The best thing a third world country can have is "empty" soil. WE ARE the ones that make these despots powerful.
Aha but you are making the mistake of thinking that interfering with a tyrant to bring freedom to people, and looting the weak of their few riches are the same thing. They are not... War in Iraq, and general US policy, that is the latter. Knocking over Tokyo and Berlin at the end of world war 2, the former.
You got some examples of this method being successfully used?
Japan and Germany, circa 1945...
you're still not focusing on the disease, and that's fundamental inequality and slavery in this world.
Its a misnomer to apply the term "world" to a group of discrete units. In most of Europe and the USA, for example, there is to a very great degree of equality, more so than has ever existed in the world before. And where there is inequality, there are structures in place to deal with it. Outside these areas however you're dealing with third world despots, corruption, and non elected officials with more power than the elected.
The most direct method to bring equality and freedom to these places is literally to invade and occupy them, or use some other means to destabilise and depose the government there. Change must come from within, etc., but its hard to effect change with a boot on your neck. Where does that become the west imposing its cultural vaues and judgements on other nations, however? Its a bit tricky...
Although why one country qualifies as "many" in your book is another question...
Yikes, when you're right, you're right. Remind me not to move there.
many European countries have gone so far as to make this a part of tax law.
What? Maybe in the middle ages, buddy.
It would certainly explain hotwifers.
They have no benefit to make their nation or their enemies think they are idiots.
Actually there is considerable benefit to making your enemies think you are an idiot. For example I was recently helping the police with their inquiries on a case (not that I was a suspect or anything), and the detective in question made a point of saying that they had no internet connection at the station, because they were "a bit behind the times". When I made it clear that I understood they had no connection because of security concerns, he grimaced in a kind of "aha got me" sort of way, and nodded.