"On jobs I think you're seeing that not everyone blames Bush and in fact many are thankful of his actions."
Excepting for the obvious fact that Bush and the Republicans LOOOOVVVVVVEEEEEE outsourcing. They want all their big business cronies to send all their jobs to China and India as fast as they can and tap all that dirt cheap, heavily oppressed labor. I assure Republicans could care less about anyone who is low to middle income and works for a living other than they will be glad to sucker votes out of them using security(fear and safety) and morality(abortion and gay) issues while they screw them economically.
In fairness its not like Democrats treat working people any better lately since they led the charge on NAFTA which broke the floodgate on outsourceing.
Of course the Republicans have also been doing everthing they can to slash overtime and drive down real income for working people. And they managed to shift a couple percent of the tax burden from the wealthy to the middle class with their tax cuts.
Other than that I guess your right Bush and the Republicans are like the best friends working people have ever had.
Its interesting exit polls have historically been pretty accurate which is why networks have relied on them for so long, until the Republicans started winning elections and especially as electronic voting came on the scene. As you recall in 2000 VNS exit polling predicted Gore won and he didn't. In 2002 the VNS exit polls mysteriously failed in a massive way and the Republicans had a big win. It was disbanded and an all new AP system was used today.
Today apparently the exit polls were massively swinging to Kerry and it now appears he is losing the election. Curious that exit polls have gone completely south in just the last 4 years.
It leads to two possibilities.
1. The exit polls are really innacurate or maybe Democrat leaners were rigging them, of course rigging exit polls is kind of stupid since they don't count for anything other than maybe putting a little psychic pressure on late voters. Maybe they are just consistently bad but they are a pretty big sampling and its odd they would be as far off as they were apparently today. This is the message Fox and the Republicans were pounding on all night. The exit polls were all wrong and you need to fix them or get rid of them. Unfortunately at this point the exit poll are the only checks and balances we have on the truthfullness of the polls and especially electronic polling.
2. The exit polls were accurate and someone was rigging the vote. Needless to say with widespread use of electronic voting machines, without paper trail, if someone rigged them to skew the vote to the Republicans you would see what we've seen today and it would be hard to prove thats what happened. The exit polls say Kerry wins and the voting machines say Bush wins. Unfortunately with no paper trail we may never know.
If exit polls are wrong it should be setting off alarm bells that either they are wrong or the vote counts are wrong. You should not leap to the conclusion that it must be the exit polls as the media and Republican were tonight and probably will be from now on.
One interesting thing to do would be to lock up a all the electronic voting machines in precincts in Ohio and Florida (Broward and Miami-Dade in particular where there is huge Democratic vote to suppress). Look in particular for precincts where exit polls said one thing and the machines said something else. Be sure to set the date back to the day of the election, set them exactly like they were on election day, and start entering votes on them in a semi random way at about the same rate voters would on all or most of the machines, and see if after a full day of voting they report an accurate vote.
Another interesting exercise would be to correlate the map of precincts with electronic voting with precincts with bogus exit polls and see if there is a correlation.
I think much of the data on them can be found on electionline.org.
The flip side is exit polls have historically been pretty accurate which is why networks have relied on them for so long, until the Republicans started taking winning elections and especially as electronic voting came on the scene. As you recall in 2000 VNS exit polling predicted Gore won and he didn't. In 2002 the VNS exit polls mysteriously failed in a massive way and the Republicans had a big win.
Today apparently the exit polls were massively swinging to Kerry and it now appears he lost the election. Curious that exit polls have gone completely south in just the last 4 years.
It leads to two possibilities.
1. The exit polls are really innacurate or maybe Democrat leaners were rigging them, of course rigging exit polls is kind of stupid since they don't count for anything other than maybe putting a little psychic pressure on late voters. Maybe they are just consistently bad but they are a pretty big sampling and its odd they would be as far off as they were apparently today. This is the message Fox and the Republicans were pounding on all night. The exit polls were all wrong and you need to fix them or get rid of them. Unfortunately at this point the exit poll are the only checks and balances we have on the truthfullness of the polls and especially electronic polling.
2. The exit polls were accurate and someone was rigging the vote. Needless to say with widespread use of electronic voting machines, without paper trail, if someone rigged them to skew the vote to the Republicans you would see what we've seen today and it would be hard to prove thats what happened. The exit polls say Kerry wins and the voting machines say Bush wins. Unfortunately with no paper trail we may never know.
If exit polls are wrong it should be setting off alarm bells that either they are wrong or the vote counts are wrong. You should not leap to the conclusion that it must be the exit polls as the media and Republican were tonight and probably will be from now on.
One interesting thing to do would be to lock up a all the electronic voting machines in precincts in Ohio and Florida (Broward and Miami-Dade in particular where there is huge Democratic vote to suppress). Look in particular for precincts where exit polls said one thing and the machines said something else. Be sure to set the date back to the day of the election, set them exactly like they were on election day, and start entering votes on them in a semi random way at about the same rate voters would on all or most of the machines, and see if after a full day of voting they report an accurate vote.
Another interesting exercise would be to correlate the map of precincts with electronic voting with precincts with bogus exit polls and see if there is a correlation.
I think much of the data on them can be found on electionline.org.
Gore's recent speeches are part of the great paradox of politicians. When they aren't running for anything and have nothing to lose, they give gutsy, insightful, intelligent speeches. When they are running and have something to lose they deal out empty rhetoric designed to play to the lowest common denominator, devoid of conviction, swing voter.
It would have been interesting to have seen what Dean did if he had won the nomination. Everyone loved him when he was a massive underdog, had nothing to lose and was giving gutsy, insightful, intelligent speeches. Just before Iowa he turned front runner and suddenly had something to lose so he started sucking up to the Democratic establishment, lost much of his fire and was turning pretty boring. Since then he's turned in to a real party hack and Democratic insider. One thing I'll always praise Dean for, a month or two before he cratered he said the U.S. should treat Israel and Palestine more even handedly. Saying that in the U.S. is political suicide and in Dean's case maybe it actually was but I think it was the first time in recent memory I've heard a politician do something besides like Israel's boots. I want a politician serving America first and Israel only if its the right thing to do.
It will be interesting to see, if Bush gets the boot, if sometime down the road he gives some gutsy, insightful, intelli... intelli.... intell... OK I couldn't keep a straight face long enough to finish that one. Heh.
"Tell your President, Prime minister, governor premier mayor, MP, MEP, MPP, senator congressman, alderman, councillor etc what you want."
You new to this Democracy thing? Not sure how it works outside the U.S. but unless you are making at least a 4 figure contribution to one of his campaigns he isn't going to be paying any attention to "what you want", he may look like he is listening but I assure you his brain is thinking about where he's going to get more campaign contributions and you aren't it.
Of course if your position is the majority position among his constituents he will do "what you want" if its necessary to get him elected. In that case you really don't need to tell him what YOU want because he is looking at a poll to tell him what "you in the collective want".
Once you make a 4 figure contribution to his campaign you can count on him calling you up and bugging you everytime he needs more money as long as you are under the contribution limit and maybe even when you are over it.
Another effective method to get "what you want" is to offer him a high paying consulting job with a 7 figure salary when he retires from government. This tactic has a down side because he is of marginal value after he quits and takes the job though he will probably still be good at lobbying his friends that are still in government. On the plus side you can land some really juicy legislation you might "want" this way. For example if you are a giant drug company you use this tactic to tell Billy Tauzin "what you want" in a multibillion dollar windfall from the Medicare "reform" act passed last year, by for example adding a clause making it illegal for the Medicare administration to negotiate the price when they are buying billions of dollars in drugs. Tauzin is the congressmen who shoved this abomination through Congress and last I heard he was going to retire and take a lucrative job with a drug company lobbying group.
I'm guessing if you can get photos of him in a compromising position that would probably work to communicate to him "what you want" too.
I think the best strategy is do what I do and say:
Don't vote for Bush!!
Then I'm not advocating a candidate, I'm not even advocating you vote, and I'm not supporting Kerry which is a pretty bitter pill to swallow, but I am advocating the one thing that is universally supported by people around the world who are not dumb, gullible or rich.
If there are Slashdot readers stupid enough to act based on the stuff they read here then either they don't vote or if they do they don't vote for Bush and that is victory enough.
So if I give up my right to vote can I stop paying taxes?
I think there was some kurfuffle a couple hundred years ago about not having to pay taxes without representation. So if I don't vote I don't think I can be taxed. It also follows all felons should be freed of their tax burden otherwise they are being taxed without representation and that is against everything this country was founded on.
I do know for a fact felons can vote in Florida. They have to appear before little Jeb and plead for forgiveness and he can pass judgement on them and restore their right to vote. They allow a tiny number of felons to appear before this board, so its nearly impossible to do but one of the Discover channels had footage of one of the hearings. If I were a felon I'm pretty sure voting wouldn't be so important to me that I would grovel in front of little Jeb to get it back.
"Burt's a clever designer, but I'm not convinced he's particularly smart about economics or practicality."
So NASA is? Economical and practical aren't words I would ever associate with NASA at least since the end of the Apollo era. In the Apollo era there were definitely not economical but they were practical.
I kind of doubt Rutan is out to get rich. He is funding his hobby which appears to be tackling engineering challenges and doing things in cool new ways. He appears to have been quite successful in getting his projects funded, succeeding, on a shoestring budget, and then starting on the next thing he wants to do. Most geek, engineer types like me would trade my career for his in a heartbeat.
Again he has been successful in his last two high risk ventures:
- Around the world non stop flight - First private group to put a man in space using the same vehicle in the space of a week. It may be they are the first ever to do it though I suspect the X-15 probably did it depending on the turn around time and altitude between missions with the same vehicle. Dont think anyone since the X-15 has done it private or government.
By contrast NASA's last two manned space programs have cost hundreds of billions of dollars and: - The space shuttle is now a complete failure, all its going to do is finish the ISS and then be abandoned - The ISS is a complete failure and the U.S. is apparently going to abandon it as soon as they finish building it very reduced configuration, leaving the Russians and Europeans to try and salvage it.
"Did you completely ignore the link to 10,000 research papers"
Uh, yea. Dont think those research papers are going to put men in space. You can try lighting them on fire and try. Research papers are stuff academics churn out to expand there rep, sometimes they are valuable, much of the time they are just a ticket to a convention and some partying.
I'm betting a small fraction of this total has anything to do with manned space flight. There is a percentage of them that have useful research which, when implemented, will move forward our space program. Until and unless they are implemented they don't count for anything.
"98% is incredible in the rocketry world."
You are repeating yourself. Again after two catastrophic failures both of which were due to known problems which could have been prevented saying 98% is incredible isn't saying anything. After the Challenger accident the whole promise of the Shuttle program collapsed, and the military pretty much abandoned it. After the second accident the program is relegated to finishing the ISS, another complete failure and NOTHING else. But we are still going to waste billions of dollar a year on it for years and its doing nothing useful.
Anyway you slice it it is program which failed, and the ISS failed. NASA's manned space program has failed twice in a row with an enormous price tag. There is no reason to expect a different outcome if you give them a third chance.
Rutan has been successful in his last two high risk endeavors, a round the world, non stop flight and the first private launch to put a man in space. Success breeds success. He knows how to succeed.
Hence I vote my tax dollars go to try something new and a little risky. Maybe Rutan can't do it but I wager he can assemble a small team that can. I want another Kelly Johnson skunk works kind of team that doesn't list all the reasons they can't do something but figures out ways they can, a team that doesn't constantly whine for more money to waste but succeeds with what they have. Rutan has the two ingredients for success, he is can-do and he subscribes to the KISS principal. NASA has lost both of those characteristics.
What exactly have we to lose. Cancel one of the two, waste of time shuttle return to flight test flights, and give Rutan's team a billion dollars, no strings attached except that he build a reusable spacecraft that will get a couple thousand pounds of cargo or people to an ISS orbit and repeat the trip a week or two later.
"They simply built a joyride"
As for your derision of joyrides and space tourism your tight NASA should thumb its nose at this....if they want the public to continue to turn on them and lose its interest in space exploration. As the public support dwindles so does the political support. When the political support goes so does the budget. Earlier you were whining about NASA budget cuts and politics. Budget cuts are correlatable to declining public interest in and support for space exploration. So you are correct if NASA doesn't want any money it should continue to diss space tourism and joy rides.
As best I recall the SpaceShipOne flights are the only thing thats happened in manned space flight in nearly forever that actually excited the public again. JPL's unmanned mission are way ahead of NASA's manned space program in exciting the public and they spend a fraction of the money. Most people really cant stand seeing billions a year be spent on people riding bicycles and playing with bugs in space.
Its kind of goofy to compare safety records of the Shuttle to unmanned expendable launch vehicles. Like it or not the Shuttle was sold on and entirely dependent on a safety record much higher than the one that its achieved. When the shuttle fails 7 people die and you lose a now irreplaceable vehicle. Its really sick to come out after two catastrophic failures that have destroyed the program and say 2% is really a great safety record. We should be proud.
"The shuttle is only about 35% more expensive than an Ariane-5 launch"
What is the source for this number? The one I find in a quick google search:
Shuttle $10,000/pound, Arian 5 $3500-$4500/pound
For the last couple of years the shuttle cost is actually infinity since its launched zero pounds and its still devouring billions of dollars each year. Apparently next first two missions are going to be test flights and I don't think they are actually lifting any useful cargo either. You have to lie and forget the massive overhead of failure to even get close to your rather optimistic number.
I assure you using a billion dollar space shuttle mission to ferry a couple astronauts to the ISS and a couple thousand pounds of cargo up and trash back doesn't make a case for cost effectiveness.
The shuttle was sold as being economical and making access to space routine. It has obviously failed on every one of its original design criteria. It gets nothing but worse as the shuttle flight rate gets worse and it gets worse every year. Maybe they've cut costs but the payroll and overhead stay the same as the flight rate declines.
"Even Burt would laugh at that one. He runs a small aircraft development shop that doesn't even make their own engines. He could no more build an orbiter than he could an atomic bomb."
I assure you Rutan is working on plans for an orbital vehicle. I think they call it either Level 2 or Level 3. Its a tall order I'll admit but I wager if he gets enough funding he'll do it. If I had to place a billion dollar bet on NASA building a new manned vehicle or Rutan building one, Rutan wins hands down. NASA might be able to do one but the price tag and the schedule is going to be so prohibitive that even if they do eventually manage it would still be a failure.
Really if you keep up the arrogance it will just make you look more silly when he proves you wrong. Were you shoveling the same crap saying he couldn't win the X prize?
So you didn't answer the question. You do work for NASA don't you?
Maybe you should spend a little less time being petty, vindictive, making excuses, denigrating people who are actually doing something useful, achieving their goals, etc. Maybe you should get off your duffs and try to do something useful with those billions of dollars us tax payers are wasting on your paycheck every years while you sit on the ground scratching your asses.
Its more than a little silly on your part to slam Rutan's group because they didn't go from standing start to an orbital vehicle with $25 million. At least they are doing something new. NASA isn't doing anything they haven't been doing for the last ten years, which is mostly just trying to prevent a catastrophic Shuttle failure as the scope of their missions continually shrinks. NASA can't even send a mission to service the Hubble now. NASA can't even do missions its already done anymore. In my book that is a sign of failure, not the success that would justify your arrogance.
"I tend to wonder about the view that 'X politician just follows the polls and does whatever is popular.'"
The problem with the vote on Iraq was I don't think it would have been popular but for one thing. The Bush administration used propaganda, fabrication and deceit to sucker everyone in to thinking invading Iraq was the right thing to do. It was pretty obvious what they were doing at the time:
- Paint images of mushroom clouds and UAV's spraying american cities with biological weapons though they had no proof Iraq had any weapons or intent to use them against the U.S. - Blame 9/11 on Iraq when it was obvious Iraq either had nothing to do with it or their role paled in comparison to that of Al Qaida.
I was screaming in frustration at the time because everyone was buying it without questioning it, media, politicians, everone. As I recall they scheduled the vote right before the mid term election to further coerce everone to vote their way.
You can't blame politicians for caving under the circumstances but you know everyone that did is devoid of backbone, principals, judgement and guts so you can't count on them doing the right thing under pressure. When you have politicians with the enormous power they have in the White House they need to do whats right first and explain it honestly to the people why it was right even if it wasn't popular. Most Americans dont have the knowledge or information to make foreign policy decisions so you really can't make most decisions based on polls.
In Kerry's case you would figure he would at least say his vote was a mistake since its become obvious the war was a lie but he doesn't even have the backbone to do that. He isn't trying to follow the will of the people that are voting for him. Democrats are mostly antiwar. He is trying to win a tiny handful of voters in the middle who don't necessarily like the war but want a strong leader. Kerry true to form conforms to the group he is trying to win over.
"Black Sky"... was deceptive concerning what was actually accomplished. SS1 is a manned sounding rocket. That's it. It didn't even go that much higher than the V2 did, for YHVH's sake (and had a lower payload even when you add in the ss1's weight of the pressurized cabin)."
Forgot to answer this one. You work for NASA? I'm guessing so. I hate to point this out but SpaceShipOne currently surpasses NASA's current manned space program. NASA can't currently get a man off the ground.
SpaceShipOne matched and passed the X-15 which Uncle Sam spent a small fortune and years on. That is an amazing achievement for a small privately funded group.
Rutan's group were successful in achieving their goal and they did it on schedule and on budget. When is the last time NASA's manned program has done that? Did they put someone in orbit, no. That wasn't their goal this time. I think it is on their list of milestones once they get space tourism going and have a revenue stream.
Does NASA have a space tourism strategy, no. They actually tried to kill the Russian space tourism program.
Rutan can't expect billions from Uncle Sam. They have to work with donations or pay their way as they go. They were working with $25 million dollars this time. So I guess to satisfy you they needed to put someone in orbit for $25 million?
How long does it take NASA to spend $25 million, like a half hour. NASA spends $25 million on coffee breaks in a week. $25 million is like 1/40th of a single shuttle launch, assuming it ever does launch again and that was their entire budget for their entire program.
I'll grant you the do some good research especially if you get away from their manned space program. JPL does great work, they rock. I should reiterate I am slamming the nearly worthless "manned space program" only here, the shuttle and the ISS in particular. They are the ones that are wasting tons of money, bleeding the rest of NASA white, and not doing anything useful. Anyone in the rest of NASA my apologies if I though I was criticizing you, I wasn't.
Yes many people at NASA do innovative research. None of it is anywhere close to putting people or cargo into orbit or propelling them back to the moon or Mars. I assure you it will be decades before NASA even attempts to actually apply any new technology in a new manned vehicle, it will cost a fortune and it will more likely be canceled, delayed or fail than succeed. During Apollo NASA manned space flight division was a can-do organization. Now they are a can't-do organization and once big bureaucracies go bad they are nearly impossible to fix.
NASA can't even get people to LEO and the ISS safely at present. I'm sorry but the $1 billion+ price tag for a shuttle launch is unforgivable. So you say its expensive because of safety, well IT ISN'T SAFE. TRY AGAIN. They've lost two vehicles and two crews in like a hundred launches. Give it up. The shuttle was a failure. Nice idea, really bad execution, MOVE ON.
Its a lot easier to do experiments than it is to actually go in to production. NASA does some good R&D. They completely suck going in to production and have since the Space shuttle and ISS became their reason to exist.
"Apparently you've never heard of something called "budget cuts". Or "change of administrators", for that matter."
When NASA is squandering a billion plus dollars on a single launch whining about budget cuts is about as lame as it gets. You are just retreating to the standard set of lame excuses bureaucracies use when they waste lots of money and fail/ They blame everything on everyone but themselves.
Easy solution, get rid of the lame bureaucracy and let Burt Rutan do it instead. You give him 1 billion dollars, one shuttle launch's worth of money and he wont be whining about budgets or politicians. He will just come back in a couple years with a new, economical, reusable launch vehicle (though not a heavy lifter most probably).
I agree with the sentiment of your post, I'll be real happy if Bush loses too but lets not kid ourselves about Kerry.
Kerry voted for and to this day still endorses the idea of invading Iraq and taking down Saddam. Voting for invading Iraq was the politically correct thing to do when it came up for a vote and Kerry ALWAYS adopts the politicly popular position. He is compelled to stay the course on Iraq or risk looking "weak" or like he likes Saddam. If you watch Kerry's ads all he says on Iraq is it was "a war poorly planned". That means Kerry is staying in Iraq he is just planning it better.
So, Kerry's only difference with Bush is he is quibbling about the details about how he actually did it. Most of it really is Monday morning quarterbacking and trying to find a position where he can look like he's different from Bush but doesn't look weak on national security. He was antiwar during the primaries because he needed to be to beat Dean. Now he is not really opposed to the war in Iraq again since he is trying to get the swing voter vote, many of whom support the Iraq war.
Fact is he is unlikely to pull out troops anytime soon. So chances are they will keep dieing at the same rate under Kerry as Bush, no difference. Kerry wants to add 2 divisions to the army which is only necessary if he is planning to use them for something, presumably continued occupation of Iraq. Two divisions aren't going to help you track down Bin Laden if you don't know where he is.
Kerry's big solution to Iraq is to work with our former allies and get them to shoulder the burden. Well none of them will shoulder that burden or send troops in to the quagmire whether Bush asks or Kerry asks. The U.S. broke it, the U.S. owns it. If Kerry were to unilaterally pull out it would quickly disintegrate in to a civil war and it would really have made everything sunk in it so far in treasure and blood a waste, and it really would make the Middle East more unstable than it was under Saddam. Saddam, if nothing else did maintain order.
"(1) He's fiscally conservative"
Maybe he is, maybe he isn't. All politicians say they are when they are trying to get elected and when they don't have power. Very few of them really are when they have blank checks to fill in.
Kerry is inheriting a fiscal mess and he does have a ton of new spending he wants to do and I really doubt he is going to balance the budget anytime in his first term. He probably couldn't be worse than Bush and the New Republicans on fiscal policy but that isn't saying anything.
At this point if someone tells you they are fiscally conservative don't believe it until they prove it.
"(5) He's actually aware of national security... and on and on."
In what way? All I've heard is empty rhetoric about how is going to spend billions on homeland security, first responders, and screening cargo. Well I hate to break it to you but most money being given to first responders is being wasted so it runs counter to "fiscally conservative. Apparently how the homeland security money is spent is supposed to be secret. A fire department in Colorado used it to build a weight room, many are just using it to fill the holes in their budget and nuy new patrol cars and the like.
Believe it or not we don't really need to give every podunk fire department in the country biochem warfare gear they will never use just so our politicans can say they are making use safe. It would be nice to screen all cargo entering the country but unless you have very fast technology to do it you are going to clog ports and hurt the economy. Long Beach can barely handle the container traffic now, without checking every container.
IF you saw the full transcript of Bin Laden's tape he is taunting the U.S. that they are going to bankrupt them. They spent a half million dollars on an attack that has cost the U.S. a trillion or two now. Everytime a politician tells you they are going to win the War on Terror or make you safe by squandering billions of dollars, please don't buy in to it.
If GPS failed and there was no fall back you do what you do now if ILS fails or there is zero visibility, you fly to an airport with visual flight rules. It might be nice to have the redundancy and I'm sure you would for a long period but I wager once GPS is established and has a good track record, ILS would slowly disappear. I don't know how much it costs but I'm pretty sure its pretty expensive, especially for cash strapped smaller airports.
"I would expect it is. Modern radars are taking advantage of some really cool DSP techniques. The missile's rate of speed is going to make it stick out pretty well."
I'm not so sure. The billion dollar radar the missile defense program has on a off shore platform is supposed to be able to see a baseball and which way its spinning from the other side of the country, but i think it only works for ballistic trajectories Cruise missiles fly nap of the earth, so surface radars can't track them due to the Earth's curvature. To track cruise missiles you need to have radar at high altitude or in space. Maybe the U.S. does but I doubt it has 360 coverage over all of North America, oh and then they sneak the missile in to Canada and launch from there. And of course they don't really need a cruise missile in the first place. They can smuggle a nuke across America's very pouress border and drive it in to a city in a Ryder truck or put it in to a lead lined cargo container. It would probably be easier than acquiring or building a long range cruise missile.
"It would be very nice if the Gallileo system provided for many more than two classes of service."
Like I said, in this day and age many would prefer to have quality GPS service for everyone and let the paranoid suffer. You will never be able to satisfy them. If you give them an inch they will just want another inch. Watch Dr. Strangelove if you haven't lately.
"It's not as if europeans can use the current GPS system."
I think Galileo has better resolution and coverage. I think they are trying to enable new GPS applications that can't be done with the current GPS precision and coverage. They are advancing technology as people are want to do with technology. And, of course, America isn't a particularly trustworthy country anymore. If other countries start relying on Amnerican GPS then America has a new means for blackmail, "Do what we say or we shut off your GPS".
"Nobody I know is cowering in fear,"
You must not know any Americans. As nearly as I can tell most people in the U.S. are living in fear. Thats why their politicians tell them how they are making them "safe" on a daily basis. Thats why they took down Iraq, they were afraid Saddam was going to nuke an American city. If that isn't cowering in fear and rampant paranoia I don't know what is. The U.S. got out of the cold war mentality for a few pleasant years and it pissed off the chicken hawks, the military and the right wing. Thanks to 9/11 they are now back to a new perpetual cold war mentality which is predicated on everyone cowering in fear and spending bucket loads of money on Defense in a futile search for absolute "safety".
If you read the full Bin Laden transcript released yesterday his most stinging rhetoric is Al Qaida is trying to bankrupt America. They spend a half million dollars on an ingenious attack and the U.S. spends a couple trillions dollars recovering from it and trying to guard against every conceivable new attack which is impossible. Maybe it wasn't their plan but it is obviously a pretty good one. A few more iterations like the last one and they win.
I assure NASA's manned space program is doing nothing innovative to help the next breed of space capable crafts. NASA has set like 10 different dates for the Shuttle's return to service. The don't deserve praise for setting another one they probably wont deliver on. When they announced this date they couched it in all the same rhetoric about how aggressive it was and all the excuses for why they may not make it. The key thing about NASA's manned program, they get paid pretty much the same whether the do anything or not. They have no incentive to stick their necks out to be successful or innovative, they are just trying not to fail and preserve their budget. They have reached the point they aren't going to launch unless its "safe" and they are never going to make shuttle launches "safe".
If you want a new manned space vehicle turn part of NASA's manned space program budget over to Burt Rutan in no strings attached grants. I'm willing to bet in a couple years you would have the next generation SpaceShipOne doing weekly runs to the ISS, for a fraction of the price of the Shuttle, and you would actually be able to fully man the ISS with seven or so people and actually do something up there instead of having 2-3 people who spend most of their time just maintaining it. If nothing else you could actually turn it in to the first space hotel and get people excited about space again, maybe charge the wealthy an arm a leg for a one week stay and let a few ordinary folks go for a week at $59 a night.
If you had just given Rutan all the money NASA has spent doing nothing since the last accident you would probably soon have a whole new fleet of truly economical and reusable vehicles.
If you want to restore your faith in manned space exploration look for the Discover Channel's multipart documentary on Rutan's successful run for the X Prize, "Black Sky: The Race For Space". They ran it in early October and I haven't seen a rerun. It is a great documentary, a great story and they look to be a great group of people doing amazing things on a shoestring and they clearly really care about what they are doing as opposed to the people at NASA.
Burt does have concepts for a next generation ship to go in to orbit. If he had the money he just might make it happen.
You need to be careful to not give Rutan to much money because you would risk turning them in to a completely corrupted oversized bureaucracy that doesn't do anything but spend money.
"And it's not like this is the first time a European country has made a bad decision."
I think Europe is doing the same thing the U.S. is doing. They are treating China as an economic partner, a place to trade and to make a euro. China is chipping in something like 200 million euros as its part of the partnership. I'd be inclined to agree trusting a dictatorship with a lot of mutual animosity with the West is maybe not such a great idea but everyone is doing it.
I don't really follow your whole arguement about rogue states and terrorists using GPS to launch a surprise attack. Fact is the U.S. probably wont know this is happening until it happens unless America's radar coverage is good and responsive enough to catch cruise missiles. Having the ability to deny GPS service is useless unless you know an attack is coming. A surprise attack on the U.S. can exploit the U.S. GPS and doesn't need Galileo. Degradation and encryption only works if you are in an extended conflict against a known enemy.
The classic American military response to this problem is they degrade service to everyone who doesn't have access to the encrypted military channel. The only problem is this severely degrades or precludes many of the valuable civilian applications of GPS like automated landing of aircraft in bad weather.
I imagine the European persective is they would prefer to tap the potential of high precision, widely available GPS and let the Americans cower in their bunkers fearing attack from every direction. Meanwhile they will exploit all the economic advantages of the civilian applications.
There really are a million ways to attack the U.S. in the modern world and you aren't going to be able to stop all of the them. It might be a better strategy to use carrots, get along with people better in the world, avoid pissing off so many people with the bull in a china shop foreign policy, and just carry a big stick so if anyone attacks you they know what they will get in return.
Yea and they are really expensive to maintain since you have to have a complex set of beacons at every airport. I think a relatively complex set of gear is needed on the airplane to. I wager switching to GPS would be cheaper on both ends. Also if an airport doesnt have the gear you dont do instrument landings there.
I'm willing to bet you if there were 1 meter GPS and all airplanes were equipped with landing systems that exploited it the ILS systems would in fact be rapidly abandoned. You would also presumably be able to instrument land at any airport you have GPS coordinates for which is currently not the case
Not being a pilot but I think there are restrictions on ILS too its only for the approach and not the actual landing. There is a decision height(DH) of 200 feeting for class 1 gear and 100 feet for class 2 gear at which point the pilot has to be able to see the runway lights. In really poor visibility ILS airports still have to shut down. I wager with 1 meter GPS you could probably land in zero visibility probably without the pilot in the loop.
I'm kind of the school that the world is a better place when you have at least two superpowers whomever they are or no superpowers.
The world is a really dangerous place when you have one hyperpower that has a nut as its leader and which has such vast military superiority that the world is powerless to stop him, not saying that would ever happen 8)
Besides, China is like our best friend on the planet now. They are where the entire manufacturing segment of our economy resides and probably where out technology sector is going next. They are kind of like our 51st state now, New Ohio. China doesn't need to use guided missile to get what they want anymore, they can just shut off the container ship traffic and the west will cave.
Uh, read The New America Century statement of principials. Whether they can be successful at it is open to debate but it is their goal.
The only mistake they made in Iraq was to attempt an occupation, oh and in thinking the Iraqi's would welcome them with open arms. I assure you "Shock and Awe" was entirely about sending a message of intimidation to the next countries on the list Iran, Syria, maybe North Korea and basically the rest of the world. America may not be able to successfully occupy anything without reinstating the draft and putting a couple million Americans in army boots, but they can pulverize any smaller nation they choose and remove its leader in a very short period of time. Now that every country knows that, the U.S. neocons are thinking they can intimidate everyone in to doing what they want without using force. Unfortunately it isn't working on North Korea or Iran who are just accelerating their nuclear programs so they can intimidate back.
The Bush administration plan to field a missile defense system kind of falls in to this. They would like to make America's nuclear deterent unidirectional and preclude anyone from striking back. Its kind of crazy especially with China and Russia but the people who signed the New American Century are pretty crazy, Dick Cheney, Don Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz and Jeb Bush representing the Bush clan.
"Perhaps you were unware, but the US an EU are ALLIES!"
Uh, perhaps you were unaware that China is a now an official partner in Galileo, have been since they signed a deal in 2003. How do reconcile your little rant about "fascist regimes" and the fact they are partnering with your allies in the EU. Not sure of the exact terms but I doubt China is signing up to help develop and pay for a system that the EU can shut off on them.
I'm pretty sure it is massively chapping America's ass that China is a partner and its chapping China's ass that America is presuming to dictate to the world what is and isn't allowed.
"It's important that the EU understands the responsibility they are taking on."
So you are saying is the U.S. is the only one that understands this technology stuff and its America's job to show their dumb little cousins in Europe how to do it, otherwise they will screw up.
"It's important that the EU understands the responsibility they are taking on."
And if the EU interprets that responsibility different from America, then the U.S. will make them see the light, by jammer if necessary. Gotta love the "Our way or the highway" mindset that permeates America these days.
Correct me if I'm wrong but Glonass only provides 100 meter accuracy on its unencrypted channels. You can get accuracy better than that with unguided gravity bombs. The military channel isn't even that great 10-20 meter accuracy.
Galileo is supposed to have signals in the clear of 1 meter accuracy which makes it exceptionally good for GPS guided weapons. GPS is also really integral to American war fighting now. I'm guessing they want to deny its benefits to China and terrorists in particular.
OK since some people seem to think this post has merit, I don't know why:
Skull and bones is a 100% American. Where exactly did you get "they are a power out of Europe". They are in fact full of wealthy and powerful Americans dedicated to expanding America's wealth and power and dictating to the rest of the world. They are close cousins to the Neocons. If you want to read their outline for global domination read The New American Century. Many of the people behind this statement are in the current administration and key backers of the war in Iraq, including Dick Cheney, Don Rumsfeld, Jeb Bush and Paul Wolfowitz. It is kind of a noble sounding statement, freedom and all, until you appreciate its dark side is it advocates American domination of the world.
The only thing out of Europe about Skull and Bones is yes they are very much an American version of forming a ruling elite like those you find in Great Britain. You know... the sons of the wealthy elite are sent to prep schools and the Ivy League and get the best of everything (like Bush and Kerry), they are qualified to lead and ordinary Americans(like Clinton) aren't. Clinton was basically trailer trash, Rhodes scholar aside, and its one reason the powers that be hounded him every minute he was in office.
Yes there have been cartels since before the USA, though the RIAA/MPAA obviously aren't examples of the same, recording and motion pictures, not being invented until long after the US came in to being. They aren't doing much but trying to protect and maximize the profits they make on mostly bad music and bad movies. I'm not sure they actually count for much on the global stage because their products are so bad and devoid of substance, though people the world over still seem to buy them for some reason. Maybe they are good sedatives. To break the RIAA's back form a band that makes music that doesn't suck and sell it over ITunes without selling your soul to them. To break the MPAA's back stop watching bad movies which is most of them.
One might guess you are alluding to a global Jewish conspiracy, if thats what you are getting at why don't you just spit it out and get flamed for it instead of using all the veiled references like "a power out of Europe" and "cartels". What the hell is that.
Bottomline you are doing what all American's do these days, especially our political leaders. Blame everything bad America does on someone else, instead of taking responsibility when we let our government do bad things. Ranting about "the right to own guns" as being the solution is bullshit until and unless you and probably a whole bunch of others are ready to use them. It would probably be a blood bath and you would probably lose. It may well be that it will come to that if American government stays its current course but I'd say at the moment you are blowing smoke.
Slashdot Mirror
"On jobs I think you're seeing that not everyone blames Bush and in fact many are thankful of his actions."
Excepting for the obvious fact that Bush and the Republicans LOOOOVVVVVVEEEEEE outsourcing. They want all their big business cronies to send all their jobs to China and India as fast as they can and tap all that dirt cheap, heavily oppressed labor. I assure Republicans could care less about anyone who is low to middle income and works for a living other than they will be glad to sucker votes out of them using security(fear and safety) and morality(abortion and gay) issues while they screw them economically.
In fairness its not like Democrats treat working people any better lately since they led the charge on NAFTA which broke the floodgate on outsourceing.
Of course the Republicans have also been doing everthing they can to slash overtime and drive down real income for working people. And they managed to shift a couple percent of the tax burden from the wealthy to the middle class with their tax cuts.
Other than that I guess your right Bush and the Republicans are like the best friends working people have ever had.
Its interesting exit polls have historically been pretty accurate which is why networks have relied on them for so long, until the Republicans started winning elections and especially as electronic voting came on the scene. As you recall in 2000 VNS exit polling predicted Gore won and he didn't. In 2002 the VNS exit polls mysteriously failed in a massive way and the Republicans had a big win. It was disbanded and an all new AP system was used today.
Today apparently the exit polls were massively swinging to Kerry and it now appears he is losing the election. Curious that exit polls have gone completely south in just the last 4 years.
It leads to two possibilities.
1. The exit polls are really innacurate or maybe Democrat leaners were rigging them, of course rigging exit polls is kind of stupid since they don't count for anything other than maybe putting a little psychic pressure on late voters. Maybe they are just consistently bad but they are a pretty big sampling and its odd they would be as far off as they were apparently today. This is the message Fox and the Republicans were pounding on all night. The exit polls were all wrong and you need to fix them or get rid of them. Unfortunately at this point the exit poll are the only checks and balances we have on the truthfullness of the polls and especially electronic polling.
2. The exit polls were accurate and someone was rigging the vote. Needless to say with widespread use of electronic voting machines, without paper trail, if someone rigged them to skew the vote to the Republicans you would see what we've seen today and it would be hard to prove thats what happened. The exit polls say Kerry wins and the voting machines say Bush wins. Unfortunately with no paper trail we may never know.
If exit polls are wrong it should be setting off alarm bells that either they are wrong or the vote counts are wrong. You should not leap to the conclusion that it must be the exit polls as the media and Republican were tonight and probably will be from now on.
One interesting thing to do would be to lock up a all the electronic voting machines in precincts in Ohio and Florida (Broward and Miami-Dade in particular where there is huge Democratic vote to suppress). Look in particular for precincts where exit polls said one thing and the machines said something else. Be sure to set the date back to the day of the election, set them exactly like they were on election day, and start entering votes on them in a semi random way at about the same rate voters would on all or most of the machines, and see if after a full day of voting they report an accurate vote.
Another interesting exercise would be to correlate the map of precincts with electronic voting with precincts with bogus exit polls and see if there is a correlation.
I think much of the data on them can be found on electionline.org.
The flip side is exit polls have historically been pretty accurate which is why networks have relied on them for so long, until the Republicans started taking winning elections and especially as electronic voting came on the scene. As you recall in 2000 VNS exit polling predicted Gore won and he didn't. In 2002 the VNS exit polls mysteriously failed in a massive way and the Republicans had a big win.
Today apparently the exit polls were massively swinging to Kerry and it now appears he lost the election. Curious that exit polls have gone completely south in just the last 4 years.
It leads to two possibilities.
1. The exit polls are really innacurate or maybe Democrat leaners were rigging them, of course rigging exit polls is kind of stupid since they don't count for anything other than maybe putting a little psychic pressure on late voters. Maybe they are just consistently bad but they are a pretty big sampling and its odd they would be as far off as they were apparently today. This is the message Fox and the Republicans were pounding on all night. The exit polls were all wrong and you need to fix them or get rid of them. Unfortunately at this point the exit poll are the only checks and balances we have on the truthfullness of the polls and especially electronic polling.
2. The exit polls were accurate and someone was rigging the vote. Needless to say with widespread use of electronic voting machines, without paper trail, if someone rigged them to skew the vote to the Republicans you would see what we've seen today and it would be hard to prove thats what happened. The exit polls say Kerry wins and the voting machines say Bush wins. Unfortunately with no paper trail we may never know.
If exit polls are wrong it should be setting off alarm bells that either they are wrong or the vote counts are wrong. You should not leap to the conclusion that it must be the exit polls as the media and Republican were tonight and probably will be from now on.
One interesting thing to do would be to lock up a all the electronic voting machines in precincts in Ohio and Florida (Broward and Miami-Dade in particular where there is huge Democratic vote to suppress). Look in particular for precincts where exit polls said one thing and the machines said something else. Be sure to set the date back to the day of the election, set them exactly like they were on election day, and start entering votes on them in a semi random way at about the same rate voters would on all or most of the machines, and see if after a full day of voting they report an accurate vote.
Another interesting exercise would be to correlate the map of precincts with electronic voting with precincts with bogus exit polls and see if there is a correlation.
I think much of the data on them can be found on electionline.org.
Gore's recent speeches are part of the great paradox of politicians. When they aren't running for anything and have nothing to lose, they give gutsy, insightful, intelligent speeches. When they are running and have something to lose they deal out empty rhetoric designed to play to the lowest common denominator, devoid of conviction, swing voter.
It would have been interesting to have seen what Dean did if he had won the nomination. Everyone loved him when he was a massive underdog, had nothing to lose and was giving gutsy, insightful, intelligent speeches. Just before Iowa he turned front runner and suddenly had something to lose so he started sucking up to the Democratic establishment, lost much of his fire and was turning pretty boring. Since then he's turned in to a real party hack and Democratic insider. One thing I'll always praise Dean for, a month or two before he cratered he said the U.S. should treat Israel and Palestine more even handedly. Saying that in the U.S. is political suicide and in Dean's case maybe it actually was but I think it was the first time in recent memory I've heard a politician do something besides like Israel's boots. I want a politician serving America first and Israel only if its the right thing to do.
It will be interesting to see, if Bush gets the boot, if sometime down the road he gives some gutsy, insightful, intelli... intelli.... intell... OK I couldn't keep a straight face long enough to finish that one. Heh.
"Tell your President, Prime minister, governor premier mayor, MP, MEP, MPP, senator congressman, alderman, councillor etc what you want."
You new to this Democracy thing? Not sure how it works outside the U.S. but unless you are making at least a 4 figure contribution to one of his campaigns he isn't going to be paying any attention to "what you want", he may look like he is listening but I assure you his brain is thinking about where he's going to get more campaign contributions and you aren't it.
Of course if your position is the majority position among his constituents he will do "what you want" if its necessary to get him elected. In that case you really don't need to tell him what YOU want because he is looking at a poll to tell him what "you in the collective want".
Once you make a 4 figure contribution to his campaign you can count on him calling you up and bugging you everytime he needs more money as long as you are under the contribution limit and maybe even when you are over it.
Another effective method to get "what you want" is to offer him a high paying consulting job with a 7 figure salary when he retires from government. This tactic has a down side because he is of marginal value after he quits and takes the job though he will probably still be good at lobbying his friends that are still in government. On the plus side you can land some really juicy legislation you might "want" this way. For example if you are a giant drug company you use this tactic to tell Billy Tauzin "what you want" in a multibillion dollar windfall from the Medicare "reform" act passed last year, by for example adding a clause making it illegal for the Medicare administration to negotiate the price when they are buying billions of dollars in drugs. Tauzin is the congressmen who shoved this abomination through Congress and last I heard he was going to retire and take a lucrative job with a drug company lobbying group.
I'm guessing if you can get photos of him in a compromising position that would probably work to communicate to him "what you want" too.
I think the best strategy is do what I do and say:
Don't vote for Bush!!
Then I'm not advocating a candidate, I'm not even advocating you vote, and I'm not supporting Kerry which is a pretty bitter pill to swallow, but I am advocating the one thing that is universally supported by people around the world who are not dumb, gullible or rich.
If there are Slashdot readers stupid enough to act based on the stuff they read here then either they don't vote or if they do they don't vote for Bush and that is victory enough.
"3. Failure to pay your taxes (Amendment XXIV)"
So if I give up my right to vote can I stop paying taxes?
I think there was some kurfuffle a couple hundred years ago about not having to pay taxes without representation. So if I don't vote I don't think I can be taxed. It also follows all felons should be freed of their tax burden otherwise they are being taxed without representation and that is against everything this country was founded on.
I do know for a fact felons can vote in Florida. They have to appear before little Jeb and plead for forgiveness and he can pass judgement on them and restore their right to vote. They allow a tiny number of felons to appear before this board, so its nearly impossible to do but one of the Discover channels had footage of one of the hearings. If I were a felon I'm pretty sure voting wouldn't be so important to me that I would grovel in front of little Jeb to get it back.
"Burt's a clever designer, but I'm not convinced he's particularly smart about economics or practicality."
So NASA is? Economical and practical aren't words I would ever associate with NASA at least since the end of the Apollo era. In the Apollo era there were definitely not economical but they were practical.
I kind of doubt Rutan is out to get rich. He is funding his hobby which appears to be tackling engineering challenges and doing things in cool new ways. He appears to have been quite successful in getting his projects funded, succeeding, on a shoestring budget, and then starting on the next thing he wants to do. Most geek, engineer types like me would trade my career for his in a heartbeat.
Again he has been successful in his last two high risk ventures:
- Around the world non stop flight
- First private group to put a man in space using the same vehicle in the space of a week. It may be they are the first ever to do it though I suspect the X-15 probably did it depending on the turn around time and altitude between missions with the same vehicle. Dont think anyone since the X-15 has done it private or government.
By contrast NASA's last two manned space programs have cost hundreds of billions of dollars and:
- The space shuttle is now a complete failure, all its going to do is finish the ISS and then be abandoned
- The ISS is a complete failure and the U.S. is apparently going to abandon it as soon as they finish building it very reduced configuration, leaving the Russians and Europeans to try and salvage it.
"Did you completely ignore the link to 10,000 research papers"
Uh, yea. Dont think those research papers are going to put men in space. You can try lighting them on fire and try. Research papers are stuff academics churn out to expand there rep, sometimes they are valuable, much of the time they are just a ticket to a convention and some partying.
I'm betting a small fraction of this total has anything to do with manned space flight. There is a percentage of them that have useful research which, when implemented, will move forward our space program. Until and unless they are implemented they don't count for anything.
"98% is incredible in the rocketry world."
You are repeating yourself. Again after two catastrophic failures both of which were due to known problems which could have been prevented saying 98% is incredible isn't saying anything. After the Challenger accident the whole promise of the Shuttle program collapsed, and the military pretty much abandoned it. After the second accident the program is relegated to finishing the ISS, another complete failure and NOTHING else. But we are still going to waste billions of dollar a year on it for years and its doing nothing useful.
Anyway you slice it it is program which failed, and the ISS failed. NASA's manned space program
has failed twice in a row with an enormous price tag. There is no reason to expect a different outcome if you give them a third chance.
Rutan has been successful in his last two high risk endeavors, a round the world, non stop flight and the first private launch to put a man in space. Success breeds success. He knows how to succeed.
Hence I vote my tax dollars go to try something new and a little risky. Maybe Rutan can't do it but I wager he can assemble a small team that can. I want another Kelly Johnson skunk works kind of team that doesn't list all the reasons they can't do something but figures out ways they can, a team that doesn't constantly whine for more money to waste but succeeds with what they have. Rutan has the two ingredients for success, he is can-do and he subscribes to the KISS principal. NASA has lost both of those characteristics.
What exactly have we to lose. Cancel one of the two, waste of time shuttle return to flight test flights, and give Rutan's team a billion dollars, no strings attached except that he build a reusable spacecraft that will get a couple thousand pounds of cargo or people to an ISS orbit and repeat the trip a week or two later.
"They simply built a joyride"
As for your derision of joyrides and space tourism your tight NASA should thumb its nose at this....if they want the public to continue to turn on them and lose its interest in space exploration. As the public support dwindles so does the political support. When the political support goes so does the budget. Earlier you were whining about NASA budget cuts and politics. Budget cuts are correlatable to declining public interest in and support for space exploration. So you are correct if NASA doesn't want any money it should continue to diss space tourism and joy rides.
As best I recall the SpaceShipOne flights are the only thing thats happened in manned space flight in nearly forever that actually excited the public again. JPL's unmanned mission are way ahead of NASA's manned space program in exciting the public and they spend a fraction of the money. Most people really cant stand seeing billions a year be spent on people riding bicycles and playing with bugs in space.
Its kind of goofy to compare safety records of the Shuttle to unmanned expendable launch vehicles. Like it or not the Shuttle was sold on and entirely dependent on a safety record much higher than the one that its achieved. When the shuttle fails 7 people die and you lose a now irreplaceable vehicle. Its really sick to come out after two catastrophic failures that have destroyed the program and say 2% is really a great safety record. We should be proud.
"The shuttle is only about 35% more expensive than an Ariane-5 launch"
What is the source for this number? The one I find in a quick google search:
Shuttle $10,000/pound,
Arian 5 $3500-$4500/pound
For the last couple of years the shuttle cost is actually infinity since its launched zero pounds and its still devouring billions of dollars each year. Apparently next first two missions are going to be test flights and I don't think they are actually lifting any useful cargo either. You have to lie and forget the massive overhead of failure to even get close to your rather optimistic number.
I assure you using a billion dollar space shuttle mission to ferry a couple astronauts to the ISS and a couple thousand pounds of cargo up and trash back doesn't make a case for cost effectiveness.
The shuttle was sold as being economical and making access to space routine. It has obviously failed on every one of its original design criteria. It gets nothing but worse as the shuttle flight rate gets worse and it gets worse every year. Maybe they've cut costs but the payroll and overhead stay the same as the flight rate declines.
"Even Burt would laugh at that one. He runs a small aircraft development shop that doesn't even make their own engines. He could no more build an orbiter than he could an atomic bomb."
I assure you Rutan is working on plans for an orbital vehicle. I think they call it either Level 2 or Level 3. Its a tall order I'll admit but I wager if he gets enough funding he'll do it. If I had to place a billion dollar bet on NASA building a new manned vehicle or Rutan building one, Rutan wins hands down. NASA might be able to do one but the price tag and the schedule is going to be so prohibitive that even if they do eventually manage it would still be a failure.
Really if you keep up the arrogance it will just make you look more silly when he proves you wrong. Were you shoveling the same crap saying he couldn't win the X prize?
So you didn't answer the question. You do work for NASA don't you?
Maybe you should spend a little less time being petty, vindictive, making excuses, denigrating people who are actually doing something useful, achieving their goals, etc. Maybe you should get off your duffs and try to do something useful with those billions of dollars us tax payers are wasting on your paycheck every years while you sit on the ground scratching your asses.
Its more than a little silly on your part to slam Rutan's group because they didn't go from standing start to an orbital vehicle with $25 million. At least they are doing something new. NASA isn't doing anything they haven't been doing for the last ten years, which is mostly just trying to prevent a catastrophic Shuttle failure as the scope of their missions continually shrinks. NASA can't even send a mission to service the Hubble now. NASA can't even do missions its already done anymore. In my book that is a sign of failure, not the success that would justify your arrogance.
"I tend to wonder about the view that 'X politician just follows the polls and does whatever is popular.'"
The problem with the vote on Iraq was I don't think it would have been popular but for one thing. The Bush administration used propaganda, fabrication and deceit to sucker everyone in to thinking invading Iraq was the right thing to do. It was pretty obvious what they were doing at the time:
- Paint images of mushroom clouds and UAV's spraying american cities with biological weapons though they had no proof Iraq had any weapons or intent to use them against the U.S.
- Blame 9/11 on Iraq when it was obvious Iraq either had nothing to do with it or their role paled in comparison to that of Al Qaida.
I was screaming in frustration at the time because everyone was buying it without questioning it, media, politicians, everone. As I recall they scheduled the vote right before the mid term election to further coerce everone to vote their way.
You can't blame politicians for caving under the circumstances but you know everyone that did is devoid of backbone, principals, judgement and guts so you can't count on them doing the right thing under pressure. When you have politicians with the enormous power they have in the White House they need to do whats right first and explain it honestly to the people why it was right even if it wasn't popular. Most Americans dont have the knowledge or information to make foreign policy decisions so you really can't make most decisions based on polls.
In Kerry's case you would figure he would at least say his vote was a mistake since its become obvious the war was a lie but he doesn't even have the backbone to do that. He isn't trying to follow the will of the people that are voting for him. Democrats are mostly antiwar. He is trying to win a tiny handful of voters in the middle who don't necessarily like the war but want a strong leader. Kerry true to form conforms to the group he is trying to win over.
"Black Sky" ... was deceptive concerning what was actually accomplished. SS1 is a manned sounding rocket. That's it. It didn't even go that much higher than the V2 did, for YHVH's sake (and had a lower payload even when you add in the ss1's weight of the pressurized cabin)."
Forgot to answer this one. You work for NASA? I'm guessing so. I hate to point this out but SpaceShipOne currently surpasses NASA's current manned space program. NASA can't currently get a man off the ground.
SpaceShipOne matched and passed the X-15 which Uncle Sam spent a small fortune and years on. That is an amazing achievement for a small privately funded group.
Rutan's group were successful in achieving their goal and they did it on schedule and on budget. When is the last time NASA's manned program has done that? Did they put someone in orbit, no. That wasn't their goal this time. I think it is on their list of milestones once they get space tourism going and have a revenue stream.
Does NASA have a space tourism strategy, no. They actually tried to kill the Russian space tourism program.
Rutan can't expect billions from Uncle Sam. They have to work with donations or pay their way as they go. They were working with $25 million dollars this time. So I guess to satisfy you they needed to put someone in orbit for $25 million?
How long does it take NASA to spend $25 million, like a half hour. NASA spends $25 million on coffee breaks in a week. $25 million is like 1/40th of a single shuttle launch, assuming it ever does launch again and that was their entire budget for their entire program.
I'll grant you the do some good research especially if you get away from their manned space program. JPL does great work, they rock. I should reiterate I am slamming the nearly worthless "manned space program" only here, the shuttle and the ISS in particular. They are the ones that are wasting tons of money, bleeding the rest of NASA white, and not doing anything useful. Anyone in the rest of NASA my apologies if I though I was criticizing you, I wasn't.
Yes many people at NASA do innovative research. None of it is anywhere close to putting people or cargo into orbit or propelling them back to the moon or Mars. I assure you it will be decades before NASA even attempts to actually apply any new technology in a new manned vehicle, it will cost a fortune and it will more likely be canceled, delayed or fail than succeed. During Apollo NASA manned space flight division was a can-do organization. Now they are a can't-do organization and once big bureaucracies go bad they are nearly impossible to fix.
NASA can't even get people to LEO and the ISS safely at present. I'm sorry but the $1 billion+ price tag for a shuttle launch is unforgivable. So you say its expensive because of safety, well IT ISN'T SAFE. TRY AGAIN. They've lost two vehicles and two crews in like a hundred launches. Give it up. The shuttle was a failure. Nice idea, really bad execution, MOVE ON.
Its a lot easier to do experiments than it is to actually go in to production. NASA does some good R&D. They completely suck going in to production and have since the Space shuttle and ISS became their reason to exist.
"Apparently you've never heard of something called "budget cuts". Or "change of administrators", for that matter."
When NASA is squandering a billion plus dollars on a single launch whining about budget cuts is about as lame as it gets. You are just retreating to the standard set of lame excuses bureaucracies use when they waste lots of money and fail/ They blame everything on everyone but themselves.
Easy solution, get rid of the lame bureaucracy and let Burt Rutan do it instead. You give him 1 billion dollars, one shuttle launch's worth of money and he wont be whining about budgets or politicians. He will just come back in a couple years with a new, economical, reusable launch vehicle (though not a heavy lifter most probably).
I agree with the sentiment of your post, I'll be real happy if Bush loses too but lets not kid ourselves about Kerry.
... and on and on."
Kerry voted for and to this day still endorses the idea of invading Iraq and taking down Saddam. Voting for invading Iraq was the politically correct thing to do when it came up for a vote and Kerry ALWAYS adopts the politicly popular position. He is compelled to stay the course on Iraq or risk looking "weak" or like he likes Saddam. If you watch Kerry's ads all he says on Iraq is it was "a war poorly planned". That means Kerry is staying in Iraq he is just planning it better.
So, Kerry's only difference with Bush is he is quibbling about the details about how he actually did it. Most of it really is Monday morning quarterbacking and trying to find a position where he can look like he's different from Bush but doesn't look weak on national security. He was antiwar during the primaries because he needed to be to beat Dean. Now he is not really opposed to the war in Iraq again since he is trying to get the swing voter vote, many of whom support the Iraq war.
Fact is he is unlikely to pull out troops anytime soon. So chances are they will keep dieing at the same rate under Kerry as Bush, no difference. Kerry wants to add 2 divisions to the army which is only necessary if he is planning to use them for something, presumably continued occupation of Iraq. Two divisions aren't going to help you track down Bin Laden if you don't know where he is.
Kerry's big solution to Iraq is to work with our former allies and get them to shoulder the burden. Well none of them will shoulder that burden or send troops in to the quagmire whether Bush asks or Kerry asks. The U.S. broke it, the U.S. owns it. If Kerry were to unilaterally pull out it would quickly disintegrate in to a civil war and it would really have made everything sunk in it so far in treasure and blood a waste, and it really would make the Middle East more unstable than it was under Saddam. Saddam, if nothing else did maintain order.
"(1) He's fiscally conservative"
Maybe he is, maybe he isn't. All politicians say they are when they are trying to get elected and when they don't have power. Very few of them really are when they have blank checks to fill in.
Kerry is inheriting a fiscal mess and he does have a ton of new spending he wants to do and I really doubt he is going to balance the budget anytime in his first term. He probably couldn't be worse than Bush and the New Republicans on fiscal policy but that isn't saying anything.
At this point if someone tells you they are fiscally conservative don't believe it until they prove it.
"(5) He's actually aware of national security
In what way? All I've heard is empty rhetoric about how is going to spend billions on homeland security, first responders, and screening cargo. Well I hate to break it to you but most money being given to first responders is being wasted so it runs counter to "fiscally conservative. Apparently how the homeland security money is spent is supposed to be secret. A fire department in Colorado used it to build a weight room, many are just using it to fill the holes in their budget and nuy new patrol cars and the like.
Believe it or not we don't really need to give every podunk fire department in the country biochem warfare gear they will never use just so our politicans can say they are making use safe. It would be nice to screen all cargo entering the country but unless you have very fast technology to do it you are going to clog ports and hurt the economy. Long Beach can barely handle the container traffic now, without checking every container.
IF you saw the full transcript of Bin Laden's tape he is taunting the U.S. that they are going to bankrupt them. They spent a half million dollars on an attack that has cost the U.S. a trillion or two now. Everytime a politician tells you they are going to win the War on Terror or make you safe by squandering billions of dollars, please don't buy in to it.
If GPS failed and there was no fall back you do what you do now if ILS fails or there is zero visibility, you fly to an airport with visual flight rules. It might be nice to have the redundancy and I'm sure you would for a long period but I wager once GPS is established and has a good track record, ILS would slowly disappear. I don't know how much it costs but I'm pretty sure its pretty expensive, especially for cash strapped smaller airports.
"I would expect it is. Modern radars are taking advantage of some really cool DSP techniques. The missile's rate of speed is going to make it stick out pretty well."
I'm not so sure. The billion dollar radar the missile defense program has on a off shore platform is supposed to be able to see a baseball and which way its spinning from the other side of the country, but i think it only works for ballistic trajectories Cruise missiles fly nap of the earth, so surface radars can't track them due to the Earth's curvature. To track cruise missiles you need to have radar at high altitude or in space. Maybe the U.S. does but I doubt it has 360 coverage over all of North America, oh and then they sneak the missile in to Canada and launch from there. And of course they don't really need a cruise missile in the first place. They can smuggle a nuke across America's very pouress border and drive it in to a city in a Ryder truck or put it in to a lead lined cargo container. It would probably be easier than acquiring or building a long range cruise missile.
"It would be very nice if the Gallileo system provided for many more than two classes of service."
Like I said, in this day and age many would prefer to have quality GPS service for everyone and let the paranoid suffer. You will never be able to satisfy them. If you give them an inch they will just want another inch. Watch Dr. Strangelove if you haven't lately.
"It's not as if europeans can use the current GPS system."
I think Galileo has better resolution and coverage. I think they are trying to enable new GPS applications that can't be done with the current GPS precision and coverage. They are advancing technology as people are want to do with technology. And, of course, America isn't a particularly trustworthy country anymore. If other countries start relying on Amnerican GPS then America has a new means for blackmail, "Do what we say or we shut off your GPS".
"Nobody I know is cowering in fear,"
You must not know any Americans. As nearly as I can tell most people in the U.S. are living in fear. Thats why their politicians tell them how they are making them "safe" on a daily basis. Thats why they took down Iraq, they were afraid Saddam was going to nuke an American city. If that isn't cowering in fear and rampant paranoia I don't know what is. The U.S. got out of the cold war mentality for a few pleasant years and it pissed off the chicken hawks, the military and the right wing. Thanks to 9/11 they are now back to a new perpetual cold war mentality which is predicated on everyone cowering in fear and spending bucket loads of money on Defense in a futile search for absolute "safety".
If you read the full Bin Laden transcript released yesterday his most stinging rhetoric is Al Qaida is trying to bankrupt America. They spend a half million dollars on an ingenious attack and the U.S. spends a couple trillions dollars recovering from it and trying to guard against every conceivable new attack which is impossible. Maybe it wasn't their plan but it is obviously a pretty good one. A few more iterations like the last one and they win.
""if" they are not doing anything innovative"
I assure NASA's manned space program is doing nothing innovative to help the next breed of space capable crafts. NASA has set like 10 different dates for the Shuttle's return to service. The don't deserve praise for setting another one they probably wont deliver on. When they announced this date they couched it in all the same rhetoric about how aggressive it was and all the excuses for why they may not make it. The key thing about NASA's manned program, they get paid pretty much the same whether the do anything or not. They have no incentive to stick their necks out to be successful or innovative, they are just trying not to fail and preserve their budget. They have reached the point they aren't going to launch unless its "safe" and they are never going to make shuttle launches "safe".
If you want a new manned space vehicle turn part of NASA's manned space program budget over to Burt Rutan in no strings attached grants. I'm willing to bet in a couple years you would have the next generation SpaceShipOne doing weekly runs to the ISS, for a fraction of the price of the Shuttle, and you would actually be able to fully man the ISS with seven or so people and actually do something up there instead of having 2-3 people who spend most of their time just maintaining it. If nothing else you could actually turn it in to the first space hotel and get people excited about space again, maybe charge the wealthy an arm a leg for a one week stay and let a few ordinary folks go for a week at $59 a night.
If you had just given Rutan all the money NASA has spent doing nothing since the last accident you would probably soon have a whole new fleet of truly economical and reusable vehicles.
If you want to restore your faith in manned space exploration look for the Discover Channel's multipart documentary on Rutan's successful run for the X Prize, "Black Sky: The Race For Space". They ran it in early October and I haven't seen a rerun. It is a great documentary, a great story and they look to be a great group of people doing amazing things on a shoestring and they clearly really care about what they are doing as opposed to the people at NASA.
Burt does have concepts for a next generation ship to go in to orbit. If he had the money he just might make it happen.
You need to be careful to not give Rutan to much money because you would risk turning them in to a completely corrupted oversized bureaucracy that doesn't do anything but spend money.
"And it's not like this is the first time a European country has made a bad decision."
I think Europe is doing the same thing the U.S. is doing. They are treating China as an economic partner, a place to trade and to make a euro. China is chipping in something like 200 million euros as its part of the partnership. I'd be inclined to agree trusting a dictatorship with a lot of mutual animosity with the West is maybe not such a great idea but everyone is doing it.
I don't really follow your whole arguement about rogue states and terrorists using GPS to launch a surprise attack. Fact is the U.S. probably wont know this is happening until it happens unless America's radar coverage is good and responsive enough to catch cruise missiles. Having the ability to deny GPS service is useless unless you know an attack is coming. A surprise attack on the U.S. can exploit the U.S. GPS and doesn't need Galileo. Degradation and encryption only works if you are in an extended conflict against a known enemy.
The classic American military response to this problem is they degrade service to everyone who doesn't have access to the encrypted military channel. The only problem is this severely degrades or precludes many of the valuable civilian applications of GPS like automated landing of aircraft in bad weather.
I imagine the European persective is they would prefer to tap the potential of high precision, widely available GPS and let the Americans cower in their bunkers fearing attack from every direction. Meanwhile they will exploit all the economic advantages of the civilian applications.
There really are a million ways to attack the U.S. in the modern world and you aren't going to be able to stop all of the them. It might be a better strategy to use carrots, get along with people better in the world, avoid pissing off so many people with the bull in a china shop foreign policy, and just carry a big stick so if anyone attacks you they know what they will get in return.
Yea and they are really expensive to maintain since you have to have a complex set of beacons at every airport. I think a relatively complex set of gear is needed on the airplane to. I wager switching to GPS would be cheaper on both ends. Also if an airport doesnt have the gear you dont do instrument landings there.
I'm willing to bet you if there were 1 meter GPS and all airplanes were equipped with landing systems that exploited it the ILS systems would in fact be rapidly abandoned. You would also presumably be able to instrument land at any airport you have GPS coordinates for which is currently not the case
Not being a pilot but I think there are restrictions on ILS too its only for the approach and not the actual landing. There is a decision height(DH) of 200 feeting for class 1 gear and 100 feet for class 2 gear at which point the pilot has to be able to see the runway lights. In really poor visibility ILS airports still have to shut down. I wager with 1 meter GPS you could probably land in zero visibility probably without the pilot in the loop.
I'm kind of the school that the world is a better place when you have at least two superpowers whomever they are or no superpowers.
The world is a really dangerous place when you have one hyperpower that has a nut as its leader and which has such vast military superiority that the world is powerless to stop him, not saying that would ever happen 8)
Besides, China is like our best friend on the planet now. They are where the entire manufacturing segment of our economy resides and probably where out technology sector is going next. They are kind of like our 51st state now, New Ohio. China doesn't need to use guided missile to get what they want anymore, they can just shut off the container ship traffic and the west will cave.
Uh, read The New America Century statement of principials. Whether they can be successful at it is open to debate but it is their goal.
The only mistake they made in Iraq was to attempt an occupation, oh and in thinking the Iraqi's would welcome them with open arms. I assure you "Shock and Awe" was entirely about sending a message of intimidation to the next countries on the list Iran, Syria, maybe North Korea and basically the rest of the world. America may not be able to successfully occupy anything without reinstating the draft and putting a couple million Americans in army boots, but they can pulverize any smaller nation they choose and remove its leader in a very short period of time. Now that every country knows that, the U.S. neocons are thinking they can intimidate everyone in to doing what they want without using force. Unfortunately it isn't working on North Korea or Iran who are just accelerating their nuclear programs so they can intimidate back.
The Bush administration plan to field a missile defense system kind of falls in to this. They would like to make America's nuclear deterent unidirectional and preclude anyone from striking back. Its kind of crazy especially with China and Russia but the people who signed the New American Century are pretty crazy, Dick Cheney, Don Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz and Jeb Bush representing the Bush clan.
"Perhaps you were unware, but the US an EU are ALLIES!"
Uh, perhaps you were unaware that China is a now an official partner in Galileo, have been since they signed a deal in 2003. How do reconcile your little rant about "fascist regimes" and the fact they are partnering with your allies in the EU. Not sure of the exact terms but I doubt China is signing up to help develop and pay for a system that the EU can shut off on them.
I'm pretty sure it is massively chapping America's ass that China is a partner and its chapping China's ass that America is presuming to dictate to the world what is and isn't allowed.
"It's important that the EU understands the responsibility they are taking on."
So you are saying is the U.S. is the only one that understands this technology stuff and its America's job to show their dumb little cousins in Europe how to do it, otherwise they will screw up.
"It's important that the EU understands the responsibility they are taking on."
And if the EU interprets that responsibility different from America, then the U.S. will make them see the light, by jammer if necessary. Gotta love the "Our way or the highway" mindset that permeates America these days.
Correct me if I'm wrong but Glonass only provides 100 meter accuracy on its unencrypted channels. You can get accuracy better than that with unguided gravity bombs. The military channel isn't even that great 10-20 meter accuracy.
Galileo is supposed to have signals in the clear of 1 meter accuracy which makes it exceptionally good for GPS guided weapons. GPS is also really integral to American war fighting now. I'm guessing they want to deny its benefits to China and terrorists in particular.
OK since some people seem to think this post has merit, I don't know why:
Skull and bones is a 100% American. Where exactly did you get "they are a power out of Europe". They are in fact full of wealthy and powerful Americans dedicated to expanding America's wealth and power and dictating to the rest of the world. They are close cousins to the Neocons. If you want to read their outline for global domination read The New American Century. Many of the people behind this statement are in the current administration and key backers of the war in Iraq, including Dick Cheney, Don Rumsfeld, Jeb Bush and Paul Wolfowitz. It is kind of a noble sounding statement, freedom and all, until you appreciate its dark side is it advocates American domination of the world.
The only thing out of Europe about Skull and Bones is yes they are very much an American version of forming a ruling elite like those you find in Great Britain. You know... the sons of the wealthy elite are sent to prep schools and the Ivy League and get the best of everything (like Bush and Kerry), they are qualified to lead and ordinary Americans(like Clinton) aren't. Clinton was basically trailer trash, Rhodes scholar aside, and its one reason the powers that be hounded him every minute he was in office.
Yes there have been cartels since before the USA, though the RIAA/MPAA obviously aren't examples of the same, recording and motion pictures, not being invented until long after the US came in to being. They aren't doing much but trying to protect and maximize the profits they make on mostly bad music and bad movies. I'm not sure they actually count for much on the global stage because their products are so bad and devoid of substance, though people the world over still seem to buy them for some reason. Maybe they are good sedatives. To break the RIAA's back form a band that makes music that doesn't suck and sell it over ITunes without selling your soul to them. To break the MPAA's back stop watching bad movies which is most of them.
One might guess you are alluding to a global Jewish conspiracy, if thats what you are getting at why don't you just spit it out and get flamed for it instead of using all the veiled references like "a power out of Europe" and "cartels". What the hell is that.
Bottomline you are doing what all American's do these days, especially our political leaders. Blame everything bad America does on someone else, instead of taking responsibility when we let our government do bad things. Ranting about "the right to own guns" as being the solution is bullshit until and unless you and probably a whole bunch of others are ready to use them. It would probably be a blood bath and you would probably lose. It may well be that it will come to that if American government stays its current course but I'd say at the moment you are blowing smoke.