Why use SSMEs? Because they're already man-rated and have an outstanding safety record. Sure, we could design a new, cheaper-to-build engine that would do the same job, but how many flights would it need before we trusted it as much as we trust SSMEs?
"There isn't enough platinum on earth..." Yes, I know. You are aware that asteroids are not on the Earth's surface, right?:p
I wouldn't say that finding a suitable alternative to platinum is more realistic. We know for a fact that far more metals than we will ever need (and not just platinum) are readily available to us in space. We don't know that a new material will be found that offers the same (or better) properties that we need for this one application (although I'll agree that it is likely). Something that's known as a fact to be possible is definitely "a more realistic scenario" than hypothetical research for something that may or may not exist.
And note that I didn't say that one small asteroid would be worth $150B. I said the tiny fraction of it that's platinum-group metals would be worth $150B at current prices and then stated that the price would drop considerably with the amount available from serious mining of asteroids. That inevitable drastic drop in price is kind of the whole point of my posts on this subject, since I was pointing out a way to make the above-mentioned car affordable.
The vast majority of the materials mined from "my" asteroid would be another hundred billion dollars or two of iron, nickel, the strategic metal cobalt, etc. Ripping up the Earth's surface, recycling, and yes, even materials science doesn't do anything to diminish the worth of those resources available in such vast quantities.
You nailed it. The Earth is made of the same stuff, it's just that the heavier (and generally more desirable) portions mostly settled down into the core during the formation of the planet. On AVERAGE, the Earth is extremely rich in iron and those other metals (in similar proportions to a typical asteroid), but almost all of it is inaccessible to us. Our current technological civilization is essentially built on the poor scraps that were left over from forming the Earth's core.
But with a little ingenuity, perseverance and funding, we can do much better. Shifting NEAs into Highly Elliptical Earth Orbit is very feasible using Nuclear Thermal Rocket engines that were developed and (very!) successfuly ground-tested back in the '60s. Mining these asteroids not only would provide human civilization with an essentially limitless source of raw materials without needing to rip up any more of the Earth's surface, but would also eliminate the same asteroids that are most likely to impact the Earth sometime in the future. That sounds like a hell of a good deal to me.
You're missing that a typical nickel-iron asteroid (based on meteorite samples) contains about 15 parts per million platinum, in concentrations at least 10 times better than the best terrestrial ore. Maybe I should have spelled that out. Sorry, I thought we were all geeks here.
But anyway, a relatively small 1km diameter nickel-iron asteroid would mass about 2 billion tons, of which 200 million tons would be iron, 30 million tons nickel, 1.5 million tons cobalt and 7,500 tons of platinum-group metals. At current prices, that's 150 BILLION dollars for the platinum alone. NEAs are also relatively accessible from the Earth, with much lower delta-V requirements than trips to the main belt asteroids. Would anyone like to invest in my start-up asteroid mining company?
Of course, dropping all that platinum on the world market would probably depress the price considerably, probably enough to make the above-mentioned cars very affordable once we get into serious use of all those vast resources floating around up there over our heads.
Or until we maneuver a nickel-iron Near Earth Asteroid into Earth-orbit and mine the metals, bringing the price of platinum down to a couple of dollars a pound.
Thank God I read Larry Niven's Smoke Ring novels or I would have never had even a tiny grasp of orbital mechanics!
It's definately counter-intuitive to those of us who didn't spend a lot of time in free-fall as children.
Ariane is a launcher, not a spacecraft.
Of course, that's besides the fact that the shuttles are simply a bad design with no meaningful mission, all of which I've been bitching about for 20 years.
LD was never positioned as a competitor for videotape. It was always marketed as an "upscale" alternative to tape. They already had their highly successful video tape market. Why would they attack that with their LD products? They were able to maintain higher margins on LD by selling it (the superior, more expensive product) alongside tape (the mediocre, cheap product). That's why LD remained a niche market rather than a mass market item... Because the people selling it made more money that way, pushing two seperate product lines aimed at different markets.
Or is that what you meant, that HD-DVD and Blu-Ray together become the "new LD" while regular DVD becomes the "new tape?" I can see that as a potential result of this format-fiasco.
In recent history, it's the other way around. France automatically does the opposite of whatever the USA does, just because it's their stated foreign policy goal to counter the US in all matters.
Prices are already too high. If RIAA-approved sources sold tracks for half of the current prices, I'd be tempted. At a third of their current prices, I'd be buying thousands of tracks from them. At the current (or higher!) prices, forget it. I'll keep buying from my non-RIAA-approved sources.
The V-Chip and Closed Captioning were required by the FCC based on CONGRESSIONAL decisions. The FCC introduced the Broadcast Flag on their own, which may be exceeding the limits of their authority.
Living on the moon wouldn't necessarily teach us a lot about getting to Mars, landing on it, etc. Maybe not much more than we learned in the '60s and '70s. Going to Mars, and living there, is really an apples and oranges comparison to doing the same things on the moon.
I'm not saying it would be a waste of time, either, though. We certainly would learn useful things by doing that. But would it be enough to justify the time and costs involved? Mars, with it's potential as a second earth-like world in our own solar system, makes it infinitely more important than our moon.
If this is a subject that interests you, may I suggest Dr. Robert Zubrin's book "The Case for Mars"? He describes a realistic plan for reaching Mars on a reasonable budget with acceptable safety margins.
Because Mars, with it's thin atmosphere, native water, easily accessible oxygen supplies, higher gravity, 24ish hour day, etc would be much easier to live on than our moon.
Colonizing Mars first IS the "babysteps."
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Why use SSMEs? Because they're already man-rated and have an outstanding safety record. Sure, we could design a new, cheaper-to-build engine that would do the same job, but how many flights would it need before we trusted it as much as we trust SSMEs?
Welcome to the 20th century? You're living in the past, man. Move on!
You don't see a 6m increase in sea level from the melting of the Greenland ice sheet to be a significant impact?
"There isn't enough platinum on earth..." Yes, I know. You are aware that asteroids are not on the Earth's surface, right? :p
I wouldn't say that finding a suitable alternative to platinum is more realistic. We know for a fact that far more metals than we will ever need (and not just platinum) are readily available to us in space. We don't know that a new material will be found that offers the same (or better) properties that we need for this one application (although I'll agree that it is likely). Something that's known as a fact to be possible is definitely "a more realistic scenario" than hypothetical research for something that may or may not exist.
And note that I didn't say that one small asteroid would be worth $150B. I said the tiny fraction of it that's platinum-group metals would be worth $150B at current prices and then stated that the price would drop considerably with the amount available from serious mining of asteroids. That inevitable drastic drop in price is kind of the whole point of my posts on this subject, since I was pointing out a way to make the above-mentioned car affordable.
The vast majority of the materials mined from "my" asteroid would be another hundred billion dollars or two of iron, nickel, the strategic metal cobalt, etc. Ripping up the Earth's surface, recycling, and yes, even materials science doesn't do anything to diminish the worth of those resources available in such vast quantities.
It was resolved six weeks before this article was posted on /.!
You nailed it. The Earth is made of the same stuff, it's just that the heavier (and generally more desirable) portions mostly settled down into the core during the formation of the planet. On AVERAGE, the Earth is extremely rich in iron and those other metals (in similar proportions to a typical asteroid), but almost all of it is inaccessible to us. Our current technological civilization is essentially built on the poor scraps that were left over from forming the Earth's core.
But with a little ingenuity, perseverance and funding, we can do much better. Shifting NEAs into Highly Elliptical Earth Orbit is very feasible using Nuclear Thermal Rocket engines that were developed and (very!) successfuly ground-tested back in the '60s. Mining these asteroids not only would provide human civilization with an essentially limitless source of raw materials without needing to rip up any more of the Earth's surface, but would also eliminate the same asteroids that are most likely to impact the Earth sometime in the future. That sounds like a hell of a good deal to me.
You're missing that a typical nickel-iron asteroid (based on meteorite samples) contains about 15 parts per million platinum, in concentrations at least 10 times better than the best terrestrial ore. Maybe I should have spelled that out. Sorry, I thought we were all geeks here.
But anyway, a relatively small 1km diameter nickel-iron asteroid would mass about 2 billion tons, of which 200 million tons would be iron, 30 million tons nickel, 1.5 million tons cobalt and 7,500 tons of platinum-group metals. At current prices, that's 150 BILLION dollars for the platinum alone. NEAs are also relatively accessible from the Earth, with much lower delta-V requirements than trips to the main belt asteroids. Would anyone like to invest in my start-up asteroid mining company?
Of course, dropping all that platinum on the world market would probably depress the price considerably, probably enough to make the above-mentioned cars very affordable once we get into serious use of all those vast resources floating around up there over our heads.
Or until we maneuver a nickel-iron Near Earth Asteroid into Earth-orbit and mine the metals, bringing the price of platinum down to a couple of dollars a pound.
Thank God I read Larry Niven's Smoke Ring novels or I would have never had even a tiny grasp of orbital mechanics! It's definately counter-intuitive to those of us who didn't spend a lot of time in free-fall as children.
Seeing as how the shuttles simply reused facilities originally built for the Saturn V, I think we'll be OK.
Ariane is a launcher, not a spacecraft. Of course, that's besides the fact that the shuttles are simply a bad design with no meaningful mission, all of which I've been bitching about for 20 years.
Yeah, let me know when you've completed your environmental impact statement for launching from the earth's surface with a gas-core NTR.
If the company has gone out of the business, why are you worried about the EULA?
Yeah, but it really sucked for the people driving on divided highways at the moment. Only a few with 4-wheel-drive made it.
I lived in Hawaii for 8 years and NOT having DST was one of the best parts of my stay there.
Circumventing a lock you have the legal right to access is illegal under the DMCA. It eliminates all such rights to your own property.
If I had control of something with such a similar name to something that I tended to get a bad rap by association, I would change the name I used.
LD was never positioned as a competitor for videotape. It was always marketed as an "upscale" alternative to tape. They already had their highly successful video tape market. Why would they attack that with their LD products? They were able to maintain higher margins on LD by selling it (the superior, more expensive product) alongside tape (the
mediocre, cheap product). That's why LD remained a niche market rather than a mass market item... Because the people selling it made more money that way, pushing two seperate product lines aimed at different markets.
Or is that what you meant, that HD-DVD and Blu-Ray together become the "new LD" while regular DVD becomes the "new tape?" I can see that as a potential result of this format-fiasco.
I'd have to agree with the people who say "You don't need any of this crap... You need a staff."
In recent history, it's the other way around. France automatically does the opposite of whatever the USA does, just because it's their stated foreign policy goal to counter the US in all matters.
Prices are already too high. If RIAA-approved sources sold tracks for half of the current prices, I'd be tempted. At a third of their current prices, I'd be buying thousands of tracks from them. At the current (or higher!) prices, forget it. I'll keep buying from my non-RIAA-approved sources.
The V-Chip and Closed Captioning were required by the FCC based on CONGRESSIONAL decisions. The FCC introduced the Broadcast Flag on their own, which may be exceeding the limits of their authority.
Living on the moon wouldn't necessarily teach us a lot about getting to Mars, landing on it, etc. Maybe not much more than we learned in the '60s and '70s. Going to Mars, and living there, is really an apples and oranges comparison to doing the same things on the moon.
I'm not saying it would be a waste of time, either, though. We certainly would learn useful things by doing that. But would it be enough to justify the time and costs involved? Mars, with it's potential as a second earth-like world in our own solar system, makes it infinitely more important than our moon.
If this is a subject that interests you, may I suggest Dr. Robert Zubrin's book "The Case for Mars"? He describes a realistic plan for reaching Mars on a reasonable budget with acceptable safety margins.
Because Mars, with it's thin atmosphere, native water, easily accessible oxygen supplies, higher gravity, 24ish hour day, etc would be much easier to live on than our moon. Colonizing Mars first IS the "babysteps."
I thought those scrolls had just been found recently hidden below a church in New York.