Such is the eternal problem with being a political left-winger who strongly supports the space program, I suppose. The candidates who I tend to agree with on most issues usually differ with me on the importance of space exploration.
A notable exception was Dennis Kucinich, who repeatedly called for substantial increases to the NASA budget, but was pretty much pushed out of the race by the party machine and the corporate media.
after all, Nader or or no Nader, if the Dems can't win by a frickin' landslide after 8 years of piss-poor GOP leadership, an illegal, unpopular war, and an economy in the toilet, maybe it's time for THEM to hang it up and let a REAL opposition party have a chance.
Have fun voting Obama with the rest of the sheep....
Depending on which synthesis technique you are talking about, some of the ingredients (red phosphorus, phenylacetone, hydriodic acid, methylamine, etc.) will be "listed precursor chemicals", regulated by the DEA.
And under federal (and some state) laws, mere POSSESSION of pseudoephedrine cold medicine along with one or more of the other ingredients can be enough to face a "conspiracy to manufacture" charge. You don't have to actually mix anything (or even intend to do so) in order to become a victim of the War on(some)Drugs.
I WOULD like to hear something from Ralph Nader regarding space and the NASA budget, though. Hopefully his position is better than Obama's idea to effectively ground the program for about 10 years (after which it may not be too easy to restart).
There was a lot of pressure from some members of congress (particularly Walter Mondale) to shut the program down after the fire. Fortunately, cooler heads prevailed, and the program recovered from the tragedy with the launch of Apollo 7 the next year.
I assume that you meant to say "Challenger", as the Columbia broke up on reentry, rather than exploding after launch.
In the case of Challenger, there are 2 pieces of solid evidence that the range safety system was NOT the cause of the explosion that come to mind immediately. First of all is the film taken of the flight that clearly shows the gas plume leaking from the SRB joint before the explosion. The cause of the explosion was CLEARLY captured on film! Secondly, the range safety system actually FUNCTIONED when it was activated after the vehicle broke up. When the large external fuel tank exploded, the SRBs were seen flying away from the wreckage on their own. Because they started to head toward inhabited areas, they were remotely destroyed AFTER the main explosion, by activating the range safety system. If the RSS was the cause of the initial explosion, the SRBs would never have survived the breakup, and the RSS would not have been able to function a second time.
in his book "Riding Rockets". The Range Safety system is nothing new, having been on almost every manned and unmanned launch that NASA or the USAF ever put up. The RSO is an Air Force officer, who intentionally avoids any social contact with the astronauts, so as not to allow personal feelings override his/her duty to protect the public from a wayward launch.
In Mullane's book, he questions the the mindset of the NASA engineer who thought it a good idea to have the RSS system light an indicator lamp in the shuttle cockpit, giving the astronauts a second or 2 of notice (with no way to intervene) before the charges go off.
He also relates an amusing story of a fellow astronaut making obscene comments about the RSO's mother over the Air/Ground link as they sat on the pad waiting out a launch hold.
"Safety First" may not be responsible for putting a man on the moon, but rushing things and making stupid mistakes certainly has killed a few astronauts over the years...
Re:Burning a house down is the least of his concer
on
Hobbyist Renewable Energy?
·
· Score: 2, Informative
Having a renewable energy system backfeed the grid under normal circumstances is perfectly fine (and lots of fun to see your electric meter spin backwards). It took a lot of effort by system manufacturers and RE hobbyists to get utilities to reluctantly accept so-called "net metering", and allow small producers to sell power back to the utility. But there are very specific requirtements for doing so, including automatic isolation of inverters and a visible, accessible disconnect switch on your house so that you can be physically disconnected is required.
Burning a house down is the least of his concerns
on
Hobbyist Renewable Energy?
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
I would also think long and hard about criminal liability for the death or injury to utility workers who get killed because his system was backfeeding the power grid.
Those transformers on the poles work just as well when operated backwards, stepping the 120V output from your inverter up to the 7-13 kV distribution level. Unless your inverter has enough "smarts" to isolate itself from the grid in the absence of utility power, your system will attempt to power up your part of the utility network, resulting in a severely overloaded inverter (with resultant blown fuses/smoke/fire) at the best, or a serious hazard to lineworkers at the worst.
People HAVE been sued when lineworkers are killed/injured by improperly installed generators or PV systems that resulted in backfeed. Prosecution for criminally negligent homicide is also a possibility, especially if the prosecution can prove that you KNEW of the need for automatic isolation, but failed to provide it in order to save a buck.
In short, use properly designed equipment, installed according to manufacturer's instructions (and get the proper permits/inspections as required), or stick with a completely isolated low voltage DC system.
AFAIK, hard drives don't use any more toxic materials than any other consumer electronics, and in many cases outlast the computers they are installed in. They also perform a useful function better and more economically than any other alternative at present.
If you want to talk about wasteful consumer electronics, crap like remote controls for car stereos, USB-powered electric pencil sharpeners, or LED-studded kid's shoes seem to beat hard drives hands down.
[quote]I've heard of extreme wack-jobs that won't eat honey because we've enslaved the bees.[/quote]
Hell, that's pretty "mainstream" as far as veganism goes.
I knew a guy who refused to have his picture taken (back in the pre-digital days), because the film emulsion was made with gelatin (boiled down bones, hooves, and skin), and refused to drive or ride rubber-tired vehicles, because the black pigment in the rubber is charcoal made from animal bones.
Last time I heard from him, he had become a "freegan", and was dumpster-diving food scraps from restaurants.
The problem is that the interference will not only cause local problems. The frequencies used for BPL include what is commonly called the "HF" spectrum, which has the unique property of WORLDWIDE PROPAGATION via reflection off the ionosphere. Ham radio operators have successfully communicated around the planet on these frequencies using a few watts or even MILLIwatts of power.
It is quite possible for a BPL system in Indonesia to wipe out HF communications on the other side of the world, given proper ionospheric conditions.
Remember a few years back when Johns Hopkins researcher Dr. George Ricaurte put out a study (Government funded through NIDA) that claimed that a single dose of MDMA (ecstasy) posed a serious risk of death or permanent brain damage? Never mind that ravers in real life weren't having to step over dead bodies on the dance floor every weekend, the media and elected officials licked this crap up, and all kinds of draconian laws were passed (like the RAVE act).
A few non-government funded scientists raised a few questions about Ricaurte's methodology, and he was forced to admit his "mistake" in feeding his test monkeys not equavalent human dosages of MDMA, but whopping overdoses of crystal meth!
Whoops! Guess he'll try harder on his next NIDA grant, right?
I'm wondering about the mechanics of exactly how this happened, as well. Do the 2 components have similar part numbers, and someone swapped a digit by mistake? Warehouse guys put parts in the wrong bins? A correct order shipped to the wrong recipient (is there a nuclear missile crew somewhere that got a box of helicopter batteries instead of the replacement nosecones they ordered)?
I saw the story on TV news last night, and the items they showed looked like the stereotypical "nose cone", with a big wiring harness and connectors hanging out of the open end.
What I am curious about is exactly WHAT the electronics here consisted of. Are we talking about the system that senses altitude and triggers the detonation sequence (which would be serious enough), or was this the actual "X-unit" electronics package that fires all the separate detonators on the explosive lenses to compress the plutonium pit?
If the latter is actually what they shipped out (complete with the krytron switches, high energy capacitors, etc.), then some heads REALLY need to roll over this one. The media isn't being all that specific about what is actually involved here, either because the DoD isn't telling them, or because of the usual "dumbing down" of anything that might be considered too technical for Joe Sixpack to care about.
, they will STILL reduce the overall mercury emission into the environment over their lifetime, compared to equivalent incandescent bulbs.
Mercury (and uranium!) is present in the smokestack emissions from coal-burning powerplants. By reducing the amount of electricity used, CFLs actually reduce overall mercury emissions. And since the mercury they do contain is in a sealed glass tube (as opposed to being spewed into the atmosphere and settling out onto the ground), their toxic content is easily managed through recycling efforts.
than the pressures being talked about to make silane superconduct.
SF6 insulated cables and switchgear generally operate only a few PSI above atmospheric pressure. Just enough to prevent water vapor from the atmosphere from getting into the equipment. Designing equipment to contain a small positive gas pressure is trivial compared to containing the MILLIONS of PSI being talked about in TFA.
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Kiss her where it smells--Take her to Jersey!
I believe that was Bob Dylan...
They use it to conduct psyops against the populace, and whip up support for whatever military operation GE might be selling weapons systems for next.
Also comes in handy for whitewashing their union-busting and environmental crimes, as well.
Such is the eternal problem with being a political left-winger who strongly supports the space program, I suppose. The candidates who I tend to agree with on most issues usually differ with me on the importance of space exploration.
A notable exception was Dennis Kucinich, who repeatedly called for substantial increases to the NASA budget, but was pretty much pushed out of the race by the party machine and the corporate media.
after all, Nader or or no Nader, if the Dems can't win by a frickin' landslide after 8 years of piss-poor GOP leadership, an illegal, unpopular war, and an economy in the toilet, maybe it's time for THEM to hang it up and let a REAL opposition party have a chance.
Have fun voting Obama with the rest of the sheep....
Not quite.
Depending on which synthesis technique you are talking about, some of the ingredients (red phosphorus, phenylacetone, hydriodic acid, methylamine, etc.) will be "listed precursor chemicals", regulated by the DEA.
And under federal (and some state) laws, mere POSSESSION of pseudoephedrine cold medicine along with one or more of the other ingredients can be enough to face a "conspiracy to manufacture" charge. You don't have to actually mix anything (or even intend to do so) in order to become a victim of the War on(some)Drugs.
, so even if we completely eliminated it, we still wouldn't be able to make a dent in the problems of health care and a living wage.
OTOH, if we cut a couple hundred billion from the Pentagon budget every year, we could have national health care AND a base on Mars....
, and he probably has my vote at this point, as Clinton/Obama/McCain all pretty much disgust me.
http://www.votenader.org/
I WOULD like to hear something from Ralph Nader regarding space and the NASA budget, though. Hopefully his position is better than Obama's idea to effectively ground the program for about 10 years (after which it may not be too easy to restart).
, and the summary is available online at:
http://klabs.org/richcontent/Reports/Failure_Reports/as-204/senate_956/index.htm
There was a lot of pressure from some members of congress (particularly Walter Mondale) to shut the program down after the fire. Fortunately, cooler heads prevailed, and the program recovered from the tragedy with the launch of Apollo 7 the next year.
I assume that you meant to say "Challenger", as the Columbia broke up on reentry, rather than exploding after launch.
In the case of Challenger, there are 2 pieces of solid evidence that the range safety system was NOT the cause of the explosion that come to mind immediately. First of all is the film taken of the flight that clearly shows the gas plume leaking from the SRB joint before the explosion. The cause of the explosion was CLEARLY captured on film! Secondly, the range safety system actually FUNCTIONED when it was activated after the vehicle broke up. When the large external fuel tank exploded, the SRBs were seen flying away from the wreckage on their own. Because they started to head toward inhabited areas, they were remotely destroyed AFTER the main explosion, by activating the range safety system. If the RSS was the cause of the initial explosion, the SRBs would never have survived the breakup, and the RSS would not have been able to function a second time.
It is used as a fuel for the auxiliary power units (APUs) which provide hydraulic power to gimbal the SRB nozzles.
in his book "Riding Rockets". The Range Safety system is nothing new, having been on almost every manned and unmanned launch that NASA or the USAF ever put up. The RSO is an Air Force officer, who intentionally avoids any social contact with the astronauts, so as not to allow personal feelings override his/her duty to protect the public from a wayward launch.
In Mullane's book, he questions the the mindset of the NASA engineer who thought it a good idea to have the RSS system light an indicator lamp in the shuttle cockpit, giving the astronauts a second or 2 of notice (with no way to intervene) before the charges go off.
He also relates an amusing story of a fellow astronaut making obscene comments about the RSO's mother over the Air/Ground link as they sat on the pad waiting out a launch hold.
"Safety First" may not be responsible for putting a man on the moon, but rushing things and making stupid mistakes certainly has killed a few astronauts over the years...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_1
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_Challenger_disaster
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_Columbia_disaster
Having a renewable energy system backfeed the grid under normal circumstances is perfectly fine (and lots of fun to see your electric meter spin backwards). It took a lot of effort by system manufacturers and RE hobbyists to get utilities to reluctantly accept so-called "net metering", and allow small producers to sell power back to the utility. But there are very specific requirtements for doing so, including automatic isolation of inverters and a visible, accessible disconnect switch on your house so that you can be physically disconnected is required.
I would also think long and hard about criminal liability for the death or injury to utility workers who get killed because his system was backfeeding the power grid.
Those transformers on the poles work just as well when operated backwards, stepping the 120V output from your inverter up to the 7-13 kV distribution level. Unless your inverter has enough "smarts" to isolate itself from the grid in the absence of utility power, your system will attempt to power up your part of the utility network, resulting in a severely overloaded inverter (with resultant blown fuses/smoke/fire) at the best, or a serious hazard to lineworkers at the worst.
People HAVE been sued when lineworkers are killed/injured by improperly installed generators or PV systems that resulted in backfeed. Prosecution for criminally negligent homicide is also a possibility, especially if the prosecution can prove that you KNEW of the need for automatic isolation, but failed to provide it in order to save a buck.
In short, use properly designed equipment, installed according to manufacturer's instructions (and get the proper permits/inspections as required), or stick with a completely isolated low voltage DC system.
Just wondering how you arrive at your conclusion.
AFAIK, hard drives don't use any more toxic materials than any other consumer electronics, and in many cases outlast the computers they are installed in. They also perform a useful function better and more economically than any other alternative at present.
If you want to talk about wasteful consumer electronics, crap like remote controls for car stereos, USB-powered electric pencil sharpeners, or LED-studded kid's shoes seem to beat hard drives hands down.
[quote]I've heard of extreme wack-jobs that won't eat honey because we've enslaved the bees.[/quote]
Hell, that's pretty "mainstream" as far as veganism goes.
I knew a guy who refused to have his picture taken (back in the pre-digital days), because the film emulsion was made with gelatin (boiled down bones, hooves, and skin), and refused to drive or ride rubber-tired vehicles, because the black pigment in the rubber is charcoal made from animal bones.
Last time I heard from him, he had become a "freegan", and was dumpster-diving food scraps from restaurants.
Especially a soldier whose major military career accomplishment seems to have been getting shot down and held captive...
The problem is that the interference will not only cause local problems. The frequencies used for BPL include what is commonly called the "HF" spectrum, which has the unique property of WORLDWIDE PROPAGATION via reflection off the ionosphere. Ham radio operators have successfully communicated around the planet on these frequencies using a few watts or even MILLIwatts of power.
It is quite possible for a BPL system in Indonesia to wipe out HF communications on the other side of the world, given proper ionospheric conditions.
http://www.tampax.com/
http://www.kotex.com/
in exchange for funding.
Remember a few years back when Johns Hopkins researcher Dr. George Ricaurte put out a study (Government funded through NIDA) that claimed that a single dose of MDMA (ecstasy) posed a serious risk of death or permanent brain damage? Never mind that ravers in real life weren't having to step over dead bodies on the dance floor every weekend, the media and elected officials licked this crap up, and all kinds of draconian laws were passed (like the RAVE act).
A few non-government funded scientists raised a few questions about Ricaurte's methodology, and he was forced to admit his "mistake" in feeding his test monkeys not equavalent human dosages of MDMA, but whopping overdoses of crystal meth!
Whoops! Guess he'll try harder on his next NIDA grant, right?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retracted_article_on_neurotoxicity_of_ecstasy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Ricaurte
I'm wondering about the mechanics of exactly how this happened, as well. Do the 2 components have similar part numbers, and someone swapped a digit by mistake? Warehouse guys put parts in the wrong bins? A correct order shipped to the wrong recipient (is there a nuclear missile crew somewhere that got a box of helicopter batteries instead of the replacement nosecones they ordered)?
I saw the story on TV news last night, and the items they showed looked like the stereotypical "nose cone", with a big wiring harness and connectors hanging out of the open end.
What I am curious about is exactly WHAT the electronics here consisted of. Are we talking about the system that senses altitude and triggers the detonation sequence (which would be serious enough), or was this the actual "X-unit" electronics package that fires all the separate detonators on the explosive lenses to compress the plutonium pit?
If the latter is actually what they shipped out (complete with the krytron switches, high energy capacitors, etc.), then some heads REALLY need to roll over this one. The media isn't being all that specific about what is actually involved here, either because the DoD isn't telling them, or because of the usual "dumbing down" of anything that might be considered too technical for Joe Sixpack to care about.
, they will STILL reduce the overall mercury emission into the environment over their lifetime, compared to equivalent incandescent bulbs.
Mercury (and uranium!) is present in the smokestack emissions from coal-burning powerplants. By reducing the amount of electricity used, CFLs actually reduce overall mercury emissions. And since the mercury they do contain is in a sealed glass tube (as opposed to being spewed into the atmosphere and settling out onto the ground), their toxic content is easily managed through recycling efforts.
than the pressures being talked about to make silane superconduct.
SF6 insulated cables and switchgear generally operate only a few PSI above atmospheric pressure. Just enough to prevent water vapor from the atmosphere from getting into the equipment. Designing equipment to contain a small positive gas pressure is trivial compared to containing the MILLIONS of PSI being talked about in TFA.