Actually to return an object you only need to return it close enough to Earth for gravity to do the rest. From the ISS this is just a slight push down or opposite of your angular velocity. For an object at the end of a 100,000 km space elevator the story is quite different.
At 100,000 km from the center of the Earth (about 94,000 km from the surface) the geosynchronous velocity would be 7,270 m/s. In order for gravity to overcome centrifugal force and pull the object back down it has to be slowed to just under 2,000 m/s. For a 1-ton object, this requires a kinetic energy change of 3,480 kWh. At 3 cents per kWh that means a cost of over $100 just to bring the object back, which is assuming you don't want it back in a more timely manner or precise location.
Peter, I believe the term you're looking for is effective. A 100% efficient system converts 100% of the dissipated energy to useful energy of another type. A 100% effective system dissipates and converts 100% of the available energy to useful energy. If we have 100% effective wind turbines, we are all in serious trouble but that's not the case with 100% efficient ones.
I think you're correct and it makes little sense. Those debates were however strictly partisan and there may be party rules against excluding candidates in a primary (I couldn't come up with any links during a quick search).
Personally, I think it would be great if the first debate was more inclusive of third parties and then criteria could be applied from polls after the first debate as to who would continue on. Who knows, with high enough ratings maybe Fox could make a reality show out of it. Sometimes these elections come close enough to that as it is!
The reason you won't see those four involved in debates is because, as stated in other posts, the Democratic and Republican parties have a duopoly on the presidential election process. I believe that's why the nonpartisan debates proposed had a criteria such as the Appleseed at its core to help entice the Democrats and Republicans that the debates would still be Bush vs. Kerry only. However, that doesn't allow them to field questions they are fed beforehand so we won't see nonpartisan debating anytime soon. More importantly, we won't see Bush and Kerry answer questions from Nader, Cobb, Badnarik or Peroutka to know where they stand on third party issues, and that's a shame.
From the appleseed criteria of the Citizens Debate Commission:
"all candidates on enough state ballots to win an electoral college majority who either 1) register at five percent in national polls or 2) register a majority in national polls asking eligible voters which candidates they would like to see included in the presidential debates."
According to that criteria Nader, Cobb, Peroutka or Badnarik would have to receive over 50% in a national poll for their inclusion in the presidential debate, since none of those candidates register 5% nationally. I have not seen any polls on including the candidates in the debates (if anyone has please post!) but I suspect all four wouldn't meet the criteria.
Hey, we're trying to do mankind a favor by dating all the jerks we can find. If nice guys were having regular sex and the jerks were going without, I don't even want to think about what this planet would look like!!
Windows XP is generally deployed on newer machines which can handle many more programs being open simultaneously and without being in an experienced computer user's hands, that can be a very dangerous thing. Both my father and boss have purchased new laptops in the past year, and the amount of work I've performed on those two machines has greatly out-paced their predecessors. This is simply because their new machines can swap files over the internet and view pr0n with ease. That is, of course, until it's a virus/trojan/spyware filled mess.
I have an NT 4.0 workstation at home, P200 with 64mb of RAM, which I managed to forego rebooting for 77 days this winter until a circuit breaker popped in my apartment. I also have a primarly XP machine which I rebooted weekly and the major difference between the two was in their use; The newer machine functioned for web design, games and video editing (among other things) none of which I did with the NT 4.0 machine. I suspect the 4 times rate of reboot for XP compared to NT (and 3 times for 2k) would decrease with the same programs and computer capabilities.
In any case, Windows is incredibly poor compared to *NIX. Being 99% GUI-based does have it's drawbacks.... (But it's so pretty!)
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Actually to return an object you only need to return it close enough to Earth for gravity to do the rest. From the ISS this is just a slight push down or opposite of your angular velocity. For an object at the end of a 100,000 km space elevator the story is quite different.
At 100,000 km from the center of the Earth (about 94,000 km from the surface) the geosynchronous velocity would be 7,270 m/s. In order for gravity to overcome centrifugal force and pull the object back down it has to be slowed to just under 2,000 m/s. For a 1-ton object, this requires a kinetic energy change of 3,480 kWh. At 3 cents per kWh that means a cost of over $100 just to bring the object back, which is assuming you don't want it back in a more timely manner or precise location.
Peter, I believe the term you're looking for is effective. A 100% efficient system converts 100% of the dissipated energy to useful energy of another type. A 100% effective system dissipates and converts 100% of the available energy to useful energy. If we have 100% effective wind turbines, we are all in serious trouble but that's not the case with 100% efficient ones.
Personally, I think it would be great if the first debate was more inclusive of third parties and then criteria could be applied from polls after the first debate as to who would continue on. Who knows, with high enough ratings maybe Fox could make a reality show out of it. Sometimes these elections come close enough to that as it is!
The reason you won't see those four involved in debates is because, as stated in other posts, the Democratic and Republican parties have a duopoly on the presidential election process. I believe that's why the nonpartisan debates proposed had a criteria such as the Appleseed at its core to help entice the Democrats and Republicans that the debates would still be Bush vs. Kerry only. However, that doesn't allow them to field questions they are fed beforehand so we won't see nonpartisan debating anytime soon. More importantly, we won't see Bush and Kerry answer questions from Nader, Cobb, Badnarik or Peroutka to know where they stand on third party issues, and that's a shame.
"all candidates on enough state ballots to win an electoral college majority who either 1) register at five percent in national polls or 2) register a majority in national polls asking eligible voters which candidates they would like to see included in the presidential debates."
According to that criteria Nader, Cobb, Peroutka or Badnarik would have to receive over 50% in a national poll for their inclusion in the presidential debate, since none of those candidates register 5% nationally. I have not seen any polls on including the candidates in the debates (if anyone has please post!) but I suspect all four wouldn't meet the criteria.
Sorry Ralph, some of us still love you anyway!
Hey, we're trying to do mankind a favor by dating all the jerks we can find. If nice guys were having regular sex and the jerks were going without, I don't even want to think about what this planet would look like!!
I have an NT 4.0 workstation at home, P200 with 64mb of RAM, which I managed to forego rebooting for 77 days this winter until a circuit breaker popped in my apartment. I also have a primarly XP machine which I rebooted weekly and the major difference between the two was in their use; The newer machine functioned for web design, games and video editing (among other things) none of which I did with the NT 4.0 machine. I suspect the 4 times rate of reboot for XP compared to NT (and 3 times for 2k) would decrease with the same programs and computer capabilities.
In any case, Windows is incredibly poor compared to *NIX. Being 99% GUI-based does have it's drawbacks.... (But it's so pretty!)