Politics: A new beginning

[sgtclub]

Originally posted by bilmore

(And: "Clubby"?)

I'm a huge believer in the space program. If the costs are too high, start doing what the Russians do and send rich people to space for $25MM. To offset. Hell, sell advertising space on the moon for all I care. Or go to a private finance model. But I think it is imperative to keep exploring.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by sgtclub
I'm a huge believer in the space program. If the costs are too high, start doing what the Russians do and send rich people to space for $25MM. To offset. Hell, sell advertising space on the moon for all I care. Or go to a private finance model. But I think it is imperative to keep exploring.

All you have to do is fill the returning supply ships with moon rocks, and sell them on the internet.

[sgtclub]

Is anyone else enjoying watching the DEMS attack one another as much as I am? I've got to hand it to them, they've got "Gotcha" down to a frickin science. Not that the GOP doesn't do the same thing in primary years, but I don't recall it rising anywhere near this level. And the short sided "kids" working in the campaigns don't realize that they are doing all of Rove's work for him.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally posted by sgtclub
You are beyond help. Fare thee well.

Yes, this approach will save you from having to either read or think.

[sgtclub]

Originally posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy
Yes, this approach will save you from having to either read or think.

No, but it will save me from pulling out my hair.

[Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)]

Originally posted by Secret_Agent_Man
Unless they wer manufactured on the moon, yes. (But see BIlmore's point re the vastly lesser weight necessary.) We have now exhausted my limited command of the details.

S_A_M

Absent a fabrication plant on the moon for any parts (fabricated from raw materials on the moon), the entire mass of any spaceship sent to Mars from teh moon will have to be sent from Earth to the moon first. So, yeah, it wouldn't be cheaper, unless the mass of the spacecraft sent to mars is so great that the cost of building a rocket sufficiently sized to get the craft into space from the earth is beyond current technology--that is, the costs curve of sending a pound of matter into space increase in a more-than-linear fashion, at least at the poundage at which any mars ship would be. I.e., it's cheaper to send 6 100000lbs ships to the moon and then to mars than one 600000lbs ship directly. I have a hard time believing that.

[Secret_Agent_Man]

Originally posted by Atticus Grinch
What's the incentive of the U.S. scientific community to say things that will impact their lifestyles just as much as yours? In other words, what is your explanation for why so many otherwise credible people in the scientific world are alarmist on this issue?

Read the (quite interesting) speech by Crichton that he linked to a few days ago -- and focus on what Crichton has to say about the "Nuclear Winter" flap.

S_A_M

[Secret_Agent_Man]

Originally posted by sgtclub
Let's just say that I know the mentality.

Me too.

S_A_M

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by Atticus Grinch
I do litigation, so I'm all about witness incentives. I'm inclined to believe the witnesses who have the least incentive to lie or exaggerate. What's the incentive of the U.S. scientific community to say things that will impact their lifestyles just as much as yours? In other words, what is your explanation for why so many otherwise credible people in the scientific world are alarmist on this issue?

http://www.lawtalkers.com/forums/sho...0033#post60033

These guys must be on a tape loop. If I can just start copying in old winning arguments, I can spend more time on spelling.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Atticus Grinch
Canadian newspaper link. Okay, I get that it takes $10,000 per kilo to get stuff out of Earth's orbit. And I get that the moon has one-sixth the gravitational pull of the Earth. But how do we get to "We'll save money by launching from a moon base"? Will not every single kilo that goes into a vehicle launched from the moon necessarily have come from raw materials launched first from Earth, and then again from the moon? Unless NASA has a really cool way of making computers and rocket fuel out of moon rocks.

Gregg Easterbrook, writing a few days ago:

• And a Moon base would not only not be useful to support a Mars mission--it would be an obstacle to a Mars mission. Any weight bound for Mars can far more efficiently depart directly from low-Earth orbit than a first stop at the Moon; a stop at the Moon would require huge expenditures of fuel to land and take off again. The landing, in turn, would accomplish absolutely nothing--any mission components on the Moon would have been sent there from Earth, which means they could have departed directly for Mars from low-Earth orbit at a far lower cost.
  
  In the days to come, any administration official who says that a Moon base could support a Mars mission is revealing himself or herself to be a total science illiterate. When you hear, "A Moon base could support a Mars mission," substitute the words, "I have absolutely no idea what I am talking about." Hint to reporters: If any administration official says "a Moon base could support a Mars mission," quickly ask, "What was the fuel fraction of the Lunar Excursion Module?" The answer is two-thirds. The LEM was what landed on the Moon during Apollo, and rocket propulsion has not changed much since, meaning that any future Mars spacecraft that stops at the Moon will expend two-thirds of its weight merely to land there and take off again. This renders the idea of stopping at the Moon on the way to Mars patent drivel. (Actually only about 15 percent of the descent weight of the LEM returned to lunar orbit, so the fuel-fraction calculation for a Moon stopover is even worse.)

If the Bush people aren't talking to scientists about this, then it's purely political, right?

Easterbrook also says:

• So far all money numbers announced for the Bush plan seem complete nonsense, if not outright dishonesty. We shouldn't expect George W. Bush himself to know that $12 billion is not enough to develop a spaceship. We should expect the people around Bush, and at the top of NASA, to know this. And apparently they are either astonishingly ill-informed and naïve, or are handing out phony numbers for political purposes, to get the foot in the door for far larger sums later.

Depressing.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by bilmore
And yet you denigrate me when I tell Ty that Josh is a bit partisan, and should be read in light of that?

The way you use the word "partisan," everyone is partisan and should be read in light of that. You only point it out with people saying things you don't like because it lets you dismiss their views without reaching the substance. Like vicodin, but cheaper and less effective.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by sgtclub
Is anyone else enjoying watching the DEMS attack one another as much as I am? I've got to hand it to them, they've got "Gotcha" down to a frickin science. Not that the GOP doesn't do the same thing in primary years, but I don't recall it rising anywhere near this level. And the short sided "kids" working in the campaigns don't realize that they are doing all of Rove's work for him.

I was thinking that, but now I'm thinking that everyone will be too bored with this sort of "gotcha" by the general election to give a sh*t.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by Tyrone_Slothrop
If any administration official says "a Moon base could support a Mars mission," quickly ask, "What was the fuel fraction of the Lunar Excursion Module?" The answer is two-thirds. The LEM was what landed on the Moon during Apollo, and rocket propulsion has not changed much since, meaning that any future Mars spacecraft that stops at the Moon will expend two-thirds of its weight merely to land there and take off again. This renders the idea of stopping at the Moon on the way to Mars patent drivel. (Actually only about 15 percent of the descent weight of the LEM returned to lunar orbit, so the fuel-fraction calculation for a Moon stopover is even worse.) [/list]

Ty, your author doesn't acknowledge the possibility of another type ship or another type landing?

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
Ty, your author doesn't acknowledge the possibility of another type ship or another type landing?

Why would that make a difference? Unless we are making spacecraft out of materials found on the moon, everything leaving the moon for Mars has to leave the Earth and land on the Moon first.

[Atticus Grinch]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
These guys must be on a tape loop. If I can just start copying in old winning arguments, I can spend more time on spelling.

Huh. So GW scientists are biased because they want their research funded, but anti-GW scientists are not quite so venial, and all the scientific community that's not studying this is assumed to be anti-GW by virtue of their implied apathy?

I'll read the Crichton essay after I find time to read any of his books. Don't hold your breath.