History's Worst Presidential Candidate

"Rand Simberg" wrote in message ...
On Fri, 22 Oct 2004 10:50:52 -0700, in a place far, far away, Hop
David made the phosphor
on my monitor glow in such a way as to indicate that:

We might be able to get it on-topic by mentioning the need for alter-
native energy and things such as solar power satellites as opposed to
the invasion of politically unstable places full of oil.

One of Kerry's goals is less dependence on oil. I don't know that he
supports the notion of SPS, though.

If he does, he's certaintly never mentioned it.


It isn't important so much whether he supports the SPSs themselves but
whether he supports the technologies leading up to them--the hydrogen
economy, ensuring that we can produce motor fuel out of fossil fuels
other than oil but also out of water and electricity, i.e. any energy
source--renewable or not.

SPSs, if they ever become possible and economical one day, aren't so
much about ensuring America's continued supply of cheap energy.
They're about enabling the rest of the world to live in the same kind
of abundance, energy-wise, as so far only the industrialized world
could.

As far as supplying America with enough power is concerned you don't
need to go into space. They have enough uninhabited deserts for solar
energy to be produced to run everything. What is required in the
field is technological breakthroughs and a change of infrastructure to
make that energy useful for providing cheap mobility, the same way
cheap gasoline has done so far.


The problem you have today is that you have people in power who both
come from the oil industry, who know solutions to the nation's prob-
lems only in the context of oil supply, and who therefore have no in-
terest in solving it in any other way than in securing the one region
of the world where oil is still going to be available for decades to
come, long after it has run out anywhere else.

This is not going to get us into space. The only context they see
space in is defense--for spy satellites and missile defense systems--
or in the context of basic science and exploring, but not in the con-
text of energy supply. Yet it is the latter that is going to be the
true economical breakthrough eventually--finding a resource up there
that we actually need down here--getting more out of going into space
than we put into it...


Maybe they'll eventually turn around, now that they've discovered just
how hopeless it is to secure the Middle East region for themselves--in
much the same way Bill Gates first tried to compete with the internet
and then embraced it and invested all his resources in getting a foot-
hold there. If they are visionary they would do that with alternative
energies.

Yet if they are not then they might wind up like Germany, which sud-
denly found itself left out in the game of colonization and dividing
up the world, which tried to create a great empire like Britain's mil-
itarily instead, and which eventually failed and was crushed misera-
bly--ironically at a time when colonies had already lost their import-
ance and profitability and were given up by the very nations it
fought for a bigger piece of the pie.


America might use up more and more of its resources securing the Mid-
East for itself while more and more competing with and fighting other
powers in the world and, just like Germany before, it couldn't possi-
bly fight them all, no matter how strong it is. Eventually it would
lose in a war about a region that by the end of the conflict might
have lost all the strategic importance that led up to the war in the
first place--just like naval supremacy and the idea of being wealthy
and powerful through expansion...

You can tell how futile the struggle was by seeing how wealthy the
nations of Germany and Japan became once again after they gave it up.

The oil in the Middle East might peak forty years hence if the coun-
tries of China and India weren't growing as fast as they are and grow-
ing as thirsty as they are. But they are, and that's why we'll proba-
bly see the resources of the region used up in our lifetime, unless
something truly disastrous happens to throw those nations back or un-
til alternative sources of power and wealth are developed...


Because there is so much more power in space and so much more room to
tap into it it's the only solution to giving the whole world an abun-
dance of energy as only 10% have enjoyed up to now. But you won't
find it on Earth--not in the form of renewables and certainly not in
the form of fossil fuels...

Still, renewables on Earth would be the first step towards renewables
from space, and it would certainly be enough for the US to be as self-
sufficient as they once were if they used their deserts for the pur-
pose...


First the deserts. First the technology and the infrastructure down
here. Then space will inevitably follow...



--
__ "A good leader knows when it's best to ignore the __
('__` screams for help and focus on the bigger picture." '__`)
//6(6; ©OOL mmiv :^)^\\
`\_-/ http://home.t-online.de/home/ulrich....lmann/redbaron \-_/'

"Hop David" wrote in message ...

Brains are also needed to enforce a Pax Americana.

http://www.newamericancentury.org/Re...asDefenses.pdf
has a lot of stuff in it that's on-topic in this newsgroup.


Yes, I've been to the NewAmericanCentury site before and that's pre-
cisely why I'm so scared. I agree that everyone should read this
stuff, much in the same way that more people over here should have
read Mein Kampf in the Twenties...

They don't see space as an opportunity for supplying themselves and
the world with energy in these documents. To them it's only another
battle theater in the war for the resources of Earth, i.e. much the
same thing it's been since the days of Sputnik. Space is just a stra-
tegic high ground from which you can watch other nations and, if nec-
essary, rain death on them.


It is such misguided ideas that led to the point where space explora-
tion was stalled after one superpower made it to the Moon while the
other one didn't, where a clunky and totally impractical space shuttle
was built just so it could shoot military satellites into space, where
horrific and useless pork-barrel projects of SDI were sponsored rather
than useful stuff, where an international space station was seen mere-
ly as an effort to keep former Soviet scientists employed so they
wouldn't sell their missile-building expertise to rogue nations...

These guys' ideas of the usefulness of space is limited to destruc-
tion, deterrents, and supremacy. To them space will always be a place
it never pays to go into other than for securing the nation militarily
and for spying on and shooting missiles at others.

Well, it's better than nothing, of course... The problem is, this
will never get us out of LEO. It will never make space flight pay for
itself. That's why they're not helping--not really!



--
__ “A good leader knows when it’s best to ignore the __
('__` screams for help and focus on the bigger picture.� '__`)
//6(6; ©OOL mmiv :^)^\\
`\_-/ http://home.t-online.de/home/ulrich....lmann/redbaron \-_/'

"W. D. Allen Sr." wrote in message
...
"...The rootless USA people, few of whom know who their great grandparents
were...."

Our family traces our ancestors back to the 1600s!

1700s here.


Maybe it's not us who are the truly "rootless" ones. Stop believing all
those lies about the USA that your former Communist leaders duped you
with!

Well, at least Tamas serves as living proof that the US doesn't have a
monopoly on cluelessness. G



end

On Sat, 23 Oct 2004 12:12:50 +0200, in a place far, far away, "Ool"
made the phosphor on my monitor glow
in such a way as to indicate that:

We might be able to get it on-topic by mentioning the need for alter-
native energy and things such as solar power satellites as opposed to
the invasion of politically unstable places full of oil.

One of Kerry's goals is less dependence on oil. I don't know that he
supports the notion of SPS, though.

If he does, he's certaintly never mentioned it.


It isn't important so much whether he supports the SPSs themselves but
whether he supports the technologies leading up to them--the hydrogen
economy, ensuring that we can produce motor fuel out of fossil fuels
other than oil but also out of water and electricity, i.e. any energy
source--renewable or not.

The Bush administration already supports that. It's a part of their
energy policy.

On Sat, 23 Oct 2004 12:41:28 +0200, in a place far, far away, "Ool"
made the phosphor on my monitor glow
in such a way as to indicate that:

"Hop David" wrote in message ...

Brains are also needed to enforce a Pax Americana.

http://www.newamericancentury.org/Re...asDefenses.pdf
has a lot of stuff in it that's on-topic in this newsgroup.


Yes, I've been to the NewAmericanCentury site before and that's pre-
cisely why I'm so scared. I agree that everyone should read this
stuff, much in the same way that more people over here should have
read Mein Kampf in the Twenties...

They don't see space as an opportunity for supplying themselves and
the world with energy in these documents. To them it's only another
battle theater in the war for the resources of Earth, i.e. much the
same thing it's been since the days of Sputnik. Space is just a stra-
tegic high ground from which you can watch other nations and, if nec-
essary, rain death on them.

Yes, that's all they see space for. That must be why the president
declared that the policy of the US is to go back to the Moon, and
beyond, back in January.

Ool wrote:


SPSs, if they ever become possible and economical one day, aren't so
much about ensuring America's continued supply of cheap energy.
They're about enabling the rest of the world to live in the same kind
of abundance, energy-wise, as so far only the industrialized world
could.


Errrr.... how would, say, Nepal, Chad or Paraguay build SPS systems?

Scott Lowther wrote:
Ool wrote:
SPSs, if they ever become possible and economical one day, aren't so
much about ensuring America's continued supply of cheap energy.
They're about enabling the rest of the world to live in the same kind
of abundance, energy-wise, as so far only the industrialized world
could.

Errrr.... how would, say, Nepal, Chad or Paraguay build SPS systems?

I would presume that they could simply buy one off the
open market. Or buy old ones in orbit which are being
replaced by newer ones, but are still functional. Or
they could just buy power from (then) existing systems.

Not that I necessarily think SPS is feasible even in
the long term, but if it becomes big enough to supply
the energy needs of the first world then it can almost
certainly supply the energy needs of developing nations
as well.

In article ,
Scott Lowther wrote:


Ool wrote:


SPSs, if they ever become possible and economical one day, aren't so
much about ensuring America's continued supply of cheap energy.
They're about enabling the rest of the world to live in the same kind
of abundance, energy-wise, as so far only the industrialized world
could.


Errrr.... how would, say, Nepal, Chad or Paraguay build SPS systems?

A lot of nations with no native aerospace industry seem to have
aircraft. My guess is that they are buying them from companies in nations
with aerospace industries.

There's even an indirect security benefit to the US to encouraging
the spread of beamed power (even only relayed from somewhere else on Earth):
less need for local power sources, like coal or nuclear. If you're worried
about the little nations getting the Bomb, fewer reactors is probably
better.

Putting coal burning plants in first world nations means that
the environmental regs they satisfy will probably be of a higher grade
than what underdeveloped nations could afford (Or it could go the other
way: put hellishly unclear coal plants in Kreblekistan, and beam via
relay to the markets that can afford the power).
--
"Oh, please do not put another curse on me. I would not want to wake up
tomorrow morning wrapped in an Anne Rice novel, my only companions a
group of weepy, effeminate vampires!"
"I am so bitching you out in my DeadJournal tonight." (Questionable Content)

On Sat, 23 Oct 2004 15:07:37 GMT, in a place far, far away, Scott
Lowther made the phosphor on my
monitor glow in such a way as to indicate that:

SPSs, if they ever become possible and economical one day, aren't so
much about ensuring America's continued supply of cheap energy.
They're about enabling the rest of the world to live in the same kind
of abundance, energy-wise, as so far only the industrialized world
could.


Errrr.... how would, say, Nepal, Chad or Paraguay build SPS systems?

They wouldn't have to build SPS systems. They would only have to
build rectennas. I didn't have to launch a satellite to view DirecTV.

"Joe Strout" wrote in message
...

with a leader who can't correctly pronounce "nuclear."

erm, Jimmy Carter has a degree in nuclear engineering, and was the "nuke"
officer on a submarine. He pronounces it exactly the same way that Bush
does.

Once again you totally miss the boat, sport

--
Terrell Miller


" A strong conviction that something must be done is the parent of many
bad measures."
-- Daniel Webster