NASA declines to protect the Planet Earth

Rand Simberg wrote:
On Fri, 11 Aug 2006 00:13:43 GMT, in a place far, far away,
(Henry Spencer) made the phosphor on my monitor
glow in such a way as to indicate that:

In article ,
Ben Newsam wrote:
The Great Depression happened in 1929, the war started in late 1941.

No, the war started in 1939. You were late as usual.

1939 is usually given as the starting date (except by Americans :-)), but
you can make a case for it having started as early as 1933, when Japan
began making its move into China. (It was Japan's continued rape and
pillage in China that eventually motivated the Anglo-American-Dutch oil
embargo on Japan, which in turn motivated Pearl Harbor as a covering move
for Japan's seizure of the Java oilfields.)

Indeed. And Eric is, as usual, way behind the curve.

Rand, when did the US enter the war in Asia? In Europe?

Eric

Ben Newsam wrote:
On Fri, 11 Aug 2006 00:13:43 GMT, (Henry Spencer)
wrote:

In article ,
Ben Newsam wrote:
The Great Depression happened in 1929, the war started in late 1941.

No, the war started in 1939. You were late as usual.

1939 is usually given as the starting date (except by Americans :-)), but
you can make a case for it having started as early as 1933, when Japan
began making its move into China.

I'll still take 1939, as being the date of the start of the declared
war.

No, doubt. You got in eariler and we both got out at the same time.
Telling, isn't it?

Eric


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Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com

Thomas Lee Elifritz wrote:
Ben Newsam wrote:
On Fri, 11 Aug 2006 00:13:43 GMT, (Henry Spencer)
wrote:

In article ,
Ben Newsam wrote:
The Great Depression happened in 1929, the war started in late 1941.
No, the war started in 1939. You were late as usual.
1939 is usually given as the starting date (except by Americans :-)), but
you can make a case for it having started as early as 1933, when Japan
began making its move into China.

I'll still take 1939, as being the date of the start of the declared
war.

But Hitler came to power in 1933, and simultaneously intellectuals
started bailing out of central Europe. Six years all it took.

But in 1936, Germany had both the winter and summer olympics and we
attended both. That isn't done when a war is on. So, by 1936, there was
no war, or, at least it wasn't recognized.

Eric


I soon expect that to start happening in America, unless the
insurrection starts to take hold here. These next months are crucial.

Do you think this thread will make 1000 posts before a subject line change?

http://cosmic.lifeform.org

Dr John Stockton wrote:
JRS: In article , dated Thu, 10
Aug 2006 11:45:40 remote, seen in news:sci.space.policy, Rand Simberg
posted :
On Thu, 10 Aug 2006 04:22:14 GMT, in a place far, far away,
(Derek Lyons) made the phosphor on my monitor glow
in such a way as to indicate that:

Possibly. Rand is one of the most prolific posters to this group -

Nonsense.

DL was referring to the amount that you post; there is no need to add a
description of its quality.

Yes, yes, one is reminded of the multiplicative axiom of zero: a x 0 =
0.

Eric


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Web URL:http://www.merlyn.demon.co.uk/ - FAQqish topics, acronyms & links;
Astro stuff via astron-1.htm, gravity0.htm ; quotings.htm, pascal.htm, etc.
No Encoding. Quotes before replies. Snip well. Write clearly. Don't Mail News.

Dr John Stockton wrote:
JRS: In article , dated Fri, 11
Aug 2006 18:44:00 remote, seen in news:sci.space.policy, Rand Simberg
posted :
On Fri, 11 Aug 2006 18:37:39 +0100, in a place far, far away, Dr John
Stockton made the phosphor on my monitor glow
in such a way as to indicate that:

JRS: In article , dated Thu, 10
Aug 2006 11:45:40 remote, seen in news:sci.space.policy, Rand Simberg
posted :
On Thu, 10 Aug 2006 04:22:14 GMT, in a place far, far away,
(Derek Lyons) made the phosphor on my monitor glow
in such a way as to indicate that:

Possibly. Rand is one of the most prolific posters to this group -

Nonsense.

DL was referring to the amount that you post; there is no need to add a
description of its quality.

There was no such description. The notion that I'm "one of the most
prolific posters to this group" is nonsense.

You are *the* most prolific in article count, though your article
content is small and of no benefit.

Over the last 11 days, and ignoring threads killed for excessive cross-
posting. I have 244 articles here. Counting (by code) I see 76 authors
represented, and the four who posted most are :

14 From: (Derek Lyons)
15 From: Pat Flannery
16 From: (Henry Spencer)
22 From: h (Rand Simberg)

That illustrates nicely that you are the most prolific, and also that
your content is typically valueless.

It's possible that my counting method underestimates EC; but I think not
enough to matter.

As I agree with your comments on Rand, you shouldn't underestimate me
in any way.

Eric


--
© John Stockton, Surrey, UK. yyww merlyn demon co uk Turnpike v4.00 MIME ©
Web URL:http://www.uwasa.fi/~ts/http/tsfaq.html - Timo Salmi: Usenet Q&A.
Web URL:http://www.merlyn.demon.co.uk/news-use.htm : about usage of News.
No Encoding. Quotes before replies. Snip well. Write clearly. Don't Mail News.

Rand Simberg wrote:
On Sat, 12 Aug 2006 15:54:41 +0100, in a place far, far away, Dr John
Stockton made the phosphor on my monitor glow
in such a way as to indicate that:

Over the last 11 days, and ignoring threads killed for excessive cross-
posting. I have 244 articles here. Counting (by code) I see 76 authors
represented, and the four who posted most are :

14 From: (Derek Lyons)
15 From: Pat Flannery
16 From: (Henry Spencer)
22 From: h (Rand Simberg)

That illustrates nicely that you are the most prolific, and also that
your content is typically valueless.

It's possible that my counting method underestimates EC; but I think not
enough to matter.

I would also add that it's quite misleading to simply ignore
crossposted threads--many of the posts in them are in fact intended as
posts to this group.

But do they add to the overall prolificness?

Greg D. Moore (Strider) wrote:
"Eric Chomko" wrote in message
ups.com...

Greg D. Moore (Strider) wrote:

Sure, don't rely on NASA.

Give private enterprise a decade or two and lets see what happens.

So in the mean time have NASA just go to sleep?


If necessary. As much as I like what they do and I do think there's a
certain amount of national prestige value in it.

However, I'd rather see them do more pure research. How about letting
contracts for 10 different engine designs in a range of thrusts with focus
on re-usability.

10 different? Better, why not have the commercial sector do it? Why
should we pay for it?


What about flights dedicated to testing a dozen different re-entry
materials, etc.

You really don't realize how contractors gouge govt. agencies do you?
You're asking for a free-for-all for money with no real results.

In your examples above, would you think that 10 or 12 designs being
done by various contractors as being fair, if you only had to pay for
the successful ones? Would ANY contractor bid on ANY of them, if they
only got paid for the successes? It's like the oil depreciation tax,
but for aerospace contractors. I.e They want compensation even when
they fail.




Or contract it out to the true capitalistic national space program, the
Russians.

I'm fascinated how you equate true capitalism with prosititution.


Hey, let's be blunt, but it is. One may have moral issue with prostitution,
but if you're selling yourself, that's capitalism.

Right, do you want the govt. to be capitalistic or its people (i.e.
corporations)? I don't want the govt. to take the place of corporations
because then the same entity that enforces the laws also can make
competition illegal. Then you end up with communism.

I sell my talent to the best bidder. That's called a job. I don't have a
problem with that.

NASA shouldn't be about making money anymore than our soldiers are
about being mercenaries.

Eric


Eric




--
Andrew Resnick, Ph.D.
Department of Physiology and Biophysics
Case Western Reserve University

In article ,
The Ghost In The Machine wrote:
In sci.physics, Derek Lyons

wrote
on Mon, 14 Aug 2006 15:45:06 GMT
:
wrote:

In article ,
Alan Anderson wrote:
wrote:

Alan Anderson wrote:
Boiling for cooking is used mostly to provide a consistent temperature,
not for killing germs. For that, 80 Celsius will do just as well as
100...

Then why does the health advisories say boil your water for
5 minutes?

Because it's easier to bring water to a boil than to monitor its
temperature with a thermometer.

Sigh! I understand that part. I want to know about the 5 minutes.


Because when water starts boiling (to noncooks meaning generally
somewhere around a low rolling boil) generally the entire mass of the
water isn't at boiling, especially if the quantity is above a gallon
or two. Letting it go for five minutes allows the entire mass to mix
and get above 160F.

D.

I suspect it gets complicated at this point. The water at
bottom is the water usually receiving the heat. It will
of course vaporize; the bubbles of vapor will rise as they
are less dense. Depending on water temperature above, the
vapor may simply collapse (and rather noisily), or will
continue to the surface and evolve as steam. Since most
boiling water boils into air (although high-pressure
boilers might let the steam into piping), it will cool and
generate fog/water vapor droplets, unless it's really hot.

As for sterilization, I for one can't say. One form of
pasteurization requires a temperature of only about 160 F,
although there are lifeforms that can live near the very high
temperatures of "smoker vents" at the ocean floor.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pasteurization

So 5 minutes is quite literally overkill, but there are
issues in heating the rest of the water above the water
that's actually vaporizing on the bottom. I for one could
see cold water boiling

But this is not boiling. Boiling is big bubbles at the top
and through.

at the bottom almost immediately
over a gas flame (I have electric), but that's hardly
enough to sterilize the whole batch.

/BAH

In article ,
(Derek Lyons) wrote:
wrote:

In article ,
Alan Anderson wrote:
wrote:

Alan Anderson wrote:
Boiling for cooking is used mostly to provide a consistent temperature,
not for killing germs. For that, 80 Celsius will do just as well as
100...

Then why does the health advisories say boil your water for
5 minutes?

Because it's easier to bring water to a boil than to monitor its
temperature with a thermometer.

Sigh! I understand that part. I want to know about the 5 minutes.


Because when water starts boiling (to noncooks meaning generally
somewhere around a low rolling boil) generally the entire mass of the
water isn't at boiling, especially if the quantity is above a gallon
or two. Letting it go for five minutes allows the entire mass to mix
and get above 160F.

Thank you. I just started to realize that people didn't know
what boiling meant.

I'm going to rest now; I feel like I've been trying to pull a lion's
rotten tooth.

/BAH

In sci.physics,

wrote
on Tue, 15 Aug 06 10:27:00 GMT
:
In article ,
The Ghost In The Machine wrote:
In sci.physics, Derek Lyons

wrote
on Mon, 14 Aug 2006 15:45:06 GMT
:
wrote:

In article ,
Alan Anderson wrote:
wrote:

Alan Anderson wrote:
Boiling for cooking is used mostly to provide a consistent temperature,
not for killing germs. For that, 80 Celsius will do just as well as
100...

Then why does the health advisories say boil your water for
5 minutes?

Because it's easier to bring water to a boil than to monitor its
temperature with a thermometer.

Sigh! I understand that part. I want to know about the 5 minutes.


Because when water starts boiling (to noncooks meaning generally
somewhere around a low rolling boil) generally the entire mass of the
water isn't at boiling, especially if the quantity is above a gallon
or two. Letting it go for five minutes allows the entire mass to mix
and get above 160F.

D.

I suspect it gets complicated at this point. The water at
bottom is the water usually receiving the heat. It will
of course vaporize; the bubbles of vapor will rise as they
are less dense. Depending on water temperature above, the
vapor may simply collapse (and rather noisily), or will
continue to the surface and evolve as steam. Since most
boiling water boils into air (although high-pressure
boilers might let the steam into piping), it will cool and
generate fog/water vapor droplets, unless it's really hot.

As for sterilization, I for one can't say. One form of
pasteurization requires a temperature of only about 160 F,
although there are lifeforms that can live near the very high
temperatures of "smoker vents" at the ocean floor.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pasteurization

So 5 minutes is quite literally overkill, but there are
issues in heating the rest of the water above the water
that's actually vaporizing on the bottom. I for one could
see cold water boiling

But this is not boiling. Boiling is big bubbles at the top
and through.

It is boiling at the bottom, but not at the top. Once the
liquid gets hot enough of course, the bubbles of vapor
either don't quite collapse as they get to the surface,
or they simply reach the surface unmolested, especially
since there's a pressure gradient in the water of about
10,000 Pascal per meter. If one assumes the water is
of a uniform temperature of 99.9 C or so, a bubble
of vapor forming at the bottom may very well expand as
it ascends, as the pressure is less.

But cooler than that, the collapsing vapor bubbles make
quite a bit of noise, as anyone who has observed a
pot or kettle boiling (it does boil eventually) can attest.

A related phenomenon can be observed at one's employment
if one happens to have a steam jet unit such as one used
in expresso machines. The milk is generally frothed up
(which requires air and therefore a "dipping" motion)
but one can also simply heat it, and might notice the
pitch decreases as the temperature increases, from a
very irritating high-pitched sound when the milk is cold,
to a lower pitched sound just before boiling.


at the bottom almost immediately
over a gas flame (I have electric), but that's hardly
enough to sterilize the whole batch.

/BAH



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