Questions about "The High Frontier"

On Fri, 09 Nov 2007 02:30:44 -0600, Pat Flannery
wrote:

Henry Spencer took a couple of years to do it, but he talked me into
trusting H2O2 as a oxidizer

....Which surprised the hell out of the rest of us, considering that
you Micks have this insufferable penchant for cheap whiskey and
roofing tar :-P

OM
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On Fri, 09 Nov 2007 02:08:27 -0600, Pat Flannery
wrote:

So first he lies about what I wrote, then he says that he's sorry he
wrote what he did, then he killfiles me...all in one posting?
Is there any logic in that?

....Hoppy's getting frustrated these days. I fear he's developing
Chumpko's Syndrome, although that might mean that Andre will finally
get a new mate if it worsens :-P

OM
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] OMBlog - http://www.io.com/~o_m/omworld [
] Let's face it: Sometimes you *need* [
] an obnoxious opinion in your day! [
]=====================================[

Eivind Kjorstad wrote:
Hop David skreiv:


# can sense its environment, and manipulate or interact with things in it
# has some degree of intelligence or ability to make choices based on
the environment, or automatic control / preprogrammed sequence


That doesn't help much. Every object "interacts with things", even an
inert rock "interacts" with every other thing in the universe by way of
gravity.

"sense" is one of those words that are hard to define again. In any
case, by the WikiPedia-definition my car is certainly a robot.


This is the sort of stuff Rabbis love to discuss for a month or so...
since the Golem was something like a robot (and a android at that), the
Jews may have pride of place in coming up with this idea:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golem
.....with the possible exception of the self moving sacred tripod lamps
or incense burners in some old Greek myth I remember vaguely.
So we get the Rabbis working on what a robot is.
First question: What sort of work does it do?
Second question: Does it do this on the sabbath?
Third question: If so, is it owned by a goyim or something?
Forth question: Can it do a decent job on taking in a suit? I saw the
movie "Sleeper", and the Jewish tailor robots in that were complete
schmucks when it came to making a suit...and a Rabbi has to look well
dressed if he is going to impress those under his care. Lord forbid I
should go down to the Synagogue in a pair of bad-fitting pants made by
some goy-owned schmuck robot that works on the Sabbath. In fact, I think
that a Rabbi should only wear cloths made by Jewish tailors, as it helps
his own people's prosperity. Now Morey Leibowitz, that man was a tailor
of the old school! He used to make my suits back in the 1960's, and
there wasn't a thing that man didn't know about the needle and the
thread. They had him making uniforms for the SS back in Auschwitz in
1944 and he figured out a way to sew in a stitch that felt great when
they first put the uniform on, but would tighten right up in the groin
the first time they laundered it. Those things would pinch their schlong
like they had a lobster grabbing it.
I heard that one entire Nazi laundry crew were shot after that happened
to the one he made for Himmler...that's the truth, Morey, rest his soul,
wouldn't make something like that up...but his son, that's a whole other
story...where do you start with things about him? I mean they were great
stories, but did anyone ever really believe that he had made sexy
underwear for Golda Meir? That boy, stories like that were sure to get
him in trouble, and that's why the Mossad paid him a visit back in 1972
when he started bragging he had made a jockstrap for Anwar Sadat that
was going to squeeze his "damned Egyptian wiener like a scorpion's claw"
....that's just the words he used too...well, Mossad knew that if that
thing were tracked back to a Jewish tailor there could be trouble, and
we all know what happened come 1973... so maybe he was telling the truth
that time...but that would be one of the few times... :-)

Pat

On Fri, 09 Nov 2007 01:49:10 -0600, in a place far, far away, Pat
Flannery made the phosphor on my monitor glow in
such a way as to indicate that:



Mike Combs wrote:
Give me an explanation of how that's done from a technical point of view.
Show me a concept of making a chemical rocket that has a isp of around
1,000.


You seem to assume that the cost/lb is primarily a function of ISP. That
may not be the case.

We aren't sure about that.

Those of us who actually understand the issue are quite sure about it.
We're sure that it's wrong. There is no correlation between cost and
Isp.

The Russians may have hit fairly near the mark with their R-7 series of
rocket derivatives which are pretty bulky for what they do, but are also
fairly cheap and very reliable.

No, they're neither.

One thing that the space tourism crowd hasn't ever seemed to recognize
is that if they are going for orbital flight, then after 50 years of
work, we still haven't been able to get past around a 95-97%
reliability rate with our orbital rockets.

Because we haven't seriously attempted to. In order to do so, we have
to have much higher levels of activity, and stop throwing the vehicle
away.

On Nov 8, 8:44 pm, Troy wrote:
On Nov 9, 1:19 am, IsaacKuo wrote:

Just a question--how much are things simplified
if we can assume simplified surface mining
techniques are used?

That's a good point, and something I've never considered before.
Asteroid mining may throw up some much dirt that the rock disappears
in a haze of rubble. Potentially quite hazardous, if it gets into
moving parts and coats solar panels. Maybe the dust could be dealt
with by using electric fields to contain it. The Hayabusa probe may
not even have been able to get a sample from the asteroid it visited.

How about if the dust itself is what you're mining?

How much dust is available in Mars's atmosphere? Your
mining "robot" doesn't even need to move if it just filters
dust out of the air. This might involve a circular filter which
constantly rotates past a fixed "wiper blade", along with a
fan to pull air through the filter.

Isaac Kuo

On Fri, 09 Nov 2007 09:11:12 +0100, Eivind Kjorstad
wrote:

John Schilling skreiv:

Classically, it's a robot if it has the ability to sense and respond to
the external environment.

Pragmatically, it only counts if the "sense and respond to the external
environment" bit applies to the normal exercise of the primary function
of the device; safety overrides and/or feedback control of secondary
functions need not apply. A car does not become a robot when you add
anti-lock brakes; it becomes a robot when it steers itself down the
road.

But my electric heater is a robot. It senses the external environment
(namely the temperature) and responds to it (by turning on or off the
heating). This is it's primary function, indeed it does its thing
unsupervised for weeks at a time, it is clever enough to know when I'm
at work and when I'm sleeping, so allows temperature to drop further at
those occcasions.

Yes. Heating a room is the sort of thing robots are really, really good
at. And they've long since displaced humans from that job.

Mining is a bit trickier.


--
*John Schilling * "Anything worth doing, *
*Member:AIAA,NRA,ACLU,SAS,LP * is worth doing for money" *
*Chief Scientist & General Partner * -13th Rule of Acquisition *
*White Elephant Research, LLC * "There is no substitute *
* for success" *
*661-718-0955 or 661-275-6795 * -58th Rule of Acquisition *

IsaacKuo wrote:
How about if the dust itself is what you're mining?

How much dust is available in Mars's atmosphere? Your
mining "robot" doesn't even need to move if it just filters
dust out of the air. This might involve a circular filter which
constantly rotates past a fixed "wiper blade", along with a
fan to pull air through the filter.


Considering the amount of iron oxides and compounds on Mars, it could be
something as simple as a magnetized conveyor belt on top of the device
that rotates around once every couple of hours and scrapes off the
accumulated dust that sticks to it into a hopper on its underside.

Pat

Eivind Kjorstad wrote:

I think my point stands: there is no clear separation. Certainly no
universally agreed upon separation.

I think the nitpicking is getting pretty silly here. It's pretty
obvious from context what he meant: A robot can do its job without
human assistance, but a mere machine cannot and only serves to help
humans get the job done. If the job can't get done without constant,
direct human intervention, then a robot is not at work.

Obviously there are borderline cases, but that doesn't mean that the
general dividing line isn't still pretty obvious, and under it, mining
equipment _certainly_ doesn't qualify as robotic, since it has to be
operated by people.

--
Erik Max Francis && && http://www.alcyone.com/max/
San Jose, CA, USA && 37 18 N 121 57 W && AIM, Y!M erikmaxfrancis
Ten lands are sooner known than one man.
-- (a Yiddish proverb)

On Fri, 09 Nov 2007 12:35:53 -0600, Pat Flannery
wrote:


IsaacKuo wrote:
How about if the dust itself is what you're mining?

How much dust is available in Mars's atmosphere? Your
mining "robot" doesn't even need to move if it just filters
dust out of the air. This might involve a circular filter which
constantly rotates past a fixed "wiper blade", along with a
fan to pull air through the filter.

Considering the amount of iron oxides and compounds on Mars, it could be
something as simple as a magnetized conveyor belt on top of the device
that rotates around once every couple of hours and scrapes off the
accumulated dust that sticks to it into a hopper on its underside.

Right, the way when you pick up a magnet, it sticks to your hand because
of all the iron in your blood.

Iron, as it turns out, is only ferromagnetic in crystalline form. And
while there are some iron oxide minerals that can form ferromagnetic
crystals, that is somewhat unusual and it clearly isn't what Mars is
doing with its iron. Else we'd be calling it the "Blue Steel Planet",
rather than the "Red Planet".


--
*John Schilling * "Anything worth doing, *
*Member:AIAA,NRA,ACLU,SAS,LP * is worth doing for money" *
*Chief Scientist & General Partner * -13th Rule of Acquisition *
*White Elephant Research, LLC * "There is no substitute *
* for success" *
*661-718-0955 or 661-275-6795 * -58th Rule of Acquisition *

On Nov 9, 4:33 pm, John Schilling wrote:
On Fri, 09 Nov 2007 12:35:53 -0600, Pat Flannery

IsaacKuo wrote:

How about if the dust itself is what you're mining?
How much dust is available in Mars's atmosphere? Your
mining "robot" doesn't even need to move if it just filters
dust out of the air. This might involve a circular filter which
constantly rotates past a fixed "wiper blade", along with a
fan to pull air through the filter.

Considering the amount of iron oxides and compounds on Mars, it could be
something as simple as a magnetized conveyor belt on top of the device
that rotates around once every couple of hours and scrapes off the
accumulated dust that sticks to it into a hopper on its underside.

Right, the way when you pick up a magnet, it sticks to your hand because
of all the iron in your blood.

Iron, as it turns out, is only ferromagnetic in crystalline form. And
while there are some iron oxide minerals that can form ferromagnetic
crystals, that is somewhat unusual and it clearly isn't what Mars is
doing with its iron. Else we'd be calling it the "Blue Steel Planet",
rather than the "Red Planet".

It turns out aerial Martian dust IS magnetic enough to pick up
with a magnetic "miner". We know this for sure, because we
landed a robotic prospector including magnetic dust accumulation
experiments:

http://athena.cornell.edu/kids/cs_madsen_questions.html

(See questions 3 and 4.)

So, it seems that we already have some hard data on how
much Martian dust can be mined out of the atmsophere using
magnets. Obviously, this small scale experiment wasn't
a "mining operation". It included neither a fan to enhance
airflow nor a hopper to collect the dust. Nor any sort of
industrial equipment to process the dust.

Still, it's an interesting experiment which can tell whether
the amount of dust is even worth considering for a mining
operation.

Now that I know the experiments have been done, I just need
to hunt down some of the results...

Isaac Kuo