The wrong approach

On 26 Jan 2004 23:01:52 -0800, (Edward
Wright) wrote:

Cardman wrote in message . ..

Less scientific gain from the Moon? I'd love to see you argue that
point with Dr. Alan Binder, Dr. Phil Chapman, Dr, John Cramer, or
Dr.
Buzz Aldrin!

And I could do so early, when the Moon is a dead world, while Mars is
a living an evolving planet. So Mars can indeed provide much more
scientific information.

You think Mars is a living world??? When, exactly, did you discover
life on Mars?

My use of the word "living" is a synonym for another word of
"animate".

The moon is inanimate when it does not evolve and has no real
atmosphere, where the most interesting thing that happens here is when
something comes and smacks into it.

So you can say that the Moon is a dead world, when it has hardly
changed in the billions of years since it first formed.

Mars on the other hand I describe as "living", when this is certainly
an animate world. It has an atmosphere, wind, water and a wealth of
geological features.

This planet is alive and living because it is animate and evolves. If
life exists on this planet is a different matter, but I am sure that
this living planet would welcome other life.

If not already, then I am sure soon, due to their new Luna goals.

Which means it isn't "incorrect" that NASA ignored the Moon in favor
of harder target like Pluto.

As I said above the Moon is dead and it does not take too long to
obverse this heavenly corpse. Not to forget that after the Apollo
mission proved that there was no life there, then so did they begin to
look elsewhere.

These days they will soon look at the Moon a lot closer, when NASA
gets to play "mine, I want that!" with the Lunar resources.

NASA also does not favour the Pluto mission, when they have already
canceled it once. And the only reason that it exists now is due to
public protest that made congress force NASA to take on this mission,
when congress paid for it directly.

Sure Pluto and Charon are just unusually large KBOs, which makes then
not that interesting, even less so on a quick flyby, but this mission
will at least solve that problem that has plagued every book on our
solar system ever since pluto was first discovered.

As in 2015 people will for the first time ever be able to know just
what Pluto and Charon look like, which makes it a worthy year to go
out and replace your solar system atlas.

The fact that you are "sure" something will happen "soon" has no
bearing on what actually has happened.

NASA's objectives in the near future are clear enough, when as soon as
some group proposes the project, then some satellite will eventually
head to the Moon and use it's ground penetrating radar to find lava
tubes and find out what other goodies are there for the taking.

Having a good look at the South pole area is a must have, where the
North pole makes a good second objective.

And yes I believe that there should be a rover (just pack up one of
the MERs and change the power source, instruments and most of all
landing system), when it can go and dig out that reported water ice.

Russia's system was made to be safety mined when it was designed,
which is one of the reasons why their safety spending is less.

And you've been arguing that NASA needs to spend *more* money to make
missions safe.

More correctly that NASA should be willing to spend additional funds
beyond the original mission budget in order to improve the safety of
the mission in achieving it's objectives.

And this is more true in the case of these MERs, where it was
highlighted that there was a considerable risk of mission failure had
they used the Pathfinder inherited landing system.

My point is that if you do not get there and come close to achieving
your mission objectives, then the whole funding would have just gone
down the drain.

Did you forget what point you were trying to make?

NASA moving to a safety minded design will certainly enable them to
reduce their safety expenses, when a safety orientated design
automatically adds safety to the system thereby requiring less
expenses on safety in order to obtain the same nominal safe level.

The idea that NASA never "aimed for safety" is pure cant.

I never made such a claim. The Shuttle was not made to be a safety
minded design,

Laugh. You deny making the claim, then you make it again?

A short term failure does not mean that they do it all time, which
points out that your logic is flawed once again.

Of course, NASA tried to make the Shuttle a safe design.

It has been known for a very long time that a serious malfunction in
the launch or landing system could well result in death. That should
not ever be a feature of a safety minded design.

The CEV should certainly be a safety minded design, when this will
without doubt include a capsule ejection system should the rocket
malfunction during launch.

Also the capsule design will allow crew survival even during ballistic
reentry, when the trip would certainly be a rough ride, but such a
malfunction is survivable while on the Shuttle it is not.

It is also true to say that the capsule design will help to greatly
reduce wear and tear on the vehicle. And combined with modern
materials, then NASA could hopefully turn around such a vehicle in
just a few days. I would hope for hours, but this is NASA after all.

Since NASA does not control their astronauts, then that is why many
people now know the truth.

You're attributing this conspiracy theory to the astronauts now? Tell
us which astronaut said this. Names, dates, places.

Just ask any astronaut you want, when they well know that the
Shuttle's computers really fly the thing up and down.

The pilot is trained to do this manually in case of failure, but NASA
has banned the pilots doing so at other times in case they damage the
Shuttle, which means that the pilot just handles the final approach
and landing.

Maybe you think NASA hires astronauts from the Royal Shakespeare
Company? :-)

The astronauts do not lie, much, where it was just NASA's old policy
in trying to fool the public into thinking that the astronauts did the
whole thing.

NASA has stopped pretending that the astronauts fly the Shuttle these
days, but they certainly used to for a long time.

So, now you're a NASA spokesman?

No, when I am a independent part-time NASA historian. ;-]

And where did you read those "original Shuttle claims" that no one
else has seen?

Many people have certainly seen them.

After all NASA had to sell the Shuttle project to congress and Nixon,
where by running the numbers they figured out that the more times that
you launched the lower the cost will be.

And so they made impossible claims of launching these Shuttles weekly,
where according to them the costs would drop to $200 a lb.

The Shuttle was sold as a commercial money making idea, which is why
it carried all types of cargo to begin with. Unfortunately, it was the
Air Force that turned it into the blundering white and black elephant
it is, when they wanted higher payload capacity.

Where can I find a copy of them?

Ask your congress man/woman.

Or did you "hear it from a friend", like any good urban legend? :-)

NASA's history could certainly make folklore, but nearly everyone
knows that NASA's made some unsupported claims to congress in order to
get their Shuttle project approved.

Had they not made those claims though, then they could have got next
to nothing from the government.

First of all, they never promised "hundreds" of Shuttle flights. 50-60
was the goal.

Rubbish. What on Earth would they have needed four Shuttles for if
they only planned 50 to 60 launches? As 12 to 15 flights per Shuttle
before they throw it away makes your claims clearly unbelievable.

Instead what they were promising was large numbers of flights like
that per year, which was why before the Challenger accident they were
slowly building up to doing a near impossible 50 flights per year.

And technically the pilot was in control when it hit the trees, when
this false landing was being manually aborted.

No, he was not in control. He was out of control -- he tried to climb,
and the computer refused to respond.

If it is on manual control then the computer does not make the choices
here, where the only reason that it was not climbing was that it was
still coming out of this invalid descend.

The pilot almost made it though, but unfortunately trees also create
drag.

Ask any flight surgeon about spinal compression fractures.

NASA makes good seats and flight suits, but all this is better than 14
crew members having no choice than to die.

NASA doesn't make ejection seats at all.

No, but I am sure that Boeing could make them a nice escape system to
separate the CEV from the doomed rocket.

Such a computer would more likely have greater logic then the pilot,
who can only slowly respond to flashing lights also presented by the
computer.

A pilot can do much more than respond to flashing lights.

You can do more than respond to flashing lights, can't you?

Sometimes I wonder if you can read. As I said "only slowly respond",
where I did not say that this was limited to flashing lights, when
that was only an example.

And I believe that I have already made my case on how computer control
can be better than human control in certain situations.

Sensors can and do go on the blink, but any emergency escape system
would know this and would only respond to a clear pattern.

Pattern recognition is something that computers are notoriously bad
at.

Computers only do what their programmers tell them to, which means
that this is the same as saying that these humans lack suitable
pattern recognition.

That sounds like a false claim to me.

I'm getting tired of correcting your nonsense. Goodbye, Mr. Cardman.

Just when you started up a whole new thread. And for note I was
correcting your nonsense.

Cardman
http://www.cardman.com
http://www.cardman.co.uk

Cardman wrote in message . ..

You think Mars is a living world??? When, exactly, did you discover
life on Mars?

My use of the word "living" is a synonym for another word of
"animate".

Close -- "animate" does not mean "living," it means "to bring to
life." Fractured syntax aside, you still haven't supported your claim.
What evidence do you have that Mars is a living world? Can you show me
a Martian organism? Just one will do.

The astronauts do not lie, much,

You haven't produced any evidence that they lied at all. The fact that
they disagree with you does not prove they are lying. It may just be
that they know more about flying the Shuttle than you do.

And so they made impossible claims of launching these Shuttles weekly,

Weekly? You claimed NASA planned to launch "hundreds" of Shuttle
flights every year. "Weekly" means 52 times a year, "hundreds."

Now, what about those "hundreds of space stations" you said NASA
promised to build?

Ask any flight surgeon about spinal compression fractures.

NASA makes good seats and flight suits, but all this is better
than 14
crew members having no choice than to die.

NASA doesn't make ejection seats at all.

No, but I am sure that Boeing could make them a nice escape system to
separate the CEV from the doomed rocket.

Non sequitar. You claimed that NASA makes ejection seats and flight
suits. They make neither.

Pattern recognition is something that computers are notoriously bad
at.

That sounds like a false claim to me.

Then you don't really "know computers," either.

On 27 Jan 2004 20:32:57 -0800, (Edward
Wright) wrote:

Cardman wrote in message . ..

My use of the word "living" is a synonym for another word of
"animate".

Close -- "animate" does not mean "living," it means "to bring to
life." Fractured syntax aside,

Gee, go look up what a synonym is, when living is a synonym of
animate.

In fact just look in the synonyms section here...
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=living

you still haven't supported your claim.
What evidence do you have that Mars is a living world? Can you show me
a Martian organism? Just one will do.

Good God. Now you don't even know the meaning of animate, which just
happens to be a synonym for living.

I offer the dust storms on Mars as the first of this evidence.

The astronauts do not lie, much,

You haven't produced any evidence that they lied at all.

Then why say "Roger, going with throttle up", when the thrust was
already running at 103%?

And to say that astronauts don't lie would be against basic human
nature.

No, but I am sure that Boeing could make them a nice escape system to
separate the CEV from the doomed rocket.

Non sequitar. You claimed that NASA makes ejection seats

I have not mentioned ejection seats during this discussion, when my
point was about ejection of the capsule.

and flight suits. They make neither.

Well they pay the money to have them made, which makes it neither here
nor there.

Pattern recognition is something that computers are notoriously bad
at.

That sounds like a false claim to me.

Then you don't really "know computers," either.

Just over 20 qualifications on that very subject...

Cardman
http://www.cardman.com
http://www.cardman.co.uk