nuclear space engine - would it work ??

Scott Hedrick wrote:

"Henry Spencer" wrote in message
...

In article ,
Bill Higgins wrote:

Even assuming that the polar-ice idea was of enough interest to pursue,
would Apollo astronauts have been allowed to explore a
permanently-shadowed
crater? I doubt it.

Yeah, that's more of a stretch. And even assuming that the will was
there,
they weren't really very well equipped for it.


No, I'd say a 4 man team, using at least a couple of RTGs, as well as at
least one rover and another mechanized cart, and a whole lot of C cells for
the flashlights. I'd also expect a mobile radio relay station, something
that could be placed where it could use solar power, with a cable back to
the LM.

As long as it's in line-of-sight to the lander, who needs a cable?
This is what repeaters have done on Earth, for many decades...

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

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Scott Hedrick wrote:
"David Spain" wrote in message
news:iwo0h.4$Z66.3@trnddc07...
I do not believe that the 17 powers enumerated afterwards
were intended to in any way to define or restrict the phrase in para. 1.
I believe if that were the intent, it would have said so right there

*They did*. The words "foregoing powers" are *right there*.


"Foregoing Powers" includes Para 1 which states that Congress shall have
power to provide for the common defense and general welfare. It is a co-equal
phrase with the 17 enumerated. If it were not the Constitution would have so
stated, saying in effect "shall consist of..." but it does not.

The framers were *very* aware of how to word legal documents
in their time, this is not an oversight.

*Exactly*, which means they included "foregoing powers" for a reason.


Which *includes* providing for the general welfare, without actually specifying
exactly what that means. Since it means different things at different times.

Dave

"Scott Hedrick" wrote in message
news
I'd also expect a mobile radio relay station, something that could be
placed where it could use solar power, with a cable back to the LM.

With lots of froody ringtones

David Spain wrote:

Which *includes* providing for the general welfare, without actually
specifying
exactly what that means. Since it means different things at different
times.

Which means Congress can do what ever it will, except when it directly
collides with the Bill of Rights. So much for limited government. We
actually got to this stage by a perverse intepretation of the regulation
of interstate commerce. If a restaurant owner buys a toothpick from out
of and the Feds decree he must serve every warm blooded abortion that
slithers though is doors, he is compelled to do so by way of interstate
commerce being regulated.

Bob Kolker

The Tenth Amendment explains it pretty well,

http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/data/c...n/amendment10/
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor
prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively,
or to the people.

To me it seems we no longer have a Constitutional form of government. The
Constitution limits the powers of the Federal Government to a specific
list of things. Our form of government would better be described as a
"Precedence" form of government. Powers are expanded by "Precedence".

That's why the "Precedence" question that Senators ask Supreme Court
Nominees is probably the most important one. Through “Precedence” an
individual person can commit an act of “Commerce”. It doesn't take two
people to commit an act of “Commerce”, only one, and everything
physical thing is “Commerce”. I could be wrong.

--
Craig Fink
Courtesy E-Mail Welcome @
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On Mon, 30 Oct 2006 15:31:20+0000, David Spain wrote:

Scott Hedrick wrote:
"David Spain" wrote in message
news:iwo0h.4$Z66.3@trnddc07...
I do not believe that the 17 powers enumerated afterwards
were intended to in any way to define or restrict the phrase in para. 1.
I believe if that were the intent, it would have said so right there

*They did*. The words "foregoing powers" are *right there*.


"Foregoing Powers" includes Para 1 which states that Congress shall have
power to provide for the common defense and general welfare. It is a co-equal
phrase with the 17 enumerated. If it were not the Constitution would have so
stated, saying in effect "shall consist of..." but it does not.

The framers were *very* aware of how to word legal documents
in their time, this is not an oversight.

*Exactly*, which means they included "foregoing powers" for a reason.


Which *includes* providing for the general welfare, without actually specifying
exactly what that means. Since it means different things at different times.

Robert Kolker wrote:

Which means Congress can do what ever it will, except when it directly
collides with the Bill of Rights.

Or with an established Article in the Constitution. Which begs the question,
if Congress wished to abolish the Post Office or the Patent Office, could it do so
without first amending the Constitution? All thanks to enumerated powers #6 and
#7. In other words, be careful what you wish for. Just because it's written explicitly,
doesn't make it better. Personally, I believe the General Welfare clause would allow
Congress to abolish either or both by statute. Just because Congress is granted a
power doesn't imply it must exercise it. (Of course I know of *no* exceptions where
it hasn't).

Craig Fink wrote:
Our form of government would better be described as a
"Precedence" form of government. Powers are expanded by "Precedence".


I believe you are referring to actions taken by more activist Federal
Courts over the past 50 years or so. This is referred to in the US under
the phrase "legislating from the bench".

Congress of course holds the power to rein in any interpretations that
seem at odds with the national will, by passing legislation to narrow
or refute the Court's interpretation. Ultimately it has the power to
propose amendments to the Constitution, which of course the states must
ratify, which remove any legal basis for a contrary interpretation.

As Robert Kolker pointed out there is also a "Precedent" whereby the Executive
has in the past refused to enforce a Supreme Court ruling.

History tell us that, by convenience, Powers are expanded by force of arms.
Constitutional government was invented as a means to improve upon this
"Precedent".

Dave

In article ,
OM wrote:
would Apollo astronauts have been allowed to explore a permanently-shadowed
crater? I doubt it.
Yeah, that's more of a stretch. And even assuming that the will was there,
they weren't really very well equipped for it.

...For one, none of the Rovers had headlights, did they?

Nope. Nor did the suits have lights, for that matter (the shuttle ones
do, if I recall correctly). And neither suits nor rovers were built for
operation in extreme cold.
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In article ,
Robert Kolker wrote:
That is why the most likely place to build habitats is on Europa. That
moon is a water world.

Unfortunately, it's also deep in Jupiter's Van Allen belts, which are a
truly hostile environment -- like setting up your habitat inside a nuclear
reactor. I'm told -- haven't run numbers myself -- that if you were put
down naked on Europa, the radiation would kill you before the vacuum did!

Fortunately, there is no need to go to that extreme if you want water.
There is ice all over the outer solar system, much of it in friendlier
environments than Europa, and some even in the inner solar system.

Saturn's rings are mostly ice (and although Saturn has noticeable Van
Allen belts too, the ring region is almost totally radiation-free, because
the ring particles absorb it).

Jupiter's *outer* moons are outside the serious radiation area, as are the
Trojan asteroids, and both likely have major water content.

Some main-belt asteroids are now technically classed as comets -- they've
been observed to emit gas and dust like comets, and would have high water
content -- and it's likely that many of the outer-belt asteroids contain
either ice or water-rich gunk (like the Tagish Lake meteorite).

Phobos and Deimos are probably captured outer-belt asteroids, and ice may
survive in their interiors -- there are hints that Phobos is outgassing
*something*.

Mars definitely has lots of polar and subsurface ice.

Some near-Earth asteroids are now definitely known to be extinct comets,
which likely still retain volatiles in their interiors.

There definitely are hydrogen deposits at the lunar poles, especially the
south pole, although whether it's in the form of water ice is not yet
positively known.

And to cap it off, there appear to be major ice deposits in polar craters
on Mercury (!!).
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In article ,
Pat Flannery wrote:
My favorite is still the Aldebaran concept:
http://www.astronautix.com/lvs/aldbaran.htm
Never have been able to track down which specific ocean liner that is,
but its design is fairly close to the U.S.S. United States.

The reproduction there is really lousy. In the (color) version of that
painting in Cole's book "Beyond Tomorrow", you can just read the name on
the bow: "United States".

Incidentally, Aldebaran's engine wasn't necessarily a nuclear-pulse system;
it was *some* advanced nuclear system, details unspecified. The book's
caption mentions nuclear pulse, gas-core fission, and fusion as options.
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In article ,
Jonathan Silverlight wrote:
That's completely unsupported by hard evidence- Arecibo said they had
never detected water ice at either location, and Clementine detected
_hydrogen_, not water ice.

And the latest news on the subject is not hopeful
http://www.newscientistspace.com/art...pes-for-lunar-
ice-melt-away.html

The actual *refereed paper* is actually not nearly as pessimistic as the
poorly-written news reports about it (like that one) would have you think.
The Arecibo results are somewhat controversial -- not everyone agrees with
the way they interpret their data -- and in any case, all Arecibo could
see (as the paper admits) would be thick deposits of near-pure ice. If
the hydrogen seen by Lunar Prospector (not Clementine) is 1-2% of ice
dispersed in regolith -- which is actually the most likely interpretation
of the LP data -- then there's no way Arecibo could detect it, so the
negative radar results are largely irrelevant.
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