|
|
Thread Tools | Display Modes |
#31
|
|||
|
|||
Bush and VSE (was Breaking News! NASA Astronaut Marsha Ivins ****ting Her Diapers!)
On Sun, 3 Jun 2007 17:42:07 -0400, in a place far, far away,
"Jonathan" made the phosphor on my monitor glow in such a way as to indicate that: "Rand Simberg" wrote in message ... On Sun, 3 Jun 2007 11:35:34 -0400, in a place far, far away, "Jonathan" made the phosphor on my monitor glow Yes, as long as people continue to not understand this, and yearn for byegone glory days when Space Was Important, and delude themselves that they can return to them, they'll continue to be disappointed. So you're saying that global warning, oil prices and the war are NOT urgent political issues? No. You are the delusional one to think they are not. SSP connects strongly to them all and many more. Not in any credible way. But going back to the moon and to mars does? No. What latest bout of insanity would cause you to even ask such a question? |
#32
|
|||
|
|||
Bush and VSE (was Breaking News! NASA Astronaut Marsha Ivins****ting Her Diapers!)
So you're saying that global warning, oil prices and the war are NOT urgent political issues? You are the delusional one to think they are not. SSP connects strongly to them all and many more. We gotta worry about school prayer, family values and other stupid crap like that first.... :-) |
#33
|
|||
|
|||
Bush and VSE (was Breaking News! NASA Astronaut Marsha Ivins ****ting Her Diapers!)
In article ,
Jonathan wrote: ...he hardly ever mentions it in speeches, and he's repeatedly failed to request even the modest funding levels he originally promised. No, this is not his pet project... I think it was his fathers pet project. And when he realized the support was slim also walked away from it. But his father let it die while George W. make it official policy with the Presidential order. Bush Sr. appears to have been genuinely interested in the idea, although unwilling to spend significant political capital on it. He too *did* make it official policy, but it was DOA in Congress because it was so badly mismanaged right from the start. This version was better thought out, including telling NASA up front that it couldn't base its plans on budget miracles. However, I don't see any sign at all that Bush Jr. cares about it. What little support he reluctantly gives it, I'd say, is at least partially just because he really, really hates reversing an announced decision. ...This policy keeps the contracts with the larger players, while diverting a larger share of the NASA budget to them also. SSP would open up things to the start ups. Surely you jest. A huge project like powersats, especially if it has to get started in a hurry to get some results soon, is clearly a job needing companies with large resources and long experience. I can't think of a better way to ensure the continued flow of money to the Usual Suspects than a big job to be done in a hurry. Note that NASA *has* given some funding to some of the startups in the current game, with its "COTS" contracts. And the fact he barely supports it anymore shows the weakness of the policy. So why is there any argument that a new direction is needed? Because some of us no longer believe that there are magic words which will get the government gung-ho about space development and keep it that way. Your argument is that Bush clearly didn't get the magic words right, so it's time to try a different set, because the true magic words *must* be out there somewhere and the sooner we find them the better. There's nothing much wrong with the current direction, as a direction. (It's better than no direction, which was the situation for many years.) If one assumes that a new direction cannot reasonably be expected to stir up vastly more enthusiasm and support, then there is no good reason to try a new one just because the current one didn't produce miracles. There are no miracles to be had. And today that very same urgency can be installed in a NASA goal from global warming and oil shortages. Thirty years they say for both to come to a climax. When you start talking about throwing really large amounts of money at it, you'll find that "they" are nowhere near that unanimous about it. And even stipulating urgent need, there are a wide range of views about how best to proceed. The space option is seen as (to put it politely) speculative and long-term, not least because NASA's incompetence when faced with even much more modest goals has become so obvious. Too uncertain and too long-term. That's just not the case. The SERT study, the largest to date set out the following initial timetable. If the program were to begin in 2002, then... "Technology flight demonstrations (referred to by NASA as MSCs) are scheduled in FY 2006-2007, FY 2011-2012, and FY 2016." At the end of which we have, not the first operational powersat, but a technology demonstration or three which might indicate a *long-term* potential for actual powersats. Reminder: Apollo went from commitment to *final objective* in eight years, and only barely managed to hold its political base together long enough. And even those dates *ASSUME* that NASA and its contractors manage to execute the program competently and promptly, which would be a huge departure from recent history. Powersats don't stop being uncertain and long-term until you can commit to having a "pilot plant" powersat built within ten years (preferably less). Note that a pilot plant and a technology demonstrator are very different things; a pilot plant has to *be* an operational system in all but size. If it can't deliver hundreds of megawatts 24x7 to the power grid, it's not a pilot plant. As a single answer to Global warming and dependence on fossil fuels and the Middle East, it makes an easy sell to politicians on the left or right, dove or hawk, tree-hugger of NRA. Not as long as it's uncertain and long-term; see above. It's *not* an easy sell when people flatly don't believe you can deliver any time soon, regardless of great it would be if you could. You have rather obviously never tried selling anything to a politician. They spend a fair part of their lives listening to sales pitches; they have a *lot* of sales resistance. (P.S. I've already spent more time on this than I should have; expect future responses to be a lot terser.) -- spsystems.net is temporarily off the air; | Henry Spencer mail to henry at zoo.utoronto.ca instead. | |
#34
|
|||
|
|||
Bush and VSE (was Breaking News! NASA Astronaut Marsha Ivins****ting Her Diapers!)
Henry Spencer wrote:
Bush Sr. appears to have been genuinely interested in the idea, although unwilling to spend significant political capital on it. He too *did* make it official policy, but it was DOA in Congress The bush Jr announcement did have a very positive aspect to it in that it unlocked NASA's ability to do research on possible manned Mars missions. And this should survive any CEV plans since the space station can be used to do such research (testing O2 generators, closed loop ECLSS etc) Is it true that prior to that announcement, NASA was prohibited from using any of its budgets to perform research for a manned Mars mission ? If so, when would such a policy have been imposed on Nasa ? Bush Jr ? CLinton ? Bush Sr ? Was it imposed at the budget debacle in late 1990s when station cost overruns forced the government to give NASA strict spending guidelines ? |
#35
|
|||
|
|||
Bush and VSE (was Breaking News! NASA Astronaut Marsha Ivins ****ting Her Diapers!)
|
#36
|
|||
|
|||
Bush and VSE (was Breaking News! NASA Astronaut Marsha Ivins ****ting Her Diapers!)
In article ,
John Doe wrote: Henry Spencer wrote: Bush Sr. appears to have been genuinely interested in the idea, although unwilling to spend significant political capital on it. He too *did* make it official policy, but it was DOA in Congress The bush Jr announcement did have a very positive aspect to it in that it unlocked NASA's ability to do research on possible manned Mars missions. And even more importantly in my opinion, it finally lifted the Moon taboo. Best, - Joe |
#37
|
|||
|
|||
Bush and VSE (was Breaking News! NASA Astronaut Marsha Ivins****ting Her Diapers!)
Powersats don't stop being uncertain and long-term until you can commit to having a "pilot plant" powersat built within ten years (preferably less). Note that a pilot plant and a technology demonstrator are very different things; a pilot plant has to *be* an operational system in all but size. If it can't deliver hundreds of megawatts 24x7 to the power grid, it's not a pilot plant. Something capable of that would likely need to be built in place. And a powersat (as I understand it) needs to be in a geostationalry orbit, and that's about 22 thousand miles up out there. Which would mean that we'd need to get men and materials up that far. Construction shacks with life support, etc. And once it's operational, you probably won't need it manned 24/7, but you may need to get people up there reasonably quickly to make bigger repairs when something breaks down. Oh, you'd have redundant and backup systems to keep things running, but eventually the failures accumulate enough that you need to go up and clean it up. All those trips are going to be expensive. But you have nearly continuos sunlight (except around March and September) up there. It's probably a lot cheaper to just build the solar power plant on the ground (like in a desert in Arizona), even though it can only work during the daytime. But power consumption does peak during the daytime, so it would still make sense to do it. And you don't need to convert the power to RF and back again. And access for building it and maintenance is nothing out of the ordinary. |
#38
|
|||
|
|||
Bush and VSE (was Breaking News! NASA Astronaut Marsha Ivins ****ting Her Diapers!)
On Mon, 04 Jun 2007 18:47:38 GMT, in a place far, far away, robert
casey made the phosphor on my monitor glow in such a way as to indicate that: Powersats don't stop being uncertain and long-term until you can commit to having a "pilot plant" powersat built within ten years (preferably less). Note that a pilot plant and a technology demonstrator are very different things; a pilot plant has to *be* an operational system in all but size. If it can't deliver hundreds of megawatts 24x7 to the power grid, it's not a pilot plant. Something capable of that would likely need to be built in place. And a powersat (as I understand it) needs to be in a geostationalry orbit, and that's about 22 thousand miles up out there. No, it doesn't need to be--that's only one potential architecture. The benefit of GEO is that you can get continuous service from a single satellite, whereas lower altitudes require a constellation of them. However, the latter would be easier to demonstrate with a part-time system, which would be a proof of concept for the whole constellation. |
#39
|
|||
|
|||
Bush and VSE
In article .net,
robert casey wrote: Powersats don't stop being uncertain and long-term until you can commit to having a "pilot plant" powersat built within ten years (preferably less). Note that a pilot plant and a technology demonstrator are very different things; a pilot plant has to *be* an operational system in all but size. If it can't deliver hundreds of megawatts 24x7 to the power grid, it's not a pilot plant. Something capable of that would likely need to be built in place. And a powersat (as I understand it) needs to be in a geostationalry orbit, and that's about 22 thousand miles up out there. It doesn't have to be, it's just an engineering trade-off. A GEO powersat has obvious advantages when it comes to aiming and and receiving the power beam, and it can provide continuous power, which any other orbit almost certainly wouldn't do (for lack of receiving stations). But it does have the problems of being a long way up (as you point out), and needing a really big transmitter. Which would mean that we'd need to get men and materials up that far. Probably, but again, that'd be an engineering choice -- there are almost certainly other ways to do it. Construction shacks with life support, etc. And once it's operational, you probably won't need it manned 24/7, but you may need to get people up there reasonably quickly to make bigger repairs when something breaks down. Sure sounds good to me! It's probably a lot cheaper to just build the solar power plant on the ground (like in a desert in Arizona), even though it can only work during the daytime. Yes, in the short term or for small needs, of course this (or many other things) makes more sense. SSP only makes sense when you're thinking long-term and on the scale of satisfying a major fraction of Earth's power needs. Cheers, - Joe |
#40
|
|||
|
|||
Bush and VSE (was Breaking News! NASA Astronaut Marsha Ivins ****ting Her Diapers!)
"Rand Simberg" wrote in message ... On Sun, 3 Jun 2007 17:42:07 -0400, in a place far, far away, What latest bout of insanity would cause you to even ask such a question? I don'ty know. Since I'm always bashing the Vision, and you're always arguing with me. Guess I assumed that meant you supported the Vision, at least the moon and mars part. |
Thread Tools | |
Display Modes | |
|
|
Similar Threads | ||||
Thread | Thread Starter | Forum | Replies | Last Post |
Breaking News! NASA Astronaut Marsha Ivins Shitting Her Diapers! | kT | Space Shuttle | 152 | June 26th 07 09:10 AM |
The NASA ATK Conspiracy - Astronaut Marsha Ivins Exposed! | kT | History | 6 | May 28th 07 06:53 AM |
The NASA ATK Conspiracy - Astronaut Marsha Ivins Exposed! | kT | Space Shuttle | 4 | May 27th 07 09:00 PM |
The NASA ATK Conspiracy - Astronaut Marsha Ivins Exposed! | kT | Space Station | 4 | May 27th 07 09:00 PM |
The NASA ATK Conspiracy - Astronaut Marsha Ivins Exposed! | kT | Policy | 4 | May 27th 07 09:00 PM |