.. What if Tom Hanks filmed the...Future...of NASA instead of it's past?

On Wed, 25 Jun 2008 12:00:52 -0500, Pat Flannery
wrote:

but the basic energy use profile of a VTOL flying
machine is poor in comparison to a wheeled vehicle, and its failure
modes generally a lot more severe.

....The energy source problem is solved by killing all the hippies and
treehuggers standing in the way of safe nuclear power development. The
rotor problem has a fix of sorts, but it means squat if the blades
have been sheared off. That's the part they can't fix, unless they can
develop a safety device that either automatically steers you towards
an outdoor display promoting a wholesale bulk foam distributor's
convention, or can instantly produce said underneath the chopper *and*
makes sure it's upright -before- impact.

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

According to the Merrill Lynch 2007 World Wealth Report there are 9.5
million millionaires in the world and they control a total of $38.5
trillion - nearly all of which is liquid and available for investment
and consumption.

If 5% of this money was direct toward the purchase of VTOL capable
capable aircraft, that would amount to $2 trillion - and at $500,000
per copy, that would be 4 million vehicles. Spent over a 10 year
period, that would be a production rate of 400,000 per year. With an
airframe lifetime of 10 years - this sizes your factory.

Demand relative to production, sizes your price.

This is given to engineers to achieve price points and volume within
this 'production box' = there's also the recurring cost of maintaining
and operating the vehicles.

Fuel and Oil
Scheduled Maintenance Labour
Unscheduled Maintenance Labour
Engine Overhaul
Airframe Overhaul
Airframe Lifed Items

http://www.helinews.com/turbinecomparison.shtml

Say, $150 per hour - and you fly 300 mph - that's $0.50 per mile -
30,000 miles per year - that's $15,000 - which is nothing for these
folks. Costs could be double that - and it would still be nothing.

4 million aircraft x $15,000 per year = $60 billion/yr
400,000 aircraft per year x $500,000 = $200 billion/yr

With highly automated flight controls, which Moller is talking about
it makes more sense to arrange fractional aircraft ownership, and pay
just the recurring cost - that way

So, an 'air taxi' that serviced say New York, would fly someone point
to point say 10 miles - for $10 - and make a decent profit. This
could easily transition to a cross country flight - of say 300 miles -
for $230 - without all the hassle at the airport and such.

So a GPS enabled cell phone would call an air taxi to dispatch an
automatically guided Moller skycar to your point of call - in minutes
picking you up. There'd be a $5 pick up fee - non-refundable - and
$0.75 per mile distance fee - all billed when you entered your
destination code during your call. In fact, GPS derived 'waypoints'
could be stored on your phone - so that you would just select 'home'
or 'golf' or 'Laguna Fred' or 'Matt' as you desire.

How many aircars would be needed for this?

Well, here are the sales of the top 11 airlines in the world;

AirFrance KLM $31.0 billion
Lufthansa $26.5 billion
TUI $24.3 billion
AMR Corporation $22.6 bilion
JAL $18.1 billion
UAL $18.0 billion
Delta $17,3 billion
British Airways $17.0 billion
Virgin Group $08.0 billion
Cathay Pacific $07.7 billion

TOTAL $190.5 billion

At $0.75 per mile this represents a potential market for 445 billion
miles - with up to 4 passengers - 1,780 billion seat miles - at 50%
occupancy 890 billion passenger miles.

Ride sharing options on the software would be welcome ways to increase
occupancy and reduce passenger costs. That $230 cost could be reduced
to $62 per passenger if shared by four -each paying a 'pickup' charge.

Say a Moller based air taxi service penetrates 20% of this market -
that's 90 billion miles per year. Limiting service to 4,383 flight
hours per year - and an average speed - of 300 mph - that's 1,314,900
miles per vehicle. That's 68,446 vehicles. - say 80,000 vehicles -
20% of one years production

One year's production i.e 200,000 vehicles - operated tihs way - could
displace the airlines for short haul travel - while 80% of production
would fill 50% of millionaire buyers over a 10 year period - at these
prices.

Of course as prices drop, private ownership of vehicles would increase
and taxi or fractional ownership would decrease.

A 1/32nd share in a Moller Skycar at $500,000 is $15,625 - that's $150
per month over a 10 year period. With 4,000 flight hours divided by
32 is 125 hours per year - at $150 per hour that's $1,563 per month -
$1,713 per month - which is less than the cost of some sports cars.

They could trade hours, at $0.75 -or sell to qualified outsiders for
the same price, with a $5 processing fee per trip - If they flew half
their miles and sold the other half at $0.75 - their costs would be
slashed to $541 per month - which would motivate signing up for the
deal - since that would allow them to fly 15,000 miles at about the
same cost as a new automobile.

2.56 million network owners would support 80,000 aircraft at 1/32
ownership interest in a program like this.

So, as we range from the very wealthiest of folks to the less well off
folks who have a million or less, but a decent income and credit
rating, a program can be imagined for them. Even at today's fuel
prices.

http://www.helinews.com/turbinecomparison.shtml

Here's a plane that has VTOL capabilities and a 600 mile range and
travels at 600 mph. Of course the cost is 100x that of Moller's
vehicle. Yet it gives us a window of improvement we might expect for
advanced systems in the future.

With aerial refueling, or some sort of beamed power - to increase
range - if done at a reasonable cost - today's airline/airport system
would go the way of train stations - as small automated VTOL aircraft
carried people point to point.

Ducted fans can be quieter and more efficient than free rotors of the
same diameter operating at the same rotor speeds

http://www.esotec.co.nz/hb/HTML/DuctMyths.html

Saying that winged vehicles are necessarily less efficient than
wheeled vehicles and so they cannot ever compete is like saying that
rubber tires on asphalt is necessarily less efficient than steel
wheels on steel rails so automobiles will never compete. Obviously
long distance trucking and automobiles (along with airlines) kicked
train ass back in the 1950s and 60s. Why? Because efficiencies are
only one decision point in a large decision matrix. Knowing how
these decisions are made, and engineering solutions not possible with
other technology, assures economic success.

For example, one thing about trains versus automobiles, automobiles
can travel pretty much anywhere a horse can - trains are limited to
tracks and stations. This gave trucks and automobiles huge
logistical advantages over trains and streetcars - which was exploited
by auto manufacturers to efficiently compete with trains. Airlines
are far more costly and less elegant than train travel - with many of
the logistical problems of train stations - yet they competed
effectively due to their greater speed. Ditto for ocean travel -
despite the inefficiencies of air travel when compared to ocean going
vessels.

Point to point travel in a quiet, safe, reliable, fully automated VTOL
aircraft summoned by a GPS enabled telephone - that arrives in less
time than it takes for a long red light to change green - and delivers
up to 4 passengers with luggage to any point within a 600 mile radius
of their current location in less than 2 hours - at a cost of less
than $60 per passenger - would kick ass of airlines and automobiles -
and establish themselves as a permanent feature in the transportation
matrix - once all the elements are in place.

Moller has been ineffective because he hasn't had the $3 billion
needed to make such a system work and likely doesn't think about his
market and so forth - merely the technical issues facing him at any
time.

Fact is, properly developed, 400,000 moller sky cars per year could be
sold world wide today - once certain features were in place. 90% of
these would be sold to private owners - among the 9.5 million
millionaires in the world today. 10% of these would be sold to
'network' owners - who would use half the air miles available on the
airframe personally, and pay a paltry $520 per month - and the other
half of these would be sold on a charter basis for $5 pick up fee and
$0.75 per mile distance charge.

Over a 12 year period 4.4 milion vehicles would be in service, and the
airline industry would be about 1/3 its current size - and perhaps may
not even exist in its current form.

Jumbo jets may go the way of the dirigible.

Despite supposed inefficiencies of wings versus wheels.

Hippies and tree huggers are not the problem facing nuclear. We have
had the technology since the 1950s to create high temp nuclear
reactors that produce energy at less cost than coal fired plants.
This was pointed out to Eisenhower and Kennedy by Brookhaven National
Labs as early as 1960. Cost per watt of a nuclear power plant scales
at (1/temp)^4 - so by doubling the temp in Kelvins, you reduce cost
per watt by 1/16th - This relationship and the knowledge that
Project Pluto (nuclear jet) and Project Rover (nuclear rocket) had
already demonstrated temperatures in excess of a tungsten filament in
a light bulb (nuclear light bulb) by 1950s - prompted then AEC
chairman Lewis Strauss - a nuclear engineer - to pronounce in 1954
that by 1970 energy would be too cheap to meter.

While tree huggers and oil company execs alike love to say this
statement was an ignorant one based on sheer exurberance, a brief look
at the scaling laws of cost versus temperature - and the temperatures
achieved in the 1950s - in advanced propulsion programs - indicate
this is a rather tame statement.

What we must ask ourselves is why has the DOE failed to get any money
to commercialize so called high temp reactors that produce power at
1/4 the cost of coal fired plants? Why do we stay with core temps
precisely equal to coal fired plants over 50 year period?

It isn't the tree huggers.

The BNL study came out late in the Eisenhower administration, and was
reviewed by Kennedy. Eisenhower wanted to see the military
applications fully develeoped first before commercializing these sorts
of reators. Kennedy was pushing Apollo - and was assasinated before
he could follow through on his plans. In fact, internal memos to the
Kennedy White House discuss the positive spin off of NERVA/ROVER
program to high temperature reactors - along with AEC documents as
well.

LBJ and McNamara cut the space program, including ROVER/NERVA days
after the assasination - and increased involvement in Vietnam.
Vietnam absorbed lots of LBJs attention.

Nixon, put the oil companies in charge of energy policy - since they
knew most about energy, and could deliver the most value to the nation
at the least cost in taxes - that was his theory. They abandoned
energy independence and sowed the seeds for our current situation.

Carter- following Nixon in the wake of the first energy crisis -
engineered by Nixon's advisors - vowed to do something about energy.
A nuclear engineer he was cognizant of what was needed, and aware of
the BNL study done in 1959-60. The very week Carter presented his
plans to Congress, a meltdown occurred at Three Mile Island, and the
movie China Syndrome came out. Over $40 billion was spent on energy
research - very little was spent on nuclear research - and no high
temp reactors were commercialized at that time.

Do you really think its the tree huggers and hippies that are stopping
nuclear? Its the Hippies that marginalized Lewis' statements about
energy being too cheap to meter?

That is utter bull****.

DOE announced last year that they plan to introduce what they call a
GENERATION IV nuclear reactor - basically the old BNL high temp
nuclear reactor - by 2040 - that's about the time the marginal cost of
oil will equal its marginal value.

Look at it from the oil company's perspective.

Enforced competition following the break up of the 7 sisters in 1911
by the US Supreme Court, created a situation where there was an
oversupply of oil. As a result, energy costs, like computer costs in
the last half of the 20th centuyr, declined. The rate of decrease
from 1850 to 1960 was about 5% per year. Oil was about $2 per barrel
at the end of this period. Oil companies were in a bad situation.
They had a fixed asset and they were in a market place where they
needed to increase production to increase revenue, but increased
production decreased cost.

This was alright as long as economic expansion could be counted on to
increase demand. bigger cars, bigger homes, more appliances, faster
business and delivery cycles, and so forth.

But, we were reaching limits to growth - in a handful of strategic
materials, and barring easy access to those materials from off world -
it would not be possible to sustain unlimited economic growth beyond
the 1970s.

In this situation, ultra-low-cost energy from high temperature nuclear
light bulbs - operating at TPV generators - delivering ultra-low-cost
hydrogen -safely and reliably - in 1965-68 time frame - (called for in
the BNL study) would mean that they would be left with about 1,200
billion barrels of stranded reserves - valued at less than $0.10 per
barrel - the age of oil would be over.by then -since the cost of
extraction would exceed this value.

Better to end all discussion of ultra-low-cost energy - by engineering
a supply restriction - and doing what Rockerfellar tried to do before
1911 - restrict output so that the marginal value received for a
barrel of oil was a large percentage of the marginal value created by
using a barrel of oil.

After all, why sell a barrel of oil to a fertilizer producer for $2
when they create $4,500 worth of fertilizer with it? Why sell a
barrel of oil to a plastics manufacturer for $2 when they create
$15,000 of plastic with it?

Better to analyze the needs of each party, and figure out the value
created - and rape = I mean bargain - with that party - to get most of
the value created by the oil. After all, supplies are limited, and
once they're gone, their poor stockholders won't have anything else to
sell. Besides, with all that cash, they'll easily be able to come up
with some alternative. The alternative already exists - its just in
the wrong hands. It needs to be in the hands of the oil companies -
and they need to have the freedom to charge whatever they can to
users.

The present supply difficulties are causing the problem. Congress is
looking into it. They'll give the oil companies the right to vary
pricing based on use as a result. This will be explained as very
much like selling tickets at a movie theater. A theater owner sells
matinee tickets, student tickets, senior tickes. Why? Because the
value to each of those is different, and he maximizes revenue by doing
this.

So, oil companies will want the DOE to develop data they already have
to determine the marginal value of a barrel of oil to particular SIC
businesses. They will then set prices based on the value created.
This will radically increase the revenue of oil companies. Then, the
oil companies will make huge hay by giving credits to consumers -
which will help car manufacturers - they'll guarantee $4 per gallon
for new car buyers say. Old car owners - well they're less efficient
and polluting and are less safe anyway - they'll be phased out and pay
$10 per gallon (which will be reached by November in the USA) They'll
also solemnly swear to research the energy problem and come up with a
solution - after all they're in the same boat they'll explain -
because their oil is running out too. They'll then spend far less
money than its worth, to take control of the high temp nuclear reactor
program - and introduce it at a rate that maintains energy prices - by
the time energy is too cheap to meter - that will just mean that the
internal cost to the energy companies will be low - and 'market
conditions' established by regulatory oversight extended from the
present day crisis - will rule the day.

This wasn't engineered by the tree huggers - asshole.

But by someone else - who has their eyes firmly affixed on your wallet
- telling themselves its their oil that made you rich, and by God
they're going to get the piece of it they deserve.

Of course there IS an alternative.

That alternative is to publicly fund research to commercialize IN
COMPETITION WITH PRESENT SUPPLIERS - ultra low cost methods of primary
energy production - and let the COMPETITIVE market figure it out. Of
course, tree huggers ARE against this - which explains why oil
companies are one of the major supporters of tree hugger
organizations.

Listen you flaming asshole, if you can erect a $28 billion coal to
liquids facility in LESS than 10 years - I'll pay you a considerable
sum to do it.

I don't think ANY alternative energy program has had this much spent
on it. Furthermore, I think if you took ALL the alternative energy
programs TOGETHER they wouldn't add up to $28 billion -

and I have EIGHT programs like this underway worldwide.

So, please forgive me for saying **** YOU and the horse you rode in on
you ignorant savage.

On Jun 25, 2:12*pm, BradGuth wrote:
And so little if anything of "Williamknowsbest" has yet to directly
benefit another living or soon to be prematurely dead soul.

Even our Zionist/Nazi DARPA (aka New World Order) has been doing a
better job than Williamknowsbest.

- * * * Brad Guth Brad_Guth Brad.Guth BradGuth

Williamknowsbest wrote:
Listen you flaming asshole, if you can erect a $28 billion coal to
liquids facility in LESS than 10 years - I'll pay you a considerable
sum to do it.

If you are so rich, why aren't you smart?

I don't think ANY alternative energy program has had this much spent
on it. Furthermore, I think if you took ALL the alternative energy
programs TOGETHER they wouldn't add up to $28 billion -

and I have EIGHT programs like this underway worldwide.

Where, and under what name, and why are you posting lies and drivel here
so that your grandchildren can look back and think, "Gee, what an
asshole he was" ?

So, please forgive me for saying **** YOU and the horse you rode in on
you ignorant savage.

I forgive you for calling Brad an ignorant savage, but I'm sure you can
do better. How about Fishermen of Fools with Stinky Bait?

Williamknowsbest wrote:
[... snip ...]

If you are William Mook, the engineer and inventor, then I am all eyes
and ears. What you are attempting has enough challenges that, in my
opinion, it is a waste of time to bother with the pests of Usenet.
Speak to the journals, continue patents.

Watching with interest and fascination,

J

On Jun 25, 1:54 pm, Williamknowsbest wrote:
Listen you flaming asshole, if you can erect a $28 billion coal to
liquids facility in LESS than 10 years - I'll pay you a considerable
sum to do it.

At best (Yiddish balls to the wall), we have 100 years of quality coal
and another 100 years of medium to poor quality coal to convert. Then
what fossil dregs are we talking about? (lowest grade coal conversions
at 10 tonnes per tonne of liquid fuel?)

Converting oily sands, oily muck and oily rock into usable road
asphalt, aviation, marine shipping, commercial trucks, bus and private
transportation usage of various liquid fuels is technically doable, as
long as continued CO2 pollution (including NOx, multiple other toxins
and radiation) at $10+/gallon plus $1/kwhr isn't a problem. Actually,
by the end of 100 years from now, we'll be thanking our lucky stars if
fuel is only at $10/gallon, because more than likely it'll be headed
towards the $100/gallon mark, and otherwise our electrical energy
looking good at $10/kwhr, mostly because wind, tidal, solar and
geothermal as well as thorium derived energy doesn't make weapons
grade fuel for your WWIII, WWIV and WWV.

Running the same equipment at the current levels of performance, with
the same amounts of cargo and passenger capability via your green
hydrogen and fuel cells is a spendy joke, unless utilized as direct
combustion with atmosphere that'll involve having to capture and/or
convert all of that pesky NOx, not to mention dealing with the
required volumetric factors of those hydrogen fuel tanks in order to
match the 350+ mile automotive cruising range would make any such
combination not the least bit comparable, especially if stuck with
having the conventional 4-cycle ICE involved.

Your less than vapor kind of green hydrogen that'll seemingly never
come to past unless your offshore bank accounts are getting stuffed
with our hard earned public loot is very ENRON/ExxonMobil of
yourself. DARPA is obviously very proud of their brown-nosed minions
and fellow rusemasters like yourself, but then so would their Hitler
have been impressed.


I don't think ANY alternative energy program has had this much spent
on it. Furthermore, I think if you took ALL the alternative energy
programs TOGETHER they wouldn't add up to $28 billion -

and I have EIGHT programs like this underway worldwide.

So, please forgive me for saying **** YOU and the horse you rode in on
you ignorant savage.

At least I'm not the one telling lies, excluding evidence and
otherwise pretending that I'm somebody that I'm not. I'm also not
intellectually or otherwise bipolar.

Obviously those Zionist/Nazi folks have always been darn good at
converting coal, because it's what gave their puppet Hitler exactly
what was needed at the time, including their makings of hydrogen
peroxide(h2o2) that's so downright nifty for so many things.

Of course, in your pretend-atheist mindset that is hell bent upon
forgetting about your sorted past, especially of those you continually
brown-nose, whereas in your skewed mindset, obviously the goal of Mook
always justifies the means. The New World Order of lord Mook is
almost complete.

- Brad Guth Brad_Guth Brad.Guth BradGuth

On Jun 25, 11:52*am, Williamknowsbest wrote:
You've explained why helicopters today aren't being widely used and
elided any reference to potential growth... which if investments were
made in this technology, would result in improvements in the features
you speak about.

People with ALL heavier-than-air technology, including cars have
greatly overestimated
their abiliity with future technology.
Which is mostly why the brighter people turned their wasted garages
in computer and laser factories.
And turned their houses into PV Cell Solariums.
And turned their idiot malls into Hologram outlets,
And turned their bridge companies into titaniium companies.
And tunred their idiot electric companies into microwave companies.
And turned their idiot schools into philosophy satellites.
And turned their idiot army into cell phone repairmen.
And turned their idiot coal companies into robot dodgers.
.

On Jun 25, 2:16 pm, John wrote:
Williamknowsbest wrote:
Listen you flaming asshole, if you can erect a $28 billion coal to
liquids facility in LESS than 10 years - I'll pay you a considerable
sum to do it.

If you are so rich, why aren't you smart?

I don't think ANY alternative energy program has had this much spent
on it. Furthermore, I think if you took ALL the alternative energy
programs TOGETHER they wouldn't add up to $28 billion -

and I have EIGHT programs like this underway worldwide.

Where, and under what name, and why are you posting lies and drivel here
so that your grandchildren can look back and think, "Gee, what an
asshole he was" ?

So, please forgive me for saying **** YOU and the horse you rode in on
you ignorant savage.

I forgive you for calling Brad an ignorant savage, but I'm sure you can
do better. How about Fishermen of Fools with Stinky Bait?

If our DARPA didn't already have a certified minion/mole by the name
and supposed wizardly expertise as William Mook, they'd sure as hell
make one up. At least that what I'd do if I were in charge of DARPA
and of this public Usenet/newsgroups of theirs.

- Brad Guth Brad_Guth Brad.Guth BradGuth