WHAT’S NEW Robert L. Park Friday, 28 Dec 07 Washington, DC

"Sam Wormley" wrote in message
news:M7edj.9112$Ux2.1411@attbi_s22...
WHAT’S NEW Robert L. Park Friday, 28 Dec 07 Washington, DC

1. HIGH-ENERGY PHYSICS: SANK IN "THE GATHERING STORM."
Science-policy reps were patting each other on the back in August when
President Bush signed the bipartisan America COMPETES Act in response to
the NAS report Rising Above the Gathering Storm. It was meant to keep
America competitive by boosting basic science, including a doubling of
funding for NSF and the DOE Office of Science. Six months later, the most
basic of all the sciences, high-energy physics, is in a death spiral.
Fermilab faces major layoffs, the neutrino oscillation experiment, NOvA,
which was expected to be the lab’s principle activity after the Tevatron
shuts down, is terminated. Three quarters of the funding for the
International Linear Collider is cut. The US again stiffed ITER on our
share of the fusion program. The NSF increase was pared down to 1
percent. Meanwhile, in a letter to the research community, House Speaker
Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said her "commitment to the innovation agenda remains
strong and steadfast." Try spending that.

2. IT’S FUNDAMENTAL: DO WE NEED HIGH-ENERGY PHYSICS?
Why would fragile, self-replicating collections of atoms, trapped on a
tiny planet for a few dozen orbits about an undistinguished star among
countless other stars in one of billions of galaxies, spend their orbits
trying to understand how it happened? Others claim to know all the
answers, but the only way to know is to experiment - and they haven’t done
it.

3. LOW-ENERGY PHYSICS: FUNDING IS UP FOR "CLEAN COAL."
The spending bill did increase funding for "clean coal." Sound like an
oxymoron? Integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) generators were
supposed to be all over the place by now. They turn coal into gases and
filter out the CO2 before the gases are burned. Clean coal plants cost
more to build but are cheaper in the long run - or at least they would be
if they captured and sequestered the carbon dioxide like they’re supposed
to. The technology, however, is not there yet, and some planned clean-
coal plants are being cancelled. That’s a relief to some people in West
Virginia, where coal companies want to scrape the tops off the mountains
to get the coal, filling the valleys with the rubble.

4. IT’S A DAM SHAME: WHAT ARE WE WILLING TO LET GO?
The rules have changed. China, according to a story in today’s Wall
Street Journal, has become the dam builder for the world. Chinese
companies are now involved in deals to construct at least 47 major dams in
27 countries, not all of which have nice leaders. Construction of large
dams involves the forced relocation of people - in the case of the
gigantic Three Gorges Dam in China 1.4 million people had to be
relocated. Fifty years ago the Pacific Northwest was the envy of the rest
of the nation for its cheap hydroelectric power - the sun does all the
work. Then the public mood began to shift away from fish ladders and back
toward wild rivers. With global warming as a new term in the equation,
pressure for new dam projects is certain to increase. Although dams alter
the environment, the changes are not necessarily bad.

THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND.
Opinions are the author's and not necessarily shared by the
University of Maryland, but they should be.
---

Have we colonized the space frontier yet (have we torn down World Utopia's
iron curtain yet and opened up the system wide open)? NO!!! Then the
resources of the Earth will be there in enormous abundance but you will
starve to death for resources. Why?! World-class entropy-like physics.

Over the last two million years Man has increased in numbers one million
fold. That is the small potatoes base. Over the base, over the last two
million years, Man has increased in its energy, infrastructure, complexity,
powers, reach and complications two million fold average per every man,
woman and child living.

When an infant is first conceived in the womb, the womb is an infinite
world infinite in its sustaining resources and wealth. But as time goes by
the infant evolves organs (space age infrastructure) and limbs (space age
tools). It develops needs and wants, complexity and powers, beyond the womb
world. It develops dimensionality beyond the dimensionality of the womb, any
womb, every womb (any planet, every planet). There is no staying. There is
no going back. There is no increasing "energy efficiency" to stay in the
womb and not expand and grow from it.

It is surprising that SCIENTISTS (particularly including 'professional
phyicists') who went before Congress to hawk the needlessness of Man's
expansion into Space (including just "at this time") will be discovered to
have been the most stupid humans the world has ever produced.

GLB

G. L. Bradford wrote:

Have we colonized the space frontier yet (have we torn down
World Utopia's iron curtain yet and opened up the system wide
open)? NO!!!

Brad, don't you think it's about time you stopped talking about
colonization and started doing some of it? No one's going to do it
for you.

Jim Davis

Jim Davis wrote:

G. L. Bradford wrote:

Have we colonized the space frontier yet (have we torn down
World Utopia's iron curtain yet and opened up the system wide
open)? NO!!!

Brad, don't you think it's about time you stopped talking about
colonization and started doing some of it? No one's going to do it
for you.

We have to take what we can get, Jim.

I'm actually surprised there are any space enthusiasts left at all.

The whole process has been corrupted by lobbyists, politicians and loyal
party hacks, just like everything else this administration has touched.

On Dec 28, 9:09 pm, kT wrote:
Jim Davis wrote:
G. L. Bradford wrote:

Have we colonized the space frontier yet (have we torn down
World Utopia's iron curtain yet and opened up the system wide
open)? NO!!!

Brad, don't you think it's about time you stopped talking about
colonization and started doing some of it? No one's going to do it
for you.

We have to take what we can get, Jim.

I'm actually surprised there are any space enthusiasts left at all.

The whole process has been corrupted by lobbyists, politicians and loyal
party hacks, just like everything else this administration has touched.

But your actions imposed upon others is what seems to fully support
this administration and of most all the ones before.

- Brad Guth

On Dec 28, 3:47 pm, "G. L. Bradford" wrote:
"Sam Wormley" wrote in message

news:M7edj.9112$Ux2.1411@attbi_s22...



WHAT'S NEW Robert L. Park Friday, 28 Dec 07 Washington, DC

1. HIGH-ENERGY PHYSICS: SANK IN "THE GATHERING STORM."
Science-policy reps were patting each other on the back in August when
President Bush signed the bipartisan America COMPETES Act in response to
the NAS report Rising Above the Gathering Storm. It was meant to keep
America competitive by boosting basic science, including a doubling of
funding for NSF and the DOE Office of Science. Six months later, the most
basic of all the sciences, high-energy physics, is in a death spiral.
Fermilab faces major layoffs, the neutrino oscillation experiment, NOvA,
which was expected to be the lab's principle activity after the Tevatron
shuts down, is terminated. Three quarters of the funding for the
International Linear Collider is cut. The US again stiffed ITER on our
share of the fusion program. The NSF increase was pared down to 1
percent. Meanwhile, in a letter to the research community, House Speaker
Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said her "commitment to the innovation agenda remains
strong and steadfast." Try spending that.

2. IT'S FUNDAMENTAL: DO WE NEED HIGH-ENERGY PHYSICS?
Why would fragile, self-replicating collections of atoms, trapped on a
tiny planet for a few dozen orbits about an undistinguished star among
countless other stars in one of billions of galaxies, spend their orbits
trying to understand how it happened? Others claim to know all the
answers, but the only way to know is to experiment - and they haven't done
it.

3. LOW-ENERGY PHYSICS: FUNDING IS UP FOR "CLEAN COAL."
The spending bill did increase funding for "clean coal." Sound like an
oxymoron? Integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) generators were
supposed to be all over the place by now. They turn coal into gases and
filter out the CO2 before the gases are burned. Clean coal plants cost
more to build but are cheaper in the long run - or at least they would be
if they captured and sequestered the carbon dioxide like they're supposed
to. The technology, however, is not there yet, and some planned clean-
coal plants are being cancelled. That's a relief to some people in West
Virginia, where coal companies want to scrape the tops off the mountains
to get the coal, filling the valleys with the rubble.

4. IT'S A DAM SHAME: WHAT ARE WE WILLING TO LET GO?
The rules have changed. China, according to a story in today's Wall
Street Journal, has become the dam builder for the world. Chinese
companies are now involved in deals to construct at least 47 major dams in
27 countries, not all of which have nice leaders. Construction of large
dams involves the forced relocation of people - in the case of the
gigantic Three Gorges Dam in China 1.4 million people had to be
relocated. Fifty years ago the Pacific Northwest was the envy of the rest
of the nation for its cheap hydroelectric power - the sun does all the
work. Then the public mood began to shift away from fish ladders and back
toward wild rivers. With global warming as a new term in the equation,
pressure for new dam projects is certain to increase. Although dams alter
the environment, the changes are not necessarily bad.

THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND.
Opinions are the author's and not necessarily shared by the
University of Maryland, but they should be.
---

Have we colonized the space frontier yet (have we torn down World Utopia's
iron curtain yet and opened up the system wide open)? NO!!! Then the
resources of the Earth will be there in enormous abundance but you will
starve to death for resources. Why?! World-class entropy-like physics.

Hasn't that been the plan all along, whereas the rich and powerful get
richer and more powerful at the ongoing demise of others, including
those of their own kind.

BTW, with surplus energy is when most anything becomes doable.
Without said energy begets war.

- Brad Guth

"Jim Davis" wrote in message
. 3.70...
G. L. Bradford wrote:

Have we colonized the space frontier yet (have we torn down
World Utopia's iron curtain yet and opened up the system wide
open)? NO!!!

Brad, don't you think it's about time you stopped talking about
colonization and started doing some of it? No one's going to do it
for you.

Jim Davis

I couldn't begin to predict what you [individually] will or will not do
over time, but a world placed behind an iron curtain inside a world-class
concentration camp, a totalitarian state paradise, becomes immediately
predictable, so predictable it would be laughable if it weren't so
[implosively tragic] ("....competition becomes more severe as the
destruction of distance intensifies the confrontation of states." -- Will
Durant (All the kinds of "states" whether artificial or natural. All
"states." There being no compensating opening up of system for a closing of
system; no compensating growing expansion out there for a continuing
contraction and constriction of world, freedom, choice, peace, room to
maneuver, margins for error...., in here)).

GLB

On Dec 29, 2:09 am, "G. L. Bradford" wrote:
"Jim Davis" wrote in message

. 3.70...

G. L. Bradford wrote:

Have we colonized the space frontier yet (have we torn down
World Utopia's iron curtain yet and opened up the system wide
open)? NO!!!

Brad, don't you think it's about time you stopped talking about
colonization and started doing some of it? No one's going to do it
for you.

Jim Davis

I couldn't begin to predict what you [individually] will or will not do
over time, but a world placed behind an iron curtain inside a world-class
concentration camp, a totalitarian state paradise, becomes immediately
predictable, so predictable it would be laughable if it weren't so
[implosively tragic] ("....competition becomes more severe as the
destruction of distance intensifies the confrontation of states." -- Will
Durant (All the kinds of "states" whether artificial or natural. All
"states." There being no compensating opening up of system for a closing of
system; no compensating growing expansion out there for a continuing
contraction and constriction of world, freedom, choice, peace, room to
maneuver, margins for error...., in here)).

GLB

As you say, it's the actions and not the words of others that'll
become important, and right now those actions of others are taking
humanity back into the dark ages of witch and book burnings that's
getting similar to WWIII, if not worse.

- Brad Guth

On 28 Dec, 23:47, "G. L. Bradford" wrote:

* It is surprising that SCIENTISTS (particularly including 'professional
phyicists') who went before Congress to hawk the needlessness of Man's
expansion into Space (including just "at this time") will be discovered to
have been the most stupid humans the world has ever produced.

I think that one or two questions are being begged. The first question
is whether we can colonize with existing rocket technology. I think
the answer to that must be "no". If you say "Yes, we can do greater
things in space, but on the basis of radically different technology -
like the ability to use the resouces of space."

To me the vital question is will the utilization of space resources be
done using colonists and astronauts or will it be done on the basis of
robotics. As I have not tired of pointing out, if you schedule a
landing on Mars for 2031 and "back to the Moon" for 2020, you are
wasting your time. By those dates (certainly 2031) there will be agile
robots capable of human manual dexterity.

I think perhaps the questions we should be asking is what can be done
now to influence future developments. As has been correctly pointed
out robotics will develop whatever decisions NASA takes. A space
agency will of course have to qualify components for space.

Perhaps there is one thing we can do now. That is to look at agile
robots and think about how we might use them. Do a feasibility study.
If we went to an asteroid, smelted a quantity of aluminium and made a
mirror say, it would give us some confidence in the feasibility of the
use of resources.

Doing something with robotics MUST be easier than using astronauts.
All you need is electricity, you don't need food, water or oxygen. Any
space station anywhere would work far better without the need for life
support.

Scientists are not blind either to the nationalistic elements of
space. When I talk about space being like T shirts I am talking a
little bit tongue in cheek. Scientists are however unanimous in
rejecting national prestige as being a prime motivator.


- Ian Parker

G. L. Bradford wrote:

I couldn't begin to predict what you [individually] will or will
not do over time,

But it's fairly easy to predict what you [individually] will or will
not do over time.

but a world placed behind an iron curtain
inside a world-class concentration camp, a totalitarian state
paradise, becomes immediately predictable,...

You're going to wait for that totalitarian state to do your heavy
lifting for you.

Brad, if you think space is such a great place to live, go live
there. Stop complaining that everyone else has as little interest in
doing so as you do.

Jim Davis

On Dec 29, 9:51 am, Jim Davis wrote:
G. L. Bradford wrote:
I couldn't begin to predict what you [individually] will or will
not do over time,

But it's fairly easy to predict what you [individually] will or will
not do over time.

but a world placed behind an iron curtain
inside a world-class concentration camp, a totalitarian state
paradise, becomes immediately predictable,...

You're going to wait for that totalitarian state to do your heavy
lifting for you.

Brad, if you think space is such a great place to live, go live
there. Stop complaining that everyone else has as little interest in
doing so as you do.

Jim Davis

He's more than welcome to try out Venus. At least on Venus there's no
shortage of renewable energy, as having nothing whatsoever to do with
fossil or yellowcake alternatives. Just ask how many spare/surplus
teraWatts of clean energy would you like, and I'll deliver.

- Brad Guth